Driver Trees — How and Why to use them to Improve your Business

Foster alignment, broaden understanding and find focus

I was introduced to the Driver Tree concept a few years ago at HelloFresh. It was introduced by our leadership to support our growth and focus the teams on how they could contribute to the success of the business. It worked. After its adoption, there was a noticeable elevation in the effectiveness of teams across the business.

Driver Trees (also known as KPI Trees) are a simple effective tool that can be used in almost any organisation. In this article, I want to explore the concept in more detail, explain how they can help your organisation and give you some tips on using them.

What is a Driver Tree?

A Driver Tree is a map of how different metrics and levers in an organisation fit together. On the far left, you have an overarching metric you want to drive. This is the ultimate goal you want all the teams to be working towards.

As you move to the right, you become more granular in terms of how you want to achieve that goal. Each branch gives you an indicator of the component parts that make up the “what” above them.

Let’s apply this to a more tangible example of “being healthy”. Let’s assume I want to…