Choosing the Right Metrics for Process Improvement

You can’t improve what you don’t measure, but measuring the wrong things won’t help either.

For business leaders looking to implement custom business software and process improvements, especially with FlowCentric, choosing the right metrics is a critical first step. This article explores how to avoid common measurement traps and select metrics that actually lead to better performance.

Why Metrics Matter (and Where They Go Wrong)

Metrics shape behaviour. The wrong ones encourage short-term thinking, siloed optimisation, or even outright gaming of the system.

According to Key Performance Indicators by David Parmenter, many organisations fail because they treat all KPIs as equally important, or measure what’s easy rather than what’s valuable. Harvard Business Review echoes this, pointing out that metrics must align with strategic objectives to be meaningful.

What Good Metrics Look Like

A good process metric should be:

• Aligned: Clearly linked to business goals.
• Actionable: Staff must be able to influence it.
• Understandable: Not just to analysts, but to those doing the work.
• Balanced: Covering quality, time, cost, and satisfaction (not just one dimension).

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

• Vanity Metrics: “We processed 10,000 invoices!” Yes, but how many were accurate? Timely? Paid on time?
• Lagging Without Leading: Measuring only outcomes (like revenue) doesn’t help fix problems upstream (like bottlenecks in approval workflows).
• Focusing Solely on Efficiency: A faster process isn’t always a better one. Speed without quality is just rushing towards poor results.
• Using Overly Complex Dashboards: If no one checks the dashboard, it’s not a management tool, it’s just wallpaper.

How to Choose the Right Metrics

Start With the Process Goal

Are you trying to:

• reduce delays?
• improve compliance?
• enhance customer satisfaction?
• boost accuracy?
• increase throughput?

Start by defining a clear objective for your process. Each goal demands a different type of measurement. For example, reducing delays might require tracking cycle times and approval durations, while improving compliance could involve audit trail completeness or policy adherence rates. Once you understand the purpose, you can select metrics that reflect real progress, not just arbitrary numbers.

Involve Process Owners

The people closest to the process know which numbers matter. Involve them in defining what success looks like.

Identify Leading and Lagging Indicators

• Leading: number of incomplete forms (which can indicate confusion or gaps in the process), and time taken to approve step 1 (highlighting early-stage delays that could impact the entire workflow). These indicators offer early warning signs, helping teams take corrective action before issues escalate into customer-facing problems.
• Lagging: customer complaints (indicating dissatisfaction after service delivery), late payments (reflecting breakdowns in billing or approvals), and missed SLAs (showing failure to meet agreed service standards). These are outcome-based metrics that highlight problems only after they’ve occurred – useful for assessing long-term impact but not for making course corrections mid-process.

Keep It to a Vital Few

A handful of meaningful metrics is more powerful than a dozen that nobody can act on. Too many metrics dilute focus and confuse teams, making it harder to prioritise improvements. When everyone knows which indicators really matter, effort becomes more targeted, accountability improves, and progress is easier to track.

Focus attention where it counts, which is on metrics that drive decisions and motivate action.

Define the Data Source

Make sure the data is reliable, regularly updated, and understood by all stakeholders involved. Reliable data builds confidence in decision-making, while outdated or misunderstood figures can lead to false conclusions and poor process decisions.

Always question the origin of your data – if it’s from a manual spreadsheet prone to errors, or if nobody knows how the data is calculated, it’s likely unfit for performance tracking. If you don’t trust the source, don’t use the metric.

Practical Example: Procurement Workflow

Goal: Reduce invoice processing time.

Suggested Metrics:

• Time from invoice received to payment issued (lagging).
• Number of invoices flagged for manual intervention (leading).
• Average approval time per role.
• Percentage of correctly completed invoices on first submission.

How FlowCentric Helps

With FlowCentric’s tailored software solutions, organisations gain the ability to:

• Automate data collection and actions across processes.
• Build dashboards aligned to real business goals.
• Track changes over time with audit trails.
• Enable process owners to act on insights.

Metrics should guide, not mislead. Choosing the right ones helps organisations focus energy where it matters and builds the case for continuous improvement – especially when supported by the right software.

Contact FlowCentric to take your business from #ChaosToClarity.