Laurel Miller

Yes, you could use this data. Data collected would include resource utilization, productivity, average weekly hours worked, background data, time spent on work activities, time spent on non-work activities, etc. KPIs would include project success rates, time to project implementation, etc.

Yes I believe you can use data from an applicants profile. Our department’s graduate admissions committee looks at specific data in an applicants file to decide to accept them into our PhD program and to offer them an assistantship. The KPI’s would be GRE scores, GPA and strong recommendation letters.

Data from an applicant’s profile can be used to predict their performance in a similar job. The data can be years of experience, skill set, GPA and position. The outcome will be performance rating, productivity, accomplishments, etc.

Q2: IHC case has numerous example which links Data and process. For example at one point the IHC data estimated 15% salary expense was devoted to entering data. The process was then streamlined in 1997 and PCMS processes helped to organize nursing services by task and then structured an electronic data collection system accordingly. PCMS helped reduce redundant data collection.

Q2:
The process is the logical sequence of smaller tasks, the final outcome of a process is the achievement of a result. Each task within a process is performed based on previous data collected and stored in a company’s database. The more accurate and up-to-date the data is, the more accurately it shapes the tasks and the better results are achieved.

Continuing off of our discussion last week on Intermountain Health Care, it is a very distinct relationship that exists between process and data. Intermountain’s original process of gathering and organizing data was unstructured and very time-consuming. They re-vamped the entire data process to reduce redundancy and while cutting back on employees time spent on simple data entry. The process are the steps taken to achieve the overall end goal of data being in a database. By changing the process of data entry, Intermountain Health Care did not change the final outcomes (data), but just the steps taken (or each individual task) in order to get to the final outcomes.

While this is not my job, an example of using data to predict job performance would be the role of help-desk agent. The data in this person’s profile could be level of knowledge in the specific area he is servicing (i.e. degree studied and GPA) and communication skills. The KPIs would be average calls answered per hour, number of times this person got the resolution right the first time, and the satisfaction level of the customer being helped.

Q2:
Yes, data from applicant’s profile could be certainly used to predict performance in a job. Data would be relevant work experience (projects worked on) and educational experience (University attended and highest degree earned). The KPI to measure this would be, the success rate of the projects, job position, and GPA.

You could use data from an applicant’s profile to predict performance. Data such as work experience, length of positions, accomplishments, education experience, and grades, certifications or organizations could all be indicative of performance. KPIs could be cost savings per year, sales per year, and efficiency measures such as process time reductions.

I think data can be used from a persons profile to determine potential job performance. Often times people look for experience at a specific company or industry to understand the applicants skills. For example some employers look for experience at a top consulting firm to indicate a persons ability to approach and diagnose a problem. If an organization can identify what the skills are to do the job well ahead of time it should be easier to recruit for that role. The KPI could be average time for promotion against an organization average or average annual salary growth in comparison to parallel candidates. The KPI should match what the organization is trying to promote so it may very well be “number of product proposals” if the company is seeking to be more innovative, for example.

Q1: I think it is possible to use data, but in many cases the execution is flawed. For example, media buying involves a great deal of math. As a result, we give all new applicants a math competency test to see how they handle “basic math”. The problem is that, in practice, almost all math related to our work is done in Excel or via a third-party software. While it helps to be able to do calculations yourself, there’s enough support that “passing” the math test is actually a poor predictor of performance. I’d like to develop a way to better gauge critical thinking ability as I think my industry is far too conservative and could use a dose of innovation. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to come across any indicator that successfully ties to a candidates competency in this regard.

Q1:

Yes, we could use some data from applicant’s profile to predict the performance. I believe the data could be experience, past projects handled, qualifications, and grades. The KPI (outcome) of this data can be success rate, profitability, and productivity.

