Data driven decision making requires using available data to support strategic decisions. Therefore, if you are a manager and you spend all your time trying to find ways to increase efficiency and cut costs without improving quality, you’re not a candidate for this concept. On the other hand, if you spend most of your time trying to improve things, but you come away with little to no improvement because the processes are flawed, you probably aren’t a good candidate either. So, how do you know which approach works best? By applying the principles of KPI and data, you can derive a formula for determining who is a good candidate for data driven decision making and who should not be.
The first step is identifying the KPIs or key performance indicators that you use in your decision making. Typically these will be things like cost, profit margins, market share, customer satisfaction, etc. However, these KPIs will change depending on the situation. In order to make sure that you are looking at the most appropriate criteria, it helps to break down each criterion into smaller ones and work through each separately. This will help make sure that you’re actually looking at things that will make a difference.
Once you have identified the criteria, you must then determine which approach would make the most sense for you. For instance, if you’re the manager of a department that deals with human resources, you have to decide what type of metrics would be most appropriate to track and help determine what type of decisions are best made within your department. Are you going to track productivity, absenteeism, or turnover? Do you want to focus on cost, profit, or any other aspect? Once you’ve determined what kind of metrics you’re going to track, it’s time to choose the tools that you’re going to use in order to analyze your data. Most companies these days are using computers, so this should be pretty easy.
Of course, the most popular form of data-driven decision making today is Excel spreadsheets. Most people use spreadsheets because they are extremely simple to manipulate, yet still very powerful. Also, data can be imported into an Excel file very easily, so no matter what you are looking for you should be able to find some sort of formula that will do the job.
Of course, there are also a variety of software applications that provide the necessary functionality in order to accomplish your data driven decision making goals. For example, among the more common tools available are data mining applications. These tools allow you to pull data out of large databases, such as those maintained by large companies. You can then use the information that you pull from the databases to make predictions about the future behavior of various aspects of your business. This can help you make better decisions in virtually every facet of your business.
Of course, the biggest thing that you need in order to start using data driven decision making is a good computer. No matter how you decide to utilize the information that you pull out of the databases, if you don’t have a sufficiently powerful computer, you won’t be able to take advantage of all of the benefits of data analysis. Of course, you’re probably already using a powerful computer, so all that you really need to do is install the right programs on your machine. As long as you’re taking advantage of all of the benefits of data analysis, you shouldn’t really need a computer that is too powerful for what you need to do.
Of course, this is one of the reasons why it’s sometimes a good idea to hire a professional company to do the work for you. The professionals can often give you exactly what you need in order to get the most out of the analysis of your data. By using the right programs and keeping an eye on the information that you’re pulling from your databases, you’ll be able to use your data to make better business decisions and improve the performance of your business. That’s definitely something worth considering!