The Importance of Being Earnest with Your KPIs

It’s World Cup time once again, and a prime opportunity to revisit the importance of having the right KPIs to measure your performance (football team, website, marketing campaign, or whichever).  Take a look at these facts and apparent KPIs, taken from a recent World Cup soccer match, and notice how it’s possible to completely avoid what your data is actually telling you. 

*  One goalkeeper made nine saves during the match, which is three more than any other goalkeeper in the World Cup so far.

* One team had 26 shots in the game – without scoring – which is the most so far in this World Cup, and equals Portugal in their game against England in 2006.  The other team had just 13 shots in the game, and only four on target.

*  One team had just 33% possession:  they had the ball for only 30 minutes out of the 90-minute game

* One team had eight corners; the other managed just one.

A graph may help convey some additional data, and give you a clue as to the game (and the result).

If you look closely, you’ll note that the team in green had four shots on target, while other team only managed three saves.

Hence the most important result in the game – the number of goals scored – gets buried (if you’re not careful) and you have to carry out additional analysis to identify that Mexico won 1-0, scoring in the first half and then holding onto their lead with only 33% possession.