Measures, Targets and Rewards (Gurteen Knowledge)

Objectives. Before you measure anything you need to carefully determine your objectives. What is it you are really trying to achieve and what is the purpose of making measurements? And are measurements the best way of achieving your goals?

Why Measure? There are many reasons why something is measured

To better understand its nature.
To ensure that it meets requirements in some way
To investigate how it changes over time with the purpose of controlling or optimizing it
To gain management support for the activity
To meet a service level agreement or to conform to laws or regulations
To deliver on a promise or agreement
To prove to yourself or others that you are not wasting time i.e. to prove the benefits
To identify problems and appropriate solutions
To justify the allocation of resources
To educate people
To enforce performance or because you have been told
To provide feedback that facilitates learning

Who are you measuring for? It is rare that you measure for only one reason or for only one stakeholder. Stakeholders will measure you or want to see different mesures from you depending on their varying perspectives.

For change and KM initiatives there are often two main stakeholders:

Senior management who wish to see measures based on tangible business outcomes such as increased revenue or reduced costs
Employees who want to know "what is in it for them"

The Dangers.There is nothing inherently wrong in measuring. Measuring is a powerful tool. But some things are not easy to measure and may even be impossible to measure directly and the very act of measuring can often cause distortions or unintended side effects. Measures used without due care and consideration can be misleading and dangerous.

Targets. People, teams and organizations are often given 'targets' by which they are 'measured'. For example, "When booking an appointment a patient should not have to wait more than 48 hours

to see their doctor." Such a measure can be recorded and used as a method for 'measuring' performance with the aim of improving that performance or simply ensuring conformance.

Targets that are imposed in this way are often 'gamed' in that people will try to meet the target but avoid any real change. In the example above, a doctors surgery can instantly meet the target by only allowing patients to book an appointment the same day. The target is met at the expense of the objective i.e. improving the service to patients. (This is a real example from the British National Health Service that was gamed in this way.)

Imposing targets on someone to enforce performance rarely works and indeed often has the opposite effect.

For targets to be effective; they must be designed and bought into by the people actually using them and not enforced by senior management. There aim should not be to enforce compliance but to provide a feedback mechanism for learning.

In the example above of the doctor's surgery that would mean rather than the government imposing the target that the doctors and staff that comprise an individual surgery come together to explore how they might improve their service and then agree a set of measurement that they can monitor over time to determine if things are getting worse or better especially in light of initiatives to improve the service. Such measures are now very unlikely to be 'gamed' as the people involved will have bought in to them and see them as 'learning tools'.

Rewards. Rewards Punish

. Rewarding people for meeting targets is detrimental to quality, motivation and pride in work and exacerbates 'gaming'. Rewards are:

manipulative
destroy cooperation
ignore complexity and tend to blindly promote a single solution
deter risk taking and creativity
undermine interest and intrinsic motivation

Punishments Punishments for not meeting targets are even worse! In the above example: "Doctors would not allow advance bookings because it would mean they had not seen a patient within the Government's 48-hour target period and would face a penalty of up to Ł11,000 as a result!"