Dan McGaw的动态

However, just because you can measure it doesn't mean you can manage it. Ask any parent. ??

I think the inverse happens too… You spend so much time pouring over the data that often times is confusing, misaligned and inaccurate… Not to mention the same data set can be manipulated to tell one story or another. This could be solved by a simple internal poll where no ONE assumption is used but a collective to determine the true cause / solution. Is it right 100? No. But it’s better than spending 6 months doing a deep dive into th numbers that a walk over to the SDR team and a 15min discovery convo could have provided the same or better results. In my opinion when you’re in rapid growth mode, trying to get to perfect kills something that was good enough… And Data can often times is busy work rather than productive work that can be full of bias interpretations. The larger you get I feel the more you need to rely on data as polling internal folks becomes more difficult. And the data set’s are slightly more stable. Data is important, but sometimes there’s quicker ways to get to the end goal without needing a single Spreadsheet :)

That's only half of the quote from Deming. The longer version is: "It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth." – W. Edwards Deming, The New Economics. see: https://deming.org/myth-if-you-cant-measure-it-you-cant-manage-it/

related ... measuring to learn can feel very different from measuring to manage. When we measure to learn, we're ok with disconfirming results. When we measure to manage ... it spikes the threat response. example, when I do workshops to think about what to track and I explicitly say this is for learning, people have TONS of ideas. When we talk "success metrics", people are silent.

The full quote by Deming is the opposite to the fragment you quoted. "It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth." https://deming.org/myth-if-you-cant-measure-it-you-cant-manage-it/

The flip side of this is the most important metrics for management often aren’t the easiest to automate. Also, if it gets measured, it WILL be used for management purposes. So be careful what you measure and track over time. As management, it is vital we get incentive structures right, and for that we need to get the metrics we track right. It’s super tempting to track (and manage based on) what is easiest to measure. But that doesn’t always correlate to effective management. Start with outcomes, then back into the metric. Not the other way around.

My experience is that a focus on counting trees makes it difficult to see the forest. A recent client was so focused on daily, weekly, and monthly progress - daily stand-ups, weekly status reporting, measuring metrics and spinning agile cycles - that there was little to no opportunity to discuss/review progress towards longer-term goals. The teams were super busy but not making any real progress. And with the heads-down focus, the executive team was able to ignore the misalignment between executives. Are you measuring everything and managing everything or focusing on top-line objectives?

Interesting to see how different sectors/industries interpret this. As a Product Manager involved in process control instrumentation, we develop products that accurately measure the flow, level, temperature and pressure of liquids and gases. In our markets, you definitely can’t manage what you can’t measure. In fact, I tend to take this a step further (but with a positive twist); If you can measure it you can control it, if you can control it you can manage it and if you can manage it you can improve it.

And many companies don’t even know why they measure and how to use what they got

'Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted' (attributed to Albert Einstein)