metrics-review

# Metrics Review

> If you see unfamiliar placeholders or need to check which tools are connected, see [CONNECTORS.md](../../CONNECTORS.md).

Review and analyze product metrics, identify trends, and surface actionable insights.

## Usage

```
/metrics-review $ARGUMENTS
```

## Workflow

### 1. Gather Metrics Data

If **~~product analytics** is connected:
- Pull key product metrics for the relevant time period
- Get comparison data (previous period, same period last year, targets)
- Pull segment breakdowns if available

If no analytics tool is connected, ask the user to provide:
- The metrics and their values (paste a table, screenshot, or describe)
- Comparison data (previous period, targets)
- Any context on recent changes (launches, incidents, seasonality)

Ask the user:
- What time period to review? (last week, last month, last quarter)
- What metrics to focus on? Or should we review the full product metrics suite?
- Are there specific targets or goals to compare against?
- Any known events that might explain changes (launches, outages, marketing campaigns, seasonality)?

### 2. Organize the Metrics

Structure the review using a metrics hierarchy: North Star metric at the top, L1 health indicators (acquisition, activation, engagement, retention, revenue, satisfaction), and L2 diagnostic metrics for drill-down. See **Product Metrics Hierarchy** below for full definitions.

If the user has not defined their metrics hierarchy, help them identify their North Star and key L1 metrics before proceeding.

### 3. Analyze Trends

For each key metric:
- **Current value**: What is the metric today?
- **Trend**: Up, down, or flat compared to previous period? Over what timeframe?
- **vs Target**: How does it compare to the goal or target?
- **Rate of change**: Is the trend accelerating or decelerating?
- **Anomalies**: Any sudden changes, spikes, or drops?

Identify correlations:
- Do changes in one metric correlate with changes in another?
- Are there leading indicators that predict lagging metric changes?
- Do segment breakdowns reveal that an aggregate trend is driven by a specific cohort?

### 4. Generate the Review

#### Summary
2-3 sentences: overall product health, most notable changes, key callout.

#### Metric Scorecard
Table format for quick scanning:

| Metric | Current | Previous | Change | Target | Status |
|--------|---------|----------|--------|--------|--------|
| [Metric] | [Value] | [Value] | [+/- %] | [Target] | [On track / At risk / Miss] |

#### Trend Analysis
For each metric worth discussing:
- What happened and how significant is the change
- Why it likely happened (attribution based on known events, correlated metrics, segment analysis)
- Whether this is a one-time event or a sustained trend

#### Bright Spots
What is going well:
- Metrics beating targets
- Positive trends to sustain
- Segments or features showing strong performance

#### Areas of Concern
What needs attention:
- Metrics missing targets or trending negatively
- Early warning signals before they become problems
- Metrics where we lack visibility or understanding

#### Recommended Actions
Specific next steps based on the analysis:
- Investigations to run (dig deeper into a concerning trend)
- Experiments to launch (test hypotheses about what could improve a metric)
- Investments to make (double down on what is working)
- Alerts to set (monitor a metric more closely)

#### Context and Caveats
- Known data quality issues
- Events that affect comparability (outages, holidays, launches)
- Metrics we should be tracking but are not yet

### 5. Follow Up

After generating the review:
- Ask if any metric needs deeper investigation
- Offer to create a dashboard spec for ongoing monitoring
- Offer to draft experiment proposals for areas of concern
- Offer to set up a metrics review template for recurring use

## Product Metrics Hierarchy

### North Star Metric
The single metric that best captures the core value your product delivers to users. It should be:

- **Value-aligned**: Moves when users get more value from the product
- **Leading**: Predicts long-term business success (revenue, retention)
- **Actionable**: The product team can influence it through their work
- **Understandable**: Everyone in the company can understand what it means and why it matters

**Examples by product type**:
- Collaboration tool: Weekly active teams with 3+ members contributing
- Marketplace: Weekly transactions completed
- SaaS platform: Weekly active users completing core workflow
- Content platform: Weekly engaged reading/viewing time
- Developer tool: Weekly deployments using the tool

### L1 Metrics (Health Indicators)
The 5-7 metrics that together paint a complete picture of product health. These map to the key stages of the user lifecycle:

**Acquisition**: Are new users finding the product?
- New signups or trial starts (volume and trend)
- Signup conversion rate (visitors to signups)
- Channel mix (where are new users coming from)
- Cost per acquisition (for paid channels)

**Activation**: Are new users reaching the value moment?
- Activation rate: % of new users who complete the key action that predicts retention
- Time to activate: how long from signup to activation
- Setup completion rate: % who complete onboarding steps
- First value moment: when users first experience the core product value

**Engagement**: Are active users getting value?
- DAU / WAU / MAU: active users at different timeframes
- DAU/MAU ratio (stickiness): what fraction of monthly users come back daily
- Core action frequency: how often users do the thing that matters most
- Session depth: how much users do per session
- Feature adoption: % of users using key features

**Retention**: Are users coming back?
- D1, D7, D30 retention: % of users who return after 1 day, 7 days, 30 days
- Cohort retention curves: how retention evolves for each signup cohort
- Churn rate: % of users or revenue lost per period
- Resurrection rate: % of churned users who come back

