Metrics vs. Indicators: Why All Reports Aren't Immediately Useful

We hear the terms Metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) frequently but do they mean the same thing? The short answer is No, they are not interchangeable terms. 

Let's take a quick look at what the difference is and why reVISION Masters stresses the later.

A Metric is really just a number. A piece of data or information. It is an instantaneous measure of part of a business process. Most reporting we see from PM tools and companies are just spreadsheets. Spreadsheets filled with numbers that measure various parts of the daily operations.

Simple example. Rent collections are at 25%.

When we are presented a Metric, there are 3 things that we do in order to process what we are looking at. We "See" it, then we "Interpret" it, and finally we "Understand" it. In our example, we see rent collections are at 25%. But what does that really mean? Is that good, is it bad? There is no context. So we need to do more mental processing to figure this out. If it's the 2nd day of the month, that's pretty good. If it's the last day of the month, that's really bad.

An Indicator adds the proper context so you simply "See" and "Understand". It places immediate context around what you are seeing through combinations of color coding and historical context.

Going back to our example, at very quick glance we see that this is not good as we were at 35% collected on the same date last month.

The above is a simplistic example, but realize that every day we see multiple reports from multiple partners on multiple assets. 

This is why we make the most efficient and effective use of our time by using Indicators (Key Performance Indicators are simply the most business critical items) to quickly gauge the health of our portfolio and only focus on items that need our attention.

If you want to learn more, reach out to us at info@revisionmasters.us