4 | Info Mgmt
How Well Do You Leverage Metrics?
One of the strengths of Baldrige Award winners is alignment. Strategies and goals are aligned with the organization’s mission and vision. Action plans are aligned with strategies and goals. The performance measurement and performance management systems are aligned with strategies, goals, and action plans. As a result, everyone in the organization is contributing to achieving the organization’s mission and vision. On every project. Every day.
The power of alignment can be seen in the results Baldrige Award winners deliver, a sampling of which you can review here. These organizations prove that alignment is critical to performance excellence.
A recent study by IndustryWeek and MESA International showed the frequent disconnect between objectives and metrics throughout manufacturing companies. The chart shows that only about a third of respondents believe their objectives and metrics are well or very well aligned across their companies. In which category would your organization fall?
One of the interesting results of the survey was the discrepancy among positions of those who “always” leverage metrics to improve performance: 28% of senior leaders said they did, 35% of department heads, and 50% of team leaders or supervisors. At the “staff” level, 40% claimed they always leveraged metrics. IndustryWeek tried to explain the low figure for senior leaders as agreement with W. Edwards Deming’s caution against running a company on visible figures alone, but the survey doesn’t say anything about just using metrics to improve performance. Senior leaders who don’t leverage metrics to improve performance are missing critical information that has been proven to make their organizations—and their…
31Oct2011 | Steve George | 0 comments | Continued9 Indices for Your Balanced Scorecard
As the Baldrige program works on its own balanced scorecard (more here), Mark Graham Brown, a Baldrige expert who also happens to be a measurement expert, recently wrote about how leaders are populating their scorecards with more indices to provide more meaningful measurement. The indices consist of three to five submeasures. In his article in BusinessFinance, available here, he lists “the nine most useful and creative performance measures I have seen in government and business organizations over the last few years”:
- Communication Effectiveness Index. The frequency and media used to communicate important messages is worth 30-40% and the effectiveness of the communication is worth 60-70% of the index.
- Customer Relationships Index. The index includes two major components: customer attractiveness (based on such factors as profit margin, volume of business, timely payment, ease to work with, and history/partnering with suppliers) and customer relationship (i.e., number of years working together, products purchased, knowledge of customer’s business and needs, etc.).
- Employee Satisfaction Index. This index may include casual absenteeism, complaints/grievances, voluntary turnover, employee focus groups, overtime, and employee survey data.
- Distraction Index. Employees record hours worked each week, sorted into three categories: (a) job – tasks that are directly part of doing your job; (b) administration – activities you need to do, such as preparing budgets, attending meetings, learning about new programs, etc.; and, (c) programs – management programs such as Six Sigma, balanced scorecard, and strategic planning. The goal is to minimize administrative requirements and time spent on management programs.
- Trust Index. The index addresses honesty and integrity and may include an…
Baldrige Model: What are your product performance and process effectiveness results?
Item 7.1 in the Baldrige Criteria asks for your key product, healthcare, or student performance results and your process effectiveness results. The following examples from Baldrige Award-winning applications show strong current levels, positive trends, and positive comparisons to key benchmarks. To read the descriptions of these measures and to see a broader range of Item 7.1 measures, go to the Results category responses of Baldrige Award-winner applications here. Chart numbers may not correspond to the Item number because of changes to the Criteria.
Everyone Can Improve Quality
For the first twenty years of the Baldrige Award, the weakest category in terms of scoring was measurement and analysis. While the balanced scorecard movement has helped close the measurement gap, reliable and actionable analysis of data is still a struggle for many organizations.
Minitab, an industry leader in statistical and process improvement, addresses that gap. Virtually every major Six Sigma initiative worldwide uses Minitab software, which is also used to teach statistics in more than 4,000 colleges and universities.
The great thing about Minitab software is that it turns anyone into a statistician. The latest version of its software, Minitab 16, uses an interactive decision tree to help users choose the right analytical tool and walks them through their analysis step-by-step. It can then assist with interpreting the results and producing reports.
You can see how it works by clicking on the green box on the right. A short video introduces you to the features and benefits of Minitab 16, including the ability to use the software in seven languages.
