Feel Good Metrics / Improving Business Performance

Do your metrics not give you the results that you are looking? You have metrics, but your business is improving?

Did you know that there are plenty companies that use Feel Good Metrics? Feel Good Metrics are reported weekly or monthly to staff, departments and the work force. These metrics are always above the goal or have no goal. A chart with Feel Good Metrics shows the heights of the bar often near the maximum of the chart. During the meeting, every one gets a pad on the shoulder, look how well we did!.

This is not the purpose of a metric. A metric should be an indicator of your management system performance. There should be a goal that is somewhat of a stretch. Action plans with due dates and responsibilities must be in place to drive the metric towards the goal. When the goal is reached, the goal must be changed and new plans initiated.

An example of a Feel Good Metric is how mang gauges were calibrated during a month. The number of gauges calibrated varies month to month depending on a schedule that was created. A better metric for a gauge calibration system would be how many gauges came up missing, how many gauges were out of calibration, what % of due gauges were calibrated.

Do you have Feel Good Metric? Review you metrics and maybe you are willing to share it here. You can also sent me an email to review your metrics.