Dashboards aren't things you pull up once in a while. They work best when they are things that you can just glance at, and instantly know some important metric

Dashboards aren't things you pull up once in a while. They work best when they are things that you can just glance at, and instantly know some important metric you care about. In our office we have giant screens all around (because screens are dirt cheap now) each team puts the metrics they care about on them. It's really not unusual for us to look at it, and be like "whoa, that metric is kind of spiking, let's take a look". If you're in phase 1 of development, or even the first half of phase 2... you don't need one. If you're in phase 3 (maintence) you need one.