Metrics©
by
Arthur M. Schneiderman
I've defined metrics in past articles (see for example Metrics
for the Order Fulfillment Process):
Metrics are a
subset of measures of those processes whose improvement is critical to the
success of the organization.
Metrics come in two flavors: results metrics and process metrics. Results
metrics measure the outcome of the process. They are the translation of
the process's customer's requirements into the "voice of the
process." For example, the customer might want the output of the
process, say an automobile, to be "quite." We perform a standardized shake test and
measure the resulting sound level, expressed in decibels. That becomes a
result metric. In most cases results metrics are meaningless to the customer;
instead, they are surrogates for requirements that are expressed in the
"voice of the customer." Concept Engineering focuses on
translating the customer's language into an equivalent set of results metrics.
Process metrics are the drivers of the results. They are the independent
variables upon which the results depend. Again using my simple example,
torque level of the assembly bolts may be the determinant of whether the unit is
effectively silent or noisy, so percent of assembly bolts not torqued to the
specified range would be a critical process metric.
Organizational success is determined by satisfying all of the key customer
requirements better than the competition. At any point in time though,
maintaining performance on most requirements while improving performance on a
select few of them will have the greatest potential competitive impact.
Those few improvements are the source of the vital few results and process
metrics that are the targets for organizational focus through QIP. By rank
ordering these measures in terms of declining strategic impact, we can create a
list of potential metrics.
Organizational capacity and the power of the improvement process combine to
determine the "cut line" for the rank ordered list of candidate
metrics. The selected subset represent those measures that give the
greatest strategic bang for the available organizational effort. These
metrics have earned their place on the scorecard.
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