We often think Return on Investment (ROI) = money, especially with analytics solutions and other tech projects. If we spend $50 creating a solution and make $200 our return on investment is $150. But sometimes the greatest value our solutions can provide isn’t related to money at all.

There are many times a dashboard can also (or instead) return us our effort and time. We call this Productivity ROI.

A typical employee work schedule comes out to 2,080 hours per year, assuming the standard 40 hour week. Chances are, of those 2K+ hours, a lot of time is spent on manual reporting to some degree. Whether it’s collecting, reviewing, sharing, or even transforming data – some manual process is likely to exist.

A common responsibility most BI professionals have is not only “dashboarding”, but actually creating solutions that drive the business forward. Saving time and effort is absolutely a business improvement that drives business forward.

This week’s issue is all about productivity ROI that comes from data solutions.

Let me share with you an example in my career where productivity ROI earned me trust, recognition, and strengthened my case for a promotion.

A couple years back I built a project tracker dashboard for a team that had been piecing together reports manually every week. Between copy-pasting, formatting, and status meetings, you can imagine it was eating up hours of valuable time.

The problem was clear: too much time is being spent on repetitive and tedious tasks. And meetings were also getting repetitive; where some could have certainly been an email.

I won’t bore you with the details, but the dashboard served two purposes. 1) it automated 95% of the reporting process, and 2) it was formatted in a shareable report with near-live updates. So the dashboard made status-update meetings redundant.

Once the dashboard went live, the team no longer had to chase down updates — everything they needed was in one place, refreshed automatically. As a result, this team had about 215 hours saved per year and half as many meetings. That’s about 10% of an entire work year, automated!

On paper, that doesn’t show up as a direct line item on a budget. There isn’t a concrete dollar value in terms of ROI because it’s not “saving” money it’s reallocating time. In reality though, it gave the team back time they could spend on higher-value work — solving problems, moving projects forward, and focusing on the business instead of reporting on it.

Not to mention this also improves the employee workload. Of those 215 hours that’s time to: take a break, take PTO, not eat at your desk, etc. That’s the kind of ROI that rarely gets measured, but makes all the difference.

So the next time you create a solution, think beyond financials and look at the potential for productivity ROI as well. Chances are you could be creating a bigger impact than you think.

The Automation ROI Report: Which Business Functions Pay Back in 30 Days by Autonoly Team
Want to create value at work? Autonoly surveyed over 2,500 companies across the world and compiled a list of tasks that were automated successfully, by how much, and how quick it was to see ROI. This article offers good ideas on which tasks you could see impact in. Read more

Fortune 500 CPG Company Saves 200+ Hours Annually with Automated Dashboards by phData
A case study by phData shows how combining tools like Snowflake, Tableau, and Alteryx allowed for a 200+ hour optimization for a client. Solutions like this are extremely valuable in the field of BI / technology. Read more

AI is boosting personal productivity but slowing down teams – here’s why by Nicole Kobie
This article is geared more towards the use of AI in the workplace, but can still be applicable to other data solutions. If not implemented with intent and clear objectives, many solutions can fall into the bucket of wasted time and failed attempts. Read more

Big Data in Practice #book #analytics
A book I’ve shared in the past. Big Data in Practice was introduced to me by a professor I had in grad school. It’s extremely relevant and shares practical stories about how popular companies like Disney Land and Apple are using data to drive their businesses forward. Currently ~50% off.

unDraw #productivity
Looking for an illustration for your website/portfolio? unDraw has helped me dozens of times by providing open source illustrations fit for any scenario.

Litmaps #productivity #research
There's a great deal of students subscribed to this newsletter–this one's for you (and researchers). Next time you need to write a paper check this website out. It will help you find credible, peer reviewed, real literature on whatever topic you are working on. I'm not being dramatic when I say it's saved me DOZENS of hours of research when I was in university.

▶️ Ep 25 - AI Hacks for Real Life: Boost Productivity, ROI & Free Time with Matt Reiners by Drake Strategic (35 mins)
Host Natasha Drake sits down with Matt Reiners, Chief Growth Officer at Parasol Alliance and host of the Connecting the Dots podcast, to explore how AI is transforming both professional workflows and daily life. Main discussion starts around the 05:00 mark.

▶️ This Simple File Management System Changed My Life! by Jeff Su
Because you also deserve to benefit from productivity ROI, this is a life changing method to manage your files and speed up the process of finding and filing away your files.

Did you know? The first computer bug was an actual moth found in a Harvard computer in 1947.

What would you like to see next? At the end of each issue I like to open up the floor to everyone – if you have a suggestion for what you would like to see next please share it below in the comments, or email me directly at: [email protected]