Five Numbers and the Truth

The Executive Mindset

Executives make two types of decisions: resource allocation and risk management. "Where should we direct attention?" and "Is anything off track?" cover nearly every question a CEO, MD, or department head needs answered on a given morning.

This shapes everything about how a CEO dashboard should be designed. The executive is not analysing data. They are scanning for signals. They want to know if the business is broadly on track and, if not, where the problem is. The depth comes later, in a conversation or a drill-down view.

They do not need granular detail. They do not need raw data. They do not need metrics they cannot influence. An executive cannot act on "average API response time" or "emails sent by marketing this week." Those metrics belong on operational dashboards, not here.

The cadence matters. An executive dashboard serves three distinct rhythms, and the design must support all three without requiring different views.

If the dashboard cannot serve the 30-second daily glance, it has already failed. Everything else builds on that foundation. Design for the glance first, then layer in support for the weekly review and the monthly deep dive.

Choosing the Right 5-7 Metrics

Every metric on an executive dashboard must pass one test: would this number change what the executive does today? If the answer is no, the metric does not belong. This single filter eliminates most of what typically clutters business dashboards. The following KPI dashboard examples show which categories cover most businesses.

Not every business needs all five categories. A pre-revenue startup might replace financial health with runway and burn rate. A professional services firm might weight utilisation more heavily than pipeline. The categories are a framework, not a prescription.

Industry specifics shape the exact KPI dashboard selection. A SaaS business tracks MRR, churn rate, and NPS. An agency tracks utilisation, pipeline coverage, and project margin. An ecommerce business tracks average order value, conversion rate, and return rate. The categories stay consistent; the specific metrics reflect the business model.

The selection process is collaborative. The executive defines what decisions they make and what information would change their behaviour. The people closest to the data identify which metrics best represent those concerns. Neither group can do this alone. Executives without data context choose vanity metrics. Data teams without executive context choose activity metrics. The overlap is where useful dashboards live.

Knowing what to exclude is as important as knowing what to include. Every metric competes for attention, and the wrong ones dilute focus.

Context Is Everything

A number alone is meaningless. Revenue: £47,000. Good or bad? Without context, no one can tell. The number needs an anchor, and every metric on an executive dashboard should show three things: the current value, a comparison, and a trend direction.

This is where most executive dashboards fall short. They display values without any frame of reference, forcing the executive to remember the target, recall last month's figure, or look it up elsewhere. Context takes different forms, but the principle is constant: "compared to what?" A metric without comparison is decoration. These KPI dashboard examples show what good context looks like versus what gets served up on most dashboards.

Colour coding provides instant status recognition. Green means on or above target. Amber means within tolerance but worth watching. Red means attention required now. This vocabulary must be consistent across every metric on the dashboard. Mixed conventions destroy trust.

The brain processes colour faster than it processes numbers. An executive scanning five KPI cards reads the colour before the value. Five green cards and a red one: the red card gets attention. That is exactly the behaviour the dashboard should encourage. The colour tells the story; the number provides the detail for those who want it.

A practical example: revenue at £47k against a £55k target might display as green if the business is seasonal and historically hits its number in the final week. Or it might display as amber if the trend suggests the gap will widen. Context and calibration determine the colour, not a fixed percentage rule.

Thresholds must be defined deliberately. "Red" should not mean "slightly below target." It should mean "materially off track and requiring executive intervention." Overly sensitive thresholds train people to ignore colour coding entirely. Calibrate thresholds with the people who will act on them, and review quarterly.

Exception-Based Attention

The best executive dashboard is boring when everything is fine. Green across the board means no action needed. The check takes five seconds. Close the tab, start the day. This is a feature, not a limitation.

When something does turn red, the dashboard must provide enough context to act. Not just "Revenue: Red" but "Revenue: £38k of £55k target, down 12% vs last month, trending down for 3 consecutive weeks." The executive knows the severity, the direction, and the duration without clicking anywhere. The red item earns attention because the green items do not demand it.

