3-2-2 analyzing systems: Measurement

To understand anything you must analyze it

To analyze anything you must measure it

A very important part of analyzing a system is to figure out whether if its parts are doing what they are supposed to do or not, and the only way to do this is to look at different parts of the system and asking that question

-          You must keep track of your business all the time, especially of you are starting a new business and don't have a complete analytical system; as it is very easy to ignore stuff

-          This works as a verification of quality and progress … you compare what you are doing against competitors, standard reference … and the only thing you can compare them with is numbers. That's why you need to measure

Notice that:

-          A lot of things that are easy to measure aren't the important things to measure

-          As Albert Einstein said: "Not all the things that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts"

-          The hardest things to measure is the qualitative stuff, but there are ways to do it

Measurement is a critical part of understanding your business. "What gets measured gets managed" … and if you can't measure things you are then completely blind; you can't figure out if you are doing right