Goals and Measurement: Is This Metric Necessary?

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Goals and Measurement: Is This Metric Necessary?

In the kitchen, my mother and grandmothers would often carefully measure ingredients, but sometimes they would not measure at all. They understood what seems to escape some business leaders –measurement doesn’t always have to be complex.

Many years ago when I was introduced to goal setting, I learned goals must be measurable and   became a lover of control charts and disciple of Joseph Juran. I sought computer programs that crafted beautiful, bright charts and graphs. I also eventually learned that they were often not very useful, because I had not learned two basic rules of measurement.

1. Measurement serves three purposes: track effectiveness of a process, confirm there is or is not a problem, and track progress in solving that problem. It’s that first one that’s tricky. Of course it’s a good idea to monitor sales, or track production, but the measurement must be meaningful. At one stage of my aircraft maintenance career I was the operations manager for a large maintenance division. We measured everything and even had a chart to track number of work orders. We had no control of that. Airplanes broke, we fixed them. What was important was what broke and how often. We eventually stopped tracking work orders and paid more attention to drilling down to the root causes of high failures; a much more effective metric.

2. Measurement doesn’t have to be complicated. All those control charts and Pareto graphs are pretty hanging in frames on the wall but often aren’t necessary. Measurement should be as simple as possible. Remember that “yes” and “no” are metrics. A stoplight is a beautiful thing. You’re on track, green; there are problems and you’re behind, yellow; or there are serious problems and the train’s off the track, red.

Some charts and graphs are necessary, but when measurement becomes an end to itself, it isn’t helpful. What are you measuring and why?