Product Management tools and cheat sheets — HEART Metrics Framework

3 min readNov 14, 2019

Here is another post in my series of Product Management cheat sheets. Today I am sharing a breakdown of the HEART Metrics Framework that is used for “reporting metrics.” This framework helps us to approach product performance tracking analysis in a thoughtful, methodical, and analytical way while defining key KPI’s to track and their related metrics. I find this handy to follow along as I am working on a problem to ensure every step is taken with intention and meaning.

I have included the Cheat Sheet as well as a text break down below. I like to think that other people would like to use this information as well or could learn from it, so I figured I should share it with you all. Feel free to add me on LinkedIn and show some endorsement ❤ if you like the information!

HEART Metrics Framework

By Matthew Knoot

Acronym is not in order, see numbers for order of operation.

Used for “Reporting Metrics” not “Exploratory Metrics.”

5. Happiness — how happy is your user? (can be measured at any time)

3. Engagement — how engaged is your user in the short term?

1. Adoption — how many interested users have actually tried your product?

4. Retention — how many users do you retain long term?

2. Task Success — how successful are you at allowing users to perform the most valuable task?

EXAMPLE for how to apply this method.

Goals — What do you want to happen?

Signals — What is the thing we need to measure? Raw data from surveys and database.

Metrics — A signal expressed over time. (the number result)

SAMPLE: Assume a company for “Artisanal Hot Dog Delivery ala Uber for X”

5. Happiness

Happiness Goal: Maximize user satisfaction with the product and delivery service.

Happiness Signal: 1. App store rating. 2. NPS Survey scores.

Happiness Metrics: 1. App store rating over time (week/month/year). 2. Percentage of users that gave perfect score?

3. Engagement

Engagement Goal: Maximize # of orders and total value of orders.

Engagement Signal: 1. # orders per customer. 2. Order value.

Engagement Metrics: 1. Average order value of all customers per day? 2. Average number of orders per user per day?

1. Adoption

Adoption Goal: Maximize the # of people who order at least 1 hot dog.

Adoption Signal: 1. Know the # of people who ordered at least 1 dog. 2. Know the total # of people that downloaded.

Adoption Metric: 1. % of people who downloaded app and completed a successful order.

4. Retention

Retention Goal: Maximize the % of users that return and place a repeat order on a monthly basis.

Retention Signal: 1. Who has ordered hot dogs? 2. When did they order the product?

Retention Metric: 1. Did customers from last month return this month?

2. Task Success

Task Success Goal: Minimize # of “abandoned carts.” Maximize the # of users that complete an order within 5 minutes.

Task Success Signal: 1. Number of people who added an item to cart but did not finalize order. 2. Amount of time spent completing an order.

Task Success Metric: Did the average metrics meet the company goal for task completion?

Here is a list of some popular Metrics tools you might want to try (no affiliation): Google Analytics, Crazy Egg, KISS Metrics, Mixpanel, Optimizely (also AB Testing), Segment, Adobe Analytics.

Check out my other articles!

AARRR Pirate Metrics

Product Management tools and cheat sheets — CIRCLES Problem Solving and RICE Prioritization

Join the discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/

“Thank you for reading and good luck building that next Rockstar Product!” -Matthew Knoot