Measuring to Manage

After spending many years working with and competing against the big 5 consulting firms, we decided to build our own comprehensive organizational assessment. The difference would be a focus on sustainable growth and not an excuse to sell consulting services. Most of our competitors (McKinsey, et.al.) used assessments to sell their considerable assortment of products and services. This allowed the client to question the objectivity of the results because the process appeared to be nothing more than another step to sell more stuff.

We on the other hand only sell and service ONE THING – an assessment of the best practices for fast growth companies. That is it, nothing less or nothing more.

We call it FORECAST and the goal is in the name, to provide an accurate picture that identifies gaps between the future and present. It best serves managing growth, business planning, and improvement projects.

When we began the design process 2003, it was apparent a coherent model for measuring business performance as needed to explain the process. Using our background in process improvement and SPC (Statistical Process Control), we built the following model for business metrics: Predictive (Leading Indicators), Descriptive (Real-Time Indicators), and Evaluative (Trailing Indicators).

The ability to Predict: is starting the year or performing a mid-course correction with the knowledge of which actions will achieve the desired results - a short list of actions spells the difference between success and failure. The challenge is to have a model of how the company should function so being off-track is obvious to everyone.

The ability to Describe: is to track performance in real time. It makes running a real-time enterprise a reality. The challenge is how to build a scorekeeping system that is bottom up? How do you roll those measures up to create individual, group, and organizational dashboards? This bottom-up approach challenges every individual to “their best performance to date.”

Additionally it breaks the truth-fear paradox. Most business measures are not designed or used as corrective feedback (TRUING) instead it is employed for blame and faultfinding. The result is fear of the truth! How can any of us run a business when truth is avoided like the plague?

The ability to Evaluate: is the ability to review results against plan. It takes advantage of your current financial measures by expanding its ability to review decisions and actions taken during the year.

Most end of year evaluations simply measure results without a clear line of sight to cause and effect. Our critical addition is to back track through the various decisions and actions by using FORECAST to drive next year’s improvements.

A partnership with AKL enables your executives and managers to review and evaluate performance over the year. This ability cannot be overstated, you are now armed with your unique best practices to assess, design, align, and execute to achieve optimum growth.