Made to Measure Blog

It is usually best to have a mixture of semi-structured interviews and stakeholder workshops. A semi-structured interview is one where you ask open questions and then listen carefully to the answers. When I conduct an interview I include: Introductions About you (the interviewer), who you are and why you are here. What your objectives are,…

KPI Stakeholder workshops are particularly useful when you are interested in gathering problem-related information or need to understand processes. Workshops are less suited to exploring more sensitive topics. Most of the steps are the same as for a semi-structured interview, although it is wise to dwell a bit less on the background of the participants…

Knowing who you need to talk to, gain agreement with or keep updated is central to implementing successful measures. Many management information projects fail because of political or communications problems. This makes it especially important that you clearly identify, document and manage your stakeholders. The first step is to identify who your stakeholders are. Stakeholders…

The challenge of managing change and complexity Because organisations are complex structures and the people within them are often anxious and busy, the ‘Engagement’ step is one of the easiest steps to mess up. Just working out who to talk to can be a serious challenge. Here are some key things you need to tackle…

There is a bit of a blurry line between mission statements and strategic objectives. Often clues to the strategic objectives are contained within a mission statement. Here are some notable vision/mission statements from history. Example: A grim mission statement General Motors: ‘GM is a multinational corporation engaged in socially responsible operations, worldwide. It is dedicated…

I like silly I love films. I’m quite happy to suspend disbelief for a couple of hours and watch something silly. That’s how I found myself sat in the cinema with my kids last week waiting to watch the remake of Ghostbusters. I was in a good mood until this advert for Hewlett Packard Enterprise appeared…

A confession I know how hard it can be to get started with KPIs. Here’s my confession. As a small business specialising in KPIs I measured shockingly little for the first few years. Having stalled but then later realised the the benefits of my own approach, I think I have insight into some of the reasons behind…

Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University, had a theory. In the spring/summer 1996 he tested that theory with an article he had submitted to Social Text, an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies. The article was “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”. In that article he theorised that quantum…