Yes I believe it is possible to use applicant data to predict performance. One must be careful, however, because using the wrong data or implementing the wrong process will lead to inaccurate outcomes. One might think that quantitative KPIs are more accurate then qualitative but I would argue that it is situational. As a student applicant coming into school, we are rated on our GPA and GMAT scores. Unfortunately, scores on tests don’t play a direct correlation with final outcomes or deliverables. Qualitative factors also need to be considered heavily. In short, accurate data is important and should be analyzed before using them to predict performance.

Yes, there are some key measures that can be used to predict success in my past role as a business analyst at Merck & Co. Generally, GPA from undergraduate and graduate schools, along with standardized test scores, are a decent approximation of future success. Furthermore, holding certain certifications, such as a PMP, Six Sigma certification, and others can indicate likely success in job functions. However, it is very difficult, because much of job performance can also boil down to commitment from the employee and how much he or she is comfortable in and passionate about their role. The KPI for this scenario would likely be a quarterly peer review of performance.

–I believe you can use data from an applicant’s profile to predict performance if the jobs are similar. The data set must include: employee tenure at previous establishments, sales/revenue performance, project completion timelines, employee hours log sheet, positive vs. negative references, total amount of experience, a coding system for comparable tasks, and interview traits (i.e. smile, intelligent communication skills, body language, appearance). The KPIs would be productivity, profitability, and positive sentiment towards such candidate.

The objective of a process is to collect data and analyze that data to improve the process. The better we are at improving the usability of data, the better our processes will become.

Q2: Based on our discussion of Intermountain Health Care, how would you explain to someone the relationship between process and data?

In the case of Intemountain Health care, the main process under consideration is that of giving the highest quality care to patients. That said, physicians have traditionally used their own experience and expertise to come up with the best treatment possible. They have also used medical literature available and the patient’s records to come up with an individualized treatment plan. However, the data that Intermountain Health Care is collecting and using gets implemented with this critical process and gives physicians a very powerful decision support tool. This way, the process of giving higher quality treatment and care benefits greatly from the data available by proposing routes with higher potential of effectiveness.

That said, the relationship of process and data in this case is two fold: One one end of the spectrum, process helps populate the system with new data whenever a physician treats a patient and enters his/her info in the system. At the other end, data supports the process by giving access to all of the knowledge residing within the organization to physicians and enabling them to make quicker and better decisions.

Q1: There are several additional screenings that people are including with applicant profiles. In my previous profession, the job required a lot of cold calling and personal interviews. In this case, a Myers-Briggs assessment would be helpful as a key indicator of success might be whether a person is an introvert or extrovert.

I would use text analytics to find people that are most relevant. I would use data related to skills and past work experience (qualitative). I would also link LinkedIn profiles to check for endorsements. Number of endorsements are an indicator of people approving someone’s skill. This would be one KPI. I would also check for certifications that anyone is having.

Q2:
Processes are individual tasks. By collecting and analyzing data (and then acting on your findings), these processes can be improved to produce at a more optimum level. A constant monitoring of data can show how process changes are improving or hurting company performance, financially or otherwise.

Q2. With regard to evaluating the outcome of overhauling clinical-care management at IHC, the process might be seen as successful because it was efficient and also provided good clinical outcomes. However, when you analyze the data from financial statements, you can see that there has been a steady operating income and reveals a different and not so positive picture about the outcome of the overhaul.

Q2:

From the perspective of the case, processes are the actions pursued and achieved by an organization to complete an objective. In one case it could be a process for how to load a patients file, for another it could be the process that is used to determine what treatment a patient requires for a heart problem. Overall, processes are repeatable events that, while unique for each case, generally follow a pattern breakdown that allows you to determine what the best outcome will be.

Data is the result of the process and what is generated whenever an action is taken. Thus, proper monitoring of data can better influence the policy that goes into creating processes or allows you to review processes to see what is successful and what isn’t.

You could certainly use data to predict employee success. KPIs such as number of years of work experience, sales records in previous companies, and number of disciplinary actions taken against that person.

