Monday, August 6, 2018

La Measure-The Secret of Metrics

La mesure- The Secret of Metrics

The Business world believes in the principle of measurement. And we can't deny to the core that Deming and Drucker were true to an extent when they stated, " what can't be measured can't be managed".
It may or may not apply to many issues around but ROI is the essence of business and interventions around.
But... what made me think was the applicability of metrics to HR, Training, People and Policies. How do you actually measure the people based initiatives or training interventions.
Millions of literature has been written , presented and thesis being circulated.
I kept playing with the thought till I started believing in the postulate of measurement.

Till that time, Training was a session for me where, engagement, participation was a criteria for success. Feedback forms were the yardstick of measuring the effectiveness of trainings. And yes, at times there were these pre and post tests to validate the learning levels.

However, these were more of audit points for the internal HR to meet rather than real, yes real metric of impact.

Its then that our team pondered and struck the goldmine- the secret of Gabriel Mouton, Simon Stevin and John Wilkins, the originators of the metric system.

And yes our discovery was not French.

As I reiterate, the Goldmine was there all throughout and many trails have been routed to this mine but what we did was a little more practical and applicable.
We just gave shape to the metric system to the behavioural interventions.

Lets start with basics:
The first step what we did was to define the objectives in more measurable and quantifiable terms.
So if we were training on Time Management, how would it impact the performance of employees?
We had to actually brainstorm various attributes of performance dependent on Time Management.

Once, the metrics were in place, it was getting simpler. Huh... we thought so but will those metrics be only dependent on Time Management or there would be many other factors which could manipulate the performance objectives.
So we were back to square one to filter out those factors only dependent on Time Management.

It felt like the "Lost Treasure OF THE SAN MIGUEL"

The factors impacted by the Time Management were brainstormed to include but not limited to:
Too Much to do
Escalations
Missing Deadlines
Busy but not available for core functions
Gap in Deliverables - reason attributed to lack of time
Sitting in late
Really LOOONG Lunch breaks
The list felt unending...
Then came the cumbersome task of linking measures to the factors which could avoid interference by other factors other than Time Management.
Some Key metrics Identified Were ( With limited interference from other factors):
1. Number of Tasks Processed
2. Average Time to Complete the Projects/ Tasks
3. Number of Escalations Resolved within time frame

The measurable indices were set for each Metric to enhance  monitoring the effectiveness. Here we took into account the usual time taken and added a +/- 10% to other exigency.

The Pre Training Data was captured for each metric and the Post Training Data was gathered post a period of 1,2 and 3 months to derive a correlation.

Statistics plays an imperative role in deriving correlation and proving the hypothesis of Effectiveness being directly correlated to the Training. However, the data has to corroborated by the self and supervisor's inputs on their observations on the change in job effectiveness and the probability of attributing it to the Training Effectiveness.

We have made it a point to make Training  Measurable and Impactful through our metric designs and criteria for success.


" I am not Telling you, its going to be Easy, I am telling you, its going to be worth it."

And Above all, Let Your Employees Feel Training is just not a ' Happy Lunch'!

Happy Learning!