How to Plan and Measure Successfully

Is there an excuse not to have a plan? More exciting to just see what happens? Too busy to even consider it? Simply can’t get the team to agree or have a lack of data available? Whatever the reason, you need to have a plan – and you need to include the right elements and measure what matters. Continue reading to see why you need a plan and what to consider.

The Importance of Planning

You’re flying blind without a plan. As Yogi Berra (American baseball player and manager) puts it, “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.”

As a leader you should be providing direction and clarity. How can you do this without a plan? You need one to create focus, set a direction, and ensure everyone is reading from the same page. You’ll be able to drive alignment, simplifying both decision-making and management.

Everyone across the business will understand their (and your) objectives, establishing a foundation for teamwork and limiting the chances of failure.

What Should a Plan Include?

As a basis, your plan should have the following:

• A mission – What the organisation wants to achieve for itself, its people, and its communities…
• Values – Held by your team, such as commitment, respect, empathy and trust…
• Focus goals – Relating to improving your people, quality, delivery, financial performance, and growth…
• A strategy – For each of your focus goals, and the key objectives within these…
• Measurement processes – How you’re going to accomplish your aims…

To form this plan, you’ll need to consider these questions:

• What are we trying to do?
• Which people should it include?
• Does it make sense?
• Does it align across the whole business?
• How can we ensure everyone is engaged and on board?
• How can we sustain and improve?
• What could go wrong, and what contingency plans will need to be put in place?
• How can we successfully measure, update and review the plan?

Measuring What Matters

“Measurement is fabulous. Unless you’re busy measuring what’s easy to measure as opposed to what’s important.” – Seth Godin

Measurements are integral to your plan. We depend on them to inform, engage, and drive action. However, most of the time we don’t measure what matters. In a recent Harvard Business Review survey, it was found that only 35% of respondents felt their current performance systems were effective at measuring what’s important.

Managers generally assess the things they need to know, so they can plan, organise, and control. But for this plan to be successful you should measure what matters to the whole business, in turn promoting widespread participation.

If you track the right performance measurements, you can guarantee that you’re on the right track, take corrective action, and then establish whether the improvements have been effective.

How to Measure What Matters

Choosing what to measure depends on the people who will use them. What we measure can influence a team, ensuring they focus on what matters.

It’s helpful to refer to the first of the Shingo Model’s three insights: for ideal results, you need ideal behaviours. This is because a business’ results rely on the actions of its team. A leader has to therefore build a culture where ideal behaviours become the norm.

To do this, you can’t just have key performance indicators (KPIs) in your plan. You need to consider other mechanisms – specifically key?behaviour?indicators (KBIs). These will measure how you achieve ideal results through ideal behaviours.

John Doerr had an alternative to KPIs: objectives and key results, or OKRs. These are to the point and explain what is to be accomplished. No more, no less. They’re action-focused and inspirational.

The Importance of Purpose

Purpose is central to measuring what matters. A purposeful system of measurement – one that tracks progress continuously and can be reviewed regularly – will help you to deliver a successful plan. You’ll have all the touchpoints you need to assess daily activity in an agile and responsive way.

For a culture of excellence, people really do need to understand the purpose of measurement. This all starts with a clear definition of the purpose and cascading it throughout the business. If you create measures without understanding the purpose, then you’ll end up measuring things that don’t matter.

We know that leaders can have a lot on their plate when planning and measuring. It’s why we’ve created our Team Leadership Development Bootcamp in a way to help develop crucial managerial skills, and our Lean Manufacturing Bootcamp to provide relevant techniques to refine your performance management approach. Keen to learn more? Give us a call, we are happy to help.

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