Act on Lead Measures: How CIOs and Tower Leads can Drive Transformational Success

In large-scale digital transformations, success is often measured by traditional lag indicators—on-time delivery, defect rates, and budget adherence. However, by the time these metrics signal trouble, it’s often too late to take corrective action.

This blog explores the power of lead measures for transformation success – proactive, controllable actions that directly influence transformation outcomes. Drawing from real-world experience, here’s how CIOs and transformation leaders can shift their mindset, identify the right lead indicators, and drive transformational success with measurable impact.

Lead vs. Lag Measures

A lag measure tells you if you’ve achieved a goal, while a lead measure tells you if you are likely to achieve a goal. As a simple example, assume you own a fleet of rental cars. Although you cannot control whether your cars break down (lag measure/goal: no repairs over $1,000 over the next year), you can control whether you perform routine maintenance on each car, and how thoroughly cars are inspected upon return.

If only digital transformation lead indicators were this clear.

A Dev Manager’s Experience

When I worked as a Dev Lead on a $500M+ SAP Program, we started to see a significant rise in defects during the System Integration Testing (SIT) phase for a specific workstream. At first, we attributed it to the complexity of WRICEF objects and the relative inexperience of the team—common factors in large-scale ERP implementations. But I realized that neither of these factors were within my control, so I looked for a proactive step to reduce defects.

That’s when I discovered a game-changer: When the functional and technical teams collaborated in person at least once before the technical team received the functional design, the number of defects dropped 20-30%.

Why this Lead Measure was so Effective

• Any potential defects caught in design were exponentially cheaper than fixing them in SIT.
• The fixes didn’t require additional testing cycles, business revalidations, or increased deployment risks.
• Developers were better aligned upfront, reducing rework and misinterpretations.

This is the essence of lead measures—identifying controllable actions that directly impact your desired end goal.

Discovering Your Lead Measures

In large-scale digital transformation programs, CIOs and transformation leaders often default to lag measures—such as on-time delivery, defect rates, or budget adherence. While these do measure performance, they are reactive rather than proactive. Instead, discovering your lead measures requires:

Establishing your Top Priorities

Before defining lead measures, you need to clarify what success looks like for your transformation. Start by optimizing around high-risk areas with significant spend. Your priority might be:

• Maintaining/accelerating the go-live timeline
• Ensuring business readiness and adoption
• Delivering high-quality code with minimal defects

Each priority will drive different lead indicators.

Working Backward from Lag Measures

Once you’ve identified your priorities and lag measures, ask:

• What actions consistently contribute to success in this area?
• What behaviors are in my team’s control?

For example, if on-time delivery is a lag measure, completing unit tests before SIT could be a lead measure. If user adoption is a lag measure, early stakeholder involvement might be a lead measure. If reducing defects is a lag measure, early functional-technical alignment (as I discovered in my SAP program) is a strong lead measure.

Establishing Lead KPIs

Lead measures should be trackable and predictive. CIOs and Program Leaders should ask:

• Are these actions in our control?
• Do they directly influence the desired outcome?
• Can we measure and track them?

Monitoring and Adjusting Lead Measures

Lead measures are not static—they should be refined based on results.

• Are testing cycles delayed? Strengthen unit testing compliance.
• Is user adoption struggling? Add additional engagement checkpoints.
• Are defects still high? Increase functional-technical reviews or improve the structure of those meetings.

Timely adjustments are key—if a lead measure isn’t working, it might not be the right one. For example, if defects remain high despite increased reviews, perhaps more reviews aren’t the answer—maybe the root cause is inadequate developer training or unclear functional designs.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Shifting an organization from lag measures to lead measures can be challenging. Even when everyone is on board, efforts can still fail if you:

• Focus on something that doesn’t move the needle, wasting time on optimizing a small issue when bigger risks exist.
• Choose non-scientific or unmeasurable indicators. Your team getting along well might be an indicator, but it’s not measurable; reframe it into something quantifiable.
• Lack consistency. One meeting won’t change outcomes because lead measures need ongoing discipline and reinforcement.

The biggest momentum killer in shifting to lead indicators is inconsistency. If the conversation fades into the background, it will fall by the wayside.

Shifting the Mindset of Your Organization: It Starts with You

When transformation leaders focus on lead measures, they move from reactive firefighting to proactive execution, a fundamental shift in digital transformation success.

The challenge with digital transformations is that lag measures—such as on-time delivery, defect rates, or adoption metrics—are often the only metrics leadership review. But by the time a lag measure indicates failure, it’s too late to course correct.

The most effective CIOs, Program Leaders, and transformation teams focus on leading indicators they can influence today to ensure success tomorrow.

Looking to enhance your project execution strategy? UpperEdge’s Project Execution Advisory Services provide expert guidance to help you establish effective lead measures, mitigate risks, and drive digital transformation success.