#6 Performance measurement helps allocate resources.
There is a tank full of water with many leaking holes. What should we do? Well, find something to plug those holes with. Yes, that’s right. If we can plug all of the holes, water will stop flowing out, and the problem will be solved. But... Life is not that simple. Let’s assume that you have a very limited amount of clay that can be used to plug those holes. You cannot plug every hole. So, what should you do? Think about it... If we divide the clay into tinier pieces and try to plug every hole, in the end, it might turn out that we could not stop any leaks, because the pieces of clay were too small for the holes. Plus, we would lose all the clay, and the water would continue to leak from every hole. You can solve the problem in another way by using the limited amount of clay to plug only the few large holes so that you can stop 80-90% of the leaks, and plug the rest of the holes once you have more clay. Even if you do not have the additional clay right now, at least a smaller amount of water will leak. This is a better solution, right?
Same goes for organizations. Every organization has problems, and problems never care if we have enough resources to solve them. And most of the time, problems occur when we have few resources to spare. Using the limited amount of resources to fix all the problems that occur at the same time might not be the best option. Apart from the fact that it might not fix any problem at all, it might even cost us all of the limited resources.
Wouldn’t it be better to allocate the limited resources to resolve the most important problem first? Once that problem has been fixed, we might find that we were able to prevent 80-90% of the damage. Once we have more resources, then we could start fixing the rest of the problems. My point is that performance measurement will tell you which problem is the most important and needs your attention first. The less significant problems can be fixed later. Simply put, performance measurement will help you prioritize your problems.