Tutorial
Fewer numbers, more insight
A metric you never act on is just noise with a chart.
Start from the decisions you need to make, pick the few metrics that inform them, and track those closely, so your numbers lead to action, not just more numbers.
How to choose what to track
Tied to a decision
Keep a metric only if it would change an action.
Trend over snapshot
Watch direction, not a single moment in time.
Cut the vanity
Drop numbers that flatter but don't inform.
Signal over noise
A number you won't act on is just decoration
Tracking everything is a way of paying attention to nothing.
Dashboards fill up with metrics because measuring feels like progress. But a number only earns its place if a change in it would change what you do, everything else is comforting noise.
This guide helps you separate the vanity metrics from the ones that drive decisions, and track the few that actually tell you whether you're winning.
Highlights
The approach
Start from decisions
What are you trying to decide?
Pick a few
The metrics that inform them.
Act on them
Numbers that drive change.
Before you start
Choose numbers someone will act on
The test for any metric is a finished sentence: 'if this drops, we will…'. If nobody can finish it, the metric is scenery. Three numbers with owners and thresholds beat thirty that scroll past in a Monday deck.
Prefer pairs over singles, because every metric alone teaches gaming: speed wants a quality partner, volume wants a satisfaction partner. Ticket-close time paired with reopen rate tells the truth; either one alone tells a story someone wants told.
Review the metrics themselves twice a year. Goals shift, and a number that once drove decisions quietly becomes ritual, retiring it is not losing data, it is returning attention to the numbers still earning it.
We build software for teams who want their tools to fit the way they actually work — web, mobile, AI and the systems that tie them together. We write here about what we learn shipping it.