Measurement Clarity

Outdated workforce supervision tactics often trigger bias and presenteeism. Evaluating productivity differently requires unique methods of recording and managing results.

Measurement is important in any organization. As Peter Drucker famously said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” But in conventionally managed organizations, too often the model of “successful work” involves physical presence—a team member needs to be in a certain building in order to be “at work.”

Teams working via TeamOps should employ methods of measuring productivity, value, and results that don’t depend on physical supervision as a measure of contribution. Re-prioritizing what, how, and when the organization measures enables a higher frequency of success analysis, greater accountability for objectives, lower workforce discrimination, and wider reach for company communication.

In short: TeamOps treats “work” as a verb, not a noun.

Action tenets of measurement clarity, including real-world examples of each, are below.

Iteration

Conventionally managed organizations often increase pressure to present complete and polished projects, documents, or plans when work “has finished.” But this expectation slows progress and expends valuable time that could be used to conduct multiple rounds of feedback on smaller changes.

Executing on a decision shouldn’t be a singular, one-time event. TeamOps reframes execution as an ongoing series of iterations—small, compounding results each worthy of celebration. This encourages smaller steps, which are more amenable to feedback, course correction, easy delivery. Breaking decisions into manageable components makes obtaining desired results more feasible.

A key aspect of TeamOps is incorporating iteration into every process and decision. This requires team members to act with a relatively low level of shame—that is, to resist the urge to conceal work until it’s perfect for fear of making mistakes. Working this way means doing the smallest viable and valuable thing (the minimal viable change, or MVC) as quickly as possible in order to solicit feedback. Despite initial discomfort involved in this kind of sharing, iteration enables faster execution, shorter feedback loops, and an ability to course-correct sooner.

Ultimately, the goal for fast-moving teams is to reduce the time between making a decision and getting the result to market. Taking an iterative approach to everyday operations can help a project, team, or company in any industry achieve this goal.

Definition of done

While often associated with the Agile software development movement, “definition of done” is a practice that teams in any industry can use to enhance measurement clarity. For organizations practicing TeamOps, developing a definition of done helps teams identify the conclusion of one iteration and the beginning of the next. For software development teams, this usually means that the code is verified as working; for other teams, it may mean that a certain output has been created and delivered.

A team’s definition of done may take different shapes. It might outline the success criteria for a quarterly OKR, explain when a project or working group should be considered “closed,” or enumerate the fulfillment criteria for a small task. Regardless of the scope of impact, clearly communicating and documenting completion criteria as a definition of done helps TeamOps teams align more closely on methods for measuring and define success.

Even better, definitions of done are prompts for important team-building communication. When all of the criteria are complete, that’s a signal to your team to review the contributions each team member has made to the work, collaboratively brainstorm future iterations, and celebrate the fulfillment of your shared reality goals.

Prioritize due dates over scope

TeamOps may not treat elapsed time as a success measurement, but it does require due dates. Under TeamOps, however, due dates aren’t a means of creating unnecessary rigidity or measuring the duration of contributions; they exist to force mechanisms that enable teams to execute on decisions and enforce accountability.

An organization practicing TeamOps will always set a due date and, if necessary in light of changing circumstances, will cut project scope to meet that due date rather than postpone that date. This encourages teams to think iteratively, recalculate the scope of current work, and better determine which aspects of a project are best saved for future objectives. Working this way limits loss of momentum.

Transparent measurements

Conventional management philosophies glorify “metrics,” which is a nonspecific term that often lacks connection to objectives, mission, values, workflows, strategy, or a shared reality. TeamOps prefers Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which are smaller, incremental measures linked to Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) that, well, indicate performance. These offer greater context on both daily operations and the relevance of ongoing productivity to a function or the entire company.

While KPIs measure smaller units than OKRs do, the former aren’t dependent on the latter. In fact, the two should be symbiotic in nature, informing and influencing each other to enhance operational visibility, measurement accuracy, and team empowerment. If you’re not creating OKRs to improve KPIs, then you’re either missing KPIs or you have the wrong OKRs.

Crucially, under TeamOps every functional department shares its KPIs transparently shared across the organization. This aids visibility and enables everyone to contribute.

Measure results, not hours

Every organizational operational model aims to optimize the efficiency with which teams produce results. But conventionally managed teams make a critical error when they conflate “efficiency” with “speed.” Doing so means time often becomes the team’s highest priority—and working hours become a principal success metric for the organization.

In organizations powered by TeamOps, team members understand that the root of “productivity” is “to produce,” and therefore focus on executing business results, rather than executing on presenteeism. TeamOps therefore encourages success measurements based on outputs, not inputs.

Note that outputs aren’t just tangible deliverables. Results include any form of value a team member contributes to the organization’s shared reality: helping a teammate, satisfying a customer, shipping code, brainstorming a new idea, writing a revision, or researching a competitor. All quantifiable reports, messages, insights, or submissions are evidence of productivity.

Transparent feedback

Achieving measurement clarity involves more than evaluating whether your team was successfully achieved its goals. It also involves evaluating how your team was successful during the process. So just as a team’s measurements should be as transparent as possible, so too should be a team’s feedback about those results.

Transparent feedback means that constructive criticism is immediate, specific, and documented. Like all information shared on a team practicing TeamOps, the impacts and action items a message triggers shouldn’t rely on a recipient’s subjective memory or interpretation. Sharing feedback is a great start to improving an individual’s future work; sharing it transparently means that the entire team can improve together.

To optimize the efficacy of delivered feedback, consider how other TeamOps tenets can support actionability. For example:

• Exercise your bias for action to share feedback as quickly as possible
• Use low-context communication by sharing specific examples that support your feedback
• Leverage asynchronous workflows to allow time for review and reflection
• Encourage iterative growth to build up to aspirational goals
• In appropriate scenarios, share feedback (both positive and negative) publicly with an entire group whose other members can also learn from the insights.
• As a manager, prioritize building psychological safety by reinforcing a short toes mindset during group collaboration, encouraging healthy controversy by having strong opinions weakly held, and by investing time in informal communication to build trust and camaraderie that can withstand negative criticism.

Cadence

In organizations built on information-based operations, team members’ collective sense of stability, security, and well-being is an outgrowth of their knowing when future opportunities to receive and exchange knowledge will occur. A Single Source of Truth (SSoT) and asynchronous workflows ensure that existing information is continuously accessible. But what about informational updates? Not knowing about emerging decisions, forthcoming goals, or adjustments to long-term visions can compromise a team’s focus, efficiency, and trust.

This is why establishing a transparent cadence for decision-making activities, informational updates, and feedback opportunities is important for teams practicing TeamOps. A regular cadence sets a pace for productivity and creates predictable, comfortable intervals for work. Establishing and documenting a cadence for everything from operational workflows and due dates to company announcements and team meetings can prevent the kinds of distraction and burnout that often result from context switching, distractive research, or individual uncertainty.