01Start from the decision
Ask what action changes based on this number. If nobody can name one, the chart is decoration and it will be ignored.
Build one screen per recurring decision — the morning operations check, the weekly pipeline review — rather than a single dashboard that tries to serve everyone.
02Fewer numbers, more context
A metric without a comparison is noise. Show the trend, the target and the threshold that triggers action.
Where a number is bad, link straight to the underlying records. Reporting that ends in a dead end trains people to stop looking.
03Push, do not wait
The best-performing reporting is a scheduled message with three numbers and a link. Attention is a scarce resource; do not require a login to spend it.