Anecdotal Success Won’t Stand Up to Hard Data. Make Sure You Measure!

In a previous article, I discussed the importance of creating holistic objectives for your business. When setting goals, the business must be ready to track the efficacy of efforts towards the desired outcomes. 

The success of the implementation measures and overall progress can only be tracked by measurable benchmarks — data points that indicate whether or not the needle is moving in the right direction when compared to an initial baseline measurement. 

Tracking progress can be accomplished through sophisticated methods, such as a vendor system that provides analytics. Alternatively, it can be done simply via internal dashboards and spreadsheets. Regardless of the system, the most central task is to determine success criteria, how they will be measured, and the length of time used to take the measurement(s).

Without a measure of whether or not an objective is successful, the planning and associated efforts are not as useful as they could be. For example, a business project may have been anecdotally successful, but the team has no empirical data to prove it. Without hard data, it is difficult to compare work, projects, and tactics across differing efforts and challenging to determine which actions are more efficient and/or have a higher rate of execution.  

Obtaining data through a lookback is much more intensive and time-consuming than establishing tracking measures upfront. This is a mistake I’ve seen teams make time and time again: getting right into the business of implementing without taking a moment to figure out what success means and making sure tools and tracking are available before they start the work.

Contact me today to plan your tracking measures, ensuring you get the data needed to truly analyze the success of your efforts. Remember, don't hit the ground running without a quality measurement plan in place!