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Member You - You Didn't Use Brainstorming to Select Your Measures, Did You?
All over the world today there is an extremely high demand for health care workers and especially nurses. With the advances in medical technology Americans seem to be living longer than ever before. Now that America's baby boom generation is beginning to retire, even more health-care professionals are needed. A job as a nurse today and in the foreseeable future is a job in great demand.Nursing jobs are available in just about every city in our country. The job description of today's nurse includes performing diagnostic tests, providing emotional support and medical advice to patients and their family members, treating and educating patients on various medical conditions, as well as helping patients and their families to understand how to manage their illnesses.Teaching patients and their families how to perform home care is yet another responsibility of nurses today. Some nurses are also required to provide grief counseling to family members who have the critically injured relative. Nurses also provide vital services to communities such as local blood drives, health screenings, immunizations, health seminars, health screenings, along with other health related community needs.Many nurses today choose to specialize in one field. There are countless fields of study nurses have choose from. To list a few of these fields, nurses may choose from pulmonary medicine, family or eldercare, mental health nursing, operating room nursing, emergency-room nursing, hospital nursing, geriatrics, pediatrics, oncology, and the list goes on and on. Many nursing students will elect to study two or more specialized fields.welded to me and for more and more qualified nurses continues to rise nursing schools find themselves struggling to keep up. There seems to be the greatest demand for nurses in countries with aging populations. There are job opportunities for nurses in every country of or
What data do we have? What have we measured in the past? What are we already measuring? All questions that are symptomatic of an organisation that is not open to challenging whether the data they are collecting really is capable of telling them what they need to know about where they are going. Measure what you have always measured, get what you have always gotten. What’s strategic about that?
pros:
- Very easy, very quick.
- Known data sources mean low cost in data collection/capture – already have systems to support it.
- People more likely share a common understanding of measures already.
- Consistency in information over time, to have valid comparisons over time.
- Have historic data available for trend analysis.
cons:
- We only bring yesterday’s (or yester-year’s) strategy to life.
- Rarely challenge the measure itself, so no better measures are explored (and therefore no better data will ever be collected to manage emerging strategic risks and opportunities).
- Not collaborative, because it is from previous thinkers, not today’s doers.
- Bigger picture is not taken into account.
- Parts of our strategy that are new will go un-measured.
Measure design needs to produce measures that are cost-effective and have some historic data before too long, but must produce measures that wi
Many good operational managers are paralyzed by the apparent complexity of strategic change. This paralysis, coupled with the everyday pressures of keeping the business running, means that organizations have skipped this crucial activity in favor of thrusting leadership and rigorous management. However, the problem with this approach is that organizations are pursuing incremental efficiency gains in preference to the more radical and profitable step change offered by effective strategic implementation.So, how do the best operational managers make the transition between the two roles of manager and leader? The answer is that they adopt new ways of thinking in advance of new ways of working. In this article we will explore four key skills that, if mastered, can help you make those first tentative steps towards the Boardroom.The effective strategic executive displays four foundational skills:Dual FocusInvolving CommunicationCollaborationProfessional EffectivenessDual FocusThe most common complaint you will hear from Board members as they review the next generation of talent in their organization is “they just don’t think strategically”. So, how do you develop the ability to raise your head up and consider the strategic landscape?One quick routine to boost your strategic capability is to force yourself to answer “5W” questions whenever you are faced with a new issue, initiative or proposal. Who, When, Where, Why and What? It is also critical to think beyond your particular area of responsibility during your initial consideration of the questions and force yourself to think more broadly. So, let’s say you are the UK Marketing Manager for New Products and you have been asked to review a proposal for an extension to your core range of products - this is how y
When Alex Osborn invented the creativity technique called brainstorming, I wonder if he had any idea just how extensively business would apply it. Almost every meeting employs some kind of brainstorming event, but there’s one meeting that really should leave it off the agenda: the performance measure selection meeting.
