Why Do You Measure?

This is a very valid question.

Always ask yourselves the question: what am I'm going to do with the data?

Do I really want to know it?

And never forget: Figures don't lie but lier's can figure.

You can´t control what you don´t measure and obviously you can´t improve if you don´t know what to improve.

We have becomed a data driven society, but the question is, does the data give information or is it simply being collected? Is it being analyzed as it should or not?

People do things just because it is the status quo. I believe that bosses should encourage and teach how to analyze data so anyone can take action and make better decisions. Basically it is make a habit or a culture in the company of THINKING not just ACTING or DOING. Both go hand in hand, but usually people don´t bother to do it.

Many efforts are lost such as ISO 9001, because management likes the accreditation, but dislike to do the work. Simply put, they like to see it hanging in the wall, but make decisions based on feelings and perceptions not analysis.

You are very correct in your statment: but if you don't knwo how to recognise a proces in control you better don't start measuring it.

To many businesses are accepting a status quo as a good achievement, but they fool themselves.

Figures are dangerous if you don't understand them and to many managers just want to see good figures and to much busines analists achieve in bringing them.

If we don't collect the data, we'll have nothing to analysis.

Usually it take a while to see the pattern, problem and solution from the data. Also most company do have all the data but they're not in a analyzable format, like paper. Even when they're in a database, the database system they use do not have the capability to do detail analysis.

We're collecting all the data hoping one day we can use it.