Most board dashboards are inherited. Somebody built one in year two, and every function since has asked for its metric to be added. Nobody has ever removed one, because removing a metric feels like admitting it didn't matter. Nilgiri Leaf's inherited dashboard carried eighteen tiles and forty-seven printed numbers on a single page, three of them charts with two vertical axes.
What earns a tile on a board dashboard?
Cut it with one question per tile: which decision does this number change, and by how much? A metric that can't name a decision isn't a board metric. It may be an excellent operating metric, and then it belongs in the operating review. It may be an interesting fact, and then it belongs in the appendix or nowhere.
Applied to the eighteen, six survived: net revenue, contribution margin, net burn, closing cash, blended acquisition-cost payback and inventory days. Twelve went, a cut of 66.67%, and printed numbers fell from forty-seven to eighteen, a cut of 61.70%.
Look at what each survivor buys. Contribution margin drives the pricing decision. Acquisition-cost payback drives the marketing cap. Inventory days drives the working-capital line in the fulfilment case. Closing inventory is ₹21.60 crore against ₹29.5480 crore of quarterly cost of goods, so inventory days on a 91-day quarter are 21.60 / 29.5480 × 91 = 66.52. That's up 8.52 days from 58.00 a year earlier, and the 8.5223-day rise holds 8.5223 / 91 × 29.5480 = ₹2.7672 crore of cash in stock. The fulfilment paper has to account for it.
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How should a board dashboard tile be designed?
Three of the eighteen tiles were charts with two vertical axes, and all three went. A dual axis lets the author choose the right-hand scale, the scale chooses the apparent relationship, and nothing on the chart tells the reader that a choice was made. Where two series in different units really do need to sit together, index both to 100 at the start of the window, or show them as small multiples one above the other with a shared time axis. None made it onto the rebuilt dashboard.
Tile design follows the same grammar as any other exhibit. You want one number large enough to read at arm's length, one comparison that gives it meaning, and one sparkline or micro-chart for direction. Colour carries meaning or it's neutral. So red on a tile means a threshold is breached, and never that a number went down. Rising burn isn't automatically red in a company that's deliberately investing. A dashboard whose colours are decorative teaches directors to ignore its colours.
The last tile is the one people forget: the date and the source of the data. A dashboard that could be from any quarter will eventually be read as though it were from this one.