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KPI overload

November 10, 2019 6 Comments

KPI Overload cartoon
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We are working in a golden age of metrics.  But the explosion in available data and metrics can give us KPI tunnel vision.  It can blind businesses to what’s really most important.

Sky found that it was tracking more that 2,000 KPIs across their business, leading to short-termism and disjointed marketing.  They eventually found a way to narrow the KPIs they track to 30.

Nathan Linkon described how a similar problem played out at Pepsi:

“We were in a situation where we had as many KPIs and tracking metrics as there were combinations and brands and countries, which is a lot…

“What the business was left with was a flood of information. You could always find an answer to support the position you where trying to push forward if you used the right data but the context wasn’t there and the business wasn’t able to make those decisions based on the most effective information possible.”

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Businesses often track what’s easiest to measure, which leads to lack of alignment of what KPIs matter most.

Or as William Bruce Cameron famously put it in 1963:

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that be counted counts.”

Here are a few related cartoons I’ve drawn over the years:

“The Marketing Dashboard” November 2018

Marketing Dashboard cartoon

“Watching the Numbers” August 2018

Watching the Numbers cartoon

“Digital Marketing Metrics” October 2016

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6 Comments

Join the Discussion
  1. Willem van Oppen says

    November 11, 2019 at 8:29 am

    Normal people can simultaneously read, interpret and act on a maximum of five indices. Astronauts are trained to master 7 indices. Anyrhing beyond 5 KPIs is therefore waste

    Reply
    • Andy Maclellan says

      November 11, 2019 at 12:56 pm

      Excellent comment Willem – if you have alignment across -the – board, then 5 KPIs should be sufficient.
      More KPIs encourages the solo bunker mentality……

      Reply
  2. Bretton Hoekwater says

    November 11, 2019 at 8:48 am

    I absolutely love this! As a marketing analyst, this is one of the problems that I face on a day-to-day basis: clients responding, based on a dashboard, with tunnel-vision. In an age with more data than ever before, this is the most critical responsibility of marketing analysts – to use data and KPIs on a more wholistic level to inform business decisions (NOT using data in a vacuum and to pivot daily).

    Reply
  3. NS says

    November 12, 2019 at 10:32 am

    Love this! And it’s so relevant. Interestingly many do confuse KPI from metrics. Each has its own place and relevance. How you cascade your objectives, to priorities, to KPIs, to underlying metrics – should help bring clarity.

    Reply
  4. Remo Gubler says

    November 13, 2019 at 1:52 am

    If there are more than five, then they are just PIs, not KPIs.

    Reply
    • Stephen Houston says

      November 14, 2019 at 9:54 am

      Insightful words Remo – more than a handful muddies the water

      Reply

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