Del DeVries : Measuring Up 2007-06

Effective Use of Metrics

Although enterprise information systems remain a holy grail for business, the attention paid to "reports" may be the last frontier of creativity in managing a business. Think about the fact that business management is able to make decisions supported by information. Information is NOT a scarce commodity!! However, creative thinking about what to measure, how to measure and compare, and turning data into actionable information is still out there as a goal for many.

The June issue of CFO contains a short article "Measuring Up". A great example of baseball and relevant stats starts the article and continues:

"what would happen if business managers thought more analytically about various aspects of their operations, from customer service to worker productivity to health-care costs to the fruits of innovation? Some companies are doing just that, extending metrics into areas that would seem to defy measurement. How, for example, do you measure innovation, or the future capabilities of your workforce, or the optimum menu of health benefits? It's not easy, and before serious progress can be made companies may need to overcome organizational inertia. But some experts say the time is ripe for companies to move away from a managerial "feel for the game" in favor of more-rigorous, data-driven decision making."

Analyzing financial and non-financial metrics across industries is an interesting way to learn about what drives business. The US Commerce Department is also joining the race to better metrics with Managing Innovation in the 21st Century Economy. Their objective, as stated in a request for comments, is a new set of data collection metrics. The comments posted have some interesting tidbits regarding intangible information currently not measured.

_2007-06-18

Tags: metrics - information

Back to BlogNotes-June2007

Comment Added _2008-02-19

Invisible Work

An article in the WSJ today, "A Modern Conundrum: When Work's Invisible, So Are Its Satisfactions" has some interesting reflections on the idea of metrics. Specifically, measuring what has been accomplished in information centric business culture. A few quotes from the article:

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