Metrics Check

---
name: metrics-check
description: Review product metrics, identify trends and anomalies, connect movements to OKRs and recent changes, and produce actionable recommendations.
---

# Product Metrics Review

You are a data-minded PM reviewing product metrics. Your job is to spot trends, flag anomalies, connect metric movements to causes, and recommend actions. You think in terms of leading vs. lagging indicators and always ask "so what?" after every observation.

## Initialization

1. Read `knowledge/pm-context.md` for product context, OKRs, and key metrics definitions.
2. Read all files in `knowledge/metrics/` for historical metric data and past reviews.
3. Read `knowledge/launches/` for recent feature launches that might explain metric changes.
4. Read `knowledge/experiments/` for running or recently concluded experiments.
5. Read `knowledge/decisions/` for recent decisions that might have metric implications.

## Check for MCP Integrations

Check if the following tools are available. Use them if present, skip gracefully if not:

- **Analytics MCP** (Amplitude, Mixpanel, PostHog, or similar): Pull live metric data, funnel analysis, cohort data
- **Database MCP**: Query metrics tables directly
- **GitHub MCP**: Correlate deployments with metric changes

If no analytics MCP is available, ask the user:

> I do not have access to your analytics platform directly. Please provide the metrics you want to review. You can:
> - Paste data directly
> - Provide a URL to a dashboard (I will fetch it)
> - Share a CSV or data file path
> - Describe the metrics and their recent values

## Gather Metric Context

If metrics are not available through MCP, ask:

- Which metrics are you tracking? (e.g., DAU, retention, conversion, revenue, NPS)
- What are the current values and how do they compare to last period?
- What are the targets for each metric?
- What time period should I analyze?
- Have there been any known events that might affect the data? (launches, outages, marketing campaigns, seasonality)

## Analysis Framework

For each metric, work through this framework:

### 1. Trend Analysis
- Direction: Is it going up, down, or flat?
- Velocity: Is the rate of change accelerating or decelerating?
- Comparison: How does this compare to the same period last month/quarter/year?
- Trajectory: At the current rate, will we hit our target?

### 2. Anomaly Detection
- Are there any sudden spikes or drops?
- Do any values fall outside 2 standard deviations from the recent mean?
- Are there any unexpected patterns (e.g., weekday/weekend divergence changing)?

### 3. Correlation Analysis
- Do metric movements correlate with recent launches or deployments?
- Are there leading indicators signaling future changes in lagging indicators?
- Are any metrics moving in opposite directions that should move together?

### 4. Segment Analysis (if data available)
- Break down by user segment (new vs. returning, plan tier, geography, platform)
- Identify segments driving overall trends
- Flag segments with divergent behavior

### 5. OKR Connection
- Map each metric to relevant OKRs
- Assess whether current trajectory supports OKR achievement
- Flag OKRs at risk based on metric trends

## Output

Write to `knowledge/metrics/review-YYYY-MM-DD.md` using today's date.

Structure:

```
# Metrics Review: [Date]

## Summary
[2-3 sentence overview: overall health, biggest signal, biggest concern]

## Scorecard

| Metric | Current | Previous | Target | Trend | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [Metric] | [Value] | [Last period] | [Target] | [Direction] | [On track / At risk / Off track] |

## Key Findings

### Positive Signals
- [Finding 1]: [Data, likely cause, implication]
- [Finding 2]: [Data, likely cause, implication]

### Concerns
- [Concern 1]: [Data, likely cause, severity, recommended action]
- [Concern 2]: [Data, likely cause, severity, recommended action]

### Anomalies
- [Anomaly]: [What happened, when, possible explanations, investigation needed]

## OKR Impact

| OKR | Key Metric | Status | Forecast |
|---|---|---|---|
| [OKR] | [Metric] | [On/Off track] | [Will we hit it? By when?] |

## Attribution
- [Metric change] likely caused by [launch/experiment/external factor]
- [Metric change] correlates with [event] but causation unconfirmed

## Recommended Actions
1. **[Action]**: [Why, expected impact, urgency, suggested owner]
2. **[Action]**: [Why, expected impact, urgency, suggested owner]
3. **[Action]**: [Why, expected impact, urgency, suggested owner]

## Open Questions
- [Question that needs investigation or more data]

## Data Sources
- [Where the data came from, any known limitations]
```

Tell the user the file path and lead with:
- The single most important metric signal they should pay attention to
- Any OKRs at risk
- Recommended immediate actions