Hook
Metrics drive behavior.
Problem
Teams often track activity metrics that do not reflect customer value. This encourages busy work and hides real issues in delivery and reliability.
Why it matters
Outcome-focused metrics guide better decisions and reveal where investment pays off. They create a shared language for improvement.
Signals you are here
- Success is measured by tickets closed or lines of code
- No visibility into lead time or change failure rate
- Teams optimize for velocity without quality
- Metrics are numerous but unused
Anti-patterns
- Vanity metrics with no link to outcomes
- Too many metrics with no owner
- Ignoring customer impact data
- Optimizing for throughput without reliability
Try this
- Use DORA metrics for delivery performance
- Track SLOs and error budgets
- Link metrics to user impact
- Review metrics in retros and planning
- Retire metrics that do not drive decisions
Example
A team shifted from counting tickets to tracking lead time and change failure rate. They identified slow approvals as the real bottleneck.
Reflection prompt
Which metric would you stop tracking today because it does not change decisions?
