
The role metrics play in managing anything
Where metrics typically come from, and why the source matters
What you need in place before a number can be analysed at all
Types of metrics and types of analysis
The stages of analysis, and how to get from a metric to a decision
Key funnel metrics from first contact to a working result
What an SLA is in a process metric and why it changes behaviour
Funnel analysis: where the drop-off actually happens
Using surveys to collect the data the system does not hold
Calculating cost per outcome and building the business case
Linking soft metrics to hard business performance
The tools for measuring each of the four
Preparing a metrics report and the action plan that follows it
Ready-made questionnaires and automated regular measurement
Why pulse surveys beat annual ones
Obtaining benchmark data from the market
Which cost metrics are worth analysing and which are noise
Assessing competitiveness against the benchmark
Evaluating whether an incentive scheme actually works
Preparing a budget and analysing it afterwards
Which metrics genuinely reflect performance
Evaluating training investment
Measuring development and progression over time
Metrics for high-potential groups and succession pools
How turnover is calculated, and the ways it gets calculated wrongly
Analysing it by segment rather than as one company-wide number
Forecasting it
Finding real causes with regression rather than with opinions
Exit interviews and retention surveys as data sources
The difference between the four types of performance indicator
What distinguishes a KPI that works from one that is merely measured
How indicators connect to strategy rather than sitting beside it
Past, present and future performance, and why most systems only track the past
The 10, 80, 10 rule and why critical success factors come first
Case studies of KPI systems that worked and that did not
The four stages of the process
How to run a two-day workshop on success factors
Impact mapping to find the factors with the greatest leverage, using an airline example
The three laws of productivity and why they explain resistance
The emotional factors that make people accept being measured
Preparing a short pitch for the change
A proposal aimed at executives, at managers and at staff, which are three different documents
Kotter's eight steps applied to a measurement rollout
The common measurement traps, most of which look sensible at the time
Deciding what actually needs measuring
Formulating the metric precisely enough that two people compute it identically
Eliminating metrics that cost more to collect than they return
Reformulating and categorising a set of existing indicators
Using success factors to derive the indicators rather than guessing them
Calculating the indicators, including the awkward ones
Working through indicators for several key success factors
Improving performance reporting using Stephen Few's principles
Graphic display best practice, and the chart types that mislead
Getting more out of the software you already have
The hierarchy of reports: what staff, managers and executives each need to see
The seven fundamental building blocks
Introducing agile methods to raise the chance of success
Stand-ups and Kanban applied to a measurement project
The concrete next steps for the first five weeks
"Link KPIs to pay and productivity rises" — what actually happens
"More indicators mean better performance"
"All performance indicators are KPIs"
"Monthly monitoring improves results"
Financial and non-financial indicators, and the reward system myth
Where surveys fit when the system does not hold the data you need
The most commonly run surveys
Automation tools
Market benchmarks and what they let you compare against
Satisfaction, loyalty and engagement surveys, which are three different things
Experience and value proposition surveys
Burnout and cross-department interaction surveys
Management performance surveys, pulse surveys and exit interviews
Types of question and when each is appropriate
Response options and the use of scales
How long a questionnaire can be before quality collapses
Open-ended questions, and the platforms available, including Google Forms
Setting the task the survey is meant to answer
Designing the instrument around that task
Promoting it so people actually respond
Reminders, and the point at which they start hurting
The report formats available and what each suits
Chart types and which distortions to avoid
Which sections a report needs
Preparing recommendations, and analysing open-ended answers as text
What conclusions the data supports and what it does not
Planning actions against them
Interim surveys to monitor whether anything moved
Exporting data from any source system
Cleaning it with AI: duplicates, blanks, formats, validation
Building a single dictionary of metric definitions
Producing a golden file that every later analysis runs on
Getting a descriptive portrait of the organisation from one prompt
Breaking the population down by unit, level and location
Building pivots and charts through AI inside the spreadsheet
