When you’re trying to streamline a whole operation, it can be difficult to see whose process actually works the best. You can see how people feel about their work. You can also usually see which approach people like better or feel more comfortable with. And maybe that’s enough. But there are some ways to objectively tell which workflows are more efficient. Here’s a summary of some of the things you should look for.
Let me state briefly that there is an age-old debate around: How do you really measure productivity? How do you measure engagement? But that’s a topic for another post!
In my case, I have an interesting relationship with data. My focus is on what you use it for. I don’t enjoy gathering data and synthesizing data just for data sake. I want to do so in order to improve decision quality. And I want it to influence communications.
So at every given turn, if I am looking at a particular business unit or process I am trying to understand:
– What is the end objective here?
– What is the client experience?
– What is the employee experience?
– How are we meeting our numbers from a returns perspective?
And then, I turn my focus to:
– How do we know what good looks like? That’s one data point, define that.
– How would we know that things are going wrong? That’s another data point, monitor that.
So that’s really where I start and then you bolt on from there. And it’s pretty interesting. When you pair things down and look fundamentally at these core principles, it becomes easier to get a clear sense for what’s working and what’s not.
Let me know what your thoughts are. What’s been most helpful in terms of using data to make decisions and improve on planning?
