Dashboards need to be visual. Scannable.
Highlighting exceptions allows people to quickly spot problem areas. Example slide was a bar chart full of gray bars with one very low bar that was red. Second example slide showed negative % change in red with other percentage values in black.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
Everything on your dashboard will be a performance indicator but not necessarily a key performance indicator. Example: Total sales: 9.1M — the value looks good. But if the percent change YoY (year over year) is -13.6% then the total sales value isn’t very good at all. Choose the right data to display.