In this series on value-driven metrics we have looked at the purpose and structure of business metrics, and have identified a number of characteristics of a world-class business metric design. How do we leverage this information to set our sights on actually making this a reality? How do we get started, and make it happen?
Knowing what we need in each metric through a world-class metric definition, and how each component of the metric fits with the others and completes the whole, allows us to identify inter-dependencies and precedence relationships between the metric elements. This insight allows us to sort the requirements into a series of milestones, forming roadmap for developing a complete metric.
Once we understand the roadmap, we have an intuitive way to classify the maturity or completeness of any given metric, and by extension, the overall maturity of a business metric infrastructure.
| Rating | Status | Description |
| 1 | Conceptual | identified as useful |
| 2 | Manual | calculated and reported manually |
| 3 | Automated | calculated and reported with no manual intervention |
| 4 | Systematic | consistently monitored in a business process |
| 5 | Bounded |
trigger points define acceptable behavior |
| 6 | Actionable | corrective actions are defined and carried out |
| 7 | Detailed | business case details are fully documented and accessible |
| 8 | Integrated |
placed in the global metric hierarchy |
| 9 | Tuned | trend/tension analysis maintains globally optimized trigger point(s) |
| 10 | Mature | intrinsic to system governance, enables root cause analysis, and full business value is established |
By classifying each metric as above and taking a weighted average across all of the metrics required for a business, based on a relative prioritization of their perceived importance, one may derive an overall maturity score for a metrics system and set goals for enhancing overall metrics capability.
A well-defined metrics system is essential for the value-driven enterprise. Understanding world-class metrics methodology is the first step toward realizing it.