I work in videogames and my favourite is TTP. How long does it take a player to create genitalia in a game? I'll leave you to intuit what the P stands for. I think the record was something like under 5 mins in Spore.
Great post, Andrew! We have to add TTBB - "Time To Buzzword Bingo." Definition = Time required in a Board meeting to complete your Buzzword Bingo card. Also see the sister-metric BPM - Buzzwords Per Minute, which is especially relevant in pitch meetings.
Single word-score buzzword examples include: "Platform Play" "Hockey Stick" and any sentence with the word "Hacking." Double word-score examples include "AGI-ready Architecture" "Neural-Symbolic AI" and anyone who casually throws "RAG" into a conversation.
I love this one! How could you leave off “$ per Meeting Hour” as in tallying up how much money the company spent on salary. This can be rolled up weekly, monthly etc. It’s an entire dashboard actually
- commit per done (cpd): a number of github commits you need to make a project done.
- edit after submission (eas): a number of edits you need to do after publishing the initial version of an essay to make you satisfied, and leave it.
- time to head down (tthd): when you're teaching something in front of a group of people. i think that the time it takes for them to put their heads down (become bored) is a very important indicator; the more, the better the class.
- time to answer (tta): the time it takes for a colleague to respond to your message, i think that's a very important indicator of their obsession and commitment.
i'm just thinking about these, and trying to avoid to jump to the judgement of each. i'll come back and make a decision about each one's weight on my head.
Enjoyed the read, will be fun to come with more of these ratios. Small typo in the numbers to text ratio point, start ups with 50mn drained will show up with decks that are all *text*
Thanks Andrew! Really enjoyed this — MPDR, TFE and NTR being too relatable. I've had some ideas for design team metrics floating in my head, and your post was a timely nudge to write them down properly.
More on the tactical level, but "Comment Quality Ratio" can reveal a lot, i.e. are we down the rabbit hole fixing poor execution or actually weighing trade-offs and outcomes?
On the lines of PPPL, would like to add "SPD" i.e. Stakeholders Per Decision. It is the number of stakeholders to be onboarded before a decision passed. It is similar to MPD ("Meetings per Decision") but not ditto. In few orgs, even small decisions need "consensus" from stakeholders, sometimes who have varying objectives, viewpoints and should I say diverging personalities too. The hardest part of these decisions is even to get all these stakeholders in a common meeting. Hence more and more meetings get layered up, increasing MPD. In fact, "multi stakeholder management" skills becomes like the first line in JD of many jobs at large orgs esp for product folks :-).
Great read! Thanks for these often neglected ratios. I especially like the cost per hour of pleasure and meetings per decision one, showing a lot about how to optimize for personal decisions and about how efficient an organization is.
What i look for is a politician index, how much someone wants to agree with you. Some people will flip sides mid-conversation trying to mirror you, if humans behaved this way we will not have science or any progress
Great post. I have another 2 for your vision. One that is complementary to Meetings per decision ratio is people per decision ratio, you can even make a matrix with meetings and people to make a decision.
The second one is spreadsheets per person in the business.
I work in videogames and my favourite is TTP. How long does it take a player to create genitalia in a game? I'll leave you to intuit what the P stands for. I think the record was something like under 5 mins in Spore.
“Anyone who says they don’t read fiction has never read a five-year-old business plan.”
— Malcolm Forbes
Where did you take that quote? It’s iconic
Great post, Andrew! We have to add TTBB - "Time To Buzzword Bingo." Definition = Time required in a Board meeting to complete your Buzzword Bingo card. Also see the sister-metric BPM - Buzzwords Per Minute, which is especially relevant in pitch meetings.
Single word-score buzzword examples include: "Platform Play" "Hockey Stick" and any sentence with the word "Hacking." Double word-score examples include "AGI-ready Architecture" "Neural-Symbolic AI" and anyone who casually throws "RAG" into a conversation.
I love this one! How could you leave off “$ per Meeting Hour” as in tallying up how much money the company spent on salary. This can be rolled up weekly, monthly etc. It’s an entire dashboard actually
Nice one. I know I should probably improve my complaints per hour. Maybe I ask my girlfriend to monitor them!?
