This Is How I Learnt That Less Is Always Smarter in Power BI.

Overloaded dashboards slow teams down. Here’s how to make data actionable without drowning in metrics.

Author

Glenda Carnate
October 18, 2025

Read time: 2.5 minutes

I answered the call from Power BI. The COO wanted 200 pages of dashboards, 99 slicers, and a KPI for every line item. I’ve handled ambitious requests before, but this one demanded a rethink.

At first, I built a mega-dashboard with every metric and polished chart. It looked impressive but slowed everything down. Decisions stalled, bottlenecks formed, and most effort went into maintaining it instead of acting.

Then I realized clarity comes from focus. I kept only high-impact KPIs and taught the team to think critically. When the COO asked for 50 KPIs, I gave three that drove results. That moment proved a simple truth: actionable insight beats exhaustive reporting.

Here’s what the data shows:

  • 87% of companies report rising data volumes, yet 71% say their BI tools cannot scale. (Sigmacomputing, 2025)

Actionable Dashboard Principles:

  • Always ask “Which metrics drive action?” before building dashboards.

  • Keep dashboards short and readable; nobody acts on 200 pages.

  • Focus on impact over volume; 3 metrics can be more powerful than 50.

  • Involve your team in reviewing and interpreting dashboards.

  • Build dashboards to measure decisions, not just data points.

💡Key Takeaway: 

More metrics do not equal smarter decisions. Focused insight drives results.

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