[jameshart]

Agreed. This question is a superpower. Not just 'the result of this test', this applies to all kinds of questions.

It's also relevant when people ask for ill-specified 'dashboards', or 'reports'.

Will what we do change substantially based on what we see on these dashboards? If not, why make them? And if so... can we just automate that behavior so we don't have to rely on someone noticing the dashboard?

[rocqua]

I think some dashboards are meant for some form of situational awareness. At least "I can see when something is different" ideally even "I can recognize if everything is going well".

For those purposes it is difficult to answer 'what will we change' and even harder to automate the process.

[jameshart]

Yes, not arguing dashboards are a bad idea in all cases.

If there are five things you always need to go and check when someone asks you ‘is the system running okay?’ Or an alert goes off, by all means put those things on a dashboard.

But when someone just says ‘we want to be able to see these numbers’ it’s often worth asking what they plan to do with them.

[taneq]

A related principle is that often you’re really not blocked on things you think you’re blocked on. Waiting on that part / component / email response? Pretend you just got it. Chances are the first thing, or even first few things, you’d do didn’t require the thing you were waiting for.