Imagine you just took off in your private jet (I did say imagine) with the intention to fly straight to Hawaii from San Francisco CA with just enough fuel for the trip plus one hour. Even if you had no piloting experience whatsoever you wouldn’t think of starting the flight without some way to measure the effect of winds on your course and your fuel requirement. That is exactly the way we all should start any and all change or innovation efforts in our work and personal life.
So often we see a problem or an opportunity and we settle on a course of action without any means of measuring the effectiveness of that effort. Sometimes when we find that our efforts are not producing the results we had planned, we just add more of the same action. This is like finding out we are fifty miles north of our Hawaiian destination and just speeding up. Speeding up will never get you back on course and neither will doing more of the wrong thing get you closer to your desired result.
Since reality is too vast for any one person to grasp, it is essential that you remain open minded and willing to have your measuring methods changed as you learn more. Remember the story of 3Ms “Post it” notes? It took years of testing and market research and lots of mistaken assumptions before it caught on. Sometimes our innovative idea might be so revolutionary that it shocks the market and gets denied at first just because it is so different. If 3M had made their measurement for success instant positive revenue it would have failed. Back to the flight to Hawaii, you would never expect your actual flight route to match your flight plan but you make sure you have the end in mind and ways to correct your course during the flight.
Designing accurate measurement systems is both intuitive and scientific and far too little time is spent working on creating effective measurement systems that are specific. The more accurate your reality is the better your decisions will be and the smaller and less expensive your course corrections will be. Measuring is so vitally important if we are going to be efficient and effective in anything so at least ten percent of your time should be spent on measuring.
So often we see a problem or an opportunity and we settle on a course of action without any means of measuring the effectiveness of that effort. Sometimes when we find that our efforts are not producing the results we had planned, we just add more of the same action. This is like finding out we are fifty miles north of our Hawaiian destination and just speeding up. Speeding up will never get you back on course and neither will doing more of the wrong thing get you closer to your desired result.
Since reality is too vast for any one person to grasp, it is essential that you remain open minded and willing to have your measuring methods changed as you learn more. Remember the story of 3Ms “Post it” notes? It took years of testing and market research and lots of mistaken assumptions before it caught on. Sometimes our innovative idea might be so revolutionary that it shocks the market and gets denied at first just because it is so different. If 3M had made their measurement for success instant positive revenue it would have failed. Back to the flight to Hawaii, you would never expect your actual flight route to match your flight plan but you make sure you have the end in mind and ways to correct your course during the flight.
Designing accurate measurement systems is both intuitive and scientific and far too little time is spent working on creating effective measurement systems that are specific. The more accurate your reality is the better your decisions will be and the smaller and less expensive your course corrections will be. Measuring is so vitally important if we are going to be efficient and effective in anything so at least ten percent of your time should be spent on measuring.
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