I was on a sales call a couple of days ago and was reminded, yet again, of the importance of lean measures and operating metrics.  (In other words, numbers, data, metrics, charts, yardsticks, measures, what have you that allow a manager or associate to assess the level of performance of an operation or process).

Essentially, the manager was frustrated because his organization had no measures of performance.  This meant he couldn’t tell if he had the right resources deployed in the right way or not.

Exactly.

This is why I always start, way back in Leadership Planning, with the development of metrics that will allow the leadership group to determine whether the lean initiative is working or not.

If you’re interested in learning more about operations metrics, do a web search for any of Brian Maskell’s books.