Statistical Tableau

Chapter 3. Benchmarking in Tableau

Oftentimes, your stakeholders will want you to incorporate benchmarks, targets, or goals into your dashboards. This helps give context to how the business is performing. While benchmarks can be a powerful variable to add to your data visualizations, they can also be a crutch for your stakeholders if implemented for the wrong reasons. As a developer, you have to think through the science behind a benchmark when implementing them. This is another opportunity for you to implement some simple statistics that can help guide the business in making better decisions.

In this chapter, I will explain what benchmarks are and show you some different types of benchmarks you can implement. I’ll also discuss how to implement benchmarks in your data visualizations using Tableau.

What Is a Benchmark?

Benchmarking can be a business’s North Star that helps them grow, adapt to changing conditions, and stay ahead of their competition. Benchmarking is the process of comparing a product, service, process, or performance against recognized industry standards or best practices. It involves measuring and evaluating performance against a set of predetermined criteria to determine strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. There are two main ways to conduct benchmarking: internal and external.

Internal Benchmarking

Internal benchmarking is the process of comparing the performance of different departments, units, or teams within the same organization to identify ...