Metric Quality Standards

A good metric has five properties. Measurable: it can be quantified consistently. Actionable: the team can influence it through their actions. Timely: it updates frequently enough to drive decisions. Comparable: it can be compared across periods, teams, or segments. Aligned: improving it contributes to the North Star. A metric that fails any one of these five is a bad metric, regardless of how intuitive or popular it is. "Customer happiness" fails measurability. "Macroeconomic growth" fails actionability. "Annual revenue" fails timeliness for monthly planning. "Unique metric we invented" fails comparability. "Social media followers" may fail alignment. The five properties are the quality gate. Every metric in the hierarchy passes all five.