Editing Performance indicator (section)

==Categorization of indicators==
Key performance indicators define a set of values to measure against. These raw sets of values, which can be fed to systems that aggregate the data, are called ''indicators''. There are two categories of measurements for KPIs. 
* ''[[Level of measurement|Quantitative]]'' facts presented with a specific objective numeric value measured against a standard. Usually they are not subject to distortion, personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations. 
* ''[[Qualitative property|Qualitative]]'' represents non-numeric conformance to a standard, or interpretation of personal feelings, tastes, opinions or experiences.

An 'indicator' can only measure what 'has' happened, in the past tense, so the only type of measurement is descriptive or lagging.  Any KPI that attempts to measure something in a future state as predictive, diagnostic or prescriptive is no longer an 'indicator', it is a 'prognosticator' – at this point, it is analytics (possibly based on a KPI) but leading KPIs are also used to indicate the amount of front end loading activities.