Business Intelligence: 1stOps Level and Individual Level
Business Intelligence: 1st/Ops Level and Individual Level
Table 7-5 summarizes suggested external 1st/Ops and Individual-level business intelligence that you can gather, along with places for you to look for this information.
| ‚ | Source | Where to Look |
|---|---|---|
| Standards and Procedures | Industry standards (e.g., ISO 9000) Certification requirements How-to books | Standards and certification organizations, bookstores, Websites |
| Job Descriptions and Responsibilities | General job descriptions Specific job responsibilities and measures | Occupational Outlook Handbook (U.S. Department of Labor, 2003), job search engines (e.g., www.monster.com), job postings on your target organization ‚ s Website |
If you are external to an organization, one way to find out about likely requirements, costs, or procedures is to examine industry standards or certification requirements. Another is to look at books or Websites with tips for how to manage a particular type of operation. Standards, certifications, or how-to recommendations may spell out what types of measures a 1st/Ops or Individual contributor may have as part of their job responsibilities.
It can be difficult to find external information on measures, job responsibilities, and other issues at this level. One source for information that is often overlooked is job search engines such as www.monster.com. By searching on a company name , you may be able to glean where the company is hiring and what types of measures and responsibilities are expected of the applicants . Alternatively, you can look at your target organization ‚ s Website to find out if it has posted job openings online.
If you cannot find job postings for your target organization but you have a general idea of the type of job that your WLP intervention is likely to affect, you can always look up a generic description of that job in the Occupational Outlook Handbook, published by the U.S. Department of Labor (2003). It offers a wealth of information about particular jobs including the expected education levels, job responsibilities, and expected growth or decline in each type of job in the next few years . The Handbook sometimes describes job measures, but even if it does not you can often infer them from the job descriptions.
Internal Sources
Table 7-6 summarizes suggested internal 1st/Ops and Individual-level business intelligence that you can gather, along with places for you to look for this information.
| ‚ | Source | Where to Look |
|---|---|---|
| Financial Information | Memos or presentations with financial status Department-level business plans Department-level budgets and budget variance reports Monthly or quarterly status reports | Finance or accounting department, routing and distribution via email or interoffice mail, meetings, intranets , networking |
| Individual Measures | Compensation plans Personal balanced scorecards (more detailed breakdown from higher-level scorecards) Job descriptions Individual development plans | HR department, line management |
| Product/Process | Service-level agreements Process maps Procedure manuals and guidelines Quality reports | R&D, manufacturing, services, or marketing department |
| Other Key Strategies | Information technology project plans Hiring and staffing plans Sales forecasts and results Major account plans | High-level line management, HR department, marketing department |
Internally to an organization, you ‚ ll be looking once again for memos, budgets, business plans, compensation plans, and balanced scorecards, but for a narrower scope or period of time. You should work to get on the distribution lists for monthly or quarterly departmental status reports. Job descriptions and individual development plans can give you a place to start with measures if you have not yet been successful at obtaining higher-level data.
Service-level agreements, either that your organization must live up to or that your organization requires of its suppliers, can tell you a great deal about costs and risks to the organization if performance is not maintained in critical areas. Process maps, procedures, and quality reports can sometimes tell you the same thing. Various departments will have these reports or manuals.
Sales forecasts and results, major account plans, hiring and staffing plans, and information technology project plans are other types of information that you can look for. The level of detail at the 1st/Ops or Individual level can be overwhelming in contrast to the measures you are looking for. In some cases, suggesting lunch with someone in the department you are interested in may tell you exactly what the measures are or point you to the most relevant documents to obtain.
EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 157