There are 5 common ways people select performance measures
The selection of performance measures has never really been treated as anything more than a trivial, and often pesky, decision brought around by the annual business planning workshop. Usually people will take the fastest route to finalising a list of performance indicators in the KPI column of their business plan, and depending on your organisation, the fastest routes are usually some combination of the following:
- brainstorming, where participants just list as many potential measures as they can think of and then do some kind of short-listing
- benchmarking, or some other version of adoption (copying) measures from other organisations
- using existing data or measures, to save the costs of measuring something new, and having to collect the data
- measuring what stakeholders tell us to measure
- listening to what the experts in our industry have to say - what they "know" we should measure
Each of these methods certainly has some great strengths, but we often forget to examine the drawbacks. This article was written to open up the drawback discussion and offer a different way of thinking about measure design. but these common ways are limited!
brainstorming seems quick, but is really very hit-and-miss
Probably the most common approach taken to decide what to measure, brainstorming is the easy way out of an activity many people dread. Quality in equals quality out. A process that was designed for creativity and not measure design will not produce useful and usable measures.
pros:
- Seems quick.
- Lots of ideas for measures can be generated rapidly.
- Collaborative ideas - two heads are better than one.
- Easy to do, no special knowledge or skill is required.
- Engages people to be part of the measure selection process.
- A known/accepted approach, so the process doesn’t get in the way of doing the activity.
All ideas are considered/accepted, which helps people willingly participate.
cons:
- Not really finished after the brainstorming is over - how to get a final selection of measures is vague.
- There is more to measurement than just selecting measures - thought about how to bring the measures to life is also needed.
- Too much information is produced, therefore too many measures often results.
- Ideas are not vetted or tested, our thinking is not challenged.
- We often are brainstorming against different understandings of the same objective/goal we want to measure.
- The bigger picture is not taken into account e.g. unintended consequences, relationships to other objectives/goals, silo thinking.
- Often what is brainstormed is not really a measure at all – instead it is an action, a milestone, a piece of data, a vague fluffy concept.
- What is brainstormed is often expressed so vaguely no-one can remember what it meant later on.
Measure design needs to produce a few measures that have been thoroughly tested for their relevance or strength in tracking the goal or result they are selected for, and are supported by the people that they will affect.
benchmarking is convenient, but ignores strategic uniqueness
Benchmarking is about finding out what another organisation is doing, and this almost always involves or is based on some comparison of performance measures. If organisations share the same measures, then benchmarking is certainly easier to do, but there are consequences of adopting a “bolt on” set of performance measures.
pros:- - We feel safe & secure because others have gone before us.
- Others have (we assume) already put a lot of thought into those measures
– why reinvent the wheel?
- We can compare our performance with the performance of other similar organisations.
- We get a feeling of how good (or better) we are compared to others.
- It’s easy – just have to look and ask.
- Easier to justify to others why we are measuring what we are measuring.
- Widely accepted approach.
cons:- - There is more to measurement than just selecting measures.
- Not always collaborative - so little buy-in by people who will produce and use the measures.
- Not always like for like (apples with apples) - in fact, probably never is to the extent we assume.
- Isn’t driven by the decisions we need to make and the information we need for those decisions.
- Doesn’t challenge our thinking.
- It makes us bring some other organisation’s strategy to life, not what is right for us (aren’t we unique?).
- The goal posts change more frequently than the benchmarking process occurs.
- Our bigger picture is not taken into account, such as how this area of performance affects others in our organisation.
- Selecting measures against different understandings of the ‘outcome’ to measure.
Measure design needs to produce measures that encourage learning and sharing of knowledge, but not at the expense of discovering and focusing on the unique business strategy that best suits the organisation.
data availability makes it cheap, but focuses on yester-year’s strategy
What data do we have? What have we measured in the past? What are we already measuring? All questions that are symptomatic of an organisation that is not open to challenging whether the data they are collecting really is capable of telling them what they need to know about where they are going. Measure what you have always measured, get what you have always gotten. What’s strategic about that?
pros:
- Very easy, very quick.
