Data Core · Performance Analysis · Module
Acting on it
What changed as a result, and whether the change worked — without which the analysis was a document rather than an input.
The idea
How it works
An analysis that is presented, agreed with and changes nothing has cost the same as one that changed something. The difference is what happens in the week afterwards.
Recording which analyses produced action is uncomfortable and informative: a function whose work changes nothing has a positioning problem rather than a quality problem.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Name the action before the presentation
What the recommendation is, who would do it, and by when.
- 02
Check whether it happened
A month later. The rate at which recommendations are implemented is a measure of the analysis function.
- 03
Measure the outcome
Did the change produce what the analysis predicted? This is how analytical judgement improves.
- 04
Record the analyses that changed nothing
A pattern of them says something about scoping rather than about execution.
One level in
The components of acting on it
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
Track how many analyses produce an implemented change. It measures the function better than any quality review.
The other modules in performance analysis
The question
What decision the analysis is meant to inform, and what answer would change it.
LearnMethod
How the question will be answered, and whether that method can actually answer it — because most business questions are causal and most available methods are not.
LearnReading the result
What the finding does and does not say, including the alternative explanations — the step where confidence is either calibrated or inflated.
Learn