Metrics_ How to Improve Key Business Results - Martin Klubeck [33]
“Why? What will you do with the number?”
“I need to show our board of directors our worth.”
I asked, “Will they know your worth based on the number of people who come through your door?”
She thought for a moment, seeing my point. “No. Our worth is based on the number of women we help.”
I said, “There may be other ways to measure your worth, so before we go into actual measures, let’s look deeper at your question. Why do you want to prove your worth to your board?”
“They don’t think I’m doing a good job.”
“How do you know that they think that?” I asked. “Have they told you so?”
“No, of course not. But they are asking me for ways to measure my performance.”
“Is evaluating your performance part of their mandate?”
She said, “Well, yes. I guess so.”
“OK, then. Let’s assume that they are only asking for input from you so that they can carry out their responsibilities. Perhaps a good question to start with is ‘How well is the executive director performing her duties?’ ”
“Yes, that sounds OK.”
“So, what are your job responsibilities, exactly?”
From this starting point, I was able to determine what the position of executive director meant. We could have rolled it all up into a pretty purpose statement like, “To ensure the care center’s day-to-day operations are executed in a timely, efficient, and effective manner.” This would be plaque worthy, but not useful for defining the metric in answer to the question of how well the director was performing. No, I needed a breakdown of the tasks and responsibilities that made up the executive director’s position.
With a direct question like “what are your job responsibilities?” you can identify the proper measures to provide a meaningful answer. As with any requirements-gathering exercise, you have to get the real need, the root need.
When I’ve worked with clients who need to answer questions from above (in their organizational chain of command, not heaven), many times we don’t get to a “good” root question—we’re just not afforded the luxury due to the time involved or the ways in which we’re asked to produce data. Even in that case, I cannot overstress the importance of trying. Push the envelope as far as you feel comfortable. Ask for the “why.” You will do a much better job of designing the metric, collecting, and analyzing the data if you understand “why.”
Figure 3-2 shows the three major things to capture during the collection of data, measures and information.
Figure 3-2. The “How” and “Who”
How Information Will Be Used
Along with the root question and purpose, you should articulate clearly how the metric will be used. This part of the metric development plan provides a key tool in helping overcome the fear people have of providing data. It will also help with the fear, uncertainty, and doubt people have toward the way the data will be used. Again, if you have a well-formed, clear, and foundational root question and purpose statement, this should be easy. While it may be easy to define how the metric will be used, that doesn’t make the definition obvious. You need to ask the question directly: “How will you use the metric?” Your goal is to try and get the most direct answer. The more direct the question, the higher likelihood that you’ll get a direct answer.
Vague answer: “To improve our processes.”
Direct answer: “To measure how the changes we implemented affect the process.”
More specific answer: “To measure how the changes we implemented affect the process and allow for course corrections.”
If public speaking is one of the greatest fears, the use of personal data might be a close second. Not just any numbers and values—but data that can be used to hurt an individual or create negative public perception of our organization. We imagine the worst, it’s in our nature. So when we are asked to provide data, especially data that we believe reflects in any way upon ourselves or our departments, tremendous fear is created.
When we