About a year ago, I made a post decrying the way people ascribe meaning to numbers. Well it seems Tom Vander Well over at QAQnA thinks along similar lines. He is specifically looking at the world of call quality, but in my experience the flaws he points out are epidemic in today's business world.
People want to hear the number. "What's our market share percentage?" "What's our employee satisfaction index?" "What is our customer satisfaction score?" But businesses really need to know the meaning behind that number. Saying you have 100% of the market doesn't mean much if your market is for left-handed tent stake hammers. Having an employee satisfaction index of 5 is useless if the survey was conducted by managers walking around and asking employee's if they are satisfied with the company. Believing that 95% of your customers are satisfied doesn't mean much if your churn rate is 50% a month.
I believe that companies desperately need to learn to use business intelligence more effectively. The first step of that process, though, is to understand that a number only has meaning when it is arrived at by a solid and consistent methodology, is based on clear definitions that bear some relation to common sense, and when everyone using that number understands the methodology and definitions.
Otherwise, you might as well take Tom's suggestion and just use the same report forever.
Showing posts with label management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label management. Show all posts
Wednesday, 6 August 2008
Friday, 24 August 2007
I'm The Problem
One incredibly common theme in many of the organizations I know (either directly through my own involvement, or indirectly through associates and friends) is an unwillingness to take responsibility. The ability some people have to deflect is absolutely astounding.
The line blames management. The management blames the support groups. The support groups blame the senior leadership. Senior leadership blames the line. No one is willing to say: "This is my responsibility. What I'm doing isn't achieving the results the organization needs. I need to change what I'm doing."
In my own organization, I've decided to approach each challenge from the point of view that "I'm the problem." Every challenge that I'm facing must first be met with an assumption that there is something I could do differently to overcome that challenge. I think I've generally approached things that way, but I've never formalized it quite like this before.
It will be interesting to see if it has an impact.
Development Group: "It's not our fault. The Database Group didn't design the database properly!"
Database Group: "It's not our fault. The Development Group didn't give us the correct specs."
The line blames management. The management blames the support groups. The support groups blame the senior leadership. Senior leadership blames the line. No one is willing to say: "This is my responsibility. What I'm doing isn't achieving the results the organization needs. I need to change what I'm doing."
In my own organization, I've decided to approach each challenge from the point of view that "I'm the problem." Every challenge that I'm facing must first be met with an assumption that there is something I could do differently to overcome that challenge. I think I've generally approached things that way, but I've never formalized it quite like this before.
It will be interesting to see if it has an impact.
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