Made to Measure Blog
Spooks, Star Trek and KPIs
Like 4.6 million other people, I enjoy Spooks. I do find myself wincing a bit when Harry, or whoever, makes completely random requests of his spy geeks and they always come up with the goods – you know the kind of thing – “can you cross reference that train ticket with his gardening bill and…
Razor burn and pseudoscience
I tend to get sore skin if I shave with the wrong type of shaving gel. I’ve finally found a shaving gel that works (Nivea for Men, Sensitive, in case you are asking). What the hell has this got to do with KPIs? Well you can buy at least a dozen different brands of shaving…
Who needs computers?
I was in the Cabinet War Rooms a little while ago (the bunker where Churchill ran his WWII operations – for anyone not familiar). Something that struck me was the universal use of really clear, concise and well thought out charts, graphs and maps. Here’s a shot of one: The key on this graph…
Why my phone bill is brilliant.
I’ve just had a bill through from Virgin. It’s not often I find myself smiling when I look at a bill, but this one was a bit different. Virgin have redesigned the bill and put a nice explanation in there as well, see this image (click on it for a bigger version).. I like this…
Do You Work for an Idiot?
Here is a process improvement idea for you. It is called “poke yoke”. I am told that that is Japanese for “making things easy to get right and difficult to get wrong”. It is a rather grand name for what my old boss used to call “idiot proofing”. Let me give you an example: think…
Pointless Pies
I’d like to ban pie charts. I know it’s a bit over the top, but I honestly can’t see a single thing they do better than other graph type (like a 100% stacked bar). They are also hopeless at lots of other things, namely: You can’t trend with them. Yes, you can put a few…
Why some KPIs are like pasta makers
We keep things for lots of reasons. Understanding why we hang on to kitchen gadgets we never use can help us work out tactics for getting rid of unused KPIs.
Let’s stop kidding ourselves
New research shows that we can be tricked into assuming there’s a link between activity and outcomes. Is blind optimism leading your business down a dead end?
Bargains galore…
I’m sad. I take photo’s in Sainsbury’s, but these price tickets just made me smile!
Loo’s, trains and board games
How does measuring fare revenue lead to a five year old wetting himself?
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