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Measuring the Seemingly Immeasurable

Connecting performance, knowledge and satisfaction; with and without surveys

Measuring the Seemingly Immeasurable:  The more important something is, the more we want to measure it.  The better we measure it, the more we understand.  It is a curious fact that many of the most important business and customer priorities often go unmeasured.  Many leaders struggle to answer a key question: How can we use measures to connect enterprise performance, customer satisfaction and knowledge work to drive improvement? Strategic and business plans commonly include measures of success, but few of them are directly relevant to knowledge work or to what customers care about. The last thing we need is to inadvertently communicate to our customers that we aren’t on the same page with them.  This webinar shows you how to fix this mismatch.

Measuring the Seemingly Immeasurable Summary

As a leader charged with the development and deployment of performance measurement systems, satisfaction surveys and/or new product/service design, you will appreciate the practical application and humor that makes this otherwise boring and dry topic fun and personally relevant.  We begin this session with the premise that we are all smart and want to improve performance and customer satisfaction, but need a better way to address challenges such as:

  • Strategic objectives look more like milestones or glorified to-do’s than numerical measures of success
  • Dedicated employees don’t understand or can’t personally relate their daily work to enterprise strategy
  • Surveys which ask the wrong questions at the wrong time of the wrong people for the wrong reasons, leading to misdirected or limited improvement efforts
  • Performance measurement invokes thoughts of boredom, depression, torture or escape
  • Squishy customer perceptions appear to defy translation into objective, unambiguous measures
  • The most expensive knowledge work is poorly measured (if at all)

The more “professional” and higher in the organizational hierarchy we are, the less likely we are to characterize our work as measurable products, let alone measure the performance of- or satisfaction with- that work.  The total cost of that work to the enterprise is significant.  On the other hand, work performed by the lowest level employees is measured six ways from Sunday.  We know the unit cost to produce a cell phone or a package delivery.  What we usually don’t know is the cost to create an engineering drawing, a route map or an answer.  While “rework” in the manufacturing context is well-defined and measured, we may refer to the office equivalent as simply “revisions” and let it go at that.  This session goes a long way to fixing these issues.

The most common way we measure satisfaction is by survey.  Yet the most important customer demands are frequently not addressed at all on those surveys or are measured in such a way that it’s unclear what to change for improvement.  We also tend to measure best what they care about least, and vice versa.  Join us for this interactive webinar to learn the following:

  • Define strategic objectives in a way that average employees find personally relevant.
  • Measure intangible knowledge and service work
  • Translate and measure seemingly immeasurable (squishy perception)
  • Connect measures with the design criteria
  • Apply the power of Kano, QFD and other esoteric design methods with the simplicity of adding 2+2
  • Create survey questions that are meaningful and drive action
  • 10 reasons why most surveys fail
  • An easy-to-apply methodology for transforming subjective perceptions and aspirations into objective performance measures
  • Tools that connect ambiguous voice of the customer input into service improvement and product design
  • Criteria for good survey construction

 

  1. Self-assessment
  • The size of the opportunity
  • Mapping strategic objectives and KPIs to 8 Dimensions of Excellence
  • Where your current satisfaction survey is strongest
  1. WHY to measure service and knowledge work
  • Align mission, strategy, values and behavior
  • Improve the right things
  • Numerically define “success” in a way everyone understands
  1. WHAT to measure and in what sequence
  • The strategy map and customer-balanced scorecard
  • Outcomes (results)
  • Products (knowledge-based deliverables)
  • Process (activity)
  1. Satisfaction Surveys
  • Common problems
  • Examples of the good, bad and ugly
  • Keys to survey success
  1. HOW to measure the seemingly immeasurable
  • Redefine intangible service and knowledge work as products
  • The top three customer expectations for every product and service
  • Translate squishy perceptions into objective measures
  • Designing products, evaluating satisfaction
  1. Taking action

 

The length of the session determines the depth of material covered and the amount of hands-on application time.

  • Live in-house workshops (customized to the client’s special objectives and circumstances):  1/2 to 1 day depending on client objectives
  • Public workshops:  1/2 day
  • Executive seminars and dinner lectures:  90-120 minutes
  • Interactive webinars:  2-4 hours

 

This workshop is for anyone working to establish strategic KPIs, develop a balanced scorecard, design satisfaction surveys, translate subjective customer priorities into product or process design criteria to drive outstanding performance. Educational units (REUs) may be available for ASQ, PMI, and other professional society members.

The more important something is, the more we want to measure it.  The better we measure it, the more we understand.  It is a curious fact that many of the most important business and customer priorities often go unmeasured.  Many leaders struggle to answer a key question: How can we use measures to connect enterprise performance, customer satisfaction and knowledge work to drive improvement? Strategic and business plans commonly include measures of success, but few of them are directly relevant to knowledge work or to what customers care about. The last thing we need is to inadvertently communicate to our customers that we aren’t on the same page with them.  This webinar shows you how to fix this mismatch.

