Do you value what you measure, or measure what you value?

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Working on the SBS/EBS launch plan, catching up on some MBA reading & getting ready to watch the Swannies once again snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory, & two things strike me:

  • I really need to get out more on Sundays, and
  • Most of the measurements in our launch plan are leading rather than lagging indicators

Although we're purposely building out our activities this way, I was still pleasantly surprised to see that of the 13 specific metrics that I'm keeping an eye on up to the November 12 customer launch, only 1 of them is a lagging or "after the fact" measurement - revenue.

Everything else is a leading indicator - which to me means that we're tracking & tweaking all those things that, if successful, should hopefully mean more partners selling solutions & more customers buying kit. This of course means that we can change course mid stream if need be, rather than waiting until the results come in & saying "ah, we should have done that back then."

Given the challenges around accurately measuring our SBS business (I only have visibility to 3% of our actual end-users), it becomes even more important to actually measure what we value, rather than just valuing what we can measure. I'll be honest & say this approach doesn't always work - due to resources, availability of data, politics or what have you - but is something that we continually strive to achieve.

So, what are some of the leading indicators that I'm tracking for the launch & how are we progressing so far?

  • Number of SBS / EBS beta downloads - 8/10
  • Plans in place with HP, IBM & Dell to ensure stock in channel - 8/10
  • Registrations for TechEd SMB Servers day & Aust Partner Conf - 7/10
  • Number of unique users receiving info through this blog - 6/10
  • Number of engagements with relevant user groups - 5/10
  • Extent & quality of PR coverage - 4/10
  • Number of partners trained (sales & technical) by launch - 2/10
  • Local customer case-studies available by launch - 1/10

I've obviously got some work to do around Partner training (stay tuned), case-studies & telling the "why SBS 2008 & EBS 2008" story via public relations (think ARN/CRN & feature articles in small business publications) - but at least I know that this needs to be done, rather than just waiting until the end of the quarter to find out we're behind.

What are your leading vs lagging indicators?

Robbie