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2011 | Buch

Metrics

How to Improve Key Business Results

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Über dieses Buch

Metrics are a hot topic. Executive leadership, boards of directors, management, and customers are all asking for data-based decisions. As a result, many managers, professionals, and change agents are asked to develop metrics, but have no clear idea of how to produce meaningful ones. Wouldn’t it be great to have a simple explanation of how to collect, analyze, report, and use measurements to improve your organization?

Metrics: How to Improve Key Business Results provides that explanation and the tools you'll need to make your organization more effective. Not only does the book explain the “why” of metrics, but it walks you through a step-by-step process for creating a report card that provides a clear picture of organizational health and how well you satisfy customer needs.

Metrics will help you to measure the right things, the right way—the first time. No wasted effort, no chasing data. The report card provides a simple tool for viewing the health of your organization, from the outside in. You will learn how to measure the key components of the report card and thereby improve real measures of business success, like repeat customers, customer loyalty, and word-of-mouth advertising. This book:

Provides a step-by-step guide for building an organizational effectiveness report card Takes you from identifying key services and products and using metrics, to determining business strategy Provides examples of how to identify, collect, analyze, and report metrics that will be immediately useful for improving all aspects of the enterprise, including IT

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Establishing A Common Language
Data, and Measures, and Information, OH MY!
Abstract
It is important to establish a simple, easy-to-understand language so that everyone, regardless of their experience or education, can understand the benefits metrics can provide. I believe a lack of a common language causes more problems in business (and life) than anything else. Developing a shared vocabulary is the first step in ensuring success.
Martin Klubeck
Chapter 2. Designing Metrics
The How
Abstract
Now that we have a common language to communicate with, the next step is to discuss how to proceed. I’ve read numerous books, articles, and blog posts on Balanced Scorecards, Performance Measures, and Metrics for Improvement. Each pushes the reader to use the author’s methods and tools. But, I haven’t found one yet that puts “how to develop a metric from scratch” into plain English. It’s about time someone did.
Martin Klubeck
Chapter 3. Planning a Good Metric
Where to Begin
Abstract
In Why Organizations Struggle So Hard to Improve So Little, my coauthors and I addressed the need for structure and rigor in documenting work with metrics. More than any other organizational development effort, metrics require meticulous care. Excellent attention to detail is needed-not only in the information you use within the metric (remember the risks of human involvement), but also with the process involved.
Martin Klubeck
Chapter 4. Using Metrics as Indicators
Abstract
To keep things simple, thus far I’ve focused only on the following basic concepts:
  • Metrics are made up of basic components: data, measures, information, and other metrics.
  • Metrics should be built from a root question.
  • It’s more important to share how you won’t use a metric than how you will.
Martin Klubeck
Chapter 5. Using the Answer Key
A Shortcut
Abstract
This chapter marks the beginning of the practical portion of the book. We’ve covered a lot of theory and concepts in the first part, which should provide a foundation for doing the actual work.
Martin Klubeck
Chapter 6. Start with Effectiveness
Abstract
The first chief information officer I worked for used to say, “do the right thing.” Besides the philosophical and religious interpretations of this directive, there are also the leader’s simple day-to-day behavioral expectations of her workforce. Effectiveness metrics will allow you to determine if you are “doing the right things.”
Martin Klubeck
Chapter 7. Triangulation
Essential to Creating Effective Metrics
Abstract
And so it was, Momma mouse gave birth to three beautiful, but blind, mice. Once they were of age, the farmer’s wife took pity on them and decided to help them survive in the world. A world made much more dangerous due to their lack of sight.
Martin Klubeck
Chapter 8. Expectations
How to View Metrics in a Meaningful Way
Abstract
If the Answer Key is the secret to unlocking the development of a useful metric program, the use of expectations is the keychain. Expectations allow you to change many of the common negatives toward measurement into productive improvement.
Martin Klubeck
Chapter 9. Creating and Interpreting the Metrics Report Card
Abstract
I struggled for a long time trying to decide how to introduce the Report Card to you. I debated if I should present it as another tool (like the Answer Key), or offer it as a methodology. What I settled on was to offer it as a real-life example of how metrics, when used within the constructs I’ve offered, can evolve and take shape.
Martin Klubeck
Chapter 10. Final Product: The Metrics Report Card
Abstract
Chapter 9 introduced the metrics I developed to answer the leadership’s question for our organization. If only the service provider and the executive leader were to be viewers of the results, I could have moved directly to publishing the metric. But since the metrics would go through rigorous review throughout the management chain, and also be seen by customers, I had to find a way to make the results usable (if not readable) at each level.
Martin Klubeck
Chapter 11. Advanced Metrics
Abstract
You might be thinking, “When should I look at using the other quadrants of the Answer Key?” I’ve tried my best to keep you from delving into the other quadrants before your organization has had time to work with the Product/Service Health metrics, where you’ll get the most benefit initially. This doesn’t mean that you can’t build metrics to answer specific root questions. But, if you are tasked with developing a metrics program (or are doing the tasking), I’m encouraging you to slowly introduce these concepts and tools into your organization.
Martin Klubeck
Chapter 12. Creating the Service Catalog
How to Enhance the Report Card
Abstract
One of my biggest challenges when I created the Report Card for my organization was getting the leadership to agree to a list of core or key services. Since I successfully won the battle of using effectiveness measures over efficiency ones, I would need a list of the services (or products) to be evaluated in the Service/Product Health Metrics.
Martin Klubeck
Chapter 13. Establishing Standards and Benchmarks
Abstract
Standards and benchmarks, in the realm of metrics, are strongly interconnected. Standards, from the Industrial Age through today, are invaluable for providing a means for interoperability. Standards in the industrial world allow you to use a light bulb that you bought at Walmart in a lamp that you bought at a high-end designer furniture store. Standards allow you to get gas for your car from any station in the United States, without worrying if the gas pump nozzle will fit into your gas tank. From the ingredients label on a can of soup to the technology that allows you to tune your radio, standards give consistency and interoperability for manufacturers, distributors, builders, and customers alike.
Martin Klubeck
Chapter 14. Respecting the Power of Metrics
Abstract
The short length of this chapter is intentional in order to help you focus on the power of metrics. You must respect the power of metrics and be careful of the damage they can do to your organization if wielded improperly.
Martin Klubeck
Chapter 15. Avoiding the Research Trap
Abstract
Let’s start with my take on research. By research I don’t mean the focused, directed investigation I suggest you do to determine root needs. Nor do I mean the further investigation we perform once we’ve identified anomalies in our data. I also don’t mean the deeper dive you should perform when finding the data, measures, information, standards, or benchmarks for the specific metrics you’ve designed.
Martin Klubeck
Chapter 16. Embracing Your Organization’s Uniqueness
Abstract
While the prince learned that a one-size-fits-all tool for measuring something may not be meaningful, there are still many who seek this out. They want the one-size-fits-all metric. If you’ve followed along up to this point, you should realize that the only way someone else’s metric will be meaningful to you is if you both have the same root question. Even then, for the data, measures, or information to be meaningful, you need to have defined the components the same way.
Martin Klubeck
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Metrics
verfasst von
Martin Klubeck
Copyright-Jahr
2011
Verlag
Apress
Electronic ISBN
978-1-4302-3727-3
Print ISBN
978-1-4302-3726-6
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-3727-3