Maintenance Performance Metrics and the Behaviours they Drive
In this series, I discuss what maintenance performance metrics (metrics) are, what they measure, the behaviours they are supposed to drive, and the behaviours that they invariably drive when used incorrectly, and how to correct wayward trends.
Performance metrics are an incredibly important part of any business that is interested in improving. If a business wants to understand how it is performing, or even if it is performing, then that business must measure itself and compare those measurements against some benchmark. That benchmark may be another business, some industry average or best practise, or even the past performance of that business itself.
Performance metrics should measure parts of the business processes. The numbers then tell a manager how the business process is working. Is it working well, or is there a bottleneck holding up production?
The metrics should be able to be influenced. There's not much value in making a key performance metric out of something that the business has no control over. A manager should be able to look at performance metrics and know what levers to pull to improve performance in areas that are lacking.
All too often, herein lies the problem.
Measure What You Can Control
Teams should not measure things that are outside their sphere of influence. Sometimes it is handy to measure things outside of a teams' sphere of influence, so as to understand if that external factor has had some impact on the teams output. However, it should be understood that those metrics are not an indicator of a teams performance. An effective manager will monitor these measurements and adjust the behaviour of their team to continue to perform at a high level.
Undesirable Behaviour
Sometimes, managers newly armed with metrics march into a meeting with their staff and tell their staff that they are under-performing. Measuring the wrong things, or using measurements in the wrong context can drive behaviours that can look good on paper, but aren't really creating value for the business. It is important that metrics both measure what drives value, and are taken in context of the bigger picture.
Pull the (Right) Levers
While collecting metrics is valuable, the numbers are of no use if managers are unable to correct the behaviours or business processes that are driving the poor metrics.
Additionally, is just as important to know what changes to make, and how much change to make. Going too hard in one direction could have detrimental effects on another area unless balanced out.
Celebrate the Wins
Take time to celebrate the wins. Take time to celebrate the wins. Take time to celebrate the wins. There is a reason I wrote this three times. That reason is, it's not done enough. We often just bag the win and then crack on with the job, because there's always more work to do. But there's always more work to do, so take time to celebrate the wins.
Wins aren't always about hitting the targets. Wins could be things like cracking the nut on something that has taken a long time to figure out, or turning around a downward trend.
Importantly, celebrating wins triggers the reward system in the brain and helps to keep people motivated.
Refocus
After each review period, it is important to review the targets and ensure that the metrics and the targets are the right measures for the next period. Often they are, but it is important to constantly review and adapt as the market and the business operating context evolves.
The Metrics
This is the introductory post in a series where I will break down each of the metrics that I advise tracking, what they measure, what they should be taken in context with, and what changes should be made to correct missed targets.
