business
By Eric Balinski
Measure what matters If you don't, everything else is a waste of money
“ Over the years you make lots of mistakes by making it complex and taking too many measurements.” – Master Shooting Instructor
Measurement is a key component to improve business performance. Business measurement achieves two things: It provides a relative position assessment on how well something is being accomplished at a certain point in time relative to a goal. It also provides information that can enable improvement or correction to the goal achievement. While the intent of measurement is often right, what typically plays out in business is either measuring everything or claiming some things just cannot be measured—a leap of faith is required. There have always been questions as to what and how things are measured. There have been debates about what the dimensions of business performance are that need to be measured and improved. For craft industry producers this effort may not occur, as often they rely on the
notion that it produces the “finest” item in its class. This is a bit egotistical and potentially detrimental to its long-term growth and prosperity as it inhibits learning or even blocks recognizing changes in the marketplace. While I spent more than 20 years in large corporations, all of which had dogmatic attention to performance measurement with tools from Deming or the Six-Sigma process, my perspective
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CRAFT BRAND AND MARKETING
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018
CBAM-MAG.COM
