Metrics overload: When too much data becomes a problem

Data matters. And it should be part of every segment of your organization — to get insights into the quality of the product you deliver, its usage patterns, or the effectiveness of your HR processes.

While many organizations struggle with a lack of data, others face the opposite challenge — an overabundance of data. And when teams are overwhelmed with data, they can’t make decisions because they’re stuck in analysis paralysis.

So, how can you recognize and address this challenge, and how can you integrate effective data-informed processes into your organization? Let’s find the answers in this article.

How does metrics overload happen?

Metrics overload occurs when an organization collects and tracks excessive data without a clear focus or strategy. This results in an overwhelming amount of information that hinders decision-making because important insights are buried in a sea of irrelevant metrics. Ultimately, teams face analysis paralysis and fail to implement improvements the data suggests.

Metrics overload is common for organizations transitioning to higher data maturity while operating immaturely. Initially, immaturely operating data organizations entirely lack data collection and analysis, relying instead on intuition or anecdotal evidence.

For example, a small business might depend solely on the owner’s experience and word-of-mouth feedback for decision-making. Over time, as data awareness grows, the business integrates data tools across various departments. But problems arise when this integration occurs without a clear strategy. They become over-enthusiastic about tracking every possible data point, leading to metrics overload.

Examples of metrics overload

I have observed this in many situations and with various teams. Teams collect excessive metrics without clear prioritization and without connecting the metrics to a higher strategic goal. This lack of focus leads to data overload, making it challenging to extract meaningful insights or take effective action.

Here are a few examples.

A first example is a platform team tasked to implement observability to monitor system performance. Excited by the potential, the team incorporates a plethora of metrics — CPU usage, memory usage, server response times, latency, memory page faults, etc.

However, without a clear strategy, the sheer volume of data becomes unmanageable, critical insights are lost in the noise, and the team struggles to identify the metrics that truly matter. Consequently, the company faces high costs from unnecessary data storage and processing, and the team is unable to justify the expenses or make informed decisions.

For the second example, let’s think of a product development team integrating a quality check tool to improve software quality. This tool floods them with hundreds of metrics and violation reports for each piece of code — size of the methods used, complexity of the code, metrics about the test coverage, and metrics counting different types of security vulnerabilities in the code, among others.

Of course, these are all great insights, but without a clear goal and a strategy to prioritize, the team becomes overwhelmed and ends up ignoring the metrics entirely. Yes, they may superficially check the box and claim they’re using an advanced quality check tool.

In reality, however, no improvements were made — they continue releasing software with unresolved issues while bearing the costs of an underutilized tool.

The next example is a team required to meticulously log work hours and track how employees spend their time on a project to measure productivity. So, employees must fill out exhaustive forms with data. However, many employees fill in the data hastily, often inaccurately, and merely to comply with mandates.

As a result, the collected data yields skewed insights, leading to misguided decisions and unhappy employees, negating the intended purpose of improving productivity.

Symptoms of metrics overload

Metrics overload may manifest in various ways. If you notice these signs, it might be time to rethink your data strategy and simplify things:

• Ignored dashboards — Are there dashboards in your organization that no one looks at? Metrics overload might be the reason. When dashboards are crammed with data yet fail to provide clear insights or highlight key areas, it’s inevitable for them to go unnoticed
• No action, no change — Has your team not been making new decisions? Or has your business been operating with stagnant or declining metrics? These are red flags. Metrics should drive change. And analyzing metrics is meant to spotlight the path to improvement, not simply languish in cyberspace and collect digital cobwebs
• Wrong focus — Is your team making changes based on data, but those changes aren’t bringing success? This indicates an immature metrics strategy. Even if it’s not metrics overload, it’s a sign your data efforts need realignment
• Resource drain — Are your team members spending a lot of time discussing data collection and the challenges they encounter with it? This is a sign that your metrics are not effectively integrated. If too much effort goes into gathering and analyzing data, it’s time to streamline

Strategies to combat metrics overload

How can you avoid falling into the metrics overload trap?

