It’s natural for credit union directors to want to make the best decisions based on the best possible information. But all too often, an effort to cover all the bases results in board members becoming overloaded.

When that happens, critical points can be buried under minutiae. Just as bad, hours are spent wading through unimportant details, resulting in little time left for strategic thinking.

The way directors can avert information overload, many consultants and credit union executives believe, is a set of balanced key measures that show the credit union’s performance. These are known as “dashboard metrics.”

“When I drive my …