| If you knew in advance how much effort you'd | | | | revenue, delivery misdirections and service costs. |
| have to put into collecting, collating and managing | | | | They waste hours and hours every month |
| the data that provides the foundation for your | | | | manually organising the data in an attempt to |
| performance measures, you may be put off | | | | produce trend graphs to report performance. |
| entirely. Particularly for smaller businesses, | | | | Even small businesses, departments and teams |
| departments or teams, you don't have big | | | | can recoup the time wasted in manually managing |
| corporate business intelligence systems offering | | | | data with an investment in a simple database |
| you the data you need at the press of a button. | | | | application, like Microsoft Access. All the data goes |
| No, you're often forced to collect and organise | | | | into well designed tables, via easy to use data |
| the data you need, all by yourself, and on top of | | | | entry forms. Not only is the data all in one place, |
| your real job! But don't give up on measuring | | | | it's fast and easy to get access to for both |
| performance just for this reason. If you're still a | | | | regular performance reporting and ad hoc queries |
| firm believer that meaningful performance | | | | to analyse the data more closely. |
| measures make your day job better, then these | | | | Tip 4: Don't freak out over imperfect data. |
| 5 tips for saving time in managing your | | | | A management team in a government agency |
| performance data may just make the difference. | | | | routinely spends well over half of their decision |
| Tip 1: Collect data that is useful, not just | | | | time debating the quality of the performance |
| interesting. | | | | measures' data. What is the real cost to the |
| Market researchers are used to hearing their | | | | organisation of losing time in delaying a decision |
| clients say things like "It would be interesting to | | | | until data is perfect, compared with taking a |
| also know [blah blah] - can we add a question | | | | decision with imperfect data now? |
| about this to the survey too?" And good market | | | | Data will never be 100% accurate, and it doesn't |
| researchers will say in response, "Not if it's just | | | | have to be. Imperfect data can still give you |
| interesting. It has to be useful." They know the | | | | rather reliable feedback about trends in |
| time and cost that gets wasted collecting data | | | | performance. Take a quick check for any |
| that doesn't serve the purpose of the research. | | | | systemic data quality problems, to estimate their |
| If you collect performance data that strays from | | | | real impact on the decisions you are taking. After |
| the purpose of your performance measures, you'll | | | | correcting any vital data quality problems, your |
| collect much more than you need, much more | | | | time is better spent in cause analysis and |
| than you'll use, and probably enough to paralyse | | | | performance improvement of your business |
| your performance measurement process. Be | | | | results, not perfecting your business data. |
| ruthless: collect only the data you know is useful | | | | Tip 5: Use samples to estimate, instead of |
| to calculate and analyse the performance | | | | populations to calculate. |
| measures that really matter. | | | | To measure the accuracy of their stock |
| Tip 2: Build the data collection into work | | | | management process, an inventory management |
| processes. | | | | team were visiting all store locations and counting |
| Imagine you operate a health club and you're | | | | all stock items held. This took them many |
| interested in measuring how committed your | | | | months, and almost a full time team to chew |
| clients are to their gym programs. The | | | | through all the counting. |
| time-wasting way to get the data for such a | | | | When they sought some advice from a |
| measure is to devise a survey and get your staff | | | | statistician, they learned (with great relief) that |
| to call as many clients as possible to go through | | | | they could get a very reliable estimate of their |
| the questionnaire. And this is over and above their | | | | stock management accuracy through stocktaking |
| everyday work, too! | | | | a sample of stock items at a sample of store |
| A time-sensible way is to see where the data | | | | locations. In fact, with the smaller task, the |
| might already exist or be easier to get through | | | | counting process had fewer fatigue related errors, |
| existing work processes. Personal trainers already | | | | and the estimate was not only cheaper and |
| fill out gym cards for their clients, to track the | | | | faster, it was more reliable. |
| sessions their clients complete. Making sure that | | | | Spend your time where it matters most |
| this data is collected consistently avoids the need | | | | Take a little time to think about what data you |
| for a separate data collection process. | | | | really need, how much integrity it honestly needs |
| Tip 3: Use a relational database to manage data | | | | to have to be useful, the easiest and fastest way |
| (not spreadsheets!). | | | | to collect it, and an accessible way to store it. It |
| A freight business has their delivery turnaround | | | | will be time well spent, which will create more |
| times not in one spreadsheet, but in dozens of | | | | time down the road for the real work of |
| them: one for each month. And they do little | | | | performance measurement: improving your |
| better with other performance data such as | | | | business performance. |