Metrics_ How to Improve Key Business Results - Martin Klubeck [38]
Without a strong foundation, the quality of the analysis is irrelevant.
While the analysis is secondary to the foundation, it is important to capture your analysis. The analysis techniques (formulas and processes) are the second-most volatile part of the metric (the first is the graphical representation). When the metric is reported and used, I expect it to be changed. If I’ve laid a strong foundation through my design, the final product will still need to be tweaked.
Consider it part of the negotiations with management. If you’ve worked with the leadership to determine the root questions—and you managed not to wear out your welcome—when you deliver your metric, you are fulfilling your part of the bargain. You are going to give the leader what she wants—useful answers to help inform her decisions. Although the question is hers, she may have the need to tweak the answer. It is rare that a manager accepts a metric as is. They almost always feel the need to modify the final picture. Whether this is because of their bigger-picture view of the organization or simply the need to feel that they contributed, I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. You should be open to recommendations for changing the graphical representation.
If the graphical presentation changes, you may very well have to also tweak the analysis that fed the metric. If the leader wants to see the percentage of customers who were satisfied instead of the average customer satisfaction rating, you will have to change your analysis.
The raw data (the number of respondents, ratings from each, the date of the response, and what each rating means) is still good, but the way you are presenting the analysis and the analysis itself needs to change.
It helps to have the analysis documented in the development plan—again to help you think it through, but also for replication. Of all the parts of the plan, this component needs to be documented to allow repeatability. You have to ensure that you analyze the data the same way each time and that any changes are captured since this directly affects the final metric displayed.
A Picture for the Rest of Us
You’ve drawn a picture of your metric. This picture was an abstract representation of the answer to the root question. Another major component of a well thought-out metric is another picture—one your customers can easily decipher. This picture is normally a chart, graph, or table. Plan to include one in your metric development plan.
Figure 3-5. Visual Depiction
It can easily be more than one picture. If you need a dashboard made up of twelve charts, graphs, and tables—then so be it. If you’ve done a good job with the root question and abstract version of your metric, determining how you’ll graphically represent the metric should be an easy step. The really good news is that you can’t go wrong with this component. If you pick a stacked bar chart, and later realize it should have been trend lines—you can change it. No harm done.
Not only can you change the way you represent your metric if you find a different structure would tell your story better, but you may need to have multiple representations anyway. This will depend on who the customer is, how each customer will use the metric, and how you will share it. For each group, the manner in which you present the metric may vary.
This component should be fun. Let your creativity shine through. Find ways to explain visually so that you need less prose. A picture can truly tell a story of a thousand words. No matter how good it is, you’ll want to add prose to ensure the viewer gets it right, but we want that prose to be as brief as possible. We want the picture to tell the story, clearly. Don’t over-complicate the picture.
You may, in fact, have more data than necessary to tell your story. You may find yourself reluctant to leave out information, but sometimes less really is more. Especially