Start with Measures & Pick Your Metrics Later

A few months back, I introduced the concept of measures over metrics when discussing how we should all spend more time framing problems.

Before we dive further into this topic and see an example, let's ground ourselves in definitions:

• Measures are raw numbers that define what happened
• Metrics are measures with context that show us how we're performing

The intent behind measures over metrics is to follow these steps:

1. Collect quantitative details around the current state
2. Identify the influence it has on the problem
3. Define metrics with targets

A lot of organizations jump to the last step and grab a metric, often one that is an "industry standard" or is a "best practice" for that business process. Then, they try to figure out what data they have to make the metric work.

Instead, we should start at the top and start listing what measures are available and how those levers impact their business challenge.

This is because measures let us see different dimensions of the same challenge.

By seeing how these evolve and looking closer at the raw data, we're able to figure out which of those we intend to optimize. Only after those steps are done, we can determine what metrics make sense to understand whether the solution is producing the intended result.

Let's see this with an example and assume that we're advising an organization whose intended goal is to get more prospects to convert to customers.

(Why? Great question, because that's not a solid goal by itself and we should spend more time understanding the challenge, but let's keep moving...)

They might be focused on conversion rate as the metric they're interested in.

But is this really what we're trying to achieve?

What if we start making changes to drive conversions through the roof, although those new customers are not as profitable as other customer segments?

Or, what if the way in which we got that bump in conversions is not a sustainable or reliable source of traffic for the future (e.g. using an influencer campaign to drive traffic)?

Aside from stepping back to spend more time framing the problem, this fictional organization would also benefit from looking at the other measures involved, as they might be happier with a lower conversion rate if those customers spent more or in more profitable ways.

TLDR: If we chase metrics without understanding the measures available and how they influence the situation, we risk solving the wrong challenge or making the challenge worse.