Whilst I was working on the Dynamic Narrative Analytics framework, I started writing this little manifesto. I thought I’d share it with you.
If you can’t measure it, you can’t trust it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t learn from it. If you can’t explain it, you can’t justify it.
Failure so often starts when opinion is presented as evidence and instinct is defended as proof. “I think” gets conflated with “I know” long before it earns that right. Real progress is a transition. From I think, to I know, to you know and you trust that I know. That transition does not come from more data. It comes from the right data and better measurement.
Metrics must be reliable and meaningful. Data collected for its own sake is just noise. Measurement only matters when you trust how the numbers were produced and understand what they represent.
Understanding is where measurement turns into learning. Explanation is where learning becomes defensible. If you cannot explain your reasoning, others cannot follow it and they will not trust the outcome.
Measurement without understanding is fragile. Understanding without explanation is invisible.
Measure with intent. Understand with discipline. Explain with clarity.
You must define what success looks like, you must define how you break that down into things you can measure and you must reliably measure it!
When you are in a room full of people saying “I think”, be the one who can say “I know”.
Similar Posts:
- Dynamic Narrative Analytics: Turning Player Data Into a Playable Story
- What the Klout just happened?
- Catching the Klout
Also published on Medium.