I mean, we want it to be (just once!) – but often the best solutions come from trying, refining, tweaking, and iterating to find the right mix of many additive pieces that together move the needle.
Nine months ago, the KPI’s our teams used weren’t providing the data- driven insights we needed to see and respond to operational issues quickly. We needed clarity and actionable analytics that would help us apply better rigor and faster interventions. So I set out with my team to build operational playbooks.
At first, we thought we had it all figured out—define the KPIs, build the data, measures, and processes, then execute. But we quickly ran into siloed datasets, conflicting measurements, and the need for clearer processes.
So we iterated.
Refining the Metrics and Fixing Gaps
We reassessed the KPIs themselves- were they measuring what we needed, were they actionable? In the web channel we found that ticket handle time wasn’t based on reliable ticket workflow source data, and had to address tooling and process changes to enable the right data. Across all channel KPI’s, we changed from ‘median’ metrics, which tended to hide outliers, to ‘average’ metrics that better surfaced them.
Test, Adjust, Repeat
Introducing small, controlled changes to sourcing, ingestion and analysis of the KPI data allowed us to pressure test our work while still building and refining the views and playbooks. It wasn’t perfect at first, but it allowed us to implement early changes while refining others.
The Feedback Loop
Throughout, we actively sought input from managers and the teams in real time. It wasn’t enough to rely on the mechanics—we needed that human feedback to validate each iteration.
A Hundred Little Things
Problem-solving isn’t often about one big solution, it’s about the many incremental gains that build towards sustainable, impactful outcomes.
For my team, all of these efforts came together to give us what we needed- a unified, analytics-based, operational structure that allowed us to see and respond to service activity quickly.