What a KPI is and why it matters
A KPI is a Key Performance Indicator. It is a small and honest signal that tells you whether your effort is changing the world in the way you intend. Treated well, a KPI is a compass, not a trophy. It restores sight. It lets you see drift before damage and progress before applause. In projects, that is the whole game. You want fewer surprises, earlier adjustments, and a calm sense that the work in front of you actually moves the outcome you promised.
What it is for me
For me a KPI is a promise keeper. It connects an intention to a behavior I am willing to practice this week. If a measure does not change what people do in the next cycle, it is a statistic. If it does, it is a KPI. The difference is not cosmetic. The difference is whether a number becomes a quiet guide for craft or a loud performance for status.
Begin with a clear stack
Simplicity travels. In project work three kinds of signals cover most needs.
First, Outcome. This asks whether reality outside the team is different because of you. It is the customer feeling relief, the stakeholder seeing value arrive, the sponsor watching promised benefits come to life. Think adoption by the people who matter, value realized in the field and not only in a plan, time to the first real moment of value, benefits delivered against what you said would happen. Outcome is not a press release. Outcome is a change that would still be true if no one wrote a report about it.
Second, Process. This asks whether the few high leverage behaviors are actually happening in the way you intend. It is where craft lives. Think cycle time that exposes bottlenecks instead of hiding them, throughput by stage that shows where work stalls, risk retirement rate that proves you are paying down uncertainty, dependency lead time that makes handoffs smooth. Process signals are the dials you can touch this week. If they move, the system moves. If they do not, speeches will not save you.
Third, Health. This asks whether the human engine and the delivery system can sustain the pace without quietly breaking. It is the part leaders skip until it is too late. Think capacity fit to plan so you stop signing up for fiction, after hours incidents that tell you the system is leaking, knowledge capture rate so learning compounds rather than evaporates, decision latency so choices do not age on the vine. Health is not softness. Health is the ability to finish what you start and to do it again next quarter.
Pick one outcome, two process, and one health. Review them on a fixed rhythm. For the weakest signal agree on one experiment, then close the loop at the next review. Let rhythm do more work than drama. The stack stays small so attention can stay deep.
Measurement as a way of seeing
When a team measures with care, anxiety softens. A single line replaces the fog. You know where you stand and what to do next. The point is clarity that invites courage. The point is not certainty that demands theater. I have learned that presence is the part of work that does not compress. A chart can inform presence but it cannot replace it. Numbers should return you to the room where judgment lives.
Where KPIs go wrong
KPIs go wrong when the number becomes the mission. We start to optimize what is easy to count and we neglect what is costly to see. The chart improves and the experience does not. In product work this shows up as feature totals and idea totals. Every new thing consumes design time, test time, onboarding time, support time, and the attention of the user. Quantity begins to replace coherence. Teams feel more friction and more complexity while customers get a product that is fuller and somehow less clear.
The deeper harm is to learning. When the calendar drives the ship, discovery is rushed and evidence arrives too late to guide decisions. Opportunity cost disappears from view, so unglamorous fixes that build trust are deferred because they do not move the count. You can hear the drift in the language. People talk about releases instead of results and about speed instead of understanding. That is the signal to reset. Return to one important moment for the user. Let the measure serve the work rather than perform it.
Presence over performance
Digital life tempts us to replace the work with the image of the work. We begin to curate for the metric. We polish what is easy to count and neglect what is costly to see. The performance of progress replaces progress. A KPI followed blindly is an algorithm for self deception. It amplifies what flatters us and filters out what would mature us. The remedy is to restore the order of things. First presence, then prediction. First the human seam where judgment lives, then the chart that supports it.
Keep KPIs quiet until they matter
KPIs should orient, not audition. Keep them quiet in the background until the signal asks for action. When a metric grows loud and demands performance, set it down and go see the work. Ask what the count is hiding. Ask who benefits from a smooth line. If the system has drifted, accept an ugly chart on the way back to truth. A truthful scar is better than a perfect mask.
A monthly ritual for honest numbers
Once a month, meet the stack with three questions.
1. What behavior did this measure create.
2. What meaningful thing did it erase.
3. Do we retire, rebalance, or add a depth companion.
Write the answers in plain words. Decide one experiment for the weakest signal. Close the loop at the next review. The ritual is light on ceremony and heavy on follow through.
Practical cues for the next cycle
- Use one outcome, two process, one health.
- Tie each KPI to a behavior someone will practice in the next seven days.
- Pair every tempting vanity count with one depth companion that checks spirit, not only letter.
- Make knowledge creation visible so improvement becomes a habit, not a side effect.
- When in doubt, talk to one customer, one vendor, or one user, then reread the chart with fresh eyes.