What gets measured gets managed is a warning. From executive dashboards to backlog of development tickets, attention needs to be directed to the right data and the right metrics to effectively manage operations, compliance, and strategy. Data driven companies consider both what systems capture and how success is measured.

When complex processes are not captured by systems, status reports built from the system data are not sufficiently nuanced to reliably manage metrics or operations. Alternatively, realizing that systems do not provide necessary nuance, status reports get built from conversations and spreadsheets with no connection to system data rather than queries.

Even with good data capture, metrics must align with project deliverables, or reporting periods. Sprints are not the only way of quantifying work. It’s unlikely that a single approach will be effective for understanding planned and completed work across an organization.

Click on links below for examples of how to align system workflows and controls with business operations for more meaningful status reports, the challenges of using scrum and burn down charts to measure everything, and how to approach building system workflows and data capture when processes have multiple variables and pass through several teams.