I think it all begins with knowing the end user and what really motivates them, rather than what they say might motivate them. We think about it as ROE, return on engagement, and it drives every widget and dashboard for us. The Sisense dashboard planner is a good place to start, but for us it all comes down to 2 things: Money or Easy. Unless you're a non-profit, of course, the higher-end users want to see the money, and the more basic users want it to somehow make their job easier.
For the Easy User we use a lot of accordion widgets with conditional colors (standard red, yellow, green) in a homepage dashboard (Mission Control) so they can click-thru directly to a task and then get on with whatever else they have on their plate, allowing them to manage by exception. A lot of those users won't ever be interested in doing more, and may even resent having to learn "one more thing."
With the Money User we still use a Mission Control, but they're developing into more Jump Tos than accordions, allowing them to get into the details of their KPIs and how they're affecting their bottom line. Depending on their level of expertise and interest, we will occasionally develop dashboards for them based on what WE are seeing in the data--they often don't know what story they have in their data. One of the most gratifying moments was when I showed one client a dashboard I'd developed in that way and he was silent for a moment and then said: "Can I have that?!" YES, YOU CAN! Those break-through moments are so great, but a lot of times it comes from US showing them what they have in the data that they don't even realize.
