Management-by-Fact
It is an important component of the total quality management system for a company. All workers and managers gather and document data related to the tasks they perform, and then analyze this information to improve their decision-making processes. Management by Fact can also be used to identify and solve problems, and their causes, as well as to determine the best countermeasures. This system is used to ensure an organization’s continual development and achieve its long-term goals.
The fact-based approach – which balances the four core variables of time, people/resources, and features, as well as quality – helps align strategy with reality. This is more adaptive and transparent, by definition. It enables you to respond quickly to changes in your business environment. This has two benefits:
- Reduce organizational Inertia for long-term, high-return investments where sunk costs replace business case compliance.
- Reduce the Uncertainty Principle. By knowing where we are, we can make better and more confident decisions.
Management anti-patterns, that is when management and execution are not aligned, become equally obvious.
- We don’t engage in opinion-based plans. By asserting that something will be finished by a specific date, through top-down planning, we are not showing enough respect for the domain and its potential to (and likely will) bring about changes. This also tends not to acknowledge the fact that things don’t happen in zero time. This might be a form of prayer but it’s not management.
- By declaring that something is completed, we do not abandon the practices which create an integrity of completion. By claiming that something has been “done”, without putting it through a review and a technical or requirements testing framework, we are risking the future by creating a brownfield.
