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8 minutes
How to create the best 360° CIO dashboard
In this page, we’ll walk you through the key steps to create your own 360° CIO dashboard, starting with choosing the right use cases. You'll learn how to define what matters, bring in the right data, and turn it into a real-time dashboard that helps you make smarter decisions.
Table of contents
Why a 360° dashboard?
With cloud adoption, microservices, continuous integration and growing security threats, IT is becoming more complex, and the CIO’s role is changing too. IT cannot longer be seen as a cost center anymore; it needs to be run like a business that drives and supports overall company goals.
Having real-time dashboards gives executives the insights they need to manage the IT value chain and make smarter decisions. This helps show the real business value of IT, guides where to invest, and provides clear visibility for better planning.
Companies that treat IT as a business driver instead of just a cost center often see twice the impact compared to others.
Key function of a 360˚ dashboard
A 360° CIO dashboard gives you a clear picture of how IT is creating value for the business, helping executives and their teams make better decisions based on real insights.
It shows you the impact IT has across the organization, how customers and employees feel about IT efforts, and how employees use and experience IT services. It also highlights any security risks before they become issues and gives you a clear view of IT spending and project progress.
Selecting the right actionable metrics
Choosing the right business-connected metrics to show IT’s value can be tricky. Many teams still rely on vanity or on lagging metrics that don’t tell the full story. The focus should be on value and leading metrics that show real impact.
Value vs Vanity
Don’t just measure performance but show how IT drives business outcomes. For example, instead of “application availability within SLA,” report on core feature availability and user satisfaction.
Leading vs Lagging
Move beyond retrospective snapshots and use trend analyses to spot issues early. Rather than reporting “P1 incidents last month,” show the trend and what’s being done to improve.
The 3Rs rule
A 360° CIO dashboard that supports data-driven decision-making, contains actionable metrics. Check if your metrics are indeed actionable by applying this rule:
How to go from raw data to actionable insight
The real power of a 360° dashboard comes from actionable insights, which help CIOs lead the business through IT. That means going beyond tracking KPIs and focusing on turning the right metrics into meaningful use cases.
This exercise makes you think about “why” a metric matter, leading to more value-based decisions.
Here’s a simple illustration that shows why it’s better to start with use cases:
Use Case Library
We’ve divided our Use Case Library into 10 categories. These categories ensure you get that 360° view of your IT value chain.
Business Value
Aligning IT with strategic business goals starts with speaking the language of the business and positioning IT as a true business driver. It’s about connecting IT initiatives and systems to the goals they’re meant to support.
Goal
Are we meeting our value creation targets (e.g. digital transformation)?
Key Indicators
- Pipeline generated from strategy.
- Benefits from strategic initiatives.
Use Cases
✓ Show how IT programs support strategic initiatives and business transformation.
✓ Demonstrate how IT contributes to business value and revenue growth.
✓ Highlight ROI to prove cost-effectiveness of IT investments.
Security
Security is crucial for every organization. A 360° CIO dashboard should provide clear visibility into risk exposure across assessments and scenarios. From cloud vulnerabilities to internal threats, along with how effectively your teams are responding.
Goal
Are we better protected today than we were yesterday?
Key Indicators
- Is our cyber risk tolerable?
- Is our customer data safe?
Use Cases
✓ Evaluate how well employees are prepared to prevent risks caused by human error.
✓ Monitor internal readiness to reduce the risk of human error.
✓ Identify unprotected areas of the business to create a full vulnerability overview
✓ View major security incidents from the past quarter to assess overall risk levels.
Usage
Tracking application usage, adoption, and frequency of use helps identify improvement opportunities. Deeper insights should be available by executive function, region, application, and service—making it easier to see if your tools are being used and delivering value to the right people.
Goal
Are employees using our products & services?
Key Indicators
- Are employees using apps/services?
- Are employees productive?
- Are customers using apps/services?
Use Cases
✓ Monitor application usage to decide which tools to continue supporting.
✓ Track adoption by user groups to ensure transitions to new systems are on track.
Execution
Delivering IT projects on time and within budget is a big responsibility of any IT Project Management team. This category focuses on identifying execution risks, tracking program benefits, aligning resources with strategic goals, managing budgets, and ensuring reliable releases.
