One of the projects I worked on during my consulting days, was a data center scorecard for a Wall Street information provider. We spent a number of sessions looking at internal and external measures, financial and nonfinancial measures, and leading indicators for each stakeholders group.We had spreadsheets and graphs all link in groupware for everyone to access and see. For all the rigor in our approach, none of the measures had as much impact on the team as the Good Day score.
Following some work done at Hallmark by others, we had defined a "Good Day" as a day free from most types of outages and "pain points" for our user community. Then we counted the number of consecutive good days we had. We taped a flipchart to the glass wall, next to the entrance to the data center for all to see. It had two numbers: the number of consecutive good days so far this period on the top. On the bottom was the record: the highest number of consecutive good days. It was very simple and very visible.
What happened next is the best part of the story. As the number of current good days approached the record, the data center team became increasingly vigilant about monitoring all servers and processes. People double-checked their own work and each others. No one wanted an outage on their watch. Everyone wanted to beat the record. When we did, a victory cry went up, and everyone celebrated.
I learned that people focus and work hard to beat the best, to be the best. |