HOW TO PUT THIS THEORY INTO PRACTICE

• Establish a shared understanding within your company. Are „Output Metrics“ always the result of a driving action at any level or the description of delivered artifacts/activities?
• Map out your „metrics landscape“ to understand the relationship between metrics and connect language to reality and your sphere of influence (more on that in two weeks).

Outcomes as Leading & Lagging Indicators

When you’re trying to become more outcome focused, one of the big challenges is figuring out exactly which outcomes you should focus on. One technique is to find the leading indicators — things that customers and users do that predict a valuable result — the focus the work of your team on those leading indicators. For example: increased foot traffic to your retail store predicts an increase in sales. So how might you increase foot traffic?

A Primer on Product Metrics

Not only do metrics help measure progress toward a goal, but they also help unite a team and empower members of that team to operate with increased autonomy. To achieve this, a metric needs to be understood by a large and diverse group of people. If they can’t, it isn’t a good metric. There are some exceptions for highly technical teams (e.g., search), but as a general rule, keep it simple — could you quickly explain a metric to your CEO?

ICED Theory - Growing Infrequent Products

(In) Frequency refers to the gap between the transactions in a user's lifetime. Increasing the frequency benefits the product with the increase in penetrability. For example, Glassdoor is well known for its company reviews. Users may visit Glassdoor during the job change, which will be, on average, let's say, two to three years. Furthermore, not everyone in the market is looking for a job simultaneously (low penetrability). To reduce the hiatus between visits, Glassdoor has salary information prospected regularly (increase in frequency). Salary information appeals to anyone who is working, whether looking for a job or not (increased penetrability).

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Learn through my free, in-depth Product Strategy, Product OKRs, or Product Discovery content libraries.

​Hire me to work with you or your team(s) 1:1 in workshops or coaching.