In my journey through the world of agile and organisational management, I’ve come to appreciate the profound impact that evidence-based management can have on our decision-making processes. It’s not just a buzzword; it’s a strategic approach that can transform how we operate at both tactical and strategic levels. Today, I want to share my insights on this topic, drawing from my experiences and the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
Understanding Evidence-Based Management
At its core, evidence-based management is about leveraging data to inform our actions and behaviours without allowing it to dictate them. This distinction is crucial. When we collect data within our organisations, we must remember that the way we measure people can significantly influence their behaviour. If you find yourself in a situation where a colleague seems disengaged or is working against the grain, it’s worth considering the metrics that might be influencing their actions.
Key Takeaways:
- Data-Driven Decisions: Use data to inform your understanding of behaviours and outcomes.
- Measure with Purpose: Understand how the metrics in place may be shaping the actions of your team members.
The Importance of Metrics
Identifying the right outcomes for your business is the first step. Whether it’s increasing revenue, enhancing customer value, or improving market capability, clarity on your goals is essential. Once you have defined your desired outcomes, the next step is to determine the metrics that will help you measure progress towards those goals.
Considerations for Metrics:
- Leading vs. Lagging Indicators: Understand the difference and how each can provide insights into your progress.
- Tactical Measures: Identify specific metrics that can help you move towards your outcomes effectively.
One of the most significant lessons I’ve learned is the importance of using data to inform rather than control. For instance, let’s say you have a metric that tracks the number of live site incidents lasting longer than three sprints. While it’s essential to monitor this data, it’s equally important to understand the context behind it.
Imagine you notice that one team has several outstanding live site issues. At first glance, this might seem like a red flag. However, upon further investigation, you might discover that the team is dependent on another group to resolve an issue before they can proceed. This is where the concept of informing rather than controlling comes into play.
Practical Steps:
- Investigate Context: Always seek to understand the reasons behind the data before jumping to conclusions.
- Engage with Teams: Open a dialogue with teams to uncover any underlying issues that may not be immediately apparent.
The essence of evidence-based management lies in collecting a wealth of evidence and using it to make informed decisions. However, it’s important to acknowledge that the evidence may have gaps. Our role is to extrapolate what we don’t know and make decisions based on our understanding of the current situation.
Final Thoughts:
- Continuous Learning: Embrace the idea that evidence-based management is a journey of continuous improvement.
- Adapt and Evolve: Be prepared to adjust your strategies as new data and insights emerge.
In conclusion, evidence-based management is a powerful tool that can enhance our organisational effectiveness. By focusing on data to inform our decisions, understanding the metrics that shape behaviours, and engaging with our teams, we can create a more responsive and value-driven environment. As we navigate the complexities of our work, let’s remember that the goal is not just to collect data but to use it wisely to foster a culture of continuous improvement and collaboration.
Evidence-based management is the application of evidence-based practices at the strategic and tactical levels in an organisation. It involves using data to inform but not control the actions and behaviours that have been shown to impact outcomes. So what that means is that we’re going to collect a bunch of data within the organisation. The way we measure people informs the way they behave. So whenever you’re working within an organisation and you find somebody’s working against you or somebody’s not being as involved as you think they should be involved, and you’re wondering why, there’s probably some organisational measure or metric something being levied against them that enables, ensures, encourages that behaviour in that person.
So the best way to figure out why somebody is doing something in a particular way that maybe you feel has a negative impact on the way your things need to happen is to figure out how they’re measured. That can be difficult, but if you can glean that information, you can figure out why they’re behaving the way they’re behaving, why they’re taking the actions that they’re taking. We want to try and have more behaviours and actions that impact our outcomes positively. We want to deliver more value to our customers.
What other outcomes might your business want? Well, they might want more revenue. They might want more value for their customers. They might want to save money. What else might be good impactful outcomes for our business? We might want to increase our capability within a particular market. It’s difficult without a specific instance to have a specific outcome that you’re trying to achieve.
Once you’ve figured out what your outcomes are, you need to figure out what metrics are going to help you measure progress towards those outcomes. These can be super tactical things that help you move towards those outcomes. It can be leading or lagging measures; there’s all kinds of things that come into that. But evidence-based management is that application of practices within the context of that data to help you make decisions.
One of the reasons I very specifically said inform but not control is that the data is not always going to result in a specific action. So what’s a good example of that? Let’s say I had a metric for my team or teams. I’ve got a group of teams I’m working with, and my metric is the number of live site incidents that last or exist for longer than two sprints—let’s call it three sprints. We’re running a live service; we’re going to have outages and issues and things that happen in the live service. When those things happen, we’re going to create live site incidents or live site incident mitigating actions—things we’re going to change in the product in order to not have that type of live site incident happen again.
So we’ve done our analysis, we’ve come up with these ideas, and then we expect our metric is that we expect teams to clear those off within three sprints. If I expect them to clear it off within three sprints, I maybe want to have a measure, a team dashboard, and I’m going to have a measure that says what is the number of live site incidents that have been existing for longer than three sprints and what is the trend of that number? Is it trending up or is it trending down?
You may see your list of teams, and you see the numbers, and they’re all good apart from this one team that has these four outstanding live site issues that have been there for longer than, let’s say, six or seven sprints. That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong in that team. These are indications, these are flags, pieces of evidence that you use to inform your decision-making. So you’ll probably need to go ask them how it’s going, and maybe there’s a team that they’re waiting on something else to happen. They can’t fix their thing until some other third party that they don’t control and we have limited influence over needs to do something.
So we can’t make them do it; they’re going to do it in their own time. It’s on their backlog; it keeps getting pushed, and we can’t resolve our issue until they’ve resolved their stuff that they need to do. So the team, that data looks bad, but the team’s doing fine. They’re chasing it on a regular basis; they’re putting pressure on that other group on a continuous basis. It’s just taking time to get resolved.
That’s why it informs but does not control. But we’re making decisions based on the evidence. We’re collecting a bunch of evidence; we’re extrapolating what we don’t know or don’t understand. The evidence is going to have gaps in it, and then we’re making an informed decision based on our understanding of the current situation. That’s evidence-based management in a nutshell.
