Abstract:

In 2018 VDOT Launched the new version of its Dashboard. VDOT took a new look at how to improve this tool, originally launched in 2003, with modern technologies and updated business rules designed to increase performance. The Dashboard maintains its On-Time and On-Budget focus, but makes better use of leading indicators to anticipate performance and allow time for necessary adjustments. Additionally, the rules were to encourage projects activities to start early and end early. The team developed a system that looks at ten key activities in the project development phase. (Previously, only one activity, project advertisement, was tracked). Under the new rules, a project goes yellow if any one of the key activities get within 30 or 60 days of the due date. This “warning track” acts as an alert that a key due date is coming up. If activity is completed late, then the project will go red, but only until the next activity is completed on-time. The result is the number of activities completed early or on-time has doubled compared to projects completed under the old rules, when just one activity was tracked. In order to accomplish this effort, a huge QA/QC effort took place to validate the data needed was correct and complete for each project. While this was a time consuming effort, it exposed several process improvements needed from both a business perspective as well as a data handling perspective. Data quality is maintained by focused attention to project performance. Dashboard 4.0 moves away from custom coded applications and leverages Microsoft’s Power BI. This has changed how VDOT approaches Dashboard work, as business analysts, not IT developers, are designing and building the visualizations. Business and IT staff work closely to mine the data from our data warehouse and prepare it for consumption by the Dashboard.