How product managers can use metrics for good storytelling

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It’s easy to set top-line metrics and forget why they’re on your dashboard. It’s also easy to tell an inspiring story and lose steam soon after.

Many companies have identified the importance of defining metrics, and many others share the importance of having a strong narrative. When it comes to product managers, storytelling is also an increasingly critical skill .

But what makes a good metric and what makes a good story? We’ve found that good metrics tell a story, and good stories are guided by metrics.

Marrying stories and metrics

A metric can be expressed as a formula that identifies levers —telling the story of how you will arrive at your ultimate goal.

A rough example of a storyline

Your story can start as far back with user acquisition and end with revenue. There are a number of ways the formula can be constructed to best highlight what your levers or benchmarks are on the way to your top-line goal.

If minimizing funnel dropout is not a main part of your narrative, you could easily condense the storyline to leave out Funnel Completions over Funnel Starts, and simply look at Funnel Completions over Active Users.

If formulas are not for you, the Goal-Signals-Metrics process can help clearly lay out how your metrics come from user-oriented goals and behaviors.

In some cases, the formula approach may not be the most natural expression of your story. For design sprints at GoGoVan, we use the HEART framework along with the Goals-Signal-Metrics process so everyone knows how we translate values for users into metrics for progress.

While we’ve mostly used the process in combination with HEART, it can be applied to any metric-defining framework you choose. The key idea is that the Goals and the Signals help surface the people and the stories behind the numbers.

Great stories paint the journey, not just a happily ever after.

If you struggle with the story structure, consider taking a page out of your favorite book. The methods that work well in novels have been found to be just as effective in pitches and presentations. When it comes to product storytelling, some structures that work well are the linear, reverse, and epic types of narratives.

Evangelize

So, how will you know when you’ve crafted an effective narrative and succeeded in evangelizing it?