- Known data sources mean low cost in data collection/capture – already have systems to support it.
- People more likely share a common understanding of measures already.
- Consistency in information over time, to have valid comparisons over time.
- Have historic data available for trend analysis.
cons:
- We only bring yesterday’s (or yester-year’s) strategy to life.
- Rarely challenge the measure itself, so no better measures are explored (and therefore no better data will ever be collected to manage emerging strategic risks and opportunities).
- Not collaborative, because it is from previous thinkers, not today’s doers.
- Bigger picture is not taken into account.
- Parts of our strategy that are new will go un-measured.
Measure design needs to produce measures that are cost-effective and have some historic data before too long, but must produce measures that wi
The phone interview is typically used by hiring managers to screen possible job candidates rather than having to invite all of them in for longer face to face interviews.The phone interview is used to then cull the list of potential candidates down to a smaller group of people who meet certain criteria and appear to be suitable for the job.In my experience, employers who I've worked with who utilize phone interviews often do so for two main reasons.First they might be the type of hiring manager who for whatever reason likes to start with a large group of potential candidates and then quickly go through the list to identify a smaller group that they want to interview face to face in more detail.Secondly, hiring managers often utilize the phone interview as a method of interviewing out of town candidates who don't live in the same city (or state/province/country) as the hiring company.When you have a phone interview set up you need to keep a few things in mind:The person interviewing you can't see you (and you obviously can't see them either) so remember that they are judging not only what you say, but how you say it. Ensure that you are in a quiet place when the phone interview occurs.Ensure that you answer the phone at the time the interview takes place. Don’t miss the call! Don’t get distracted during the interview. Ensure you are alone and can’t be distracted by anyone or anything.If you're using a cordless phone, make sure you have good reception and that it's fully charged. It's not a great idea to use a cellphone unless you're sure you are going to have 100% perfect reception.As with a face to face interview, try to get an idea from the person interviewing you what happens next in the interview process before the call ends ie. When will you hear b
brainstorming seems quick, but is really very hit-and-miss
Probably the most common approach taken to decide what to measure, brainstorming is the easy way out of an activity many people dread. Quality in equals quality out. A process that was designed for creativity and not measure design will not produce useful and usable measures.
pros:
- Seems quick.
- Lots of ideas for measures can be generated rapidly.
- Collaborative ideas - two heads are better than one.
- Easy to do, no special knowledge or skill is required.
- Engages people to be part of the measure selection process.
- A known/accepted approach, so the process doesn’t get in the way of doing the activity.
All ideas are considered/accepted, which helps people willingly participate.
cons:
- Not really finished after the brainstorming is over - how to get a final selection of measures is vague.
- There is more to measurement than just selecting measures - thought about how to bring the measures to life is also needed.
- Too much information is produced, therefore too many measures often results.
- Ideas are not vetted or tested, our thinking is not challenged.
- We often are brainstorming against different understandings of the same objective/goal we want to measure.
- The bigger picture is not taken into account e.g. unintended consequences, relationships to other objectives/goals, silo thinking.
- Often what is brainstormed is not really a measure at all – instead it is an action, a milestone, a piece of data, a vague fluffy concept.
- What is brainstormed is often expressed so vaguely no-one can remember what it meant later on.
Measure design needs to produce a few measures that have been thoroughly tested for their relevance or strength in tracking the goal or result they are selected for, and are supported by the people that they will affect.
benchmarking is convenient, but ignores strategic uniqueness
Benchmarking is about finding out what another organisation is doing, and this almost always involves or is based on some comparison of performance measures. If organisations share the same measures, then benchmarking is certainly easier to do, but there are consequences of adopting a “bolt on” set of performance measures.
pros:- - We feel safe & secure because others have gone before us.
- Others have (we assume) already put a lot of thought into those measures
– why reinvent the wheel?
- We can compare our performance with the performance of other similar organisations.
