Step-by-Step: Designing Effective Metrics
Keep simple with three to five key metrics. Make actionable so measurement drives improvement. Align with goals avoiding distortion.
January 2026
How Goodhart's Law Breaks Metrics
Explore Goodhart's Law—when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure—and how to design metrics that resist gaming.
December 2025
Measurement and Metrics Terms You Should Know
Learn essential measurement and metrics terminology with clear explanations that help you design better metrics and interpret data correctly.
KPIs Explained Without Buzzwords
Understand what KPIs actually are, how they differ from regular metrics, and how to select and use them effectively without corporate jargon.
Quantitative vs Qualitative Metrics
Understand when to use quantitative versus qualitative measurement, their strengths and limitations, and how they complement each other.
Intellectual History of Metrics
Scientific management quantified work. Accounting standardized financial measurement. Modern analytics expanded to all aspects of organizational performance.
What Should Be Measured and Why
Learn how to identify what truly matters to measure, avoid measurement traps, and design metrics that actually improve decisions and outcomes.
Vanity Metrics vs Meaningful Metrics
Learn to distinguish vanity metrics that look good but don't matter from meaningful metrics that actually drive decisions and outcomes.
Why Metrics Often Mislead
Understand how metrics can deceive—through gaming, misinterpretation, and misalignment—and learn to use measurement without being misled.
October 2025
How Metrics Influence Behavior
Metrics create visibility making performance transparent. Accountability follows visibility. They enable improvement but encourage gaming the measures.
September 2025
Qualitative vs Quantitative Metrics
Quantitative metrics use numbers that are scalable and objective but miss context. Qualitative metrics use stories rich in context but subjective.
KPIs vs OKRs Explained
KPIs measure ongoing operational health with stable metrics. OKRs drive ambitious goals through objectives and key results focused on growth and stretch.
Metrics Design Checklist
Metrics design checklist: Is it aligned with goals? Actionable and influenceable? Gameable by cheating? Leading or lagging indicator? Simple to understand?
Metrics That Destroyed Performance: Case Studies
UK hospitals held patients in ambulances to meet four-hour emergency room targets. Teaching to test scores narrowed education focus.
How Metrics and Measurement Work
Metrics quantify performance. They create visibility, enable improvement through tracking, establish accountability, and drive behavior toward outcomes.