field

purpose

example

Name

What we tend to call it in conversation

Help Desk Cases Resolved in more than 6 days

Value

the latest recorded measurement, for the last month, say, or quarter

30

Units

Percent, cases, hours, seconds, etc.

%

Target

What is the current "goal" value for this measure? Setting this target is a key task for the relevant management team. (In the same units as Value.)

15

Gap

The difference between Value and Target. (In the same units as Value and Target.)

15

Trend

Left to continue as it has been, what is the value likely to be in N time periods

26

Is Up Good

a Yes/No view of what managers consider the desirable direction. Puts "Trend" into context.

No

Threshold

What is the size of the Gap or the level of the Value that should set off warnings in the minds of management. In this case, it determines whether Alarm, below, to Yes or No.

25

Alarm

a Yes/No indicator of whether the Value has exceeded the Threshold. This variable would be used in spreadsheets to determine how to color cells in a spreadsheet dashboard or otherwise highlight out-of-range variables.

Yes

Response

Written-out consideration of what is means to management when values start exceeding thresholds. What would management do (WWMD)?

"Study the underlying issues within this subset of cases -- root cause analysis to help discover the business process breakdown that is driving it."

Team

What part of IS&T "owns" this data

Helpdesk

LOB

Description of the business process the measure depicts

Call Center ticket resolution

Strategic Goal

Description of the intended outcome for this measure when the LOB process is working as well as it can, why do we want the measure target to be what it is.

Source

What people or system contains the raw data for extracting to derive the variable.

Casetracker logs

Contact

Who to talk to about missing data, weird data, changes to processes reflected in the variable, etc.

Goguen or ccf@mit.edu

Average

Time series average of all the data points

27

Median

Time series median value for all the data points

25

Can Use XmR

Yes/No setting for whether statistical process control analysis seems appropriate.

Yes

Moving Range

time series mR value (the range of change in time series data points

8

Process Limit

a statistical interpretation of the moving range, roughly equal to three standard deviations of the moving range.

12

NUPL

Natural Upper Process Limit of the time series. Assuming the process is currently in control, this is the natural maximum for the variable. It is defined as the variable's average plus the Process Limit. The relationship between Target and NUPL can inform the need for possible process changes to bring behavior in line with target. The NUPL shows how the process _is_ behaving, not how management would specify that it _should_ behave.

37

NLPL

Natural Lower Process Limit of the time series. Assuming the process is currently in control, here's the natural minimum for the variable.

13