A target is hit. The dashboard shows green. The bonus is paid. All is well. Everyone’s happy.
Well … that is until a problem arises.
Most reports and dashboards are built around targets — is the number up or down, has it hit the mark, is it green or red. And when it is green, the natural response is to think everything is fine and move on.
There is nothing wrong with that per se. The danger arises when people relax when they see the green. Green means a target was hit but it does not always mean that the green outcome is based on correct information.
A number can be right and still not tell the full story.
The target was hit. But it masked a problem.
A firm had a monthly maintenance target. A set number of items needed to be checked each month and if that number was hit, a bonus was paid. Every month the target was hit. Every month the dashboard was green. As far as anyone was concerned, the job was being done.
Then a critical piece of equipment broke down. Days of downtime followed and while it was being fixed, no income was coming in.
When the maintenance logs were checked, the picture became clear. The monthly target had been hit every month, but not everything that needed maintaining had been regularly serviced. The logs showed that some items which were quick to service had been checked consistently. Critical equipment which was time consuming and tedious to service had been overlooked.
So the target number was correct, the data was accurate, and the calculation of target versus actual figures was working as expected. But what was being measured was the number of items checked, not whether the right items were being checked. Those are not the same thing, and nothing in the dashboard was set up to show the difference.
Numbers need context
This is not unique to maintenance. Whenever a target is set, it is worth asking what the target is actually there to achieve and whether the number being measured genuinely reflects that. A target that measures volume does not automatically tell you anything about quality, priority, or risk. It just tells you the volume was hit.
That gap between what a target measures and what it is supposed to achieve is where context becomes important. An analyst building visuals and calculations in a report needs to understand the background to the figures. They don’t just need to know what numbers should be compared to each other, they should also learn why that comparison matters and what sits behind the figures. And the people requesting the work are best placed to provide that context, because they understand the business operation in a way the analyst may not.
Better Questions Lead to Better Figures
With a conversation between both parties, better questions become possible. For example:
- Should there be separate targets shown for different categories of items rather than one combined total?
- Are there items that should be flagged if they are not within a certain range?
- Are there any conditions not being met that would automatically mean the target is missed?
Every Number Has a Story
It’s often the case that neither party can foresee all the potential issues and outlier events which could impact the targets and calculations especially if meeting the target depends on the actions taken by people. That’s just life.
But before a report containing targets is issued it’s worth taking the time to have a discussion to make sure that what each party thinks is being measured is actually being measured.
A single figure against a target will always have a story behind it. The question is whether the correct information is going into the figures to tell it.