Its focus, therefore, has to be on effectiveness, a proper balance between these two objectives. Business Process Metrics Business process metrics are either operational or structural. Operational metrics measure how the process is performing through time. They tend to be meaningful only if measurements are made and recorded periodically for comparison. This is because the performance of a process will vary through time in reflection of changing demands on the process, and changes in the individual people and tools used in the process.
Operational metrics deal directly with dynamic properties of business processes.
Structural metrics deal with more static, slowly changing, properties. These properties, however, can strongly influence the performance of a process. They provide indirect information about it, which can be used to predict how it is likely to perform. Traditional structural metrics include, for example, the ratio of indirect to direct personnel and the number of management levels. These particular metrics are also efficiency metrics, because they deal with how well the resources of the process are utilized.