They can them measure how they are doing along those metricsĪ similar line of thinking will apply even to the startup CEO's goals of tripling revenue. The aspiring author could take a target of writing 2 posts a month, take a 2 day course on business writing or persuasion, understand the “audience” and what makes them share content, etc. Notice that none of them have anything to do with getting “100K users”. Now, with these inputs, the desired actions start looking different. Getting featured by various platforms which have large distribution.Getting users to “share” their articles.Just for the purpose of illustration, here are a few “inputs” : Lets apply this, say, for an blogger’s goal of becoming a widely read author with a following of a 100,000 readers. Output metrics is also highly reflective in other literature I strongly recommend reading the Goals vs. If for whatever reason, one finds that the inputs are not working to deliver the output, you can go back to the 'input selection' process to understand what is going wrong. Inputs depend on you, your team and sheer execution. Outputs depend a lot on inputs, environment, luck, competitive landscape, etc. Inputs are controllable AND actionable outputs are not! One needs to narrow down on the inputs that make sense and discard the ones that don’t. If you are charting brand new territory, you may even need to run a “feedback loop” on a bunch of experimental inputs. If you don’t have the inputs down, you may need to talk to people who understand your personal or business goal perhaps they have accomplished it earlier or seen others who have. In the case of Amazon, ironically, they figured out from the physical world retail over the past century, that customers love low prices, great selection and convenience. Setting input goals helps you understand the levers that drive your output. Focusing your “ karma” on the right inputs will automatically deliver the right output. What the Bhagavad Gita says about life is also true about our yearly goals. To put money where their mouth is, everyone in the company, is apparently rewarded on delivering on the “input metrics” and not the “output”. The idea is that if those input goals are sorted and delivered, the output - aka revenue, profitability, growth, etc. They identified the now famous e-Commerce virtuous loop around value, choice and customer selection that drives customer behaviour.

Input outguess output