How to measure productivity? Smart and connected

The Toni we talked about in our last post, is wondering in his last post How to Measure Productivity. He’s approaching it via a layered vision on (personal) productivity (L1 task, L2 process and L3 purpose level) and observes that measuring is easier at lower and harder at higher levels. At L3 only a feeling remains.

Specific goals
Extending these ideas, we should ask ourselves how we try to achieve ‘vague’ goals. Classically by (1) crystallizing and by (2) elaborating. We set a clear goal. We define a general approach. We decide on midterm objectives. We distill short term objectives. We plan next actions.

A simple example from the ‘health dimension’. Suppose you want to get serious about your condition. A vague goal. What do you really want. Where would you like to be in one, two, three years? What would ‘wild success’ be? Run a marathon. Which one? The Antwerp Marathon. When? April 2009. A measurable goal. Then we work this up in intermediate goals (Brussels 20K in May, be able to run 3 hours non-stop in September, loose 8 kg of weight by December, etc.) – very measurable intermediate goals. And we detail it further in morning routines, training schemes, etc. Very specific next actions.

This way measuring productivity is translated in measuring achievement of hierarchies of SMART goals and execution of specific actions. As such we are answering the question that Matthew Cornell raised ; yes, productivity can be measured, you only need to specify what you want to produce.

Goals we connect to
However, in his post, Toni is also discussing a feeling, a direction, a ‘subjectivity’ that is hard to measure. The idea is: a marathon will be a ‘wild success’ in the health dimension for one specific person, for another it will be something completely different. This is self-evident. It becomes more relevant if our own goal changes or – worse – becomes blurred. The I-want-to-run-a-marathon looses its magic, demands too much or is outshined by other goals. In this case, the measurements will simply lose their relevance.

Consequently, measurement of productivity should additionally check connectedness on two levels: (1) do I still feel connected to my (smart) purpose? and (2) can I still connect to the translation of purpose into approach and of approach into action?

Measurement of productivity then gets produced by measuring achievement of hierarchies of specific objectives and by measuring connectedness to them, both in action as through time.