How do you know you are part of a successful organization? Is it that you've survived the past several years and not gone out of business or is that you've grown by 4% per year or some other metric? Do you have metrics which define success in your particular field?
I write this recovering from a meeting last week where I listened to a briefer talk about spending the last year developing a set of metrics for an organization's success and the 30 minute brief didn't tell me anything about the organization's metrics, the data that would inform them, or what these metrics would be used for. In the planning world metrics are a powerful tool that too often are overlooked and take a backseat to other means to determine success.
The most powerful example of this I can provide is that I attended a presentation at a Navy base and the briefer was talking about a deployment of a hospital ship that had just ended and he was going port by port discussing the number of locals treated while the ship was there, medications provided, veterinarian consults conducted on livestock, etc...however he came to one port and the medical numbers were through the roof and he said we won't be going back there again. I was kinda shocked he said that. After he talked more the true purpose of that particular visit was yes to treat locals but the most important issue was to increase the public perception of the United States and in this case interviews didn't bear that out.
So successful organizations know what equals success and track those numbers. They are willing to examine themselves and make adjustments based on the data available. Additionally, these organizations are keen to understand are they doing things right and are they doing the right things. Finally, I've noticed that successful organizations are those where the staff knows the metrics and assists in gathering data to enable evaluation.
