Value Design32% of the exam
Success metrics, SMARTE goals and early signals
How to define success before any performance data exists: the project brief, the four business goal types, trailing customer metrics versus early desirability signals, design implications and future metrics, ESG metrics, and SMARTE goals that let a strategy designer push back on harmful targets.
Based on the challenge statement created, identify the metrics and signals that will define success.
~7 min read · 13 practice questions ·
What the exam expects
- Set expectations for what good looks like in a project brief, and connect the challenge framing to goals business leaders have set.
- Classify a business goal as a growth, expansion, efficiency or customer satisfaction target.
- Choose early desirability signals over slow trailing metrics while a concept is still being prototyped, and draft the metrics to use after launch.
- Translate a business goal into design implications, and add societal (ESG) metrics alongside business and customer ones.
- Apply SMARTE and push back on goals that could cause harm.
- Key terms: success metrics / KPIs (a quantifiable way to measure progress); trailing indicator (a metric that takes a long time to measure); desirability (whether customers want the product); ESG (environment, societal and governance); SMARTE (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound, Ethical).
Key facts
No data while defining a strategy
- Detail
- Data always reflects past performance
Who sets high-level business goals
- Detail
- Business leaders, not the strategy designer
Four business goal types
- Detail
- Growth, expansion, efficiency, customer satisfaction
Time to profit
- Detail
- New companies average 4–5 years; new offerings can take as long
Best early indicators
- Detail
- Realistic adoption targets and sentiment metrics
Trailing customer metrics
- Detail
- NPS, retention rate, lifetime value
Stakeholder pledge
- Detail
- Over 180 CEOs in 2019
The E in SMARTE
- Detail
- Ethical
Project Brief contents
- Detail
- Goals, outcomes and deliverables
KPIs as exam topic
- Detail
- Listed in the Value Design key topics
- Why are there no success metrics to collect while a strategy is being defined?
- Why do strategy designers approach solutioning from a desirability lens first?
- When the project goal is loyalty, what might its post-launch metric be?
- Which three ESG pillars group the page's example metrics?
The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.
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