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What are we actually reporting?
2020-07-21
Piotr Kononow
It might be familiar to you - maybe in your organization there is a constant talk about this [KEY BUSINESS METRIC]. Executives and managers are talking about it growing or falling or certain goals for them, but many people don't even know what they are measuring exactly, how they should be calculated or even having conflicting definitions.
If that sounds familiar it is because it is quite common. Most of human words are fuzzy and mean different things to different people. Think about Sales for instance - what date do we take? Order date, delivery date or invoice date? What about refunds? Do we deduct it from current month? What exchange rate should we take for foreign sales? There are many more questions...
Solution? Identify metrics, differentiate similar ones with unique names, provide clear definitions and share. Congratulations! You just implemented a business glossary!