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Jeff Slater

What get's measured gets done !

Ever heard the phrase “What gets measured gets done?” Or as my grandmother (English Teacher) would have said “completed”. This phrase gets tossed around by a lot of people in Lean, when someone is trying to convince you of adding a metric to your project or scorecard. It sounds good, doesn’t it? If we can measure X, then we will achieve Y, which is the performance we want.


Sorry, it’s not that easy. Simply measuring something does not ensure that some action will then take place. Consider a rain gauge, which measures how much rain has fallen. (+/- evaporation, which may be calculated based on temperature and humidity) Ok, so we’ve measured the rain, however, nothing gets “done” by looking at the rain gauge.


So, measure something that needs an action attached to it. Let’s assume you have a garden that needs water to survive and produce food for your family. In this example, the only way to ensure that “what gets measured gets done” is to program a piece of machinery to execute a set of commands based on the rain gauge’s measurement. Now you have a moisture gauge that is linked to your sprinkler system that controls the length of time the sprinkler runs based on the amount of rain received that day.* (Yes, they do exist.)


*However, don’t forget you have ask yourself, am I measuring the “Y” that will achieve my goal. Maybe my goal is a “green lawn”. Does the amount of water really determine if I’ll get a green lawn. There are other factors involved which include location of lawn, amount of sun/heat and fertilizer. (But this is a topic for another time…)


For the companies we work with, a great example is “Quick Changeover”. I’ve worked with several companies doing Kaizens on how to improve, reduce, or eliminate their changeovers. Once they completed the Kaizen some of the improvements worked well and immediately reduced the changeover time. Slowly over time, the changeovers returned back to the “baseline” changeover time. Some of you already know where I am headed. How? and better question is Why? did this happen. The companies were still “measuring” the changeovers, they had andons and time clocks showing the team how they were performing. However, once the “bright lights” of the Kaizen event were gone, there was no follow-up or feedback loop.


All leadership needed to do was observe a changeover once and awhile. Attend a changeover close-out meeting, pop into a shift (level 1) meeting and ask how changeovers are going and look at the chart and improvement ideas. This follow-up and closing the loop is essential to improving performance, essential to leadership. (managing) Measuring something doesn’t ensure that it will get done, following up with people, providing feedback, demonstrating how it impacts performance and that achieving this goal is important to the company and the team is what “makes things happen”.


There is a lot more that goes into any process than just measurement. There are three fundamental practices that are needed for your scoreboard or dashboard to be effective:


  1. The goals and metrics you are measuring have to align with corporate goals. If they align with your overall strategy, those goals and metrics still need to pass the “gut check.” Does it make sense? If I do this, will I get the results that I want?

  2. Demonstrate the link between the metrics and the overall corporate goals. Just because they align does not mean that the people performing the work see that connection. This link to overall company performance is key. The metrics/goals must be simple enough that each person sees that the tasks they work on each day impact the overall company’s performance.

  3. Leadership has to follow-up – simply measuring something will NEVER ensure an action(s) “get(s) done.” Leadership must review, challenge and provide feedback (positive and opportunities) on the work being done. All work “fails” if the people performing the work don’t feel like they are part of a team something bigger than themselves. Employees will care about results because leadership cares about them. You should also link achieving these goals to their performance objectives. (Incentivizing your team to achieve their goals is also a good idea.)


Use the phrase “what gets measured gets done” with confidence and know that your dashboard/scoreboard will achieve the desired results – what gets measured makes sense, aligns with goals and is followed-up on. Make sure the team understands how what they do daily impacts these goals and incentivize them to perform… now you have a closed loop “Performance System”. Now you are ready to succeed. Go ahead, measure anything that will drive actions you want to see and performance, follow-up on it and encourage your team to do more.

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