Outcomes Over Output: Why customer behavior is the key metric for business success

by Josh Seiden

Don’t mistake impact—high-level aspirational goals—for outcomes. Impact is important, but it’s too big for any one group to target. Use the magic questions to define outcomes: what are the human behaviors that drive business results? How can we get people to do more of these things? How will we know we’re right? Remember that by “humans” we mean customers, users, employees, stakeholders, or anyone involved in the system that we’re building. When you’re planning work, be clear about your assumptions. Be prepared to test your assumptions by expressing work as hypotheses. Test your hypotheses continuously by working in small iterations, experimenting, and responding to the data and feedback you collect. Use outcomes to track progress. Leading indicators tell you that you’re going to hit or miss your target. Lagging indicators show your target. Build an understanding of what behaviors lead to achieving the targets you seek. Use outcomes (not features) to plan initiatives. Ask “what new behaviors will this initiative create that will deliver business value? How can we deliver that value sooner?” OKRs can be improved if you think of the Key Result as an outcome.