Management by Exception
Dashboards aren't for staring at. They're for spotting anomalies.
I spent years building beautiful dashboards. Comprehensive. Updated in real-time. Every metric you could want.
Nobody looked at them.
Not because the data wasn't valuable, but because when everything is highlighted, nothing is highlighted.
The Problem with Averages
Most reporting focuses on averages. Average CPA. Average ROAS. Average conversion rate.
But averages hide the signal in the noise. The campaign that's about to explode. The product that's quietly failing. The client whose account just changed dramatically.
When everything is green, you don't need more data. You need to know what's NOT green.
Exception-Based Thinking
Management by exception flips the model.
Instead of showing everything, show only what's unusual. Urgent. Off-track.
The rest? Assume it's fine. Move on.
This isn't about ignoring data. It's about focusing attention where it matters.
AI's Role
This is where AI shines.
Not in replacing your judgment - in filtering the noise so you can apply your judgment where it counts.
A good system monitors everything, surfaces exceptions, and stays invisible the rest of the time.
No daily data dumps. No weekly reports nobody reads. Just: "Hey, this thing needs your attention."
What I've Built
My morning briefing now works this way. I built an AI system that generates a daily summary:
- •Here's what changed significantly overnight
- •Here are the accounts that need attention
- •Here's what I'd normally tell you about, but it's all fine
That third category used to be 90% of every report. Now it's a single line. What used to take 45 minutes of dashboard-checking takes 3 minutes of reading. The time I save goes to the exceptions that actually matter.
The Mindset Shift
This requires trust. Trust that the system is watching. Trust that you'll get alerted when needed. Trust that silence means things are working.
Building that trust takes time. But once you have it, you stop checking dashboards obsessively. You stop worrying about things you can't control. You focus on what's actually important.
What in your work could shift from comprehensive monitoring to exception-based attention?
That's where the leverage lives.