Using Data Analytics and Dashboards in a Research Organization Environment for Project Management

Abstract

The use of data analytics tools offers significant new opportunities for acquisition programs in the Department of Defense (DoD). In particular, the use of modern tools like Power BI and Tableau provide data platforms to organize, visualize, and track program data. This paper will review how data dashboards built on the Navy’s Flank-speed platform were developed for experimental use by one particular section of a research organization, Code 5720 within the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). The results are largely transferrable across the DoD, as the tools use Microsoft’s Power BI and the dashboard modules are instantly replicable. We review the motivation for building the platform, review its capabilities in tracking technical goal alignment with “north star” objectives, how it tracks expenses and estimated costs at completion, and how the visual schedule data is easily updated and understood. We will review how long it took our team to build the dashboard, what it takes to instantly copy it onto other platforms, and what we do to maintain the data using simple MS Excel files. We will show how a potential organizational management dashboard might look, and review how the use of dashboards is improving our branch’s operations and a potential data analytics framework that crosses the full acquisition life cycle.