- We get a feeling of how good (or better) we are compared to others.
- It’s easy – just have to look and ask.
- Easier to justify to others why we are measuring what we are measuring.
- Widely accepted approach.
cons:- - There is more to measurement than just selecting measures.
- Not always collaborative - so little buy-in by people who will produce and use the measures.
- Not always like for like (apples with apples) - in fact, probably never is to the extent we assume.
- Isn’t driven by the decisions we need to make and the information we need for those decisions.
- Doesn’t challenge our thinking.
- It makes us bring some other organisation’s strategy to life, not what is right for us (aren’t we unique?).
- The goal posts change more frequently than the benchmarking process occurs.
- Our bigger picture is not taken into account, such as how this area of performance affects others in our organisation.
- Selecting measures against different understandings of the ‘outcome’ to measure.
Measure design needs to produce measures that encourage learning and sharing of knowledge, but not at the expense of discovering and focusing on the unique business strategy that best suits the organisation.
data availability makes it cheap, but focuses on yester-year’s strategy
What data do we have? What have we measured in the past? What are we already measuring? All questions that are symptomatic of an organisation that is not open to challenging whether the data they are collecting really is capable of telling them what they need to know about where they are going. Measure what you have always measured, get what you have always gotten. What’s strategic about that?
pros:
- Very easy, very quick.
- Known data sources mean low cost in data collection/capture – already have systems to support it.
- People more likely share a common understanding of measures already.
- Consistency in information over time, to have valid comparisons over time.
- Have historic data available for trend analysis.
cons:
- We only bring yesterday’s (or yester-year’s) strategy to life.
- Rarely challenge the measure itself, so no better measures are explored (and therefore no better data will ever be collected to manage emerging strategic risks and opportunities).
- Not collaborative, because it is from previous thinkers, not today’s doers.
- Bigger picture is not taken into account.
- Parts of our strategy that are new will go un-measured.
Measure design needs to produce measures that are cost-effective and have some historic data before too long, but must produce measures that wi
The balance sheet is important to business operations in general. It provides a snapshot of what the company owns and what they owe to outside sources. The balance sheet is also known as a profit and loss account. By either name, this special form of financial statement provides great insight into an organization’s holdings.Breaking Down the Balance SheetTo clarify, a balance sheet shows how much money the organization has, how much property they own, and most importantly, how much money they owe. This is beneficial for outside sources to view – bankers, investors, and even potential creditors.The balance sheet is broken down into several sections. Each section is grouped by liquidity – that is, how easily the particular asset can be converted into cash. The first section is short term assets. Within this category, cash is listed first, followed by near cash assets. Near cash assets are assets that can be easily converted into cash. Accounts receivable, money that people owe the organization, is also listed in this category.The next category is the long term assets. These would include equipment, property, and buildings, along with long term accounts receivable. Generally, long term assets are assets that cannot be easily converted to cash within a year’s time.After long term assets comes the liabilities category. This category is also divided into short and long term – that is, short and long term liabilities. In this case, time is generally defined in years – less than a year for short term, and more than a year for long term.Short term liabilities would include items such as mortgage payments for the next year, along with utilities and equipment leases. In addition, short term liabilities include employee wages, usually listed as wages payable. Long term liabilities would include items such as the remainder of the mortgage for future years, along with
- We often are brainstorming against different understandings of the same objective/goal we want to measure.
- The bigger picture is not taken into account e.g. unintended consequences, relationships to other objectives/goals, silo thinking.
- Often what is brainstormed is not really a measure at all – instead it is an action, a milestone, a piece of data, a vague fluffy concept.
- What is brainstormed is often expressed so vaguely no-one can remember what it meant later on.
Measure design needs to produce a few measures that have been thoroughly tested for their relevance or strength in tracking the goal or result they are selected for, and are supported by the people that they will affect.
benchmarking is convenient, but ignores strategic uniqueness
Benchmarking is about finding out what another organisation is doing, and this almost always involves or is based on some comparison of performance measures. If organisations share the same measures, then benchmarking is certainly easier to do, but there are consequences of adopting a “bolt on” set of performance measures.
pros:- - We feel safe & secure because others have gone before us.
