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Last, but as the saying goes, not least, I want to thank my family. Especially my wife, Kristine. This time around, you successfully feigned interest in my progress, if not in the work itself. I appreciate the effort and I love you dearly. Alyssa, thanks for your help with the fairy tales and allowing me to use your art work for the book. I look forward to seeing your name on more jacket covers. I love you.

And a final, special thank you to you, whoever you are, reading this book. You are special—you must be because no one reads the acknowledgements unless they think they'll find their name listed. So you must be one of the rare people who read books from cover to cover. That means you may also be the type of reader who will use the material within these pages. You may also be the type of person who will share your thoughts, likes, and dislikes. So, here's to hoping I hear from you and thanks in advance for any feedback you choose to share. I hope this book helps you navigate the sometimes dangerous waters of developing metrics.

______________________________

Note: While I have worked hard to provide you, the reader, with real examples (real situations, interactions, experiences, measures, and data), I had to temper that effort with protecting the privacy and data owned by others. To this end, I have, where necessary, blended and combined individuals into composites. I have also done the same with data. As you will read, I fully believe that data is “owned” by the provider(s) of that data, so I have protected the identities and data of those whose experiences I used for much of this book.

Metrics: The Basics

An Introduction

Of all the possible organizational-improvement tools, metrics stands out for me as the most requested, misunderstood, feared—and useful. Defining metrics from a high level requires that I give you the What, Why, When, Where, Who, and How.

What

Metrics can be defined in many ways. I spend the beginning of the book offering a common language for defining and using metrics. For me, metrics are a means of telling a complete story for the purpose of improving something. Usually, the idea is to improve an organization. Sometimes, though, you will want to focus on improving a process. In the end, anything you improve should be able to align back to improvements that help the organization.

Metrics are a tool for improvement. By their nature, metrics use different levels of information (data, measures, information, and other metrics) to tell a story. Although I always strive to make this story comprehensive, it’s nearly impossible to capture everything. In most cases, I try to capture enough of what’s important to help with the improvement.

Metrics affect the improvement effort by helping you determine what was wrong in the first place, how well your efforts have worked (did you improve and did you improve as much as you wanted?), and what the new environment looks like after the change. I say “change” because improvement requires change. It doesn’t have to be drastic. It could mean that you do something new, you stop doing something, or you do something differently. But, improvement doesn’t come about without some change.

Albert Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same things, the same way, and expecting a different result.”

The following are just a few of the things a metrics program can help you do:

Improve company “health” in a variety of areas Improve customer satisfaction

Improve product/service value

Improve employee satisfaction

Improve process efficiency

Improve strategy, planning, and execution

Provide a basis for change What to change

When to change

How to change

Lay a foundation for understanding your organization by providing insights into strengths

problems

weaknesses

opportunities

Metrics are about change for the purpose of improvement. At least that’s how I use them. I offer in the pages to follow a means for developing a metrics program for improving a large area of an organization.