Vital Signs is 📝John Zdanowski's name for the minimal set of metrics needed to forecast a business, also called 📝Level 1 Metrics, which form the top level of the 📝Instrumentation Pyramid.
The name borrows from medicine. Like a doctor taking blood pressure and temperature, the Vital Signs are the few readings that indicate the health of the whole business. Because they are chosen to forecast the business, they necessarily exclude many of the metrics used to run it; those are captured in Level 2 metrics lower on the pyramid. The aim is the least amount of information that forecasts the business most accurately.
📝The Process requires a team to focus on the Vital Signs: finding them is part of building the model, and the weekly loop that follows reads them first. They drive the forecast in an 📝Integrated Financial Model (IFM) and are reviewed every week in 📝Monday Morning Metrics (MMM).
The set differs by business model. 📝eCommerce Vital Signs are ad spend, web traffic, conversion rate, average order value, repeat purchase rate, product margin, and gross margin; a subscription business adds measures such as new, lost, and active customers and churn rate.