Jeff Blumberg wrote:
...snip...
"Most of the messages about measurement, and its pitfalls, are spot on.
What is missing from the discussion is some deeper knowledge of WHY
measurement has these pitfalls."
A few thoughts based on my learning to date:
1. Presence of measurement (observer) affects the observed.
2. Measurement deals with the past.
3. The goals/performance sought and the presumed basis of measurement may
not be the optimum.
4. To thrive, one must first survive.
5. Survival follows the path of least resistance, in order to have play
time.
6. Everyone is a hacker - how can I get the most leisure from the system
for the minimum effort.
Example: Soviet production goals from central planning re: Nail
production. If the goal was set in weight, the factory made big nails. If
it was set in units, they made small nails. Market feedback being absent,
the managers conserved energy and matter by selecting a strategy to most
easily meet the measurments.
7. Feedback is the goal of measurement. Feedback can be viewed as fuel for
the growth process. Feedback should be consequential.
8. Measurements that are consequential feedback keep the organization's
systems viable in a changing environment.
9. Feedback that signals failure is more important than feedback that
measures success. Fringe failure is an opportunity to learn. The market's
invisible hand may smack you, but this non-acceptance by the market the
vision is wrong. The spread of innovation is a more difficult task than
the innovation itself.
10. Employees who beat the system are using it, rather than it using them.
11. Always declare success and move forward. Source: Winston Churchill,
"Success is the ability to move from failure to failure without loss of
enthusiasm."
Thomas J. (Tom) Christoffel * TJCdesigns * E-mail: tjcdsgns@shentel.net *
Box 1444 * Front Royal, Virginia (VA) 22630-1444 *
"Design with re-use in mind for `Peace Dynamic' !"
--Tom Christoffel <tjcdsgns@head.globalcom.net>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>