Identify Success Metrics and Reporting Needs
Success is a change in behavior.
Starter Questions
Do you know how to chose what actions to focus on first?
How do you establish metrics to measure the success of your business case?
What can your executives help with regarding implementation?
How to Succeed with Implementation
After your business case is approved, you need a proven strategy for successful implementation.
Pick the most impactful efforts first. Remember that not all problems are worth solving. Reviewing Figure 1 below from Part 4, “Simplify current program” will have a much greater impact than “Create additional templates”. Also, “Provide regular training” must happen because much of the example feedback informed us that most team members had not been trained at all. (Recall that simplifying the program will also help with training. A simpler system is easier to train on.)
Pick two or three actions every quarter and accomplish them extremely well. Do not try to do it all at once. You need to make progress to create momentum for change, but also not succumb to the pressure to deliver quickly. Think about your business case as the climb up the mountain to the summit, and implementation as the journey back down – which any experienced mountaineer will tell you is more difficult than making the summit.
Establish Metrics for Success and Reporting Your Progress
Measuring the success of your business case is done by reporting the performance metrics. Establishing metrics is extremely difficult, as much an art as it is a science. (I’m reading Steve McCabe’s Benchmarking in Construction to guide me on this myself - more to come in future articles.) Because quality can be subjective, there are no global measurement standards (at least that I’m aware of) that apply to all organizations. The success of a quality program is specific to each individual company, its culture, and business strategy.
True metrics measure the change in behavior. Identify what success looks like and the corresponding behaviors you’re looking for when team members use your new or enhanced quality system and turn those into a metric.
Here’s an example that could apply to “Simplify current program” using the Objective and Key Results framework:
Objective: Simplify the existing inspection checklists.
Key Result: All 150 corporate checklists are one page or 10 items or less (whichever is shorter) by October 1, 2025. Some exceptions will exist (building envelope or building automation, for example).
Your metrics should be measurable and identify the change in behavior you’re looking for. Before finalizing your metrics (or Key Results), ask your executives and other stakeholders how they want to see you report against your objectives. Show them your Key Results and ask if the information provides value and helps solve the identified problem. (If the metrics do not align with the language they speak, you’ll have a more difficult time maintaining their continued support.) If they don’t understand what you’re doing, they won’t support you because they won’t have the knowledge to do so.
As part of your reporting effort:
Be very articulate about what you’ve set out to accomplish each quarter (or reporting interval you’ve chosen).
Request tactical support from your executives each time you meet with them. (“I need your support doing xyz to help me achieve this part of my objective.”)
In order for your executives to own the decision to invest in quality, they must help make forward progress after the business case is approved.