I’ve heard about lagging indicators and leading indicators.
But I don’t really understand, what’s the difference?
Indicators are measurements that help guide activity and evaluate performance.
The first is the leading indicator.
It’s information or a measurement about an element or behavior that will happen in the future.
For example, the number of sales meetings, the number of deployments, or the number of updates. These are insights you have before things actually happen.
The second is the lagging indicator.
Here, you measure something that has already happened, like last month’s revenue, the number of active users, or the number of bugs found in production.
A good way to work is to understand both and combine them, leading indicators help you anticipate the future, while lagging indicators help you learn from the work you’ve already done.
And you, do you have examples of relevant indicators you use in your team?