When KPIs Lie: Translating Metrics Between Business and IT

Most organizations measure success with KPIs, yet business and IT often mean different things by the same metric. This episode unpacks why dashboards that look aligned can hide fatal misunderstandings: revenue vs recognized revenue, "uptime" vs user-perceived availability, velocity vs predictable delivery. I’ll show how language, unit mismatch, and aggregation choices bend decisions toward the wrong trade-offs, and why measurement gaps amplify at scale. Using a generalized consulting case, we examine a product team that chased "faster delivery" metrics and ended up increasing rework and customer churn. The goal is practical: give leaders and technologists a repeatable checklist to translate business intent into technical measures, expose false signals, and design metrics that reduce ambiguity. Expect clear rules for naming, ownership, sampling, and escalation—no vendor hype, just concrete steps to make your KPIs actually drive the outcomes you want.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-it-it-business--6867401/support.To continue the conversation, follow Mirko Peters on LinkedIn, where more insights and real-world examples are shared from both business and IT perspectives.