A short list of numbers the leadership team can actually defend.
GA Applications designs executive and management dashboards around a small, reconciled indicator set. Each indicator carries its definition, target, owner, version, trend and confidence, with a narrative exception written by a person and drill-through to source. Sensitive detail stays behind an explicit access boundary.
Executives do not need more charts. They need a handful of indicators they trust enough to act on — and a fast way to see why one of them moved. This direction trades breadth for defensibility.
Demonstration uses fictional indicators. Your set is chosen and reconciled with your leadership team.
Leadership indicator set — July window
Interface demonstration — fictional dataNarrative exception — invoices overdue
"Two of the seven are one account disputing a variation; credit hold proposed, decision needed by Friday. The rest are routine follow-ups already sent." — Finance owner, recorded Tue 09:14
Built for the meeting where the numbers get argued about
This direction serves owners, executives, board members and the senior managers who prepare them. Its decisions arrive monthly or weekly and carry consequences: Do we intervene in collections this month? Is utilisation a pricing problem or a capacity problem? Can I put this number in front of the board without a footnote defence? The design response is deliberately narrow — six to twelve indicators, each defensible, each with a person accountable for both the number and the story around it.
The target operating outcome: leadership meetings that start from an agreed set of numbers and spend their time on decisions, not on reconciling three versions of revenue.
Small set, deep roots
Context, trend and confidence — not just a big number
Each indicator tile carries five things a bare number hides: the written definition and version, the target or threshold it is read against, its owner, its recent trend, and a confidence statement. Confidence is the honest part. An indicator passes when its sources are fresh and reconciliation to the system of record succeeded; it degrades to provisional when a feed is late — as utilisation is in the demonstration, because timesheets had not landed. Provisional is styled so it can never be mistaken for settled.
Narrative exceptions, written by people
When an indicator crosses its threshold, the owner is prompted to record a short narrative: what happened, why, and what is being done. That narrative travels with the number into the weekly pack, so leadership reads the story from the accountable person rather than speculating across the table. Chinkara Maven, GA Applications' assistance layer, can help draft from approved data — the published words remain the owner's responsibility.
Drill-through for the sceptic
Every indicator opens down to its source records: the invoices behind 'overdue', the jobs behind 'on track'. Trust is earned by verification, and the view is built so verification takes seconds, not a request to the finance team.
Trend & confidence detail
Interface demonstration — fictional dataIs confirmed work value trending with target?
Monthly confirmed-not-invoiced value vs target, 6 months. Def v2.0. Source: CRM + accounting, refreshed 06:00. Fictional data.
Same data as a table
| Month | Value (NZD) | Target | Reconciliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb | $322k | $380k | Passed |
| Mar | $344k | $380k | Passed |
| Apr | $338k | $380k | Passed |
| May | $365k | $380k | Passed |
| Jun | $388k | $380k | Passed |
| Jul (to date) | $412k | $380k | Provisional — close pending |
One truth, three resolutions
Executive dashboards sit at the top of the information hierarchy, which makes their access design the most important on this site. The same governed definitions serve three audiences at three resolutions. The board pack carries the indicator set, trends and narratives — generated from the same definitions as the live view, never re-keyed into a slide where they can drift. The leadership view adds drill-through to source records. Sensitive annexes — remuneration-linked measures, client-level margin, dispute detail — sit behind a separate permission, visible to named roles only, with access logged.
Aggregations are chosen so that sensitive individuals cannot be reverse-engineered from the headline set: where a team is small enough for a per-person figure to identify someone, the measure is reported at team level or not at all. These rules are agreed with you in writing during scoping and verified as an acceptance check, because an executive dashboard that leaks payroll is worse than no dashboard.
Definitions this view typically carries
Confirmed work value
Signed or contractually confirmed work not yet invoiced, at invoice-intent value. Excludes verbal acceptances, expired quotes and any forecast uplift.
Invoices overdue > 30 days
Count of issued invoices unpaid more than 30 days past due date. Disputed invoices remain in the count and are flagged — a dispute is not a payment.
Utilisation (field crews)
Billable hours divided by available hours per capacity definition v1.0. Provisional until timesheets close for the period; never reported as final before close.
Quote win rate (90-day)
Quotes accepted divided by quotes decided (accepted + declined + expired) in the trailing 90 days. Pending quotes are excluded from both sides.
What we need from you, and how delivery runs
Inputs
- The candidate indicator list — usually whatever is debated in leadership meetings today
- Read access to the authoritative sources (accounting, CRM, job system), subject to interface review
- A named owner for each indicator, willing to write narrative exceptions
- Your access-boundary rules: who may see margin, remuneration-linked and client-level detail
Delivery & acceptance
- Decision workshop to cut the candidate set down to a defensible list
- Source profile and definition drafting, with owners signing each definition
- Prototype, then reconciliation against accounting and job systems for two or more periods
- Pilot across one full reporting cycle, board pack included
- Acceptance: every indicator reconciled or visibly provisional; access boundary tested with real roles; narratives recorded by owners; drill-through verified; table equivalents and keyboard access pass
Right fit
- Leadership meetings spend time arguing about whose number is right
- Board papers are re-keyed from systems each month
- You want intervention prompts, not another archive of history
Wrong fit
- You want hundreds of charts across every function at once
- No one is willing to own a definition or write a narrative
- You want forecasts presented as facts — we show assumptions, we do not launder them
Related directions and services
Frequently asked questions
How many indicators should an executive dashboard have?
Few enough to read in minutes — typically six to twelve headline indicators, each with drill-through for anyone who needs depth. If everything is headline, nothing is. The decision workshop cuts the candidate list down with your leadership team rather than accepting every request.
What does 'reconciled' mean for an executive indicator?
The number on the dashboard agrees, within a stated tolerance, with the authoritative source — usually your accounting or job system — for the same period. Reconciliation is checked during the pilot and re-checked after release, and any variance is shown rather than hidden.
What is the confidence marker?
A plain-language statement of how much trust an indicator deserves right now: how fresh its sources are, whether reconciliation passed, and whether any known gaps affect it. A confident number and a provisional number must never look the same at a glance.
Who writes the narrative exception?
A person — usually the indicator owner. The dashboard prompts the owner when an indicator crosses an agreed threshold, and the owner records what happened and what is being done. AI assistance can help draft from approved data, but the published narrative is a human's responsibility.
How is sensitive information handled for board distribution?
Executive views often contain remuneration, margin or client-identifiable detail. Access is role-based, exports and board packs are generated from the same governed definitions rather than re-keyed, and the access boundary is documented and tested as part of acceptance.
Which number gets debated in your leadership meetings?
Tell us which indicator causes the most argument — usually revenue, utilisation or backlog — and we will scope a reconciled version with a written definition, an owner and a confidence statement your whole team can read the same way.