Metrics Portal Blog

(Jump to "Translating Data into Action, Part 1") 

Taking Action

After data has been collected, analyzed, and delivered to the organization, you must reinforce the effort with training, visibility, and incentives.  Graph-by-graph, table-by-table, example-by-example, it is every manager’s responsibility to make sure people understand how they are being measured, and to give them tools to track and improve their performance.

Training

Training addresses two areas where the organization is likely to struggle with the metrics:  (1) What does the data mean to them, and (2) What should they do about it? 

Keep the message simple, and be careful not to spend too much time on the theory.  As cool as the analysis may be, many will fail to grasp the mathematical concepts and will tune out.  (If the math were so simple, wouldn’t they have been doing it already?)  Instead, leverage whatever attention span you get to teach practical uses of the data, so that the audience will understand how to apply the metrics to improve their work.

As you introduce new ideas to the organization, don’t underestimate the value of repetition.  Although your materials may seem stale to you, don’t forget that your audience is hearing it for the first time, and they are the ones who get value from the training, not you.  Experience shows that people have to see or hear an idea five times before they begin to internalize it.  So when people say “enough already, we get it”, they probably don’t.  When people start acting on the data and providing insights or suggestions for improvement, that’s when you’ll know they really get it.

Visibility

Visibility means closing the measurement loop and giving feedback on how the operation is performing.  Without feedback, it is difficult for those who control the inputs to adjust what they are doing for better output.

You want to make the metrics as visible as possible, in as many places as possible.  Hang a scorecard on the wall outside the cafeteria; email spreadsheets to each team leader; post results on the company’s intranet site; add custom queries to the data warehouse that anyone can use; build a real-time monitoring dashboard.  Manual or automated, any method will do as long as it engages the right people who can affect performance. 

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant; electric light the best policeman.”  (Brandeis)

Expect the organization to be resistant initially, as no one wants to see their shortcomings made visible.  However, the more openness and transparency you can introduce into the metrics process, the quicker people will engage in making the data, and more vitally the underlying operation that produces the data, better.

Incentives

A well-designed balanced scorecard can have a big impact on the organization, making absolutely clear the link between output and compensation.  Most important are performance-based incentives that put teeth behind the metrics.

“What you reward is what you get…By not aligning measurements and rewards, you often get what you’re not looking for.”  (Welch, Winning)

Incentives should follow a multi-level structure that reflects the drill-down nature of the metrics.  Even better if you can link specific metrics to units of output or business value.  Where meaningful, incentives should be mapped to team or individual performance if you have granular enough information.  But don’t overdo the slicing-and-dicing below that which is relevant, since you want to make sure individuals are contributing to the success of their team and not trying to maximize their own performance even if detrimental to the organization.

Summary

When organizations don’t know what they’re looking for, or can’t seem to find it in what already exists, they do what all frustrated creatures do—they move on to something else.  New reports, more data collection, perhaps a benchmarking study. 

The solution will come not by widening the analytical lens, but by sharpening it.  I.e., doing more with what you already have and not becoming de-focused with too much superfluous data.

“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard.  Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.”  (Dorothy Gale, The Wizard of Oz)

Scorecard initiatives typically fail for two reasons:  (1) Metrics that are too complex, (2) Management that fails to stay the course.  With metrics, there is no “absolute truth”, only approximate statistics that each person will interpret differently.  No scorecard is perfect, no metric completely accurate, no silver bullet answer for improving the organization.  So keep it simple, stick to the facts—objective, relevant, understandable measurements of how the organization is performing, and where it needs to go—and steadfastly follow-through on objectives, day-in and day-out.  You will start seeing results before you know it.