Operating notes · measurement
A precise number can still
measure the wrong thing.
A practical way to check events, denominators and human effort before investing in a workflow change. Includes worked examples with explicit assumptions.
Start with the decision
What will someone do differently because of this number?
A team asks for a faster response time. Before changing the workflow, I want to know whose response, to what request, measured from which event—and what decision the number will support.
In the wholesale distributor reporting engagement, the starting event was wrong. Correcting that definition was part of the work. Use the illustrative calculations below to examine your own report.
01 / Follow one record
Three clocks can describe the same request.
Imagine a request arrives at 9:00, someone creates its CRM record at 9:40, and the first useful reply goes out at 10:00, all on the same business morning.
| Measure | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Customer’s elapsed wait | 10:00 − 9:00 | 60 minutes |
| Time since CRM creation | 10:00 − 9:40 | 20 minutes |
| Human handling effort | Observed active work | Measure separately |
The 40-minute gap is time the CRM-based measure omitted. Changing the starting event reveals it; it does not recover 40 minutes of staff capacity or make the customer’s experience faster.
Check whether the end event means an automated acknowledgment, a first human reply or an answer that actually moves the request forward.
02 / Check who is counted
The denominator can change the conclusion.
Take a cohort of 100 eligible inquiries whose response deadlines have all passed. Eighty received a reply, 64 of those met the deadline, and 20 remain unanswered.
64 ÷ 80 = 80% of answered inquiries met the deadline.
64 ÷ 100 = 64% of all eligible inquiries met the deadline.
Both calculations are arithmetically correct. They answer different questions. If you want to understand service across all eligible inquiries, removing unanswered work hides part of the problem.
Keep open items visible with their age and deadline. Define eligibility, duplicate handling, business hours and the reporting cutoff before comparing two periods.
03 / Separate waiting from effort
Use a second calculation for capacity.
Suppose 600 requests a month each take six minutes of active work: 600 × 6 ÷ 60 = 60 hours.
You estimate that half can use an improved process and 80% of those actually will: 600 × 50% × 80% = 240 requests. Each of those takes four minutes, including review and correction. The remaining 360 still take six minutes. Allow three hours for monthly upkeep.
After: (240 × 4 + 360 × 6) ÷ 60 + 3 = 55 hours.
Potential capacity released: 60 − 55 = 5 hours a month.
That is a planning estimate, conditional on the volume, eligibility, use and effort assumptions. Quality must hold up. Five hours becomes a cash saving only if an actual expense falls; implementation and software costs also belong in the decision.
04 / Write down the definition
Give the number an owner and a method.
- Decision: what action should the result inform?
- Population: which records count, including open and exceptional cases?
- Clock: which start and finish events, timezone and business-hour rules apply?
- Calculation: numerator, denominator and treatment of missing information.
- Quality: what must remain acceptable as speed or effort changes?
- Ownership: who checks the definition when the process or team changes?
Then trace a small set of normal, slow and exceptional records back to their source. A spot check can expose a definition error; it cannot establish the performance of the whole operation by itself.
Make the next decision
Choose the intervention the evidence supports.
A late starting event calls for a reporting correction. Waiting for approval calls for a look at the handoff. Repeated entry calls for an effort and integration review. Each leads to different work and a different measure of success.
Bring one questioned report and a few examples behind it. We can establish what the number means today and what a useful improvement would need to demonstrate.
Let’s talk
What needs to work better?
What have you inherited, or what keeps getting stuck?
Tell me what is happening, what you have already tried and why it matters now. We’ll talk through the result you need and who will own it with us.
A free 30-minute conversation to identify the problem, separate what we know from what needs checking, and agree a useful next step. You’ll receive a written recap, whether or not we work together.
Included when you choose to email me.