"Like good little Reporting Squirrels we collect and stack metrics as if preparing for an imminent ice age," opines Avinash Kaushik at Occam's Razor, before quickly noting that it isn't a good thing. "Rather than being a blessing that stack becomes a burden because we live in times of bright lovely spring and nothing succeeds like being agile and nimble about what we collect, what we give up, and what we deliberately choose to ignore."

So you can continue gathering data because it's data and it's there—or you can use Kaushik's simple test for sifting 24-karat metrics from fool's gold. The three-stage process begins when you take a metric you report and ask, with complete irreverence, "So what?"

For instance, you might notice an upward trend in repeat website visitors from month to month. Now ask: So what? Well, this means the site is getting sticky. Great, but: So what? We should take this action to leverage the trend. Excellent, but: So what? Um, uh...

"If at the third 'so what' you don't get a recommendation for an action you should take," advises Kaushik, "you have the wrong metric. Kill it."

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