What Happens After You Choose the Right KPIs
The Hard Part Isn’t Choosing the KPI—It’s Making It Matter
There’s a moment in every data governance program when the room goes quiet.
It usually happens after the policies have been written, the council has been formed, and the kickoff decks have been shown. Someone asks, “So… how will we know if any of this is actually working?”
That moment matters. Because governance isn’t measured in workshops or charters—it’s measured in behavior. And the only way to track behavior is with metrics that are trusted, visible, and difficult to ignore.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are supposed to do that. But in practice, most don’t. They’re defined vaguely. Reported inconsistently. Or worse, ignored completely because no one believes the number or understands its purpose.
This post isn’t about what KPIs to choose. It’s about what happens next.
It’s a guide for making governance KPIs actually matter—structurally, operationally, and psychologically. It’s about designing metrics that people act on, not just look at. Metrics that provoke decisions, not defensiveness. Metrics that tell you the truth about what’s happening beneath the surface of your program—whether you're ready for it or not.
We’ll start by engineering how KPIs are measured (so they’re trusted), how they’re reported (so they’re seen), and how they’re consumed (so they’re internalized).
Because without that architecture, even the right metric won’t move the needle.
Part I: Measurement — Engineering Trust
Before KPIs shape behavior, they have to be credible. That starts with how they’re measured. Not every system is clean. Not every field is populated. Measurement, done poorly, becomes manipulation.
In reinsurance, this problem is sharper. The data isn't yours. It’s filtered through cedents, brokers, spreadsheets, legacy systems, and time. Data accuracy is not a given—it’s a contested space. So when you define a KPI like "Timeliness Index," it needs to measure the time between contractual due date and actual receipt—not simply the timestamp on a file in SharePoint. You need to track when it should have arrived and whether someone intervened.
Standardization: No wiggle room
Each KPI must be defined in a way that a junior analyst and a regulator can both understand without debate. Not “percentage of accurate records”—but “percentage of loss reserve values for treaties > $10M where input matches defined schema and reconciles to ledger.”
Write KPIs like you’re documenting a nuclear protocol. Because at some firms, you are.
Automation: Manual is not scalable
Manual KPI tracking invites bias and delay. Instead, automate your metrics directly into your ingestion pipelines. Use Python, SQL, or your platform’s data quality tool (e.g., Informatica, Collibra, Microsoft Purview) to calculate scores at load time. Every pipeline should tag its own output with quality metadata.
One reinsurer I worked with had over 800,000 records flowing monthly from cedents. Initially, timeliness was logged by operations staff. Half the entries were off by a day or two. A script was deployed to match timestamps against contractual SLAs—overnight, accuracy jumped 9%, and missed deadlines fell by half. Not because the cedents changed, but because the measurement stopped lying.
Ownership: One name, not a committee
Every KPI needs an owner. Not a team. Not a department. A person. When ownership is collective, accountability dissolves.
We had a KPI for glossary term contributions. It flatlined for three quarters—until we assigned it to a single data steward lead. Two weeks later, glossary contributions jumped 40%. When someone owns a number, they protect it.
Part II: Reporting — Visibility Without Theater
Measurement is sterile until you report it. Reporting is where the numbers grow skin.
Too often, KPI dashboards are bloated PowerPoint slides updated by hand, shown once a quarter, and never referenced again. They are theater. They are performance without consequence.
The goal isn’t to present the KPIs. The goal is to make them undeniable.
Consistency: Same source, same rules
All KPI reporting must stem from a single, version-controlled source—ideally a centralized reporting platform like Power BI, Tableau, or Looker, connected to your governed data layer.
Dashboards should refresh on a schedule (daily or weekly), not on demand. And every metric should carry its logic inline—hover over a figure, and the business rule appears. Transparency builds trust.
Dashboards: Show friction, not vanity
Don't build a dashboard that flatters. Build one that interrogates.
Your “Data Accuracy Score” should not just show the current value. It should show:
Change over time
Worst-performing domains
Contributors to degradation
Links to root-cause tickets
Design it for operations. Not optics.
Actionability: Link KPIs to decisions
Every red KPI should have a downstream action. A delay in bordereaux delivery should trigger escalation workflows. A drop in glossary contributions should send nudges to assigned stewards. KPIs without triggers are just background noise.
At one firm, we implemented this by linking low accuracy KPIs to SLA scorecards for cedents. It changed the tone of every meeting from “please fix this” to “your contract value depends on fixing this.”
Part III: Consumption — Culture by Design
This is where governance becomes psychological. You can measure and report all day, but if no one believes the KPIs, no one changes.
Humans resist abstraction. We respond to stories, comparison, and status.
If your dashboard feels like a surveillance camera, people will game it. If it feels like a scoreboard, people will compete on it.
Integration: Don’t make KPIs a side dish
Embed KPIs in daily rituals:
Include top 5 metrics in daily huddles
Start governance council meetings with trend deltas
Require KPI updates in all retrospective sessions
When KPIs are part of the rhythm, they become part of the culture.
Feedback loops: Don’t assume, ask
Survey users. Regularly. Ask:
Do you understand what this KPI means?
Do you trust how it’s calculated?
Does it help you do your job better?
Then publish the answers. Respond to skepticism with transparency, not defensiveness.
Gamification: Light competition works
When we introduced a glossary contribution leaderboard at a European reinsurer, it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. But over three months, term contributions rose 60%, and data usage queries dropped 20%.
Why? Because teams started caring about visibility—and winning.
Celebrate the leaders. Spotlight the steady performers. Create a climate where progress is public.
A KPI in Full: Dissecting One Metric
Let’s take a real example and pull it apart.
KPI: Bordereaux Timeliness Index – % of monthly files received within 7 days of contractual due date.
Measurement: Triggered by file drop, timestamp recorded in metadata repository. Matched against contractual due date using treaty reference.
Reporting: Power BI dashboard, refreshed daily. Displays treaty ID, cedent, delay days, and aggregate monthly trend.
Consumption:
Governance: Included in monthly steering pack.
Operations: Late files trigger alert and log ticket in ServiceNow.
Psychology: Quarterly recognition for “Most Reliable Cedents” sent to Relationship Managers.
This KPI didn't just highlight who was late. It improved behavior.
What You’ll Start to See
You’ll know KPIs are working when the conversations change.
When stewards ask about lineage coverage instead of definitions. When business leads start benchmarking timeliness across cedents. When your CFO quotes your dashboard during a board meeting.
You’ll know they’re working when fewer data issues are escalated. When your audit prep time shrinks. When the glossary stops being a document and starts being a habit.
KPIs, done right, don’t just reflect culture. They shape it.
Evidence Over Process
It’s easy to mistake governance for paperwork. Policies, frameworks, controls. But governance is not what you write. It’s what you can prove.
And proof lives in your KPIs.
They are the pulse of your program. They reveal what’s ignored, what’s adopted, and what’s stuck in limbo. But only if you build them with rigor, report them with clarity, and embed them in the decisions people actually make.
In reinsurance, where truth is reconstructed from fragments, KPIs are not a nice-to-have. They are your only defense against drift, delay, and doubt.
They are your proof of life.