Tag Archives: performance measurement

Panic!

There’s… “Panic on the streets of London! Panic on the streets of Birmingham!” So says the song of the same title by UK band The Smiths, anyway. The true story that follows (yes, I’ve caved in to popular demand and … Continue reading

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Play Your Cards Right

Remember the classic TV game show ‘Play Your Cards Right’? (Showing my age now). If not, then the basic premise was to predict whether each card in a row was higher or lower than the previous one. If the contestant … Continue reading

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Equally Wrong

Just a quick one this time folks. It’s another absolute gem of target-related nonsense, sent in to me by a sharp-eyed blog reader. The following table was spotted being proudly displayed on the wall of an establishment whose identity I have … Continue reading

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Poo-Pooing Performance Indicators

At the beginning of the ‘Bad Performance Measurement On Tour’ series I issued a call-to-arms for eagle-eyed readers, asking them to send me their examples of bad performance measurement. Twitter user @Wiggies13 responded to this rallying cry and sent me the … Continue reading

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Toilet Humour

Welcome to what amounts to Episode 4 of ‘Bad Performance Measurement on Tour’. (Other titles subsequently suggested to me on Twitter include the hilarious ‘Cisterns Thinking’, courtesy of Ian Gilson, as well as the brilliant ‘Check – Pan – Loo’, by Rob … Continue reading

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(Not So) Bad Performance Measurement On Tour (#3)

‘Data have no meaning apart from their context’. – Donald Wheeler Cast your mind back to Episode One of this series. No beer, no food, no chillies; just trains. The examples provided in that blog post highlighted the dire (but … Continue reading

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Bad Performance Measurement on Tour (#1)

A friend at work told me that whilst giving blood recently, he noticed there were performance indicators on a nearby board showing the number of blood donations, in the dreaded ‘this week vs last week’ format. Nothing’s sacred, is it? Anyway, this … Continue reading

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