Calculating top-line rates and funnel conversion
Moving from what happened to why it happened
Finding anomalies by manager, unit, level and tenure
Identifying gaps where you spend above or below the market
The question, sub-query, slice pattern for interrogating data
Building a risk score with interpretable rules
Forecasting the next quarter by unit
Calculating cost and capacity needs from the forecast
Explaining every prediction, which is what makes it usable
Combining four analytical outputs into one presentation
Moving between spreadsheet and slides without manual copying
Speaking to executives in the language of financial impact
Defending each conclusion to a sceptical audience
What analytics is, and the 4S model
Solving business problems by defining the question properly first
Which data is genuinely useful and which is collected out of habit
Selling the importance of analytics to management
The ABC model, and the old versus new way of working with data
Segmenting a population by its basic characteristics
Visualising the segments
Analysing metrics within each segment rather than across the whole
Grouping segments, and finding the insight that survives scrutiny
What lifetime value is and how to calculate it
Calculating return on investment for a workforce
Finding the most valuable segments
Making decisions from that number, and measuring the increase
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
Most companies measure far more than they decide. The monthly dashboard has forty numbers on it, and not one of them tells anyone what to do differently on Monday.
A KPI is not a number you report. It is a number that changes behaviour when it moves.
Why dashboards get ignored
Metrics get chosen because the system already produces them, not because anyone asked what drives the business. Nobody separated the four types of indicator, so everything on the board is called a KPI and nothing carries weight. The chart type was chosen by whatever the software suggested. And the same report goes to the analyst, the manager and the board, which means it is wrong for all three.
Then somebody ties a bonus to one of the numbers, and within a quarter the number improves while the underlying thing gets worse.
The system this course teaches
Thirty-five lessons. First fourteen on the measurement system itself: what separates the four indicator types, how to find the critical success factors with impact mapping and a structured workshop, how to sell a measurement rollout to executives and to staff, how to formulate a metric so two people compute it identically, and how to kill the metrics that cost more than they return.
Then visualisation, following Stephen Few — chart choice, display practice, and a report hierarchy where staff, managers and the board each get something built for them. Plus the measurement myths, including the one about linking KPIs to pay, which is the most expensive mistake in this field.
Data, AI and statistics
Then six lessons on surveys, because the numbers you need are often not in any system: design, scales, fieldwork, response rates, the report, and the action plan afterwards.
Then five lessons of applied practice with AI: cleaning a raw export into a dataset you can trust, building pivots and charts through AI inside the spreadsheet, diagnosing anomalies and cost gaps, building an interpretable risk score and a forecast with no black box, and turning all of it into one board-ready presentation.
And ten on analytics proper — segmentation, lifetime value, journey mapping, funnel analysis, attrition, key driver analysis, multiple regression with R-square and variance, trend forecasting, and experiment design with a control group.
A note on the examples. The material runs on workforce data: headcount, turnover, engagement, payroll. That is where I have run these systems. The apparatus is subject-independent — indicator types, success factors, chart selection, report hierarchy, regression, forecasting, experiment design work the same on revenue, support tickets or manufacturing defects. The KPI lessons are pure Parmenter methodology with no HR content at all.
Who is teaching this
Mike, the number one HR instructor on Udemy. More than 1.6 million course enrolments, over 150,000 professionals trained, PHRi and SHRM-CP certified, HRCI representative in more than 10 countries. I built the people function of the unicorn Preply and worked at Wargaming, Alfa-Bank and iDeals, reporting numbers to boards that had every reason to be sceptical of them.
What is included
Lifetime access to all course materials
Active instructor support in the Q&A section
Udemy Certificate of Completion
Practical assignments and real business cases
A section with additional courses, tools and resources
Try this first
Take your current dashboard and, for each number on it, write down what decision changes if that number moves five percent. The ones with a blank next to them are not KPIs. Most dashboards lose half their contents to this test. Enrol now and start the first lesson today.