**Monetization**: Is value translating to revenue?
- Conversion rate: free to paid (for freemium)
- MRR / ARR: monthly or annual recurring revenue
- ARPU / ARPA: average revenue per user or account
- Expansion revenue: revenue growth from existing customers
- Net revenue retention: revenue retention including expansion and contraction

**Satisfaction**: How do users feel about the product?
- NPS: Net Promoter Score
- CSAT: Customer Satisfaction Score
- Support ticket volume and resolution time
- App store ratings and review sentiment

### L2 Metrics (Diagnostic)
Detailed metrics used to investigate changes in L1 metrics:

- Funnel conversion at each step
- Feature-level usage and adoption
- Segment-specific breakdowns (by plan, company size, geography, user role)
- Performance metrics (page load time, error rate, API latency)
- Content-specific engagement (which features, pages, or content types drive engagement)

## Common Product Metrics

### DAU / WAU / MAU
**What they measure**: Unique users who perform a qualifying action in a day, week, or month.

**Key decisions**:
- What counts as "active"? A login? A page view? A core action? Define this carefully — different definitions tell different stories.
- Which timeframe matters most? DAU for daily-use products (messaging, email). WAU for weekly-use products (project management). MAU for less frequent products (tax software, travel booking).

**How to use them**:
- DAU/MAU ratio (stickiness): values above 0.5 indicate a daily habit. Below 0.2 suggests infrequent usage.
- Trend matters more than absolute number. Is active usage growing, flat, or declining?
- Segment by user type. Power users and casual users behave very differently.

### Retention
**What it measures**: Of users who started in period X, what % are still active in period Y?

**Common retention timeframes**:
- D1 (next day): Was the first experience good enough to come back?
- D7 (one week): Did the user establish a habit?
- D30 (one month): Is the user retained long-term?
- D90 (three months): Is this a durable user?

**How to use retention**:
- Plot retention curves by cohort. Look for: initial drop-off (activation problem), steady decline (engagement problem), or flattening (good — you have a stable retained base).
- Compare cohorts over time. Are newer cohorts retaining better than older ones? That means product improvements are working.
- Segment retention by activation behavior. Users who completed onboarding vs those who did not. Users who used feature X vs those who did not.

### Conversion
**What it measures**: % of users who move from one stage to the next.

**Common conversion funnels**:
- Visitor to signup
- Signup to activation (key value moment)
- Free to paid (trial conversion)
- Trial to paid subscription
- Monthly to annual plan

**How to use conversion**:
- Map the full funnel and measure conversion at each step
- Identify the biggest drop-off points — these are your highest-leverage improvement opportunities
- Segment conversion by source, plan, user type. Different segments convert very differently.
- Track conversion over time. Is it improving as you iterate on the experience?

### Activation
**What it measures**: % of new users who reach the moment where they first experience the product's core value.

**Defining activation**:
- Look at retained users vs churned users. What actions did retained users take that churned users did not?
- The activation event should be strongly predictive of long-term retention
- It should be achievable within the first session or first few days
- Examples: created first project, invited a teammate, completed first workflow, connected an integration

**How to use activation**:
- Track activation rate for every signup cohort
- Measure time to activate — faster is almost always better
- Build onboarding flows that guide users to the activation moment
- A/B test activation flows and measure impact on retention, not just activation rate

## Goal Setting Frameworks

### OKRs (Objectives and Key Results)

**Objectives**: Qualitative, aspirational goals that describe what you want to achieve.
- Inspiring and memorable
- Time-bound (quarterly or annually)
- Directional, not metric-specific

**Key Results**: Quantitative measures that tell you if you achieved the objective.
- Specific and measurable
- Time-bound with a clear target
- Outcome-based, not output-based
- 2-4 Key Results per Objective

**Example**:
```
Objective: Make our product indispensable for daily workflows

Key Results:
- Increase DAU/MAU ratio from 0.35 to 0.50
- Increase D30 retention for new users from 40% to 55%
- 3 core workflows with >80% task completion rate
```

### OKR Best Practices
- Set OKRs that are ambitious but achievable. 70% completion is the target for stretch OKRs.
- Key Results should measure outcomes (user behavior, business results), not outputs (features shipped, tasks completed).
- Do not have too many OKRs. 2-3 objectives with 2-4 KRs each is plenty.
- OKRs should be uncomfortable. If you are confident you will hit all of them, they are not ambitious enough.
- Review OKRs at mid-period. Adjust effort allocation if some KRs are clearly off track.
- Grade OKRs honestly at end of period. 0.0-0.3 = missed, 0.4-0.6 = progress, 0.7-1.0 = achieved.

### Setting Metric Targets
- **Baseline**: What is the current value? You need a reliable baseline before setting a target.
- **Benchmark**: What do comparable products achieve? Industry benchmarks provide context.
- **Trajectory**: What is the current trend? If the metric is already improving at 5% per month, a 6% target is not ambitious.
- **Effort**: How much investment are you putting behind this? Bigger bets warrant more ambitious targets.
- **Confidence**: How confident are you in hitting the target? Set a "commit" (high confidence) and a "stretch" (ambitious).

