Instrumentation Before Dashboards
Beautiful charts built on incomplete events waste more time than a blank page. Sequence the work correctly.
Teams often commission dashboards first because they are visible. Visibility without trustworthy inputs creates false confidence and noisy standups.
Begin with the decisions you need to make monthly. Map each decision to the minimum events and properties required. Only then design charts.
Add health monitors next: volume anomalies, null-rate spikes, and schema drift alerts. A quiet instrumentation layer is worth more than an ornate home screen.
When the foundations hold, dashboards become short and useful — and far cheaper to maintain.