KPI Examples by Department

Every KPI on this page comes with a paired measure — the second number that stops the first one being gamed. That pairing is the whole point. A single number is an incentive; two numbers that constrain each other are a target.

Start with the function you're setting KPIs for. If you want the method rather than the examples, how to set team KPIs covers the four tests every candidate should pass.

Sales

Leading indicators worth tracking: discovery calls held, multithreaded accounts (more than one contact engaged), proposals sent.

→ Full sales team KPI examples

Engineering and development

Avoid: lines of code, commits, individual velocity. All three actively reward the wrong behaviour.

→ Full engineering team KPI examples

Design

→ Full design team KPI examples

Marketing

The classic failure: measuring MQLs without measuring what fraction become real opportunities. Marketing hits target, sales complains about lead quality, and both are correct.

Customer support

Finance

People and HR

Operations

Three rules that apply to every function

Three to five per team, not eleven. More than five and the team is silently choosing which to care about without telling you which.

Every KPI needs a named owner and a visible source. If checking it requires an analyst, it will be checked monthly at best.

Every KPI should ladder to a company priority. If you can't draw the line upward, the KPI is measuring maintenance rather than progress — worth knowing, and different from progress. See how the levels connect.

Before you copy any of these

These are starting points, not answers. A KPI copied from a list measures a generic version of your function; the useful ones are argued into existence by the team that will be measured on them.

And if setting department KPIs surfaces that the company priorities above them aren't agreed, that is the more urgent problem. It is what our free planning workshop is built to fix — you leave with the company layer and the department layer that hangs off it.