Measure twice,cut once or story about KPI in my life

“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion” W.Edwards Deming

I've often wondered about the importance of measuring data. What do we actually measure in our daily life?

Do we have any data?

How do we work with it?

Do we put all the statistics in one big (or small) spreadsheet?

Why do we need it (or not) at all ? 7:00. My eyes are opened. My alarm already measured the time of my awakening.

My first “own” numbers in the morning - it’s a statistic of my deep and light sleep at night. Then I continue my morning with data of my body from a “smart scale”. In less than 5 seconds, I can see my weight, body fat, bone density, water percentage, heart rate, and other health stats.

200 ml warm water inside - to start my “engine” - the stomach. Next step - to measure the weight of my breakfast (200 gr of oat) + 150 gr of any fruit.10 gram of nuts.1 cup of coffee (250 ml). I need to reach my office — 7.5 km away — in 20 minutes. On the road it’s possible to count the number of “good drivers” that cut you off on the highway ;) I reserve time for lunch (minutes are already calculated by my company for me). I pay my bills and count my money ( btw - My favorite part is to do it on ASOS ;) In the evening I count my sit-ups and squats, burpees and push-ups.

After crossfit I measure my heart rate, and I shouldn’t forget to put at home my wrist watch into the watch winder box - to get the correct time tomorrow “on my hand”.

Plenty of things should be taken into account, shouldn’t they?

Let’s go back to reality..

Defining Key Performance Indicators (KPI) is not something extraordinary to a Product manager’s daily job. No need to explain the importance of evaluating the success of the team and the whole company at reaching targets.

A good KPI should act as a compass, helping you and your team understand whether you’re taking the right path toward your strategic goals. To be effective, a KPI must be well-defined and quantifiable, must be applicable to the team, and more... The trouble is, there are thousands of KPIs to choose from. If you choose the wrong one, then you are measuring something that doesn’t align with your goals. How, then, should you go about selecting the right KPIs for your team/product?

For me the first big question to my Product “fairy” - my teacher - was:

HOW can i declare/set/understand the correct KPI? And it’s always a good question that should be raised with any new product.

How can I measure my success?

I have a Master’s degree in finance and it’s natural for me to operate with KPI terms like “cost” , “profit” , “LOB Expenses Vs. Budget” and others.

In day-to-day QA and Product life I opened for myself these types of Process Metrics :

• Customer Support Tickets (we usually work on decreasing this size)

• Percentage Of Product Defects (as low as possible)

• Efficiency Measures (for our team, for example, we can count how many installations we get from active users or how many clicks were done)

We care about our brand, our sales and premiums in general (besides inner KPIs).

No matter what your vertical is, what your team does or what type of product it is, some knowledge has much in common.

Firstly, no one wants to dig through a spreadsheet trying to identify and make sense of the numbers (unless you’re an analyst). Your KPIs needs to be easily understood by the people in your organization who are not data scientists or data analysts. That’s why it is important to keep your KPIs simple.

Secondly, KPIs should be enjoyable to consume.

Share it with your team, make people aware that we are on the way to the goal

KPIs are much like instruments that measure temperature and barometric pressure.

It might be interesting to know that the temperature increased or decreased, but it's more critical to know whether a storm is imminent. The measures work together to provide a much more complete picture of the total situation.

Going back to my question: HOW CAN I MEASURE MY SUCCESS ?

There isn’t one brilliant answer or a mathematical formula.

My own formula of success = correct data + friendship with your BI analyst :)

P.S....Don’t be just a person with an opinion. Be a smart person - with data and an opinion. ;)