One of the first things I learned in my change/business improvement career was to base recommendations on fact and evidence, and not just opinion. In both practice and academia, both qualitative and quantitative information have their place. Qualitative data, where people describe what it’s like to work in a team, is hugely valuable as part of our “People” aspect of our service reviews, but when it comes to performance, numbers really are key.
Factually quantifying your service area has real benefits including:
- Evidence not estimates. We are all guilty of over or underestimating certain aspects of our work. The famous Pareto’s Law suggests that 80% of our work often comes from 20% of cases, which can distort our perception of where workload really sits. Using data to bring us back to the reality is hugely helpful, especially when combined with process maps.
- Benchmarking. Often with our service reviews we will look to compare performance and data with other, comparable local authorities. This helps to get a sense of where performance is and where you can learn from others.
- Identifying real issues. When combining data with process mapping, we often uncover bottle necks in what can seem to be a perfectly good process. By using the data to understand workflow you can identify and remove barriers.
- Understanding customers. We always include some form of customer data in our service review, whether it’s spot checks, customer surveys, journey mapping or thematic reviews of complaints. Customer data is crucial in any service review.
That said, those who know me will know I’m a firm believer that not everything can be measured, and there are risks in becoming too focussed on data and evidence. It’s worth asking yourself the following questions to make sure you’re not getting too lost:
- Is this data/evidence helping me to find improvements, or just reinforcing old ways of working? Sometimes ‘evidence’ is just reinforcing our thinking rather than helping us to see new ways of working.
- How will measuring this data drive behaviour? As the saying goes, ‘what gets measured gets done’. But this can be too literal! My favourite example of this is customer services teams measuring the speed of answering the customers call – only to find that operatives were answering customers quickly but putting them on hold, so actual resolution of customer issues took longer!
- What other information do I have that either supports or contradicts this view? For example, measuring what % of cases are dealt with by a specific deadline showing a positive result, but a thematic analysis of customer complaints showing unhappy customers. Where you have contradicting data it’s always worth digging deeper. Similarly high measurable performance but low staff morale is likely to be unsustainable.
In summary, when doing service reviews, yes, absolutely use data, insight and intelligence to form your view – we are all guilty of confirmation bias, and facts and figures really do help to keep us grounded. But as my favourite saying goes: “to someone with a hammer, everything looks like a nail”, so do make sure you are taking a balanced approach and apply critical thinking around what your performance data is really telling you!
In conclusion, we are big fans of process mapping, especially in cases where you’re unsure what the issue is and why a team or service isn’t performing as well as it could. As long as you follow our tips above to stay grounded in the customer, performance and ensure you involve others you won’t go far wrong!
For more information about our trouble shooting service join our change chat on 6th December 2023 at 13.00pm
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/change-chat-troubleshooting-tickets-706499668527?aff=oddtdtcreator
