How do you measure your success?
A challenge for you: Take a step back and think – on a scale from one to ten, how you would rate your team’s ‘Success’? As you’re thinking, what statistics do you factor in to determine the success of a Team? Is it about the number of project delivered? number of problems fixed? Average number of projects delivered per quarter? Does it all comes down to the numbers – the analytic and statistical information that ‘proves’ you’re on the right path?
Realistically, it’s hard to argue that the stats don’t come into play. If someone asks me what was my most successful year in IT? , I immediately point them to the year 2008, my ‘one hit wonder’ that brought many new faces through my neck of the woods – some of whom have remained and become regular admirers. It was one of the highlights of my IT career thus far, without a doubt. I was consistently focusing on delivering quality service to my clients.
That being said, it is not, and should not be all about the numbers. Measuring success in numbers, studying the statistics and neglecting the real value of product and its usage is flawed in practice.
Here are two things we should be thinking about when measuring our success:
Consistency
You’ve probably heard it, preached it, from time and time again: The most effective IT service providers deliver best practices “regularly and routinely”. Ask yourself this: Have you established a schedule? Do people know when to expect a new innovative idea from you? Are you ritualistic in your delivery? You would be surprised at the effectiveness of being ‘predictable’. I’m more likely to follow your work if I know that every Wednesday morning I can expect to see a email with your next action items.
Another factor to consider: Is your service consistently ‘good’? I use the term 'good' loosely as there is no clear definition of what makes a service ‘good’. Think about it this way: Is your delivery steady throughout the year or are you seeing peaks and valleys? Are you generating good interactive discussion on most of your meetings, or many of your meetings draw very little to no interest? If you’re struggling to maintain consistent interest, you may need to rethink the focus and direction of your meetings to determine your meeting’s target niche.
Quality
When thinking about the project’s success, one of the first factors that come to mind is the number of issues/new features which were addressed. But simply racking up abundance of new features or addressing the number of issues isn’t what’s important. Quality beats quantity, every time. At first pass, a project with 200 new features / addressing 100 issues may look ‘better’ – but if you have an one major new feature/issue addressed with a lot more usage, isn’t that more successful? I think so.
Success isn’t measured in numbers – it’s measured by consistent quality product by technology that inspires business and keeps people coming back for more business.
Realistically, it’s hard to argue that the stats don’t come into play. If someone asks me what was my most successful year in IT? , I immediately point them to the year 2008, my ‘one hit wonder’ that brought many new faces through my neck of the woods – some of whom have remained and become regular admirers. It was one of the highlights of my IT career thus far, without a doubt. I was consistently focusing on delivering quality service to my clients.
That being said, it is not, and should not be all about the numbers. Measuring success in numbers, studying the statistics and neglecting the real value of product and its usage is flawed in practice.
Here are two things we should be thinking about when measuring our success:
Consistency
You’ve probably heard it, preached it, from time and time again: The most effective IT service providers deliver best practices “regularly and routinely”. Ask yourself this: Have you established a schedule? Do people know when to expect a new innovative idea from you? Are you ritualistic in your delivery? You would be surprised at the effectiveness of being ‘predictable’. I’m more likely to follow your work if I know that every Wednesday morning I can expect to see a email with your next action items.
Another factor to consider: Is your service consistently ‘good’? I use the term 'good' loosely as there is no clear definition of what makes a service ‘good’. Think about it this way: Is your delivery steady throughout the year or are you seeing peaks and valleys? Are you generating good interactive discussion on most of your meetings, or many of your meetings draw very little to no interest? If you’re struggling to maintain consistent interest, you may need to rethink the focus and direction of your meetings to determine your meeting’s target niche.
Quality
When thinking about the project’s success, one of the first factors that come to mind is the number of issues/new features which were addressed. But simply racking up abundance of new features or addressing the number of issues isn’t what’s important. Quality beats quantity, every time. At first pass, a project with 200 new features / addressing 100 issues may look ‘better’ – but if you have an one major new feature/issue addressed with a lot more usage, isn’t that more successful? I think so.
Success isn’t measured in numbers – it’s measured by consistent quality product by technology that inspires business and keeps people coming back for more business.
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