Archive
on performance reporting (again)
My loathing of KPIs is well documented amongst previous scribbling here, but recently I felt the bile rising again when I was asked to provide some comments on the Crown Commercial Service framework for Facilities Management.
I know well the old adage that if you can’t measure then you can’t manage, but almost everyone that I have heard trotting that line out couldn’t manage anyway, at least by my book. Of course you need some metrics to manage by, but which ones? The best data is that which comes when recorded from the act of performing the work because it is free. In many situations you can look at almost any aspect of your operation and see what you are doing, where, when and how often. This is great as long as you don’t spend too much time looking at it.
But all too often there is a contractual requirement to report on things that you need to collate and compile information of and doing that takes time, and therefore money. Now I don’t mind spending money if I am investing it wisely, but I don’t like wasting it and all too often I have had to throw cash away on producing KPIs that have been little more than an excuse to waste more time talking about.
In the brief on the new CCS framework there is a reference to holding monthly meeting to report on, amongst other things, a raft of Social Justice activities. In other words people are going to be asked to demonstrate that they are obeying the law and other regulations. This is a principle that I first remember coming across in the bribery and corruption regulations a few years back and basically this requires you to prove that you are innocent. That is wrong on every level, but it seems that our civil servants don’t think so.
It is a fundamental part of due diligence during the vetting of contractors during the tender phase to ensure that they have appropriate compliance processes in place and, once the contract is placed there is no reason why the client should not seek to check these processes. But to have the contractor report on how they are applying them monthly is just ludicrous.
We should be cutting red tape, not adding to it and I think that this sort of thing is a national scandal. This year I reach my three score years and ten. So far the Grim Reaper has had his hands around my throat three or four times and yet I have wriggled free each time. If the above is the way that the world genuinely wants things then if the bloke with the scythe was to knock on the door now I would rush out screaming “Take me, Take me now.”
life log #6
Wow! Three months since I last wrote one of these. I am not sure why it has been so long, but it may just be that I have been too involved in other things.
I write best when I am quiet. Music is about the only sound that does not put me off, but sometimes it does distract me as well. My most prolific writing times were when I was working from home and the Berkshire Belle was still at work. She would go off to the office about a quarter to eight every morning and then it would be just me and the cats. I had about eight blogs on the go as well as writing for magazines and other projects. I could knock out twenty to thirty thousand words most days and, whilst I have never made a fortune from my scribblings, I didn’t do too b badly at earning a few bob either.
Things change though and I haven’t written for publication for six or seven years now other than a few things as an industry pundit, but they don’t pay or really count as writing. I seem to have too many other things that occupy my time and have not felt the need to inflict my thoughts on the world at large. These life logs started out as lockdown logs and seem to have developed a following as pretty much every day there is some feedback on them so I apologise to anyone who has wondered where I had got to.
Most of my time since March has been taken up in my back garden. The fencing contractors came in May and that was the catalyst for a lot of things to get started. I still have a lot to do and there is the daily maintenance of what I have done to take care of so I can easily spend an hour a day just on the latter. I now have a back garden that is habitable and have been able to just sit out there and read a couple of times. Maybe I can sit out there and write too.
The Double B and I have stopped wearing masks when out shopping and I no longer wear one at work. Neither of us is that comfortable with the decision, but we felt that we wanted to try and move a bit more back towards the way that things were. She has had her second booster and it seems that I will get mine in the Autumn. We are still carrying masks with us in the car though in case we decide that we want to use them. One possible side effect is that I have have had almost no sinus pain over the Covid period where I have been wearing a mask for between 3 and 4 hours a day, but within days of stopping masking up I am having problems again. Was recycling that humid breath beneficial? Who knows.
We are still undecided about a holiday this year, but will have to make a decision soon. We are both desperate to have a break, but can’t face the hassle that seems to prevail at the moment. Our type of vacation always involves scheduled flights on mainstream airlines and between primary hubs, so things might not be too bad, but 2 or 3 hours queuing for immigration or security is not too much fun, especially for the Berkshire Belle.
Anyway, that’s it for now and I will try not to take so long before the next one.
Stay safe out there wherever you are.
on LinkedIn
It must be around twenty years ago that my boss asked me if I had heard of LinkedIn. I told him that I had, but had not yet explored it and we agreed that we ought to give it a try. I was in Sales & Marketing back then and, having opened my LinkedIn account, it was quite easy to add contacts from people that I already knew.
To begin with fifty contacts seemed a good target, but that went by quickly and I was soon past the ton. Then I joined the 500 Club and was quite bemused to find that I was once removed from POTUS; yes, Mr Obama was connected to someone on my circle.
But collecting contacts was not the point; quantity was no match for quality and the ability to connect with interesting people from around the world became even more important to me once I had gone freelance in 2008.
I have not used LinkedIn as a direct marketing tool because my business model works on different lines, but I have used it to gain exposure and certainly some of the assignments that have come my way have landed with me after people found me on LinkedIn.
As I write this my three score years and ten approach and I have given up the global problem solver role along with most of my other business interests. I have resigned from the last of the three professional memberships that I had acquired and perhaps the time has come to give up LinkedIn too. After all, recently all I get from it are job offers that are really inappropriate for me and a barrage of cold call messages offering services or products that a few moments of research would have shown that I am not likely to want.
The benefit of keeping my account open is probably so that anyone looking for me can find me and so I will retain my presence there, but will largely be inactive. LinkedIn has been useful, but I have better things to do with the rest of my days on the planet.
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