- Others have (we assume) already put a lot of thought into those measures
– why reinvent the wheel?
- We can compare our performance with the performance of other similar organisations.
- We get a feeling of how good (or better) we are compared to others.
- It’s easy – just have to look and ask.
- Easier to justify to others why we are measuring what we are measuring.
- Widely accepted approach.
cons:- - There is more to measurement than just selecting measures.
- Not always collaborative - so little buy-in by people who will produce and use the measures.
- Not always like for like (apples with apples) - in fact, probably never is to the extent we assume.
- Isn’t driven by the decisions we need to make and the information we need for those decisions.
- Doesn’t challenge our thinking.
- It makes us bring some other organisation’s strategy to life, not what is right for us (aren’t we unique?).
- The goal posts change more frequently than the benchmarking process occurs.
- Our bigger picture is not taken into account, such as how this area of performance affects others in our organisation.
- Selecting measures against different understandings of the ‘outcome’ to measure.
Measure design needs to produce measures that encourage learning and sharing of knowledge, but not at the expense of discovering and focusing on the unique business strategy that best suits the organisation.
data availability makes it cheap, but focuses on yester-year’s strategy
What data do we have? What have we measured in the past? What are we already measuring? All questions that are symptomatic of an organisation that is not open to challenging whether the data they are collecting really is capable of telling them what they need to know about where they are going. Measure what you have always measured, get what you have always gotten. What’s strategic about that?
pros:
- Very easy, very quick.
- Known data sources mean low cost in data collection/capture – already have systems to support it.
- People more likely share a common understanding of measures already.
- Consistency in information over time, to have valid comparisons over time.
- Have historic data available for trend analysis.
cons:
- We only bring yesterday’s (or yester-year’s) strategy to life.
- Rarely challenge the measure itself, so no better measures are explored (and therefore no better data will ever be collected to manage emerging strategic risks and opportunities).
- Not collaborative, because it is from previous thinkers, not today’s doers.
- Bigger picture is not taken into account.
- Parts of our strategy that are new will go un-measured.
Measure design needs to produce measures that are cost-effective and have some historic data before too long, but must produce measures that wi
Human Resource Management as a profession is in danger of becoming not just an irrelevance to day-to-day line managers but a break on the productivity and profitability of organisations.The element that appears to be increasingly missing from HR management is the human element. The increasing importance placed on reducing the costs of employee recruitment and administration, benchmarking remuneration and implementing "systems" to control HR activities has slowly, but surely eroded the human purpose of HR.The reduced emphasis on people starts with recruitment.Advertisements which appear in newspapers or on the internet fall largely into two categories.The first category is the generic category. The advertisement lacks life. It probably has come from a generic job description, more on which I will comment later. The advertisement could be for a role in almost any industry. The advertisement lacks specificity to the job, the organisation, the challenges and the opportunities. It lacks a human element.The second category is the super-person category. The skills required are a long list of attributes which most of us who have worked in business for a long time have never seen in the one human being an certainly not at the level of seniority being advertised.Applications and CVs are scanned by computer for key words to select potential interviewees. The only certainty the use of computers to select keywords has is to breed a generation of people adept at stuffing their CV with generic key words popular with HR systems.The extended use of computer systems, whilst reducing the cost of managing HR, has necessitated the use of increasingly generic job descriptions and generic competency profiles.There was a time when job descriptions were written with the purpose of allowing an employee to understand what their role i
- We get a feeling of how good (or better) we are compared to others.
- It’s easy – just have to look and ask.
- Easier to justify to others why we are measuring what we are measuring.
- Widely accepted approach.
cons:- - There is more to measurement than just selecting measures.
- Not always collaborative - so little buy-in by people who will produce and use the measures.
