Summary
For organizations to successfully implement a measurement program, they must provide meaningful and useful data to all levels of the organization. To ensure that appropriate information is reported, the following is the best approach:
Define the organization's goals and initiatives.
Define the measures to support the goals.
Define the data necessary to calculate the measures.
If organizations do not plan ahead for what they want to know, the data collected is not likely to meet their needs.
After the first sets of measures are successfully implemented, the goals can be reviewed to determine the next set of measures to define and roll out. Based on the success in reaching the defined goals or implementing the defined initiatives, additional goals/initiatives and measures may need to be defined. The measurement process should be a continual cycle of measuring, reviewing, establishing goals, and refining and defining measures.