Beginning to Track Your Network

Let’s start by reviewing the network orchestration business model diagram. The key elements of network orchestration are the network, the company, and the platform where they interact. You should carefully measure and track each of these components. This information lets you judge the health and progress of your endeavor and lets you design experiments that will help you adapt and grow.

For the network and platform metrics, the network leader and her team should create a proposal, based on what team members think will be most important to gauging success in the network initiative, and share it with the organization’s executive team members, who will have final approval. Because of their closeness to the project, network team members will also create the structure, whether organizational or technical, to gather the data to report on these metrics. For example, to track the number of network participants and the number of interactions, you will need a reporting dashboard within the platform itself.

For the internal team metrics, the supervising executive team will need to determine which metrics are most important for judging the success of the network team, and it usually makes sense for the network leader to gather the data and regularly report upward.

With the responsibilities laid out, let’s discuss what most network organizations need to report on.

Tracking the Network

We start with the network, because your new business model revolves around a network focus. There are numerous items that can be measured, but a few themes are mandatory, such as size, growth, activity, and sentiment. How exactly you measure each of these dimensions depends on the specifics of your network business, but here we offer a few suggestions:

• Size of the network. Usually this is the number of human beings active in your network, but it could be households or families; for transacting networks, it could also be the number of products or services for sale. For example, Airbnb also tracks the number of properties available, and eBay tracks the number of listings.
• Level of network activity. You can measure network activity by tracking the number of transactions, interactions, postings, or communications generated by the participants.
• Value created by the network. For transactional networks, this is often measured by the amount of money or value of the goods exchanged. For networks where the value is esteem- or relationship-based, the value might be the number of new connections, the number of positive reviews, or the number of likes.
• Network sentiment. A happy network is loyal, productive, and likely to advocate. To track sentiment, you can watch service requests or other complaints, and you can regularly reach out to the network members for direct feedback. You can also track what is said about your network on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
• Network loyalty. You can gauge loyalty by monitoring the number of repeat transactors or participants, and, for networks that require an active subscription, by watching the attrition rate.
• Network growth rate. This measures how quickly the number of participants is growing. You should also look for trend lines in all the other key metrics.

For each dimension, write down the specific metrics that you believe will help you assess the health of your network. There may also be key metrics unique to your endeavor, so consider whether additional metrics will be important, and add them to your list.

Frequency and timeliness are also important. Recall that one of the key differentiators of big data is the speed of gathering and the relevance of the data. For each metric on your list, note the cadence at which the metric should be tracked—hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly—and the lag time that would be acceptable. For example, do you need real-time data, or is it acceptable to review a week’s data one week later? Be realistic about these answers. Most leadership teams can track and respond to only the most essential numbers on an everyday, real-time basis.

Finally, create a goal for each metric that you hope to achieve within the first six months of your network’s operation.

Tracking the Platform

The platform is what enables the network to do its thing—serve itself and interact with your company—and it needs to be in top shape. Several items are always important for understanding platform health. How exactly you measure each of these dimensions depends on the specifics of your network business.

• Ease of use. To assess usability, you can track requests for help and support as well as incomplete transactions, and also poll the network directly.
• Uptime versus downtime. This is easy to track, but important. If your platform is down, it will frustrate the members and halt value creation.
• Number of interactions. To track platform interactions, look at the number of log-ons and transactions that take place on the platform on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
• Number of active users. This is simply the number of network participants who have active profiles on your platform at any time. You will need to define what “active” means to you; it could be anything from “created a profile last year” to “used the platform within the past week.”

For each dimension, note the specific metrics that will help your organization judge the health of your platform, and add any other metrics that we have missed that are specific to your business.

Just as you did for network metrics, determine the cadence at which the metric should be tracked—hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly—and the acceptable time lag. Then create a goal for each metric that you hope to achieve within the first six months of operation.

Tracking the Team

In truth, if your network and platform metrics look good, you probably don’t need to worry too much about your team. They are doing their jobs. However, we have found that it’s important to specifically think about the health of your internal team, particularly because often it is working in a very different culture and using a different mental model from the rest of the organization.

Here are a few items that are useful, but again you need to tailor the specific metrics to your organization, business, and team.

• Team morale. Network initiative teams can become isolated from the broader company and also may face frustrating expectations and growth hurdles. It’s important to keep your team members happy and focused so that they can be productive.
• On-time and on-budget projects. Because this is a new area for your organization, sometimes budget and time predictions can be significantly off. Be sure to track this closely so that expectations can be realigned when necessary.
• Direct interactions with the network. Creating intimacy with the network will require the active participation of the team. Team members have no chance of understanding and serving the network if they’re always focused on implementing new features or running experiments. Make sure that each team member spends time in the network and interacting with participants each week.

Some of these goals and metrics are harder to track than others, because they don’t happen online or on your platform. Think carefully about how you will track the health of your internal team as they work to grow your network business. You may need to attend team meetings every week or have regular one-on-ones with team members. Determine the cadence at which you will assess the health of your team, and create goals for each of the metrics.

Experimenting and Adapting

Once you’re able to measure and track the status of your network, platform, and internal team, you can take specific steps to improve the key measures. After all, the purpose of measurement isn’t only knowing but also planning strategic actions based on that knowledge.

Ongoing experimentation must be part of the internal team’s mandate in order to home in on the best ways to interact with and serve the network. And the team must have the autonomy to design, implement, and act on these experiments. Amazon and Google, for example, are known for their ongoing experimentation with new formats, incentives, algorithms, pricing, and more as ways to maximize value creation for themselves and the network. Your team will do the same thing but on a smaller scale, at least to start. Having a dashboard with all the key metrics in place will set the stage for clear and productive experimentation.

Brainstorm with your team on experiments that will help you determine how best to grow and evolve your network business. The experimental possibilities are endless, but be sure to consider factors such as marketing communications (both frequency and content), pricing models, referral bonuses, and the designs of your website and apps.