Beyond the Dashboard | Principle 8: Manage Multi-Product Portfolios Separately
Blended portfolio metrics become Franken-metrics: pretty roll-ups that mask product realities. Treat each product as its own system with distinct health and leading signals. Synthesize across products instead of averaging. AI clarifies only when signals stay separate. Or it polishes the camouflage.
TL;DR (for the impatient but curious)
- In many enterprise SaaS portfolios, blended metrics across multiple products create what I call Franken-metrics: stitched together, hard to interpret, and rarely actionable.
- Managing a suite of products with a single metric set is like trying to steer a fleet of ships using one compass.
- AI can make the problem worse by creating beautifully wrong roll-ups, or better if you feed it the right distinctions.
- Treat each product as its own system: with separate health metrics, adoption curves, and decision logic.
- Portfolio-level clarity comes from synthesis, not aggregation.