In my previous organization (an urban public high school), teachers are evaluated based on their students’ standardized test scores. These can be considered an example of a SMART performance indicator, because they are specific (serve the purpose of measuring a teachers’ effectiveness at teaching a particular competency), measurable (present a clear, quantitative, and standardized result), achievable (the norms are predefined by the Department of Education), relevant (show students’ improvement over time, and whether or not a teacher has successfully taught each required concept), and timely (measure performance over a given academic year). The only debatable criteria is achievable, because based on schools’ inherent challenges, such as a drastic cut in funding, certain goals or norms may not in fact be achievable. For this reason, depending on personal opinion, this KPI may not be considered SMART by all stakeholders.

In my previous experience at a real estate investment trust, one of the key performance indicators in the accounts payable department was the cycle time to process an invoice. I think it meets the SMART criteria:
– Specific – clearly defined in terms of the target time needed to process an invoice
– Measurable – it can be measured in number of invoices per a time unit
– Achievable – it is set based on previous performance of most efficient employees
– Relevant – it provides useful information to the management and indicates the areas where need corrections
– Timely – it is measured over a certain period of time (usually a month)

I was looking at the ADULT COMPLETE PHYSICAL EXAMINATION Form and found that a simple data point such as Date of Birth (DOB) can cause confusion. In this particular case its not defined if the person filling up the form should enter DOB as DD/MM/YY or MM/DD/YY or MM/YY or any other format. This very small information that can change a lot of information about the patient age and related factors such as basal metabolic rate etc if not recorded correctly. The best way to solve the problem would be just add a nomenclature to capture the DOB.

In my previous company, Average Daily Rate or ADR was a key metric. The metric was calculated by dividing Total room revenue earned from renting out hotel rooms over the night by the total number of the rooms in the hotel, irrespective if they were under maintenance or not.

– Specific – The definition was clear and concise to calculate the metric with no ambiguity left about any rooms to be left out or not for calculation.
– Measurable – The metric was measurable with the daily room revenue data collected by point of sale systems, The total number of rooms were fixed for a property.
– Achievable – This was a standardized metric for which targets were set looking at time series forecast data and expected growth rates from the past. These targets were achievable.
– Relevant – This was the one key metric which every department used to consider and the goal was to maximize that.
– Timely – The metric was measured every night, weekly and monthly. This was a part of the culture of the company.

The Adult Health History form asks for the date of your most recent immunizations for various vaccines. The form asks for this information to evaluate whether you are at risk for contracting a certain disease that has a simple vaccination available. It falls short because unless the patient contacted their previous doctors and was able to receive the exact dates, most of the dates that patients write down will be inaccurate. This poses a data quality issue and a physician will not be able to evaluate the patient’s health accurately without accurate dates. I don’t believe there is a better way to phrase the item; however, you may be able to get more quality information if the patient lists the office where the got the vaccinations and then a nurse contacted that office in order to receive the correct dates.

In my previous job in refugee resettlement, a key performance indicator was the number of job placements per month. This was SMART to the extent it was specific, measurable, relevant and timely. However, it was not always achievable. We never met our goals of 45 jobs per month for a variety of reasons including the fact that often we did not have that many people actually looking for jobs.

At my last job working in executive education, we were evaluated at the end of each program by the participants on a scale of 1-5. We received an average rating then for each program. On our yearly performance evaluations, one of the things we were measured on was if we met the standard goal of at least a 4.65 average rating for all our programs. This was a SMART KPI as it was very specific (4.65 as the standard), measurable (scores collected from survey on 1-5 scale), achievable (unless you really performed badly), relevant (created a way to compare program managers), and timely (evaluated once a year).

In my previous organizations, we used to evaluate the effectiveness of new product enhancements using few indicators. It met the SMART criteria as any bugs and issues could be easily traced and linked back to the change. The indicators were based on specific criteria and were measurable and achievable. It is very relevant as the evaluation helped in identifying gaps in the enhancement process and helped us identify improvers. This evaluation was done in regular intervals and hence meets the timely aspect of SMART criteria.

