The most effective reports and presentations are simple, direct, and visualize data that asks the right questions and supplies answers. Invest time in training yourself about data visualization techniques. If you need inspiration, visit the New York Times Visualization Lab (http://zqi.me/nytvlab).

A dashboard should provide an at-a-glance view into key measures relevant to a particular objective or business process. This implies that all the data is immediately viewable at one time. Although this isn’t always the easiest thing to do, it’s best to see all the data on one page or screen.