Start Somewhere
The biggest challenge is identifying the metrics that truly matter and drive profitability. Many managers struggle with finding the metrics that truly matter. Inexperienced managers struggle with this especially if they have no/limited background in statistical analysis. The byproduct of not focusing on the right metrics is confusion and malaise on the part of your employees because they can't be sure that their performance is being measured by the statistics that really matter.
Start with the most logical statistics
The point is to start somewhere, anywhere, and vet for significance. It's ok to be wrong, just realize you're wrong quickly and move on. The way I determine if a statistic is valid is to measure its correlation with controlling expenses or increasing profitability. Be careful that your metrics are not in opposition though.
I think customer service departments that focus on keeping average handle time as low as possible conflicts with metrics that conflict with profitability metrics. You don't want agents wasting time but I want an agent to take an extra minute taking care of the customer instead of worrying about getting off the phone as fast as possible. Do not sacrifice customer service in the name of low handle time.
Your business will evolve and so will the way you measure performance. Don't worry about being perfect right out the gate. Over time you will get better at measuring your business if you put in the time.
Beware of too many stats
As a manager you may look at a dozen or more statistics but your employees shouldn't have to monitor these for you. Boil down employee performance measurements to as few as possible. At a director-level position, I had dozens of performance metrics that I reviewed weekly with my boss but my managers only had 6 or so metrics and their employees had even less metrics to be held accountable to.
Work on what you control
It's easy to fall into the attitude that "if only that other department would get their act together then we can make real improvements." Every company has it. You will always have to deal with how another department's decision affects your department and sometimes it's difficult to get the other department see what impact they are having. Instead of going on the offensive and then in return causing the other department to get defensive, focus on what you can control. You may not be able to control the marketing department to run the ads that your sales reps close the highest but you can maximize the sales conversion even on every ad by focusing on the things you control. If you are doing everything in your power, it makes it easier to communicate your needs to the other department without putting them on the offensive.
Simplify and Automate
Dashboards
It's far easier for you and your team to manage to the numbers if the numbers are easy to access. I highly recommend making dashboards that have just the essentials so you view the state of the department at any moment. Then if you see any metrics out of tolerance you can dig right where you need to fix it instead of constantly aiming at a moving target.
It's ok if your dashboard is in Excel (mine are) just get them started. If your organization has or eventually gets dashboard software, you will have an easy template for your BI team to work from if you already have a working version.
I'd rather have manual reports than none at all. I understand that this can take a lot of your time but it will pay off over time and you will get faster at it every day. It's better to take an hour of your day then to fly blind day in and day out.
Review Daily
I like having a daily morning meeting with my team to discuss what happened yesterday and what we need to do today to make any corrections. It's far easier to make the small adjustments everyday then have to make major overhauls because the department isn't performing. This is how I keep my team on the same page. I get everyone together for 15 to 30 minutes every morning to simply discuss metrics and key tasks to improve on them. You will find that your team will appreciate these meetings even if there are days where it seems like over kill.
Tinker constantly in your free time
The two most important things you can do in your down time is talk with your team and sift through your data for insight. If you got free time, tinker and dive deep into your data. Find the little nuggets that give you more insight. You will more likely than not find something you weren't even looking for. I know my data and my business better than anyone. Sometimes, I know other departments better than they do just because I spend my down time at work analyzing raw data. At a previous job I caught salesman writing fraudulent orders by digging through data and finding suspicious patterns. After finding the suspicious patterns, we were able to create exception reporting to alert us if other sales reps start showing the same suspicious pattern.
Summary
- Manage to the key metrics
- Watch them and talk about them daily
- Tinker in your spare time
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