A measure used for evaluation at my organization’s service desk is tickets resolved per day. This metric does meet the SMART criteria as a KPI. It clearly portrays what’s being measured, provides a basis of measurement to evaluate against a benchmark, the standard for which it’s evaluated against is achievable, is relevant to the goal of the service desk which is to resolve as many tickets as possible to help end customers, and finally measures tickets completed on a per day basis.

At one of my jobs we survey fans of sports teams that attend games each week. For example, we would collect data from the Philadelphia Eagles on their ticket buyers ahead of time and send out surveys to a select group of fans that attended the game each home week. We would segment these surveys to send them out to season-ticket holders, club-seat holders, and single game buyers. This gives us three groups of fans to measure and compare. The data problem is that these surveys change from team to team and year to year so the longitudinal data does not stay consistent. Something that is imperative to our presentation is tracking data yearly and for this to happen the surveys need to stay consistent and very similar. That is why the initial creation of the survey is vital and something that needs to be discussed with the organization directly involved and the league in general to make sure questions are staying consistent throughout the league.

At work, the primary KPI is an increase in student enrollment during the Summer Business School Camp. This is a Specific example to gauge value of the program, the more children who enrolled, the more money is made and greater the exposure. There is no counter argument to how to define ‘increase in student enrollment.’ This is a Measurable statistic since each morning the program accounts for student attendance, a quantitative variable reflecting the success of the program. Since there is data compiled for the first year of the program, the increase in student enrollment is Achievable and reasonable to systematically evaluate the program post its conclusion. Obviously an increase in student enrollment is Relevant since the students are the consumer and the more consumers, the larger the program. The Timephase for an increase in student enrollment as a KPI is relevant per Summer, a totaled amount of students per each of the following and proceeding Summers.

On the Adult Health History Form, the “Tobacco Use” section is intended to quantify how often a patient has used tobacco so that the physician can assess how that use may affect a patient’s health. I feel the section has several measurement issues. First, there are only 3 basic options for smokers: either you never have, you quit, or you are currently a smoker. I believe that there should be some sort of casual smoker measurement, perhaps labeled as “Social Smoker”. The “Current Smoker” designation has a fill in for packs/day, indicating at least one, which would be a heavy smoker, leaving no room for any designation between non smoker and heavy smoker. Additionally, there are further measurement and instrument issues in the section, as the form lists “Other Tobacco” but doesn’t have any measurement listing for these forms of tobacco, despite having 2 clear measurements for cigarette smokers.To improve the section, I would add the “Social Smoker” designation that I previously mentioned, and add a free text line under other tobacco with “Amount” in front, followed by “per day”.

Despite blast emails from headquarters, the goals on which I am evaluated are far from SMART. They may be like “Ensure NAV accuracy”, “meet deadlines”, or “adhere to the clean desk policy”. I don’t know that these have any characteristics of SMART. Furthermore, managers send these down to their employees and employees are supposed to add 2-3 of their own. But, they are asked to do so on top of their normal work in 1 day so that internal deadlines set by HQ will be achieved. The time constraint pushes for employees to just write something in without taking the time to make it SMART. Early last year, I asked how I was going to be evaluated based on these vague goals and how I could ensure I achieve them. I also told them I needed the weekend to think about my goals to add. In response, they added that it would be evaluated at manager discretion (thanks!) and chastised me for needing more time. I switched groups shortly thereafter, ironically making my SMART goals no longer applicable to my current role. No update option is available.

In my company, the sales revenue was measured by overall sales growth of the company. This is an example of a SMART KPI because a) it is SPECIFIC, as in the company measures the sales revenue, using sales growth rate b) the growth rate is clearly MEASURABLE c) it is ACHIEVABLE, the company has sources to know the sales growth rate and can use it d) RELEVANT because, sales revenue is dependent on the sales growth rate e) TIMELY because, it measures growth rate over a particular time period.

