Metrics_ How to Improve Key Business Results - Martin Klubeck [4]
Where
The metrics program should reside with the owner of the data. I spend 80 percent of my workday developing metrics for others. I coach my customers through the design, creation, implementation, and maintenance of the metrics. In many cases, I also produce and publish their metrics. But I happily tell anyone who asks that I don’t own any of them. I am just helping the owners produce them. They are not mine. My greatest successes are when I can transfer the maintenance and publishing of the metrics to someone on the team who owns the metric. I then transition to a consultant role, helping them use and improve the metrics. This transition takes time—normally because of either a lack of skill or resources. But having the owner of the metric take over the production, maintenance, and publishing of them is always the ultimate goal for me.
So the metrics need to eventually reside in the data owner’s domain. That can be on their office walls. It can be on their shared computer drive. It can be on their web site. That’s where it belongs. But metrics show up in other places like annual reports, monthly meetings, and public web sites.
The publication of metrics will be up to the owner. The decision of where it will be published should be a careful decision based on the use of the metrics and the need for others to have access to the information. The more mature the organization, the more comfortable it will be sharing the metrics. Many organizations are not mature enough to share metrics with their peers, their customers, and definitely not the public.
Who
I fulfill part of the who question on a daily basis. I am the producer of many of the metrics my organization uses. I am also the lead designer, collector, analyst, and publisher. But as stated in the Where section, I am always looking to transfer as much of this as possible to the metrics owner.
Who are the owners? As I will explain in detail within this book, the owners of the metrics are primarily those who are delivering the product, service, or carrying out the process. But ownership can be spread across the entire organization, depending on how you define the item being measured.
The key here isn’t so much who owns the metric but in who doesn’t. Don’t exclude the frontline worker. Don’t think the metric belongs to the CEO or upper management. If the metric is reported at those lofty heights, it doesn’t mean they should only reside there. Remember the purpose of metrics. Unless the CEO and top managers are the ones improving their processes (and they rarely directly deliver products or services), then you have to include as owners the people carrying out the work—the ones that will be responsible for making the improvements actual work. How much harm can be done if upper management finds out that a department was using metrics for improvement but hadn’t shared them upstream? Some. But now imagine how much trouble can arise if a department finds out that upper management had been reviewing metrics about their processes, services, or products and they didn’t even know. Will that significantly harm the organization? I’m willing to bet it will.
If upper management wants metrics on a department, unit, process, service, or product, all of those involved should be included in the distribution of those metrics. They should also be involved in the design, creation, and publication of them.
The simple answer to “who?” is this: everyone in the organization, with the frontline workers being the primary “who.”
How
Well, that’s what the book is for. I offer you a comprehensive set of guidelines for developing a metrics program or specific metrics for improvement. I call them guidelines because “rules” would mean that I’m offering the only right way. As with most things, there’s more than one right way to develop metrics. The language, processes, and tools I offer are a result of more than twenty years