The Value of Business Analytics: Identifying the Path to Profitability

ESTABLISHING A MEASUREMENT FRAMEWORK

Holistically, the measures described so far provide a useful framework to quantify value, manage risk, and identify opportunities for improvement. Because of this, they are an essential management tool. But they need more than just definition—they need to be captured in a way that:

• Ensures that they are relevant
• Minimizes the overhead imposed on the team
• Is consistent between initiatives

A measurement framework is useless if the things it is meant to measure are not relevant or are impossible to capture. Creating an effective and useful measurement framework requires focusing on what is relevant and useful both to the organization and to the analytics team.

It is also important to consider the overhead involved with tracking measures. Every additional activity takes time away from already-overworked resources; unless the benefits outweigh the overhead, the framework will become a secondary priority. Although ignoring the measurement framework may provide short-term productivity benefits, it only hurts the team in the long run.

A good framework gives managers the ability to compare effort across different initiatives and activities. By having comparable measures, it becomes easy for a team to prioritize attention. This level of comparability and focus cannot be built on an ad hoc basis—it should be planned.

Success Starts in the Planning Stages

An effective measurement framework requires forethought. Ongoing success requires more than asset delivery—it ...