Q2:
The company where I worked relied extensively on knowledge sharing. The key performance indicator in order to determine the extent of knowledge sharing was number of articles uploaded in the central repository by the employees. This proves to be an ideal example of SMART KPI:
Specific: It clearly defines the requirement.
Measurable: You can measure the articles uploaded by each employee.
Achievable: It is based on your own work experience. So uploading your experience is isn’t that difficult!
Relevant: All the employees have access to the central repository for data and if they need information for any particular job, they can easily open the articles for that department and look in to it.
Timely: The articles where reviewed on a monthly basis to evaluate the contribution to knowledge sharing.

My role as a sales representative had a system of compiling and calculating Key Performance Indicators there were SMART in that they accurately aligned with the criteria defined by this terminology:
Specific: We had a certain amount of sales to obtain, in a specific region, and of a specific type.
Measurable: Sales were obviously measurable in that our commission reflected our sales and we had a target to obtain each year.
Achievable: Our metrics were well with in reach but the top performers usually set the bar quite high. Formal goals were achievable, but informal goals were much less likely to be attained.
Relevant: Our sales goals were relevant because they aligned specifically with the growth needs of the company. Specifically, retention, acquisition, and poaching of customers.
Timely: We were responsible for documenting our output on a daily basis, which kept sales associates on track to out perform the weekly numbers. We were also able to target different customers at different times for increased revenue

As a former sales representative for Verizon Business, I had a ton of exposure to a variety of different measurement criteria. Most of these variables I would consider to be SMART variables, so I’ll discuss the most basic: Monthly Sales Quota
Specific – Certain sales items fell into specific buckets. Equipment sales were non-recurring one time sales and therefore fell into the “non-recurring sales” bucket. On the other hand, a contract sale… say FiOS, is a monthly recurring sale and would fall into the “monthly recurring sales” bucket.
Measurable – Indeed, you can compare your current sales against your monthly quota, this would generate a “percentage to plan” depending on where you were in the month
Achievable – Interestingly enough, although quota was raised every quarter, Verizon measured “participation rate” which is a specific percentage of sales representatives that were meeting quota. Verizon preferred their sales staff to be at a 50% participation rate.
Relevant – Sales quota and percentage to plan is THE most relevant criteria in sales
Timely – Monthly and Yearly

2)
In my last organization, evaluations were based on SMART. Task allocations were done very specifically. Then, progress was checked based on percentage completion of each of the tasks. Performance evaluations used SMART technique; What specific tasks are assigned, how to measure the progress toward attainment of the goal, how realistically attainable the goals are, what goals are relevant or of higher priority, and time-frame for that task.

We use a number of KPIs across the agency, but, for the sake of this exercise, our primary measure of a successful media initiative is based on the ability to correlate resort booking to media exposure. We achieve this through various ad-tracking technologies which can sort through all bookings to identify which conversions were driven by what channels.

– Specific – Data is cataloged by destination, brand and resort
– Measurable – Every booking conversion is captured along with revenue generated per conversion
– Achievable – Benchmarks are based on ROI levels needed to maintain profitability
– Relevant – Results are filtered to report only on those preceded my a media exposure or media action (i.e. click)
– Timely – Reports are generated monthly (top-level), quarterly and annually

This summer, I launched my second album as a singer-songwriter under the domain name http://www.shpatdeda.com as a free download. I had a goal for the desired number of downloads that I set myself, and I used Facebook Ads to drive traffic to the website. That said, the main performance indicator I was measuring after the launch was the number of downloads. I believe this performance indicator complies with the SMART criteria, since it is:

– Simple: The number of downloads is a single number that needs to be checked, and as such is very simple to use.

– Measurable: It is very easy to measure this performance indicators, since all I had to do was check for the number in the website.

– Achievable: The goal I had set myself has been surpassed, but even if it didn’t, I would have to drive more traffic to the website through more online advertising and that would cause progress.

– Relevant: The indicator is very relevant, since it gives me the exact number of unique downloads.

-Timely: The indicator gets updated every time a download occurs, so it is very timely.

