dashboards
Dashboard Narratives Lab
Turn noisy charts into decisions: grid systems, annotation hooks, and weekly narrative cadences for leadership packs.
Description
You will rebuild one executive view from scratch—choosing metrics that move, de-emphasizing vanity, and layering annotations that explain variance instead of hiding it.
What is included
- Grid and hierarchy exercises borrowed from editorial design
- Variance callout library (seasonality vs. change)
- Skeleton Looker Studio / Sheets layouts
- Tone guide for headline + subtitle pairs
- Accessibility contrast sweeps for color choices
- Drill path map so leaders know where to click
- Archive pattern for retired metrics
Outcomes
- Ship a reviewed dashboard variant for one leadership meeting
- Publish a headline rubric your team reuses
- Cut at least two low-signal charts from the canon
Cohort FAQ
Do you teach a specific BI vendor?
Exercises stay tool-agnostic; exemplars use Looker Studio or Sheets because most teams can access them without new licenses.
Will you design our final board deck?
We critique and rehearse—we do not operate as an agency producing finished investor decks.
Any prerequisites?
Comfort editing charts you already publish. If you are brand new to spreadsheets, pair with a teammate.
Experience notes
“Short, punchy critique blocks. My CMO actually read the variance callouts because they were sentences, not sparklines dumped beside more sparklines.”