Cost per hour of pleasure could be a good one to keep in mind when deciding what to spend on in terms of leisure. 🤔
In order to keep your % of conversation on autopilot low, maybe hold some interesting ice breaker questions ready on your phone?
I feel like I need to find some riskier activities! Time to up my micromorts before it’s too late. Thanks for the existential dread Andrew
ChatGPT:
- Ultralight flying is the clear #1 risk factor based on what you’ve said. A crash rate of 1–2 per 1,000 flight hours is typical.
- Road cycling and motorbikes are way riskier than most people think, especially if you ride on winding rural roads or in traffic.
- LATAM business travel, especially to places like Venezuela, adds geopolitical and medical risks (infrastructure, safety, air travel).
great essay, andrew! thank you!
i'm thinking about some other metrics right now:
- commit per done (cpd): a number of github commits you need to make a project done.
- edit after submission (eas): a number of edits you need to do after publishing the initial version of an essay to make you satisfied, and leave it.
- time to head down (tthd): when you're teaching something in front of a group of people. i think that the time it takes for them to put their heads down (become bored) is a very important indicator; the more, the better the class.
- time to answer (tta): the time it takes for a colleague to respond to your message, i think that's a very important indicator of their obsession and commitment.
i'm just thinking about these, and trying to avoid to jump to the judgement of each. i'll come back and make a decision about each one's weight on my head.
Enjoyed the read, will be fun to come with more of these ratios. Small typo in the numbers to text ratio point, start ups with 50mn drained will show up with decks that are all *text*
Love these. Adding a few to the dinner menu:
-Goodhart Quotient (GQ): % of metrics that got worse after becoming targets.
-Decision Half-Life (DHL): Time until a “final” decision is revisited.
-Slides per Outcome (SPO): Decks shipped ÷ value shipped.
-Context-Switch Tax (CST): Throughput lost per extra project/person.
-Bus-Factor APR: Interest rate on knowledge concentrated in one human (compounds during PTO).
-Reorg Frequency (Hz): Org charts per year.
-Truth-to-Title Ratio (TTR): Seniority words per unit of impact.
-Pager Micromorts (pµm): SRE risk per on-call week.
-Excuse Velocity (EV): Distance a blame travels per stand-up.
-Compliance Drag Coefficient (CDC): Extra lift needed to push a change past governance.
Thanks Andrew! Really enjoyed this — MPDR, TFE and NTR being too relatable. I've had some ideas for design team metrics floating in my head, and your post was a timely nudge to write them down properly.
More on the tactical level, but "Comment Quality Ratio" can reveal a lot, i.e. are we down the rabbit hole fixing poor execution or actually weighing trade-offs and outcomes?
Appreciate the inspiration, s/o to you — https://leeyungtyng.substack.com/p/designs-per-click-comment-quality
There's a nifty book which talks about measuring (accurately if not precisely) intangibles https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/444653.How_to_Measure_Anything
Circles per concept is one I track. How many times have we circled back to a specific concept without going for it
On the lines of PPPL, would like to add "SPD" i.e. Stakeholders Per Decision. It is the number of stakeholders to be onboarded before a decision passed. It is similar to MPD ("Meetings per Decision") but not ditto. In few orgs, even small decisions need "consensus" from stakeholders, sometimes who have varying objectives, viewpoints and should I say diverging personalities too. The hardest part of these decisions is even to get all these stakeholders in a common meeting. Hence more and more meetings get layered up, increasing MPD. In fact, "multi stakeholder management" skills becomes like the first line in JD of many jobs at large orgs esp for product folks :-).
Great read! Thanks for these often neglected ratios. I especially like the cost per hour of pleasure and meetings per decision one, showing a lot about how to optimize for personal decisions and about how efficient an organization is.
this was fun, surprisingly thought stimulating.
What i look for is a politician index, how much someone wants to agree with you. Some people will flip sides mid-conversation trying to mirror you, if humans behaved this way we will not have science or any progress
Great post. I have another 2 for your vision. One that is complementary to Meetings per decision ratio is people per decision ratio, you can even make a matrix with meetings and people to make a decision.
The second one is spreadsheets per person in the business.