“Chances are that you are already engaged in transforming your company — or that you will be soon. If so, you need to understand the profound role that measurement systems play in achieving breakthrough results in cost, quality, service, and innovation that they seek. A striking characteristic of companies that succeed at transformation is their creative use of new metrics to drive and focus their efforts. By contrast, other companies continue to measure the same old things, and unsurprisingly, continue to get the same old results.”
Dr. Michael Hammer
An important issue that we will develop at Harnessing the Power of Process: Payoffs, Techniques, and Impacts, in San Diego on June 7-8, is avoiding the ‘invisible nightmare’ measurement that drives seemingly bizarre behavior.
People who are not committed to the purpose of metrics will find a way to use them to meet narrow goals. The Soviet nail factory is a good example.
When output was measured in tonnage, the factory turned out giant nails that no carpenter could lift. Management shifted the targets to increase the number and reduce the size of the nails. The factory produced lots of very tiny nails. These tacks might have been fine to hold down a carpet, but they didn’t have any points on them. Management added points to the target and the factory was soon turning out tiny, two-pointed nails. The metrics got more complex, but never got ahead of the cleverness of the people who were rewarded by how close they came to specific targets.
It’s easy to laugh at this example. It seems obvious, silly, and avoidable. But we often see metrics that are not so obvious that drive silly and avoidable behavior in top companies.
In San Diego we’ll show you how to identify and eliminate useless metrics and how to create and evolve measurements that increase your ability to meet your true goals while attracting the support and creativity of the people doing the work.
Ron Donovan, Hammer and Company Process Expert
Instructor, Harnessing the Power of Process,
San Diego, June 7-8
