ABSTRACT
A desire without specifics is just a wish. Specificity leads to goal setting. To achieve long-term strategic goals, there has to be a series of incremental tactical objectives that will span the path from current to desired future state. These objectives, for them to be useful, must be measureable, and that’s where metrics come in. Metrics provide an objective and universally understood means of determining if an objective or goal has been met. According to Eric Ries in The Lean Startup,* metrics should be “actionable, accessible, and auditable.” Actionable so that you can do something to affect them. Accessible so that they make sense to the users. Auditable so that they can be monitored and tracked. But before we go any further, we have to talk about process monitoring.
