The "5% increase" Metric

When a report shows a 5% improvement in any KPI, the first thing that comes to the reader's mind is, "That is impressive". But if you take a decision just based on this information, it is a red flag. Lets say, there is a sales KPI and it says, "The Sales increased by 5%". The first question that should come to your mind is "what"? Sales of what increased? "Sales of Electronic items increased by 5%". Of course, this 5% couldn't have come out of thin air. The next dimension to think of is date/time. "The Monthly Sales of Electronic items increased by 5%". That looks good. But still there is one more important piece that is missing, the baseline. The improvement "from" what? "The Monthly Sales of Electronic items increased by 5%, growing from a baseline of 3%". Still missing a piece? Yes, the comparison period. (month-over-month, quarter-over-quarter or year-over-year) "Compared to Apr 2026, the monthly(May) sales of Electronic items increased by 5%, growing from a baseline of 3%". Now that is a statement we can act on. Decision makers should always have one eye on the metric shown and the other on everything around it that hasn't been. This thought also raises another question, is the level of detail enough or is it too much. Who makes the decision - the presenter or the reader? A discussion for another day.