You Can't Improve What You Don't Measure
The video game industry was born in the early 1970s and year after year, continues to become increasingly more popular. Early on, a developer was hired to create a racing game that would separate itself from the competition. In order to accomplish this, the developer decided to measure the quality of their game by the number of pixels they could use to render the flames released from the exhaust of the cars. Their assumption was that the more pixels they could use, the more realistic, exciting, and popular the game would be.
Driven by this belief, the development team poured significant resources into how visually impressive they could make the flames appear. However, upon release of the game, the developers realized they had made a critical error. While the players were impressed by the flames and graphics of the game, they found that the overall gameplay was clunky and the experience fell short of their expectations.
With their primary focus being the graphical fidelity of the game, the developers neglected the core mechanics, which turned out to be far more important to their customers - the players themselves. How the cars handled and the overall fun factor of the game was what the gamers valued and the primary driver of sales and success.
Principle
Every endeavor, whether in business, sports, politics, or any other field, has specific metrics that help indicate whether you are on track to hit desired goals. These metrics are called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). KPIs can be as simple as company profits or as specific as the number of milliseconds it takes for a credit card processor to charge your customer.
What is most important about KPIs is making sure that they are in alignment with your goals. In the video game example, the KPI utilized was the number of pixels that would be devoted to exhaust flames. While this metric may have lead to users being impressed with the game, it was not a KEY performance indicator that influenced the game’s popularity. In some cases, the metric chosen may even undermine your goals.
When chosen properly, KPIs are incredibly helpful for predicting the health of your endeavor as well as determining what actions need to be taken to keep it on track.
Application
When first beginning, it can be difficult to determine what to measure. To make matters more complex, Key Performance Indicators have a necessity to change as the journey develops. For example, imagine your goal is to get in great shape. As you are embarking on this journey, one of your KPIs could be how many days a week you are taking a walk around the neighborhood. However, at some point, this metric will become obsolete and will need to be replaced with something more specific, such as measuring your 5k completion time every Thursday morning.
Be considerate and mindful of your KPI data as you collect it and review these questions regularly to ensure development. In order to determine what to set as your KPIs, here are some questions to ask yourself:
1. What is the desired outcome?
2. What can I measure quickly and reliably?
3. How does this metric influence my desired outcome?
4. What other factors may influence my outcome?
5. Is this KPI adaptable to changing circumstances?
6. Can this KPI be measured objectively?
7. What specific benchmarks or standards, if any, exist that I can follow?
8. How often and in what manner should these KPIs be tracked and reviewed?
9. How does this measurement provide me actionable data?
10. Are there leading or lagging indicators?
Tools & Resources
If you're looking for a way to simply and practically incorporate this into your routine, make a copy of the KPI Tracker Tool by pressing the button below.
As you fill it out over the course of the coming weeks, notice how the data begins to populate the radial chart and provide a lens into how everything is balanced.
If necessary, edit the regularity of the measurements to whatever best fits the situation.