You Could Be Measuring the Wrong Things

The value of measurement is often tarnished because we measure the wrong things.

 

How do you know you will succeed if you don’t measure your progress?

 

Typically, people object to measuring their activity because of their familiarity with it. This leads to these common responses:

• I’ve done it before.
• I’ve seen someone else do it.
• It’s not that difficult.
• It’s not a really big priority.

 

Logically, resistance to measuring activity, when properly considered, should only be driven by concerns that the effort may outweigh the benefit.

 

Fair enough, but do you truly understand the benefits and the effort?

 

Some of the benefits of measuring your activity include:

• Understanding the true effort and value of work.
• Identifying the root cause of unwanted outcomes.
• Learning more efficient and effective ways to achieve success.

 

So, if you’re satisfied that these are worthy benefits – great!

 

And if you also accept the value of these benefits is greater than the cost and effort of measurement, then only one question remains – what to measure?

 

When we get this wrong – what we measure – it’s not surprising that we begin to doubt the value of measurement.

 

So what are some of the simple mistakes we can make when measuring our activity?

• Measuring symptoms rather than root causes – source error.
• Measuring outcomes over long-periods of time – timing error.
• Measuring activities but not their critical dependents – sequence error.

 

If you believe in the value of measurement, then it’s worth getting it right – always!