I’m not a big fan of this guy, but a recent guest post was a great read. The author, Eric Ries essentially argues that if metrics you’re tracking aren’t actionable, they’re “vanity metrics” and not that useful:
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/05/19/vanity-metrics-vs-actionable-metrics/
When you hear companies doing PR about the billions of messages sent using their product, or the total GDP of their economy, think vanity metrics. But there are examples closer to home. Consider the most basic of all reports: the total number of “hits” to your website. Let’s say you have 10,000. Now what? Do you really know what actions you took in the past that drove those visitors to you, and do you really know which actions to take next? In most cases, I don’t think it’s very helpful.
Eric focuses on online / web analytics scenarios, but it’s easy to make the mental jump to more everyday BI applications and metrics like sales / calls handled / whatever. You should give this article a read.
