Dashboards don't fix broken data
Why investing in visualization without fixing data quality creates more problems than it solves.
November 2025
We get asked to build dashboards all the time. But a beautiful dashboard showing bad data just makes the problem more visible, not solved. If your data is inconsistent, incomplete, or unreliable, visualization won't help.
The dashboard trap
Companies invest in BI tools and hire analysts to build dashboards, expecting clarity. Instead, they get disputes over which numbers are right, manual reconciliation to 'true up' the data, and reports that nobody trusts. The problem wasn't the visualization, it was the data feeding it.
Fix the source, not the output
If different teams are using different definitions for the same metric, a dashboard won't fix that. If your data pipeline drops records or duplicates entries, charts won't help. If nobody owns data quality, dashboards just surface the chaos faster.
What to fix first
Start with definitions. Make sure everyone agrees on what metrics mean and where they come from. Then fix the pipeline: ensure data is complete, consistent, and timely. Assign clear ownership. Only then does visualization add value.
Build trust before dashboards
A trusted single source of truth beats ten dashboards. If your team doesn't believe the numbers, they'll keep using spreadsheets. Get the fundamentals right first, then layer on visualization to make insights accessible.
Dashboards are the last step, not the first. Clean, reliable data is what actually drives decisions. Fix that first.