Peter Drucker’s statement that “What’s measured improves” has helped launched many metric programs, yet not all have been successful. This outcome is perhaps in part because some ignore another of his statements – “to control everything is to control nothing”. Choosing the right metric is the critical first step to lay the foundation for success.
Consider two devices for measuring the performance of your car – a speedometer and a tachometer. Most of the time, the two measures move in synch – as your RPMs increase the speed of the car increases, as the car slows down, the RPMs usually slow down. It is easy to imagine that one could use the two monitors interchangeably.
But of course, we know that is not always the case. If a car is in neutral, the RPMs can increase dramatically while the speed of the car does not change at all. Conversely, the speedometer is not always an accurate indicator of how fast the engine is turning over and whether it is red-lining. If we want to prevent engine burnout, we should use the tachometer. If we want to avoid a speeding ticket, the speedometer is our friend.
A strict focus on increasing sales may ignore the impact on cost. Controlling costs without considering the impact on organizational effectiveness may achieve short term goals, but at the expense of long term success.
Within IT, focusing strictly on delivery metrics (on-time, on-budget, etc) without considering business impact can create a culture that is overly focused on IT goals, not the overall objectives of the enterprise. The simplest solution is to measure the business objective of a project and to relentless communicate within the project team on that focus. This will ensure all efforts are driven by the right measuring stick.
Consider two devices for measuring the performance of your car – a speedometer and a tachometer. Most of the time, the two measures move in synch – as your RPMs increase the speed of the car increases, as the car slows down, the RPMs usually slow down. It is easy to imagine that one could use the two monitors interchangeably.
But of course, we know that is not always the case. If a car is in neutral, the RPMs can increase dramatically while the speed of the car does not change at all. Conversely, the speedometer is not always an accurate indicator of how fast the engine is turning over and whether it is red-lining. If we want to prevent engine burnout, we should use the tachometer. If we want to avoid a speeding ticket, the speedometer is our friend.
A strict focus on increasing sales may ignore the impact on cost. Controlling costs without considering the impact on organizational effectiveness may achieve short term goals, but at the expense of long term success.
Within IT, focusing strictly on delivery metrics (on-time, on-budget, etc) without considering business impact can create a culture that is overly focused on IT goals, not the overall objectives of the enterprise. The simplest solution is to measure the business objective of a project and to relentless communicate within the project team on that focus. This will ensure all efforts are driven by the right measuring stick.
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