The idea of leading and lagging indicators has caused high expectations in terms of predictions and a deeper understanding of the systemic consistency of all performance measures. However, it turned out to be more complex than expected. Some of the complexity can be explained and taken into account through a more advanced statistical approach and more understanding of the systemic interdependencies of the available information.
Living systems are typically featured by different steps that are connected to one another. A sales funnel is a perfect example of a process with steps that are timely dependent. Identification of the time needed between a stimulus (leading indicator) and its effect (lagging indicator) gives better insight into the patience that one should have before starting to panic…
Correlations are not necessarily causal relationships. In many cases the cause and the effect might change direction at different moments. In predator-prey relationships like owls and their prey, both populations regulate one another, depending on the time of the fluctuations of the numbers. Let’s try and get some better predictive models…
Time lag quantification…
Benchmarking…
Causality…