Application performance monitoring (APM) allows you to track key metrics and events in your software, giving insights into page load speed, performance bottlenecks, service outages, and errors. A modern APM solution enables proactive issue resolution by minimizing the analysis loop, lowering security risks, and benefiting both end users and your bottom line. To implement an effective APM practice, start small with a single service to minimize risk, then gradually expand coverage as needed. Instrumentation is key, using guided installations or custom instrumentation to collect telemetry data. Set up dashboards to monitor application performance, customize metrics, and create alerts for critical thresholds. Foster collaboration between teams by setting up shared access roles and implementing best practices such as standardizing naming conventions, tagging data, combining APM with CI/CD, documenting workflows, and reducing context switching between tools. By following these steps, you can optimize your APM practice to drive wide adoption, improve system health, and reduce mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to resolution (MTTR).