Managing to the Spec
Many mango seasons ago, I had a different kind of job (didn’t we all?). I worked for a few years on the in-patient children’s unit of a psychiatric hospital (back when there were in-patient hospitals that weren’t also prisons).
You just looked at the blog title to make sure you were in the right place…stay with me here, this is relevant. I swear.
I worked at a psychiatric hospital, then worked with ADHD kids at a wilderness camp for about 6 years. In that time I worked with brilliant psychologists and psychiatrists and social workers each of whom illuminated a different facet of human behavior and motivation. There was much good learning to be had.
One of the key techniques I learned while watching a skilled Family Therapist (at an outdoor experiential retreat) work with a family made up of parents, an11 year old boy and a 13 year old girl. They were working to promote interdependence among their family members and began by talking about what was wrong in their family dynamic. Each one of them was easily able to list the problems they were having.
Mike Gass (the aforementioned skilled Family Therapist) asked them what their relationship should look like. He continued this line of questioning, asking them about the details of this ideal relationship. Then he asked the question that stuck with me and that I ask constantly:
“How will you know it when you see it?”
Cut to present day. This (and other versions of it) is the most useful question I ask when talking to people about business measurement. Invariably, people have at least a vague idea of what they wish were true and when they bring someone in (consultant, employee, therapist, gardener, etc.) to help them solve the problem they’re usually really good at explaining what’s wrong; at explaining the problem.
The good work begins when the proposed problem solver helps clarify what the end state should be; what the desired state should be. This is tougher for many folks, but identifying, validating and documenting the desired state allows you to create the specification (the spec) on which you will be focusing throughout the process. At the launch of a process, after the SOWs have been signed and PowerPoints have been created and many charts and graphs have been thrown up on conference room walls, I try to ask “6 months after we’re gone, how will you know this was the right decision?”
Invariably the answer is one that isn’t documented in any of the reams of paperwork, but it’s the unspoken (up until that moment) criteria that will be used to determine success. Sometimes it’s “getting my boss off my back”, or “going home at a decent hour”, or something similarly unformed. Spending a few moments refining that response becomes one of the most critical parts of the conversation.
A wiser person than me once said that a problem is the difference between what you have and what you want. Defining the “want” half of that equation in very concrete terms results in having a solid spec, a solution design, the desired state that you get to work toward.
Back to measurement (some of you think I forgot what I’m writing about). Measurement is all relative, because at any given moment you’re measuring for the purpose of refining the current state to get it closer to the desired state. I’ve often said that the right measurement (for example) of a training program is the measurement of the process it supports. In other terms: the right measurement for anything is the degree to which it moves toward the (hopefully) documented desired state.
This is the difference between measurement (simply collecting information) and evaluation (holding that information up against a desired standard).
~Geek~
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As a former school teacher, I found that measurement worked well for students on an individual basis, evaluations of the group worked for the larger systems (cf WASL).
Unfortunately, evaluations like the SAT don’t work on that basis, and the data collected doesn’t always accurately reflect the qualities that make each learner unique.
Tuppence to ya.
T