Knowledge Strategy, Metrics and Measurement

Managing the Unmeasurable

27 Feb 2023  

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”  We’ve all heard that.  Metrics makes things real; they are the language of management, just as they are the language of science and technology.  As the diagram shows, there’s a rinse-and-repeat relationship between measurement and management. But knowledge, especially as it applies to the enterprise, cannot […]

Metrics and Measurement

Predictive Metrics — A Live Case Example

17 Jun 2020  

In speaking with people about the KVC framework, I have come to realize that some people may have misinterpreted it to mean that all data leads inexorably to the production of value. That is regrettably not the case! What the model says is that in order to produce value, the data has to be used […]

Metrics and Measurement

Building Predictive Metrics

20 May 2020  

I recently addressed a community of technology CFOs and CEOs on one of my favorite subjects — metrics, how they work, and how they sometimes don’t. They had some great comments and questions. I thought some of you may be facing similar challenges, so I’ll summarize here. Metrics are essential Metrics are the foundation of […]

Metrics and Measurement

Knowledge by Numbers

11 Dec 2017  

Once again I was called on recently to speak to Columbia graduate students on knowledge metrics, a topic that combines two of my favorite interests — and seems to be a favorite among my audiences. Metrics form the key to ROI and the production of value — and therefore essential in all aspects of management. Metrics of […]

Metrics and Measurement

Paths to Value

15 Sep 2015  

It makes my day when I am asked a question I can’t answer completely and easily. The students in Columbia’s Information and Knowledge Strategy program rarely fail to disappoint in this regard. Where do KPIs come from? One IKNS student has been using the KVC framework in her “day job” to design program evaluations for […]

Metrics and Measurement

The Moneyball Lessons

22 Nov 2013  

I love numbers. I first realized this around the age of ten, when I started collecting baseball cards pretty seriously.  On the back of each card was a bunch of numbers, each player’s ‘stats’, important metrics of how well he played.  Hits, batting average, runs batted in (RBIs), runs scored, and so on. It later […]

Metrics and Measurement

Metrics That Matter

22 Oct 2013  

I had the great pleasure recently to address the students in Guy St. Clair’s class (K4301) at Columbia University’s Information and Knowledge Strategies (IKNS) program.  These are tomorrow’s leaders in developing and managing knowledge-based strategies. My most challenging question Of course I told them about the Knowledge Value Chain, and was gratified by their positive […]

Metrics and Measurement

Value Starts at the Top

12 Mar 2013  

My colleague Robert Reiss studies CEOs — especially their successes and failures — in order that others might benefit from them.  His Internet show The CEO Show produces interviews from these CEOs on leadership, and how they make their organizations ‘tick’.  His book (with Jeffrey J. Fox) The Transformative CEO (McGraw-Hill, 2012) gathers some of their stories, […]

Metrics and Measurement

Value for Dummeze

5 Aug 2012  

There’s so much talk around here about value that I’ve been accused of being obsessed by it.  I plead no contest. Particularly in these stressed economic times in which we seem mired for the foreseeable future, the quest for value is a search that most of us pursue, in both our personal and professional lives, […]

Metrics and Measurement

Health Care Spending III: Alice in Health Care Land

18 Jun 2012  

When Alice tumbled down the rabbit hole, she entered a world (“Wonderland”) reminiscent of her own—but in which everything seemed upside-down, and nothing worked as expected. After spending over a year researching the economics of the health care industry, I’ve concluded that health care is its own economic Wonderland.  If you were given the hypothetical […]

Metrics and Measurement

Health Care Spending II: Where Does It Come From?

28 Mar 2012  

Last time we looked at where our health care funds in the US are spent.  At more than one-sixth of our GDP, it’s undeniably a huge factor in our financial lives.  Who pays for all this?  Ultimately, of course, we all do—but the mechanisms by which this happens may surprise you. Since non-personal spending ($407 […]

Metrics and Measurement

Health Care Spending I: Where Does It Go?

5 Mar 2012  

Everyone knows health care is expensive, and is a significant part of our individual and collective budgets.  How expensive, exactly?  And how is that money spent? In 2010 we in the US spent $2.6 trillion on health care. That’s 2.6 with twelve zeros behind it, or 2.6 million millions if (like me) you get lost […]