A half-cup of oats. One cup of water. Two minutes in the microwave. Those are the measurements I make each morning when cooking my oatmeal. I could probably wing it, but I don’t. Why? Because I want it right. That’s the same reason we measure so many things in life.
In our business, I measure seemingly everything. Sales made per day. Magazines read. Ads created. Stories written. Photos taken. Pages produced. Invoices sent out. Emails opened. Accounts past due. The list goes on. We have to know where we are at if we want to get better. And we want to get better… every day.
One of my prior bosses and mentors, Gary Gerlach, enrolled me in a course in 1993 called Continuous Quality Improvement. It centered around W. Edwards Deming’s total quality management philosophy and taught me how to implement statistical process controls. I learned a great deal in this course, and it continues to guide me.
Setting goals is the easy part. Collecting data and creating realistic improvement plans are tougher. Tracking the results and holding everyone accountable are where it really gets tricky, even if “everyone” is just you.
Creating an exercise plan. Earning a degree. Getting to work on time. Measuring is key in anything you want to accomplish. Know where you are at. Know where you want to be. Have a realistic and definable plan to get there. Measure, measure, measure. And when it comes time to make those really important decisions, remember what my construction boss often told me: measure twice and cut once.
Have a wonderful Wednesday, and thanks for reading.
Shane Goodman
President and Publisher
Big Green Umbrella Media
shane@dmcityview.com
515-953-4822, ext. 305 | 
