How to set metric targets and use inverted metrics

Every metric in Clarion is judged against its target. That judgement drives the colors on the scorecard, the On Target and Below Target counts at the top of the Metrics page, and the health bars leaders see for the teams below them. Getting the target, and its direction, right is what makes those signals trustworthy.

Set or change a target

1. Open Metrics under your team.
2. Click the metric’s row to expand it, then click Edit Metric. (For a new metric, use Add Metric.)
3. Enter the number in Target. Make sure the Unit matches how values are entered: a target of 15 with unit % means 15%.
4. Click Save Changes.

The target applies per period. A weekly metric with a target of 40 is aiming for 40 every week, not 40 in total.

How on-target is decided

For a normal metric, higher is better: a value is on target when it is at or above the target.

Colors on the scorecard follow from that:

• Green: at or better than target.
• Amber: missed, but within 5% of the target.
• Red: missed by more than 5%.

The Status column shows the latest value as a percentage of target, alongside an arrow for whether it went up or down since the previous entry. A metric with no target shows a dash instead of a percentage, because there’s nothing to measure it against.

Inverted metrics: when lower is better

Some numbers are good when they go down: churn rate, average response time, open bugs, cost per lead. Mark these as inverted so Clarion reads them the right way round.

1. Open the metric with Edit Metric (or create it with Add Metric).
2. Tick Inverted metric. The dialog explains it as “Lower is better. Values over target are bad.”
3. Save.

For an inverted metric:

• A value is on target when it is at or below the target.
• Amber means it is over target by no more than 5%; red means further over.
• In the history and trend views, a decrease is shown as good news and an increase as bad.

Note that the percentage in the Status column is still the value divided by the target. For an inverted metric, 80% means you’re comfortably under, and 120% means you’re 20% over.

Imported metrics

The scorecard import reads a Goal column such as >= 10 or <= 5 and uses the number as the target. It does not mark anything as inverted, so after importing, open each lower-is-better metric and tick Inverted metric yourself.

Choosing good targets

• Set the target at what “good” looks like for one period, not a stretch goal for the quarter. Quarterly ambitions belong in milestones.
• Review targets when a metric is green or red for many periods in a row. Either the target is wrong or something needs to change.
• When a number misses, click Flag as challenge in the expanded row to put it on the agenda. See Raise a challenge.

For which numbers deserve a target in the first place, read how to build a weekly scorecard.