- Not always like for like (apples with apples) - in fact, probably never is to the extent we assume.
- Isn’t driven by the decisions we need to make and the information we need for those decisions.
- Doesn’t challenge our thinking.
- It makes us bring some other organisation’s strategy to life, not what is right for us (aren’t we unique?).
- The goal posts change more frequently than the benchmarking process occurs.
- Our bigger picture is not taken into account, such as how this area of performance affects others in our organisation.
- Selecting measures against different understandings of the ‘outcome’ to measure.
Measure design needs to produce measures that encourage learning and sharing of knowledge, but not at the expense of discovering and focusing on the unique business strategy that best suits the organisation.
data availability makes it cheap, but focuses on yester-year’s strategy
What data do we have? What have we measured in the past? What are we already measuring? All questions that are symptomatic of an organisation that is not open to challenging whether the data they are collecting really is capable of telling them what they need to know about where they are going. Measure what you have always measured, get what you have always gotten. What’s strategic about that?
pros:
- Very easy, very quick.
- Known data sources mean low cost in data collection/capture – already have systems to support it.
- People more likely share a common understanding of measures already.
- Consistency in information over time, to have valid comparisons over time.
- Have historic data available for trend analysis.
cons:
- We only bring yesterday’s (or yester-year’s) strategy to life.
- Rarely challenge the measure itself, so no better measures are explored (and therefore no better data will ever be collected to manage emerging strategic risks and opportunities).
- Not collaborative, because it is from previous thinkers, not today’s doers.
- Bigger picture is not taken into account.
- Parts of our strategy that are new will go un-measured.
Measure design needs to produce measures that are cost-effective and have some historic data before too long, but must produce measures that wi
Hot air balloons are in these days and it is here to stay forever. This statement is said with conviction because hot air balloons have so much to offer. A lot of people have written in their journals or lists of things to do “to ride in a hot air balloon” and reality television shows are some venues where a person can actually make this dream come true.Fortunately for everyone else, one does not have to join a reality television show to ride in a hot air balloon because the hot air balloon industry is actually growing pretty fast. So once you are in a state where there is a wide open space, check the yellow pages for hot air balloon companies that can make you experience this exciting adventure.Hot air balloons catch attention because their huge and they fly. Anything that is visible to the eye and flying is always a novelty but for it to be considered more than just a novelty lies in how the things look like. It is important then for hot air balloon companies to work on their signage or creative execution as the people in advertising would like to call it. An advertising balloon signage more than catching the attention also sets the mood for people who will be riding in the balloon.Just like advertising in the usual mediums, advertising balloon signage should be able to translate properly the concept behind the entire idea of using a hot air balloon to sell a brand or idea. The first thing to consider is the space available and how to maximize that given space. A hot air balloon definitely has a limited space so the art directors should be able to focus on one picture and a short phrase that should be enough to work on.It would be useless to have too many things going on if it cannot be seen by people on ground. Focusing on a logo and a tagline would be sufficient to get your message across. If the brand or company is identified with a certain color then it would be
What data do we have? What have we measured in the past? What are we already measuring? All questions that are symptomatic of an organisation that is not open to challenging whether the data they are collecting really is capable of telling them what they need to know about where they are going. Measure what you have always measured, get what you have always gotten. What’s strategic about that?
pros:
- Very easy, very quick.
- Known data sources mean low cost in data collection/capture – already have systems to support it.
- People more likely share a common understanding of measures already.
- Consistency in information over time, to have valid comparisons over time.
- Have historic data available for trend analysis.
cons:
- We only bring yesterday’s (or yester-year’s) strategy to life.
- Rarely challenge the measure itself, so no better measures are explored (and therefore no better data will ever be collected to manage emerging strategic risks and opportunities).
- Not collaborative, because it is from previous thinkers, not today’s doers.
- Bigger picture is not taken into account.
- Parts of our strategy that are new will go un-measured.
