We all need metrics of success. First and foremost, as a form of self-knowledge, measuring our improvement or lack thereof gives us a sense of where we are in the world and where we can better ourselves. Used wisely, it also can tell us where we best contribute and where we should probably keep our mouths humbly shut. Humans, unfortunately, are notoriously bad at estimating their own success, as experiment after experiment has shown. When asked, for instance, to rank themselves in honesty, morality, and hard work, the vast majority of test subjects rank themselves above average in every category. Likewise, test-takers who believe they have done fantastically on a given test almost always score lower than those who believed they had done poorly. We are a species that loves to fool ourselves about our own superiority and progress.
ERP METRICS: BE HONEST
When implementing a new or upgraded enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, metrics are equally important. Your company has spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on a uniquely complex project; it would be nice to know if you did well and how you could do better. But both inadvertent and self-serving self-delusion is at play here as well. Business leaders and the IT department are all in conflict when grading success because the success of the new ERP project is a reflection of their own performance.
Objective measurements, of course, are one way around self-delusion, but here pitfalls remain. Individuals choosing the metrics can unintentionally bias the grading of success by selecting metrics that are easy to satisfy or have little to do with real progress for the company. Managers, isolated in their own worldview, can have a hard time seeing the day-to-day struggles of their subordinates or the specific complexities of a given duty. Individual workers have a similar problem inasmuch as they can forget to see the big picture or how one process serves another. And while servant models of process have fallen out of fashion, all business is ultimately service and true service is ultimately its own measure of success.
Next time, we’ll talk about how to choose metrics and know that your ERP is doing what it needs to make your business a servant to every customer and worth the resources you poured into it.