If you want to learn more, click on the “Webinars” link at the top of the Minitab 16 web page for a list of free webinars about the product, or click on “Tour” for a list of videos about the software.
If you want to take it for a spin, click on “Free Trial” and sign up for a free 30-day trial version.
To understand how organizations are using Minitab software to improve performance, check out 51 case studies by clicking here. For example, Ford…
10Feb2011 | Steve George | 0 comments | ContinuedSmart Question #2: How Do We Know That?
(This excerpt is from The Baldrige Edge, an e-Guide from Baldrige.com. You can learn more about the guide by clicking on the black-and-red box on the right.)
Next to blaming people for process problems, making assumptions is a surefire way to miss the right solution. Which of these scenarios is more common in your organization?
(a) Options are debated based on what people think about a problem or issue and how they think it should be handled; or,
(b) Options are debated based on reliable data and information that illuminate the nature and causes of the problem or issue and point to possible solutions.
Most people act as if “a” is really “b”: My assumptions are based on experience and they’re as good as facts. They’re wrong. Guessing that you know what’s going on is not the same as actually knowing what’s going on, and the only way to know what’s going on is to collect and analyze relevant data and information. That’s where the second smart question comes in: How do we know that?
You have to be careful how you ask this question. If your boss says, “We’re getting customer complaints about how long they have to wait for service so we need to put more people on the phone lines,” you can’t just blurt out: “How do we know that?” It’s absolutely the right question to ask. Just don’t say it out loud quite yet.
If you work in an office where assumptions pass as facts, you have a terrific opportunity to differentiate…
1Feb2011 | Steve George | 0 comments | ContinuedHow Do We Know That?
Which of these scenarios is more common in your organization?
- Options are debated based on what people think about a problem or issue and how they think it should be handled; or,
- Options are debated based on reliable data and information that illuminate the nature and causes of the problem or issue and point to possible solutions.
Most people act as if “1” is really “2”: My assumptions are based on experience and they’re as good as facts. They’re wrong. Guessing that you know what’s going on is not the same as actually knowing what’s going on, and the only way to know what’s going on is to collect and analyze relevant data and information. That’s the purpose of a compelling question that needs to be asked during these discussions: How do we know that?
If you work in an office where assumptions pass as facts, you have a terrific opportunity to differentiate yourself from the crowd and establish yourself as a thoughtful leader—no matter what position you hold. Start by looking for answers to the question: How do we know that? Pay attention to the problems and issues that your work group or department is facing. Keep track of what’s aggravating your boss. Pick one problem or issue that you can get information about, either because your work involves that area or you have coworkers who you can get you what you need.
Look for data related to the process under discussion such as:
- Service data (recent customer survey results, complaints, etc.)
- Quality data (errors, defects,…
A Baldrige Approach to Performance Measurement
Miami-Dade County, which is the focus of the free webinar being offered by ActiveStrategy (click on the banner on the right to find out more) integrated Baldrige through its participation in Florida’s state Baldrige program, the Florida Sterling Award. The City of Coral Springs, which won the Baldrige Award in 2007, also began its Baldrige journey with the Florida Sterling program and, like Miami-Dade County, it used ActiveStrategy software to automate its balanced scorecard.
You can see a diagram of the City’s performance measurement system at the end of this article. You can read more about the City’s system and the performance measurement systems of six other Baldrige Award winners in our free report, “How Baldrige Award Winners Measure Performance.” Just follow the arrow in the column on the right to sign up for this free report.
The City’s measurement system links all activity to the strategic plan and business plan, defines success in measurable terms, measures success, and uses data analysis to improve processes.
For example, the City noticed that its crime rate was creeping up slightly in 2006. It compared that trend to regional and national trends and found that, while its rate was lower than neighboring communities, the City’s upswing was not part of a general upward trend. Further analysis of its data showed that one particular type of crime, larceny, was the primary cause of the upswing. By focusing on larceny, the City uncovered and broke up an identity theft ring, which reversed its crime rate trend.
Key intended outcomes in…
20Oct2010 | Steve George | 0 comments | Continued