Measure design needs to produce measures that are cost-effective and have some historic data before too long, but must produce measures that will take the organisation toward its vision, not drag it back into its past.
stakeholders need information, but that’s not the same as performance measurement
What’s imposed on an organisation by regulators, shareholders, government, industry bodies and other stakeholders is often considered a constraint on the measures it can use to manage its performance. They struggle to retrofit the stakeholder-chosen measures to their strategy, or renegotiate the stakeholder-chosen measures. But these aren’t the only two options. This method of measure selection is not really measure selection at all.
pros:
- We get told what to measure, and don’t have to do the hard work ourselves.
- We give them what they want and thus we won’t get into trouble.
- Often can be negotiated resourcing by the government group or stakeholder imposing it.
- Get higher management commitment to the need (and therefore to data collection and reporting) - it will get done.
- Our governance requirements are more likely to be met (assuming we report these measures properly).
cons:
- There is more to measurement than just selecting measures.
- Encourages an autocratic/ patriarchal management style.
- The imposers don’t understand our strategic direction/don’t trust that we do.
- Isn’t driven by the decisions we need to make and the information we need for those decisions.
- Lack of ownership by us of those measures (and the results they track). - Bigger picture is not taken into account.
- The focus may not be the right focus or the only focus that matters.
- Parent-child (instead of partner) relationship with stakeholders could become the norm.
- Assumes that the stakeholders have robust methods of designing meaningful measures.
Measure design needs to produce measures that are relevant to the organisation’s strategic direction, a direction that is understood supported by its key stakeholders. But the measure design process can also be used to design reports to stakeholders that are largely separate to its organisational performance measures.
experts have experience, but can be locked into one-size-fits-all
Industry experts, consultants, people with years of experience or self-nominated experts all carry a mystique of knowledge and wisdom that can make their ideas about what to measure sound more like truth than suggestion.
pros:
- We get told, and don’t have to do the hard work.
- A focus is quickly clear.
- Experts can bring new ideas and experience we may not have.
- Have approaches that have worked for other organisations.
cons:
- The focus may not be the right focus or the only focus that matters for us.
- We usually don’t challenge experts even though we have intimate knowledge of our unique business.
- Experts can assume we don’t need to know their thinking behind the measures, so we don’t learn how to think more wisely about the measures for ourselves.
- We may not really understand the measures that are recommended to us.
- Experts often cost a lot of money.
- Experts may not understand our organisation enough to know our uniqueness (the one size fits all problem).
- Experts may not take account of how feasible it might be (or not) to bring those measures to life in our organisation.
- Measure design needs to produce measures that we understand and have ownership of, and be a process that allows us to continue refining and refreshing our selection of measures as our performance and strategic direction changes.
Measure design needs a better methodology
The reason that the quick and easy methods above are used to select measures is the same reason that performance measurement is a dreaded event: people have no idea that measure design is a process of dialogue around the goals or objectives they want to measure. It is a way for them to engage in a deeper understanding of the results they are really trying to achieve, and how they would be convinced as to the degree to which they have achieved those results.
And that’s why we’ve created an alternative method to measure design. A method that produces measures which:
- are few, not prolific
- have been thoroughly tested for their relevance or strength in tracking the goal or result they are selected for
- are supported by the people that they will affect
- encourage learning and sharing of knowledge
- assist the discovering and focusing on the unique business strategy that best suits the organisation
- are cost-effective
- have as much historic data as feasible
- will take the organisation toward its vision, not drag it back into its past
- have resulted in people (including stakeholders) having a deeper and richer understanding of what results the organisation is really trying to create
- people understand and have ownership of
This method is based around five simple but deliberate steps:
1. Write down the goal or objective or result you want to achieve (and thus measure). Stay focused on this particular result while you are designing measures for it (don’t let your attention wander to other results).
2. Describe this result in a lot more detail, explaining what you and others would see, hear, feel, be doing (or even taste and smell!) if that result were happening now, explain the differences you would notice. This is listing the ‘sensory descriptions’ of your result. Do this until you h
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