Minimum operational metrics for a service company, without complex dashboards.

“What isn't measured doesn't improve” has been used so much it lost its meaning: many service companies end up with boards full of indicators nobody looks at, or with none because “that's for big companies”. Both are the same mistake.

What's useful is a minimum set: few numbers, easy to obtain, reviewed every week in ten minutes, that change decisions.

The six minimum metrics

• New requests and time to first reply. How many came in and how long the team took to answer. It's the thermometer of the entrance.
• Open and overdue items. How many there are and how many passed their date. It rises before the client complains.
• Capacity used. How much of the team's time is committed this month. It says whether more work can be accepted or not.
• On-time deliveries. Of what was promised, how much was delivered on date.
• Overdue collections. Amount and number of invoices past due.
• Dependence. How many decisions or tasks this week went through a single person. It's the most uncomfortable and the most useful.

Where they come from without building a dashboard

From the same sources as always: the pending list, the collections sheet, the calendar, the message inbox. If they're minimally organized, AI can gather them into a weekly summary — the same principle as the daily brief, but with numbers. A spreadsheet updated every Friday is a perfectly respectable starting point.

How they're used

• A ten-minute weekly review. Look at the six numbers, note what changed and make a decision, however small.
• Trend before value. It doesn't matter if there are 12 open items; it matters if last week there were 8.
• Every number has an owner. Someone responsible for explaining it when it moves.

What not to measure yet

Anything that requires a new tool to obtain, anything nobody knows how to move, and anything looked at “to know” without deciding anything. An indicator that doesn't change decisions is decoration.

Six numbers looked at every week are worth more than thirty looked at once something already went wrong.

The first step

This Friday, write the six numbers by hand even if they're approximate. Whatever is hard to get tells you which part of the operation is disorganized — and that's already a decision made.