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You’re in the quarterly strategy meeting. The stakes are high, and a critical decision must be made: which major initiative gets the funding? The debate is passionate, but it’s driven by compelling arguments and seniority, not data. You have dashboards, but they’re filled with vanity metrics. No one can definitively answer the most important question: “Which of these options will actually move the needle on our business goals?”
When the loudest voice in the room becomes your primary decision-making tool, you’re not strategizing; you’re gambling.
The Hidden Costs of an Opinion-Driven Culture
Operating without clear, consistent product metrics is like flying a plane without an instrument panel. The risks are immense and go far beyond inefficient meetings:
- Strategic Drift: Teams work hard on features that feel important but fail to deliver any measurable value, slowly pulling the product off course.
- Wasted Investment: Precious capital and talent are allocated to initiatives that don’t impact business outcomes, customer satisfaction, or user engagement.
- Inability to Learn: Without measuring the impact of your changes, you can’t know what works. Every launch is a shot in the dark, and you never improve your aim.
From Guesswork to Guidance: A Glimpse of the Solution
The antidote to this uncertainty is building a culture of data-driven decision-making. In SAFe®, this is guided by the Measuring Product Performance competency. This framework provides clarity by viewing your product through four essential lenses: Business Outcomes, User Engagement, Customer Satisfaction, and Technical Performance.
This holistic view is powered by combining two types of metrics:
- KPIs (Key Performance Indicators): These are your instruments, providing a continuous pulse-check on the operational health of your product.
- OKRs (Objectives and Key Results): This is your destination, aligning everyone toward ambitious, strategic goals.
Using both, you always know your current health and where you’re headed.
Your First Step
You can begin this shift with a single question. This week, pick one significant feature on your upcoming roadmap and ask the team:
“If this feature is wildly successful, which single, measurable metric will change, and in what direction?”
If there isn’t a clear answer, the feature’s purpose—and its value—is a mystery.
Unlock the Full Blueprint
Answering that one question brings immediate clarity. But creating a true data-driven engine requires a complete system. The Measuring Product Performance competency provides a full blueprint for defining meaningful metrics across all four lenses and integrating them into powerful OKRs and KPIs. Stop flying blind. Unlock the full framework, competencies, and guidance you need to make every product decision with confidence. Get access by purchasing your SAFe® Insider membership today.
Stop building in the dark.
Embrace the full power of the SAFe Framework, with the competencies and guidance that will empower you to become truly customer-centric and unlock your organization’s full potential. Get complete access by purchasing your
SAFe Insider membership today.
In this Series:
- Catch up on last week’s post: The Sound of Silence: When a Lack of Customer Feedback Derails Your Strategy
- Coming next week: Creating Responsive Roadmaps
1 According to the McKinsey Global Institute, as cited on the Data Ideology website, “Data-Driven Organizations Are 23 Times More Likely to Acquire Customers, Six Times as Likely to Retain Customers, and 19 Times as Likely to Be Profitable as a Result”. Retrieved on October 22, 2025, https://www.dataideology.com/data/data-driven-organizations-are-23-times-more-likely-to-acquire-customers-six-times-as-likely-to-retain-customers-and-19-times-as-likely-to-be-profitable-as-a-result/