Defining success metrics: what to get right first

The advice here is unglamorous, which is probably why it gets skipped. If you only fix one thing about defining success metrics this quarter, make it the first item below.

Strategy work is mostly deciding what not to do, and writing it down so it stays decided. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.

Start here

Agree the numbers before the work starts. In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. The practical test is whether someone new to the project could tell, in a minute, that it had been handled.

Then this

Traffic is not a business outcome. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.

Eventually

Pick metrics you can actually influence. Small and consistent beats large and occasional here. The version that survives contact with a real deadline is the simple one.

How to tell if yours is fine

The projects that go badly are rarely the ones with the hardest technical problems. Three things worth confirming about defining success metrics before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Pick metrics you can actually influence — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

Most of the value here comes from doing the first two things, not all of them.