I strongly advocate the idea of lean thinking when it comes to collecting metrics. The primary drive for collecting metrics is not to have more data but to improve the status quo and reach higher objectives that are aligned with the company’s top priorities.

Emphasizing simplicity and focus when collecting metrics not only keeps teams motivated, aligned, and driven toward change, but also leads to more effective decision-making and improved business outcomes.

Let’s review some practical strategies to combat metrics overload.

Keep it simple

If you’re just starting out, keep it clean and simple. Begin with a few high-level, important, and fundamental metrics. As you gain insights, become adept at using these metrics and gain momentum, you’ll naturally refine this view with more detailed ones.

The same holds for dashboards — keep them clean and simple, too.

While it can be understandably tempting to create rich dashboards with various charts, especially if the tool you use makes it easy, it’s essential to make a wise strategic decision here. Refrain from presenting a dashboard with 15 charts to stakeholders every week; this approach can be overwhelming and may lose value without a clear narrative.

Instead, agree on a few key insights that provide a comprehensive view of the team’s performance and focus discussions around them. It’s crucial to focus on what is most important and consider the rest as supplementary information.

Align the metrics strategically

You don’t want your organization just to collect data; you want to drive change with it. So, before implementing metrics to make decisions for any team or across the broader organization, start from a higher strategic perspective. Consider questions like:

• What is the objective of the team for which you are implementing the metrics?
• What insights do you seek by implementing these metrics?
• What actionable decisions should these metrics drive?

The objectives and the metrics you implement must align with the company strategy. So, use the key pain points the company wants to tackle in the upcoming quarter to guide your teams when implementing metrics.

Define KPIs to track the health of your team performance and OKRs where you want to make a difference. And then use these objectives to derive the metrics.

Moreover, some organizations use a single metric as their guiding North Star, based on the idea of the One Metric That Matters. For instance, a company like Netflix could adopt the number of videos watched per day as its North Star metric.

Basically, what your team measures and analyzes should align with your organization’s North Star. Of course, not all your KPIs will directly align with this metric (think of tech debt for a development team). But, there should be a clear rationale for how improving these areas will contribute to the broader organizational purpose.

Also, ensure that the metrics you analyze can be used to derive actionable and meaningful changes. Every metric should serve a purpose and help your organization reach its strategic goals.

Make it motivating for the team

Metrics are just numbers if people don’t connect them with the company values, their own goals, and their daily work. That’s why selecting metrics that matter to everyone is paramount.

Engage with your team, educate them, and ensure everyone is on the same page. When people understand and value the metrics, metrics become more than just numbers — they become a driving force for improvement.

Moreover, the team should be driven by passion to implement metrics correctly. Stakeholders, too, should trust the data to make informed decisions.

When everyone is aligned, reviewing the dashboard can ignite meaningful discussions. This alignment makes it easier to discuss key actions, such as increasing investment in an initiative that shows positive results or improving a process indicated by a declining metric. Ultimately, you create a data-driven culture where informed decisions drive success and continuous improvement.

Balancing metrics and intuition

Metrics are undoubtedly essential, but they are just one piece of a bigger puzzle. And to gain complete and pertinent insights, you need a blend of data points — qualitative and quantitative.

And, of course, data should complement, and not supplant, human intuition and experiences. We can’t draw conclusions about employee performance or make significant decisions based solely on collected data. So engage with those directly involved, whether it’s your team, customers, or users. Understand why you collect the data, what actions you need to take from the insights gained, or what decisions you want to make. Also, encourage teams to use metrics as a guiding tool and not as the sole determinant when making an important decision.

In the long term, by balancing metrics and human insights, you achieve a more nuanced and effective approach to decision-making.

Remember, in the world of metrics, less can often be more. Focus on what truly matters, and let clarity and simplicity steer your data strategy to greater success.