How can you establish and track product success criteria and key performance indicators?

1 What are product success criteria and KPIs?

Product success criteria are the specific, measurable, and achievable outcomes that you want your product to deliver for your users and your business. They define what success looks like for your product and how you will know if you have reached it. Examples of product success criteria are increasing user retention, reducing churn, growing revenue, or improving customer satisfaction.

KPIs are the metrics that you use to track and quantify your progress towards your product success criteria. They are the indicators that show how well your product is performing and where you need to improve. Examples of KPIs are monthly active users, conversion rate, net promoter score, or average revenue per user.

2 How to establish product success criteria and KPIs?

To establish product success criteria and KPIs, you need to start with your product vision and strategy. Your product vision is the overarching goal that you want to achieve with your product. Your product strategy is the plan that outlines how you will achieve your product vision. Your product success criteria and KPIs should align with your product vision and strategy and support them.

To define your product success criteria, you need to identify the key problems that you want to solve for your users and the value that you want to deliver for your business. You can use tools like problem statements, value propositions, or OKRs (objectives and key results) to articulate your product success criteria in a clear and concise way. You should also prioritize your product success criteria based on their importance and urgency.

To define your KPIs, you need to select the metrics that best measure your product success criteria. You can use frameworks like SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) or HEART (happiness, engagement, adoption, retention, and task success) to choose your KPIs and set targets and benchmarks for them. You should also limit the number of KPIs that you track to avoid confusion and distraction.

3 How to track product success criteria and KPIs?

To track product success criteria and KPIs, you need to collect and analyze data from various sources, such as user feedback, user behavior, product usage, or business performance. You can use tools like analytics platforms, dashboards, or reports to gather and visualize your data and monitor your KPIs. You should also establish a regular cadence for tracking and reviewing your product success criteria and KPIs, such as weekly, monthly, or quarterly.

To make the most of your data, you need to interpret and communicate your findings and insights to your stakeholders, such as your team, your users, or your management. You can use tools like stories, charts, or presentations to share your results and learnings and explain how they relate to your product success criteria and KPIs. You should also use your data to inform your product decisions and improvements and validate your assumptions and hypotheses.