## Metric Review Cadences

### Weekly Metrics Check
**Purpose**: Catch issues quickly, monitor experiments, stay in touch with product health.
**Duration**: 15-30 minutes.
**Attendees**: Product manager, maybe engineering lead.

**What to review**:
- North Star metric: current value, week-over-week change
- Key L1 metrics: any notable movements
- Active experiments: results and statistical significance
- Anomalies: any unexpected spikes or drops
- Alerts: anything that triggered a monitoring alert

**Action**: If something looks off, investigate. Otherwise, note it and move on.

### Monthly Metrics Review
**Purpose**: Deeper analysis of trends, progress against goals, strategic implications.
**Duration**: 30-60 minutes.
**Attendees**: Product team, key stakeholders.

**What to review**:
- Full L1 metric scorecard with month-over-month trends
- Progress against quarterly OKR targets
- Cohort analysis: are newer cohorts performing better?
- Feature adoption: how are recent launches performing?
- Segment analysis: any divergence between user segments?

**Action**: Identify 1-3 areas to investigate or invest in. Update priorities if metrics reveal new information.

### Quarterly Business Review
**Purpose**: Strategic assessment of product performance, goal-setting for next quarter.
**Duration**: 60-90 minutes.
**Attendees**: Product, engineering, design, leadership.

**What to review**:
- OKR scoring for the quarter
- Trend analysis for all L1 metrics over the quarter
- Year-over-year comparisons
- Competitive context: market changes and competitor movements
- What worked and what did not

**Action**: Set OKRs for next quarter. Adjust product strategy based on what the data shows.

## Dashboard Design Principles

### Effective Product Dashboards
A good dashboard answers the question "How is the product doing?" at a glance.

**Principles**:

1. **Start with the question, not the data**. What decisions does this dashboard support? Design backwards from the decision.

2. **Hierarchy of information**. The most important metric should be the most visually prominent. North Star at the top, L1 metrics next, L2 metrics available on drill-down.

3. **Context over numbers**. A number without context is meaningless. Always show: current value, comparison (previous period, target, benchmark), trend direction.

4. **Fewer metrics, more insight**. A dashboard with 50 metrics helps no one. Focus on 5-10 that matter. Put everything else in a detailed report.

5. **Consistent time periods**. Use the same time period for all metrics on a dashboard. Mixing daily and monthly metrics creates confusion.

6. **Visual status indicators**. Use color to indicate health at a glance:
   - Green: on track or improving
   - Yellow: needs attention or flat
   - Red: off track or declining

7. **Actionability**. Every metric on the dashboard should be something the team can influence. If you cannot act on it, it does not belong on the product dashboard.

### Dashboard Layout

**Top row**: North Star metric with trend line and target.

**Second row**: L1 metrics scorecard — current value, change, target, status for each key metric.

**Third row**: Key funnels or conversion metrics — visual funnel showing drop-off at each stage.

**Fourth row**: Recent experiments and launches — active A/B tests, recent feature launches with early metrics.

**Bottom / drill-down**: L2 metrics, segment breakdowns, and detailed time series for investigation.

### Dashboard Anti-Patterns
- **Vanity metrics**: Metrics that always go up but do not indicate health (total signups ever, total page views)
- **Too many metrics**: Dashboards that require scrolling to see. If it does not fit on one screen, cut metrics.
- **No comparison**: Raw numbers without context (current value with no previous period or target)
- **Stale dashboards**: Metrics that have not been updated or reviewed in months
- **Output dashboards**: Measuring team activity (tickets closed, PRs merged) instead of user and business outcomes
- **One dashboard for all audiences**: Executives, PMs, and engineers need different views. One size does not fit all.

### Alerting
Set alerts for metrics that require immediate attention:

- **Threshold alerts**: Metric drops below or rises above a critical threshold (error rate > 1%, conversion < 5%)
- **Trend alerts**: Metric shows sustained decline over multiple days/weeks
- **Anomaly alerts**: Metric deviates significantly from expected range

**Alert hygiene**:
- Every alert should be actionable. If you cannot do anything about it, do not alert on it.
- Review and tune alerts regularly. Too many false positives and people ignore all alerts.
- Define an owner for each alert. Who responds when it fires?
- Set appropriate severity levels. Not everything is P0.

## Output Format

Use tables for the scorecard. Use clear status indicators. Keep the summary tight — the reader should get the essential story in 30 seconds.

## Tips

- Start with the "so what" — what is the most important thing in this metrics review? Lead with that.
- Absolute numbers without context are useless. Always show comparisons (vs previous period, vs target, vs benchmark).
- Be careful about attribution. Correlation is not causation. If a metric moved, acknowledge uncertainty about why.
- Segment analysis often reveals that an aggregate metric masks important differences. A flat overall number might hide one segment growing and another shrinking.
- Not all metric movements matter. Small fluctuations are noise. Focus attention on meaningful changes.
- If a metric is missing its target, do not just report the miss — recommend what to do about it.
- Metrics reviews should drive decisions. If the review does not lead to at least one action, it was not useful.