As a leader charged with the development and deployment of performance measurement systems, satisfaction surveys and/or new product/service design, you will appreciate the practical application and humor that makes this otherwise boring and dry topic fun and personally relevant.  We begin this session with the premise that we are all smart and want to improve performance and customer satisfaction, but need a better way to address challenges such as:

  • Strategic objectives look more like milestones or glorified to-do’s than numerical measures of success
  • Dedicated employees don’t understand or can’t personally relate their daily work to enterprise strategy
  • Surveys which ask the wrong questions at the wrong time of the wrong people for the wrong reasons, leading to misdirected or limited improvement efforts
  • Performance measurement invokes thoughts of boredom, depression, torture or escape
  • Squishy customer perceptions appear to defy translation into objective, unambiguous measures
  • The most expensive knowledge work is poorly measured (if at all)

The more “professional” and higher in the organizational hierarchy we are, the less likely we are to characterize our work as measurable products, let alone measure the performance of- or satisfaction with- that work.  The total cost of that work to the enterprise is significant.  On the other hand, work performed by the lowest level employees is measured six ways from Sunday.  We know the unit cost to produce a cell phone or a package delivery.  What we usually don’t know is the cost to create an engineering drawing, a route map or an answer. While “rework” in the manufacturing context is well-defined and measured, we may refer to the office equivalent as simply “revisions” and let it go at that.  This session goes a long way to fixing these issues.

Intended Audience

This webinar is for anyone working to establish strategic KPIs, develop a balanced scorecard, design satisfaction surveys, translate subjective customer priorities into product or process design criteria to drive outstanding performance. Educational units (REUs) may be available for ASQ, PMI, and other professional society members.

Learning Objectives

The most common way we measure satisfaction is by survey.  Yet the most important customer demands are frequently not addressed at all on those surveys or are measured in such a way that it’s unclear what to change for improvement.  We also tend to measure best what they care about least, and vice versa.  Join us for this interactive webinar to learn the following:

  • Define strategic objectives in a way that average employees find personally relevant.
  • Measure intangible knowledge and service work
  • Translate and measure seemingly immeasurable (squishy perception)
  • Connect measures with the design criteria
  • Apply the power of Kano, QFD and other esoteric design methods with the simplicity of adding 2+2
  • Create survey questions that are meaningful and drive action

Takeaways

  • 10 reasons why most surveys fail
  • An easy-to-apply methodology for transforming subjective perceptions and aspirations into objective performance measures
  • Tools that connect ambiguous voice of the customer input into service improvement and product design
  • Criteria for good survey construction

Participant Comments

“Rob Lawton showed us how to develop measures related to what members care about.  Using the C3 methodology and capturing what members actually have told us, we have identified nine (9) characteristics of the extraordinary experience, along with one or more measure for each one. This has been invaluable to us. That loan utilization rate has seen major improvement from 50 % to 75%.    The dollar value of that improvement was $8 million/month over just what it was prior to five months ago.  Virtually all of our key business measures of success are significantly better than we had projected they would be at the beginning of the year.” Kyle Markland, CEO/President, Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union

“I was very impressed with this session on ‘Measuring Service Quality.’  I got more out of that four-hour session than all the books I have read on measurement.”  Dave Pittman, Senior Engineer, Caterpillar, Inc.

“You have essentially changed the whole way I approach everything I do!  And, I am enjoying my job more as a result.  I have been working with [a team] on their balanced scorecard.  Someone came in to see me today and said, “I don’t know what you have been doing with that group, but they finally seem to be focusing on the right things to improve.  Hallelujah!”  Stephanie Easthope, Manager, Operational Excellence, Wolters Kluwer Health, Pharma Solutions

Outline

  1. Self-assessment
  • The size of the opportunity
  • Mapping strategic objectives and KPIs to 8 Dimensions of Excellence
  • Where your current satisfaction survey is strongest
  1. WHY to measure service and knowledge work
  • Align mission, strategy, values and behavior
  • Improve the right things
  • Numerically define “success” in a way everyone understands
  1. WHAT to measure and in what sequence
  • The strategy map and customer-balanced scorecard
  • Outcomes (results)
  • Products (knowledge-based deliverables)
  • Process (activity)
  1. Satisfaction Surveys
  • Common problems
  • Examples of the good, bad and ugly
  • Keys to survey success
  1. HOW to measure the seemingly immeasurable
  • Redefine intangible service and knowledge work as products
  • The top three customer expectations for every product and service
  • Translate squishy perceptions into objective measures
  • Designing products, evaluating satisfaction
  1. Taking action