A
tenet of Leadership is if you don't measure you won't
change.
There's
plenty of software and tools available to measure just about anything
and provide statistics as well.
Some
items can be counted – like responses to a survey questions. Other
items can be measured by the responses – click-through sales.
Sometimes an indirect approach is required – effect of a sales
campaign by measuring gross sales before, during , and after the
campaign.
There
are some situations which are not quantifiable and effectiveness must
be inferred – like the effect of print advertisements on sales.
A key
to useful metrics and analytics is identifying what you want
to learn and how best to measure it - by direct or relative
measurement.
Trends
are direct measurement candidates – here's my baseline of x-units
over y-timeframe ...the measure is the change in volume of units for
each time block.
Effectiveness
can be measured on a relative basis – here's the volume and outcome
of the target compared to the volume and outcome of other comparator
producers or the norms of the group – like traffic on a website
related to on-line orders.
Since
the computer can be tasked with the slicing and dicing unlimited
amounts of data, we can get hundreds of statistics from even simple
measurements. When we had to pay for to compile data, the amount of
statistics, ratios and comparative information requested was more
focused than than a click of a key availability of today – a
practical limitation of time and cost.
We
can be overrun by statistics and the analytics to interpret them.
The time investment now is in the use of the output. And we can be
mislead by results from indirect and relative measurements if the
comparator group is not appropriate to the target.
For
example, traffic on a website can be mistakenly shown as aggressively
above the norm or horribly behind it, if a static information site
and a promoted sales-based site are compared. Apples and oranges.
Keep
metrics and analytics simple to get meaningful results which can
translate into changes that affect revenue.
I
have run an organization using about eight key indicators available
on a real-time basis. The system had capabilities of generating over
200 elements of real data and ratios – the other 192 were of no
value to me – so I did not request them.
Best
story about meaningful analytics was a comment from Dick Davies after
we had attended a meet & greet event – he said he had spoken
with 35 individuals. I asked how he knew – he said 'I counted'
(resource sheets at the beginning of the event minus sheets at the
end). Simple. Effective. Practical.
What
are the best (and most effective) metrics and analytics you have
seen?