In my previous job at Bharat Electronics, the KPI were not so clear. I worked on network optimization and one of the key indicators were delay and jitter. However, the problem was we demonstrated on a 3 node network, but the implementation was 100 node network. There was a problem of measuring things in a small setup assuming it works in a bigger setup.

In my previous organization, my company was performing independent verification and validation testing. One KPI that was used was how many defects were withdrawn. Since we measure the defect statuses ourselves it was easy to track within the organization. Additionally it makes a great proxy for determining how efficient we are at testing. A high number of defects withdrawn could be because of duplicates from a lack of communication or from poor test script design because of misreading the requirements. Having a SMART performance indicator means aligning a statistic that is easy to track and an accurate proxy for a greater business concern.

I was tasked with bringing in a particular number of clients as part of business development and a specific number of employees as an HR recruiting practice. The number was set and my targets were clear, which makes it very specific and measurable. However, the number given to me was not a very realistic one, which means it was not exactly achievable!

Leading Indicator: Average Turnaround Time
Lagging Indicator : Number of Flights

Travel/Resort Bookings

Leading Indicator: Time Spent per Page, Rate Query
Lagging Indicator: Confirmed Reservations

Lagging –> final quarterly sales
Leading –> inventory variation of soup (product)
Business process: know product demand from various stores, monitor sales by product type

Marketing/Sales process
Number of companies contacted – lagging
Number of trials/calls – leading

KPI to measure efficiency:
Leading indicator: Cycle time from request to delivery
Lagging indicator: Number of process errors/human errors

Leading Indicator: Bad debts reserve
Lagging Indicator: Bad debts

Safety metrics:
Lagging: Accidents per year; Total cost of accidents (including lost work time)
Leading: Percentage of employees with appropriate and up-to-date training; Training budget per month

In any sports:
Leading indicator: practice time, player health
Lagging indicator: game-score

Baseball:
Leading – Player RBI, Batting Average, 40 meter/sec., etc
Lagging – Season Record (win/loss ratio)

I used to work in production support for a technical team. Few of the KPIs we used were no of tickets( bugs, issues etc.) raised by the client, No of days it took us to resolve each ticket etc. No of tickets is an important indicator as it lets us know if the product meets requirement. We can segregate the tickets further by function, client type and severity to drive conclusions about the product and the services. Time took to solve is used to calculate the efficiency and productivity of the team. No of tickets and time taken together helped identify if we are adequately staffed.

My previous industry was secondary education. In secondary education, an example of a lagging indicator is a school’s historical graduation rate. This is a lagging metric because it shows past success at that particular school, and can be used to predict the future. An example of a leading indicator is a student’s current reading level, which will likely impact whether or not that student graduates high school on time. it is leading because it predicts the outcome of a student graduating. Other leading indicators that are involved in this process are student’s disciplinary record and parental involvement. These indicators, along with others, combine to predict student graduation rate.

I did recruitment of experts for a consulting company. The leading indicators for the recruitment process would be: the number of applications received, the number of resumes selected, the number of interviews held. The lagging indicator would the actual number of positions filled. If we compare the leading indicators to the lagging indicators it will help us to make future predictions. For example we may determine that 100 resumes selected will lead to 10 positions filled. Then we will know that if for example, next month we have 5 positions open, we have to select at least 50 resumes.

Our group (Mark R. and Alex G.) chose the NBA TV Deal as our business process.
The shareholders involved are:
-NBA League Office and personnel
-NBA Team Owners and personnel
-NBA Players and employees
-Turner TV company
-Disney/ABC/ESPN
The stakeholders involved are:
-NBA sponsors and partners
-NBA non-profits
-NBA fans

The business process flows through the NBA fans; yes the new NBA TV deal includes mass amounts of money, and guarantees an increase in profit for all franchises and owners because of the NBA’s league-revenue-sharing policy. However the process will only be determined as a success by gauging an increase in fan attendance, player performance, and the amount of fans watching NBA games on the networks in play.

Mortgage application process:
Leading indicator is falling interest rates.
Lagging indicator is closed loans.