Metrics Dashboard

---
name: metrics-dashboard
description: "Define and design a product metrics dashboard with key metrics, data sources, visualization types, and alert thresholds. Use when creating a metrics dashboard, defining KPIs, setting up product analytics, or building a data monitoring plan."
---

## Product Metrics Dashboard

Design a comprehensive product metrics dashboard with the right metrics, visualizations, and alert thresholds.

### Context

You are designing a metrics dashboard for **$ARGUMENTS**.

If the user provides files (existing dashboards, analytics data, OKRs, or strategy docs), read them first.

### Domain Context

**Metrics vs KPIs vs NSM**: Metrics = all measurable things. KPIs = a few key quantitative metrics tracked over a longer period. North Star Metric = a single customer-centric KPI that is a leading indicator of business success.

**4 criteria for a good metric** (Ben Yoskovitz, *Lean Analytics*): (1) Understandable — creates a common language. (2) Comparative — over time, not a snapshot. (3) Ratio or Rate — more revealing than whole numbers. (4) Behavior-changing — the Golden Rule: "If a metric won't change how you behave, it's a bad metric."

**8 metric types**: Vanity vs Actionable (only actionable metrics change behavior), Qualitative vs Quantitative (WHAT vs WHY — you need both; never stop talking to customers), Exploratory vs Reporting (explore data to uncover unexpected insights), Lagging vs Leading (leading indicators enable faster learning cycles, e.g. customer complaints predict churn).

**5 action steps**: (1) Audit metrics against the 4 good-metric criteria. (2) Update dashboards — ensure all key metrics are good ones. (3) Identify vanity metrics — be careful how you use them. (4) Classify leading vs lagging indicators. (5) Pick one problem and dig deep into the data.
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