Business Context

TaskFlow is a B2B SaaS company that sells workflow automation software to mid-market customers. The CEO says the product and growth teams look "extremely busy"—shipping more features, running more campaigns, and closing more tickets—but quarterly business results are mixed.

Metric Scenario

In Q1, the team shipped 28 product releases vs. 17 in Q4, marketing launched 14 campaigns vs. 9, and support resolved 11,200 tickets vs. 8,900. However, trial-to-paid conversion only moved from 4.8% to 5.0%, 90-day logo retention fell from 88% to 84%, weekly active teams stayed flat at 31,000, and net revenue retention declined from 109% to 103%. Leadership wants a metric framework that distinguishes activity from effectiveness and helps identify whether the team is creating customer value.

You are asked to define the right KPI set and explain how you would diagnose whether the organization is productive in ways that matter to the business.

Requirements

1. Define a primary effectiveness metric for the team and explain why it is better than output metrics like releases shipped or tickets closed.
2. Propose 4-6 supporting KPIs, clearly separating leading indicators from lagging indicators.
3. Show how you would decompose the primary metric to diagnose weak performance.
4. Identify which Q1 signals suggest the team is busy but not effective.
5. Recommend 3 concrete actions leadership should take based on the metrics.

Data Available

• product_events: feature exposure, activation events, workflow runs, seat usage, timestamps
• accounts: account_id, plan, ARR, signup date, industry, company size
• billing: trial start, conversion date, expansion, contraction, churn events
• support_tickets: ticket type, resolution time, CSAT, linked feature area
• release_log: release date, feature area, experiment flag, owning team
• marketing_funnel: campaign source, lead, trial signup, activation, paid conversion