Project Toolkitby Maxime Lab
Governance · tool 10 of 14

Governance · tool 10 of 14

Leading and Lagging Indicators

Leading and Lagging Indicators: helps you see trouble while you can still act on it.

Best for: Choosing what to measure · Time: 1 hour
Domain: Governance · Focus area: Monitoring and Controlling

How it works

Lagging indicators report what already happened, like money spent. Leading indicators hint at what’s coming, like the size of work in progress or the age of open risks. You need both, but only leading indicators give you time.

  • Pick few measures, each tied to a decision.
  • Beware of vanity metrics that look good and change nothing.
  • Measuring changes behaviour, so watch for gaming.

How to apply it

  1. List the decisions you’ll have to make.
  2. Pick one measure for each, at least half of them leading.
  3. Set a threshold that triggers action.
  4. Drop any measure nobody has used in a month.
In practice

Open defects older than ten days is a leading indicator of a late release. Defects found after launch is a lagging one.

Pro tip

Ask of each number: what would we do differently if it moved?

Use it

Quick check

Which is a leading indicator?

Sources

  • PMBOK® Guide, 8th edition, and The Standard for Project Management (PMI, 2025)

Last reviewed 2026-11-02 against the PMBOK® Guide, 8th edition · Practitioner review pending · How this guide is made