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gettyTraditional IT dashboards capture critical operational indicators, from system uptime and network performance to incident response times. But as technology becomes more deeply embedded across the business, CIOs and CTOs need a wider view of how systems, tools and digital investments are affecting people, processes and outcomes.

Metrics outside the usual IT scorecard can reveal friction, risk, adoption gaps or business impact that technical indicators alone may miss. Below, members of Forbes Technology Council share the nontraditional metrics they believe technology leaders should watch more closely and explain why these numbers can offer a clearer picture of technology’s real value.

AI Override RateTrack the AI override rate, or the share of AI outputs employees ignore, rewrite or redo by hand. Usage dashboards measure adoption. Override rate measures trust. A model called 10,000 times a day but overridden on most of them is theater, not value. Put it on the board deck next to uptime and incidents. It is the only number that separates using AI from AI changing the work. – Ajay Pundhir, AskAjay.ai

Workflow Automation GrowthTrack how many of your workflows are automated and how many can be automated. For procurement, renewals and risk reviews are great examples: When a renewal is approaching, the right person should be automatically notified to review the contract, negotiate terms and assess risk. Note how the number of automated workflows increases over time to see if your organization is scaling effectively. – Stan Garber, Levelpath

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Workflow Interruption FrequencyOne of the most revealing metrics is workflow interruption frequency, or how often employees must switch tools, reenter data or manually bridge disconnected systems. It exposes operational friction that traditional uptime or performance dashboards miss. High interruption rates usually signal hidden productivity losses, poor integration strategies and growing process inefficiencies. – Paul Kovalenko, Langate Software

Employee Workaround RateEmployee workaround rate can show a lot—how often staff bypasses official tools with spreadsheets, personal apps or manual hacks. It’s telling because it reveals the gap between what IT provides and what work actually requires, exposing friction that uptime and ticket metrics hide. High workaround activity predicts shadow IT, security risk and stalled adoption, signaling where systems are failing the people who use them. – Farooque Munshi, Ernst and Young US LLP

Decision LatencyDecision latency is an underrated metric. In many organizations, systems appear healthy while teams quietly slow down because decisions take longer to make. That delay usually signals deeper issues around data trust, process friction or organizational complexity. When decision speed starts degrading, it often reveals problems long before traditional operational metrics do. – Unni Nambiar, Aeries Technology

Time To ProductionThe metric I watch is how long it takes a business team to go from idea to something actually running in production. Not a project plan; something live. If that number is measured in months, it’s telling you something the uptime dashboard never will. There’s either too much technical debt, too many approval layers, or the team is spending most of its time keeping the lights on, not building. – Ganesh Ariyur, Transform Smarter

Net Revenue Retention And ChurnNet revenue retention and churn rates are important metrics to watch. Clients buy outcomes, and it is the entire enterprise’s responsibility to ensure clients are happy enough to keep renewing. CIOs and CTOs should understand how they can help improve the delivery and quality of the product customers are buying. – Amy Brown, Authenticx

Critical Vulnerability Remediation RateTrack the share of critical vulnerabilities fixed within 30 days. If that’s not on the CIO and CTO scorecard, you’re confusing activity with outcomes. That single trend line tells you whether security debt is shrinking and your cyber spend is actually reducing business risk and driving systemwide progress. – Chris Wysopal, Veracode

System DriftIn the AI era, CIOs and CTOs should watch system drift more closely; AI, automation and operational systems become less reliable as data, behavior and/or business conditions change. Drift is telling because systems often fail gradually before anyone notices. Tracking it early helps leaders detect declining trust, performance and decision quality before it becomes a larger operational problem. – Meghana Makhija, Amazon

Employee AI Adoption RateToday, CIOs and CTOs need to pay closer attention to employee AI adoption rates. IT dashboards track deployments; this tracks transformation. When tools are deployed but unused, the operating model has not changed; only the spend has. Leaders who monitor adoption velocity catch stalled transformations before they become expensive write-offs. That is the line between AI investment ROI and AI theater. – Gaurav Singal, ConstructConnect

Coordination OverheadTime lost to coordination is an important metric to track. Most leaders track velocity and uptime but ignore the coordination tax, or the hidden cost of syncing people and processes that were never designed to move together. When 40% of your engineering capacity is spent in handoffs, meetings and status updates instead of building, your dashboard says you are on track while your delivery says otherwise. – Steve Taplin, Sonatafy Technology

Emotional FrictionEmotional friction is the metric tech leaders overlook. It tracks how often people feel frustrated, anxious, confused or defeated when using internal systems. Emotions reveal truth before dashboards. Rising friction predicts burnout, shadow IT, stalled adoption and resistance. Low friction signals tech that actually works. – Terry Oroszi, Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine

AI Checkpoint ComplianceTrack AI checkpoint compliance, not just uptime. Every AI action should carry a maker-checker audit trail showing what was generated, what it was based on, and who verified it. Nobody is building this yet. By the time the damage shows up, it is already too late. Demand this from your vendors now. – Vivek Thomas, AISensum

Employee Net Promoter ScoreTechnology leaders should review eNPS on a quarterly basis, and leaders should conduct follow-up inquiries to confirm that teams have appropriate collaboration tools and meaningful development opportunities to sustain innovation. In this context, eNPS serves as a practical measure of the organization’s capacity to execute its technology strategy over the long term. – Vaibhav Dani, Map Communications

Shadow AI Adoption RateTech leaders should track the shadow AI adoption rate within non-tech departments. When marketing or sales teams secretly build their own workflows using unapproved tools, it is rarely about rebellion and usually about a failure in the official tech stack. This metric is incredibly telling because it highlights exactly where your internal systems are too slow or frustrating for your people. – Arun Kumar Elengovan, Okta, Inc.

Employee Cognitive LoadEmployee cognitive load is becoming a critical metric in the AI era. With technology evolving at extreme speed, constant context switching, alerts and information overload reduce decision quality and execution focus. High cognitive load is an early indicator of burnout, slower innovation and operational instability that often surfaces before traditional IT metrics reveal problems. – Maksym Mashnytskyi, BMPS Technology

Breach Discovery SourceTrack how your breaches get discovered. Not how many, but who told you. Mature shops find their own intrusions through their own telemetry. The rest get a phone call from the FBI, a customer or a journalist. That ratio of self-detected versus externally notified compromise is the most honest grade on whether your security program is a real intelligence function or an alert pile nobody reads. It never lands on a CIO dashboard; it’s one an adversary already knows the answer to. – Dan Sorensen, Nexus Security Advisors

Employee Trust In TechnologyA powerful metric beyond the traditional IT dashboard is employee trust in technology adoption. If teams avoid, bypass or underuse tools, it often signals deeper issues with usability, communication or leadership alignment. In the space sector, mission success depends on confidence across systems and teams. Technology only creates value when people trust it enough to integrate it into operations. – Shelli Brunswick, SB Global LLC

Agent-Driven Usage RatioWatch the ratio of agent-driven usage to UI usage across your stack. How much of your team’s work happens through Claude Code, Codex or chat versus the browser? CTOs not watching this ratio will wake up to a productivity gap an order of magnitude wide. – Dima Yanovsky, Prox

Business Ownership Of Tech InitiativesCIOs and CTOs should take note of how many active technology initiatives have a named business owner outside of the IT department. When that number is low, technology is operating in a vacuum. Shared ownership is the clearest signal that technology strategy and business strategy are genuinely aligned. – Ashish Agarwal, OMNIA Partners