Goal
Which programs/projects are at risk and why?
Key Indicators
- Are we delivering fast enough?
- Are we on budget?
Use cases
✓ Overview of all IT projects and budgets (actual vs. target) to inform budget adjustments or go/no-go decisions.
✓ Analyze resource allocation to ensure effort is focused where it’s needed most (e.g. strategic initiatives, projects at risk, etc.)
✓ Review project timelines to spot delays and adjust team setup, budgets, etc.
✓ Track team speed to see how fast we are going through the IT backlog.
Sentiment
This category tracks how customers, stakeholders, and employees feel about IT products and services. Feedback from executive briefings, partner surveys, and internal sentiment tools help identify what’s missing and where things can be improved.
Goal
Are all stakeholders happy with IT execution?
Key Indicators
- Are customers and stakeholders happy with our services?
- What sentiment do employees express?
Use cases
✓ View employee satisfaction levels for service improvement.
✓ Monitor IT team morale to support better performance.
✓ Measure employees’ experience by product or service to identify areas that need attention.
✓ Gather stakeholder feedback to know what, where, and how to improve.
Performance
A key role of IT is to create an environment that supports productivity. That means keeping services available and ensuring they help employees get their work done. In this category, we look for ways to improve by tracking usage, adoption, and frequency of applications.
Goal
Are we delivering what is needed?
Key Indicators
- Are critical systems and features available?
- Are we improving day by day?
Use cases
✓ Monitor supplier performance (SLA, XLA) to manage expectations.
✓ Track uptime across key systems to quickly spot any delays or broken chains.
✓ View priority #1 incident trends to evaluate recent performance.
✓ Measure time-to-resolution to understand how quickly we respond to business needs.
Costs
IT leaders should use financial insights to ensure investments are aligned with business goals and adjust when needed. Looking at the full picture helps improve efficiency, plan for future needs, and connect costs to business impact.
Goal
Are we investing wisely?
Key indicators
- Where is our budget going?
- What expenses do we have?
Use cases
✓ Track the total cost of ownership to see recurring vs one-time costs.
✓ Monitor network costs to understand what portion of the budget is spent on this service.
✓ Analyze application and service costs in relation to the total budget.
✓ Measure FTE-related expenses against the total budget.
✓ Review upcoming investments to assess budget availability.
Data
Data is one of today’s most valuable business assets but only if it’s accurate, complete, and well-managed. With increasing data volumes, maintaining quality is essential for better decisions, efficiency, and staying competitive.
Goal
How strong is our data foundation?
Key indicators
- How comprehensive is our data?
- What are our data storage costs?
Use cases
✓ Check the completeness of IT data sets.
✓ Spot inconsistencies or contradictions across databases.
✓ Check data validity against required formats and values.
✓ Confirm accuracy by comparing data to real-world sources.
✓ Eliminate duplicate records to ensure uniqueness.
✓ Monitor automation of data uploads and updates to save time.
Talent
To manage IT talent effectively, CIOs need insights into hiring, retention, training, and workforce development. The goal is to align talent strategies with business needs and ensure a strong IT team.
Goal
Are we attracting, developing, and keeping the right people?
Key indicators
- Talent acquisition and attraction.
- Learning and development.
- Succession planning.
- Skills gaps.
Use cases
✓ Monitor recruitment to evaluate performance and spot areas of improvement.
✓ Track IT staff retention within our IT department.
✓ View training and development paths to support upskilling.
✓ Analyze succession plans to maintain a strong talent pool.
✓ Identify workforce supply and demand to close skills gaps.
Corporate Social Responsibility
CSR helps attract skilled workers and reduces inefficiencies. It also encourages leaders to rethink HR and resource practices, creating more value for customers.
Goal
How well are we performing in CSR?
Key indicators
- Environmental responsibility
- Ethical responsibility
- Philanthropic responsibility
- Economic responsibility
- Top-level goals summary
Use cases
✓ Track environmental impact from IT assets and activities.
✓ Monitor ethical practices within the IT department.
✓ Review community involvement and philanthropic efforts.
✓ Assess financial resources available to support CSR initiatives.