Article · 15 min read

Input Metrics: A Guide to Defining and Measuring the Drivers of Growth

Colin Bryar and Bill Carr · Working Backwards (workingbackwards.com) Free Intermediate

This is the cleanest articulation of the exact move we are recommending: stop staring at the lagging revenue line and instead track the controllable inputs that drive it. From the authors of Working Backwards, it gives you a concrete method (metrics mapping, drilling from your goal down to the drivers you actually control) to build a small set of weekly input targets, conversations, ships, experiments, that you can move on your own this week.

• Output metrics like revenue are lagging and cannot be manipulated directly, so they make a demoralizing weekly scoreboard.
• Controllable input metrics are the levers your actions move now, and hitting them is what eventually moves the outputs.
• Use metrics mapping to drill from the goal you want down to the handful of inputs you can actually control, then track those weekly.