Dashboard and story

01The problem

You now have a dozen solid findings. Put all of them on one page with equal weight and the chief executive will remember none of them. A board has perhaps ten minutes for your work. What they need is the three things that matter most, the evidence for each, and what to do about it.

There's one more question in the brief you haven't answered yet: "Do our targets make sense?" The answer turns out to change how the board should read the whole report.

02The concept

Structure the report like an argument

Titles that say the finding

A chart titled "Net sales by store" makes the reader work out the message. "Port Harcourt is the only store to shrink, down 27% in transactions since February" tells them, and the chart becomes the proof. Write every title as a sentence with the finding in it.

Targets: is the measuring stick fair?

Before you judge a store against its target, judge the target. Lekki's target was set at ₦52m a month from its first month, the level of a mature store. Of course it "failed" for its first six months: no new store starts at full speed. Judged on its trajectory, Lekki is a success: it beat ₦52m in April, May and June 2026. A report that just says "Lekki: 55% of target" in 2025 would be accurate and badly misleading.

The executive summary

One page, in this order:

1. The answer first: one or two sentences answering the chief executive's main question.
2. Three key findings, each with its number.
3. Three recommendations, each linked to a finding, specific enough to act on.
4. Caveats: what the data can't tell you, and any estimate's assumptions.

03Example

An executive summary opening that works:

Growth is real but narrower than it looks. Net sales rose 37.5% in January to June 2026, but 18 points of that is January's price rise and most of the rest is the new Lekki store. Like for like, our existing stores sold almost exactly the same volume as a year ago.

It gives the answer in the first line, puts a number on each claim, and doesn't hide the uncomfortable part. Compare it with "This report presents an analysis of Voltline's sales performance across eight stores", which tells the reader nothing.

04Walkthrough

1. Sketch the four pages on paper first: which visual goes where, and what each title will say.
2. Build page 1. Put the KPI cards along the top, the monthly trend (with a like-for-like line) in the middle, and a text box with your three messages.
3. Build pages 2 to 4. Give every visual a finding as its title, and remove anything that doesn't support a message.
4. Add a target view that's fair to Lekki: attainment by month, so the climb is visible, not a single six-month figure.
5. Write the executive summary (the task below).
6. Read the summary aloud. Cut every sentence that doesn't contain a fact or a recommendation.

05Practice

06Check your understanding