RDI

05 Mar 2025 / Foundations

Command views are not dashboards

A dashboard summarises. A command view triages. The two artefacts look similar on a screen and serve different purposes.

Field note

A dashboard answers "how are we doing?" It summarises numbers. A command view answers "what needs my attention?" It triages exceptions. They share visual conventions and almost nothing else.

Triage, not summary

A leader with a dashboard reads numbers. A leader with a command view reads cases. Each case has a captured record behind it, an owner, an age, and an expected response. The leader does not read every project; they read the projects that have raised something.

  • A dashboard tells you the average age of open observations.
  • A command view shows the three observations across your portfolio that have aged past tolerance.
  • A dashboard tells you the safety incident rate.
  • A command view shows the recurring near-miss pattern across two projects.

Field notes are part of the public RDI reference. For shorter definitions, use the glossary. For full reference articles, see the knowledge base.