Dashboard best practices for alert thresholds require three decisions. Who defines them: the executive, in conversation with whoever understands the metric. How they are calibrated: based on historical variance and business tolerance, not arbitrary percentages. When they are reviewed: quarterly, or when the business context changes materially. Thresholds that were right six months ago may be wrong today. A growing business should expect revenue targets to shift. A seasonal business should expect different thresholds in different quarters.

The exception list at the bottom of the dashboard is the action centre. It shows only items that are amber or red, with the metric name, current state, the person responsible, and how long the item has been flagged. Three items listed, not thirty. If more than five items are red simultaneously, the business has a bigger problem than dashboard design.

What an Executive Dashboard Looks Like

Simplicity is harder than complexity. Anyone can display thirty metrics. Choosing five requires understanding which five actually matter. The layout follows a clear hierarchy: status at the top, trend in the middle, exceptions at the bottom.

The entire dashboard fits on one screen. No scrolling. If it does not fit, something needs to be removed, not shrunk. Every element must justify its presence. The layout and visual hierarchy principles that govern all dashboard design apply here with extra force: at the executive level, every pixel of wasted space is a missed opportunity for clarity. The data refresh cadence for executive dashboards is typically hourly or daily, not real-time. These numbers do not change minute by minute, and polling more frequently adds server load without adding value.

Consider the information density carefully. A KPI card is roughly 200 pixels wide. Five of them fit comfortably across a standard screen. Each card communicates one metric with full context. That is 1,000 pixels of width conveying the health of the entire business. Complexity cannot compete with that efficiency.

Why simplicity is harder: it requires understanding the business well enough to know what to leave out. A KPI dashboard with thirty metrics reveals that no one has made that decision yet. The design process forces that conversation, and the dashboard is better for it. The constraint of five to seven metrics is not a limitation. It is the discipline that makes the dashboard useful.

Drill-Down, Not Clutter

The executive dashboard is the landing page, not the whole application. It answers "do I need to worry about anything?" and provides one-click access to find out why. The detail lives behind the summary, available on demand, never cluttering the top-level view.

The interaction pattern is deliberate: spot an issue, click to investigate, understand the cause. Three steps, no detours.

This pattern keeps the top-level view clean while providing depth on demand. The executive never needs to open a separate report, email someone for context, or dig through a spreadsheet. The answer is one click away. Always.

The drill-down is where operational detail lives. Team-level breakdowns, individual deal status, weekly trend tables. All available, none cluttering the executive view. The hierarchy is deliberate: summary first, detail on demand, raw data for those who need it. For more on how progressive disclosure works in dashboard contexts, see our guide to dashboard UX and interaction design.

Building effective drill-down requires knowing the questions that follow from each metric. Revenue is down: the executive will want to know which region, which team, which product line. A project is at risk: they will want to know the timeline, the owner, and the proposed resolution. Anticipate the next question and make the answer one click away. The executive who has to send an email to get context has already lost confidence in the dashboard.

The Dashboard That Gets Checked Every Morning

The best executive dashboard earns a place in the morning routine. It gets checked with the first coffee because checking it is faster and more reliable than asking someone. It surfaces problems before they become crises. It confirms that things are on track without requiring investigation. When leadership visibly uses a dashboard, the rest of the organisation follows.

That only happens when the CEO dashboard is simple, honest, and connected to decisions. Five numbers and the truth. A dashboard that earns daily use pays for itself many times over: problems caught a week earlier, decisions made with data instead of guesswork, leadership meetings that start with shared context instead of status updates.

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  Checked daily, not monthly Because it answers questions faster than asking a colleague
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  Problems visible before they escalate Amber items get attention before they turn red
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  Decisions grounded in data, not instinct Every metric connects to something the executive can act on
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  Context that prevents misreading Every number shown with target, trend, and status colour
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  One click from summary to cause Drill-down eliminates the need for follow-up emails and spreadsheets
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  Trust built through restraint Fewer metrics, better chosen, consistently accurate