4 Project 3: Metrics matter

Whether we like it or not, business activity is defined by metrics. There is so much going on in a business that simplifying summary-level metrics is the only way to get close to keeping track of what is happening. Rather than getting detailed verbal summaries from all your salesmen, you look at figures like turnover, profit, or margin. If you want to know if your business is growing, tracking customer numbers over time tells you most of what you need to know. It seems like we are trading complexity for simplicity and more definitive answers; what could go wrong? If you’ve attempted the project in the previous chapter, you’ll know that even counting customers is not trivial!

4.1 How your defined metrics affect your outcomes

4.1.1 Metrics in the wild

4.2 Project brief: Finding the “best” performing products

4.2.1 Problem statement

4.2.2 Data dictionary

4.2.3 Desired outcomes

4.2.4 Required tools

4.3 Step-by-step breakdown: Different metric definitions

4.3.1 Questions to consider

4.4 Example solution

4.4.1 Part 1: Combining and exploring product data

4.4.2 Part 2: Summarizing data to product level and calculating metrics

4.4.3 Part 3: Finding the “best” products using our defined metrics

4.5 Further reading on metrics

4.6 Summary