Excel Dashboards and Reports (Mr. Spreadsheet's Bookshelf)

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).

Often dashboards are 28-tab Excel files or 34-slide PowerPoint decks. In either format, you track too many metrics and rarely segment and highlight performance, which makes it impossible for others to distill a cogent meaning from what happened and take action.