Metric Systems
Metric Tree & KPI System Design
Define the metrics that actually move your business and connect them into a coherent tree — from north star down to the inputs teams can act on.
Data & product analytics advisory
The analytical backbone for better operating decisions.
Decision Spine helps founders and scaling teams turn messy data, scattered metrics, and unclear reporting into decision systems leadership can actually use.
What we do
Advisory for teams that need clarity, not more dashboards.
Start with a single focused engagement or bring us in as your fractional data leadership. Every engagement is scoped to leave you with something durable.
- Product Analytics
Product Analytics Clarity Sprint
A focused engagement to instrument what matters, retire vanity metrics, and give product teams a clean read on activation, retention, and impact.
- Reporting
Executive BI & Reporting Revamp
Replace scattered dashboards with one trusted reporting layer your leadership team reads the same way, every week.
- Data Platform
Data Platform Audit
A candid review of your stack, models, and pipelines — what to keep, what to retire, and where the next investment pays off.
- Leadership
Fractional Head of Data
Senior data leadership part-time: strategy, hiring, and hands-on delivery until a full-time leader makes sense.
- Not sure which fits?Start a conversation
Start with the smallest useful step.
Tell us where decisions feel fuzzy and we'll point you to the engagement that helps first.
Why Decision Spine
Built for teams where decisions depend on trusted data.
Most teams don't have a data problem so much as a decision problem. These are the standards we hold the work to.
Precision
Exact and rigorous. Definitions, metrics, and models are built to be right — not merely plausible.
Quality & Craft
Clean models, clear reporting, and systems that are a genuine pleasure to operate.
Confidence
Trust built through clarity and reliability, so leadership can act without second-guessing the numbers.
Customer Obsession
We start from your decisions and your customers, then design the analytics backward from there.
Impact Orientation
Data connected to decisions and real outcomes — measured by the calls it improves, not charts shipped.
How we work
From fuzzy to operational, in five deliberate moves.
No sprawling roadmaps — a clear path from murky reporting to decisions your team can stand behind.
- 01
Diagnose
Map how decisions get made today, which metrics leadership trusts, and where the data quietly breaks down.
- 02
Structure
Shape the metric tree, definitions, and ownership the business actually needs — nothing decorative.
- 03
Build
Implement trusted models, reporting, and analytics your teams can read the same way every week.
- 04
Operationalize
Wire metrics into review cadences so they drive real, accountable operating decisions.
- 05
Improve
Refine the system as the business learns, priorities shift, and new questions emerge.
Who you'll work with
Fifteen years turning messy data into decisions leadership can trust.
I'm Dmitry Ustimov — I've worked every layer between raw data and the decisions it drives, as Head of Data at fintechs like Zeal Group and Coins.ph, most recently leading data engineering at Neko Health, and now building HabiBubble. Decision Spine brings that to founders and scaling teams: one focused engagement, or as your fractional head of data.
Writing
Notes on decision systems.
Practical thinking on metrics, reporting, and data platforms — drawn from advisory work with founders and scaling teams.
- Metric Systems
How to Build a Metric Tree Leadership Actually Uses
A metric tree is not a list of KPIs. It is a model of how your business creates outcomes — and a map for where to look when a number moves.
Read - Data Platform
What I Look For in a Data Platform Audit
A practical checklist for diagnosing whether a data platform is helping or slowing down business decisions.
Read
Get started
Build the decision spine behind your data.
If your dashboards, metrics, or data platform are not helping leadership make better decisions, let's diagnose where clarity is missing.