The Welch Company
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What Experts Say


Communication Metrics is a new management science for using technology to implement good practice consistently. The thing that is new is integrating traditionally separate management practices to form a new discipline, or work role, for intelligence. This role has been used in the military because the cost of failure justified the effort. It has not been used in business because the cost of poor management, even failure, did not seem to justify the cost. Now POIMS technology and the Internet reduce the cost of intelligence, and increased risk of error and loss in a faster paced business environment constitutes a significant new reality that makes intelligence cost effective.
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POIMS captures the chronology of management details that reveals patterns of cause and effect for making decisions about the future. Traditionally, documentation has focused analysis on the past, primarily looking backward in time. Adding "metrics" to communication builds history so that managers can discover what needs to be done, plan and schedule follow up for the future. Using intelligence instead of "documentation" provides a powerful new tool for leadership with a broader vision, particularly since the Internet delivers intelligence anytime, anywhere at very low cost.
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Communication Metrics enables alignment and feedback metrics in much greater degree than is possible with other methods. Adjustments can be made in the present that avoid mistakes and the cost of corrective work (rework) in the future, which saves time and money.
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What do experts say about the need for these advances in management practice supported by Communication Metrics?

Peter Drucker says... New realities of growing complexity in the modern business environment require changes in the structure of management jobs. Communication Metrics provides an "intelligence" role, as reported by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Good management is primarily a matter of quality; technology must apply cognitive science to improve the quality of management, since cognition (i.e., ability to analyse, align and remember) is the main factor in making decisions. Communication Metrics uses technology that enables managers to use good practices consistently, and it aids human memory with a rich environment of natural chronologies that emulate human thinking based on subject context.
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Analysis is a key source of management productivity. Communication Metrics uses technology and a new role to ensure analysis is accomplished, and that applicable analysis is readily accessible when needed.
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The information explosion causes complexity, confusion and endless mistakes (i.e., contiual bumbling) that reduces management productivity. The only solution is to convert information into knowledge by adding connections between information and objectives, requirements and commitments that make communication effective. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found that Communication Metrics solves this problem. ..
 Henry Kissinger says... The new reality of technology delivers talking and pictures without analysis, causing an "Alice in Wonderland" management, i.e., a comedy of errors. Communication Metrics accomplishes analysis, and adds alignment, planning and follow up to improve traditional documentation by adding a powerful new resource: intelligence. ..
 Robert MacNamera... ...supports Kissinger's point that when events move fast, mistakes multiply, even for the "best and brightest", unless intelligence is added to information. Communication Metrics uses technology to enable analysis to keep up with the new reality of faster information. ..
 Johanna Newman's book "Lights, Camera, War" ...says the pressure leaders feel from faster information technologies is an old problem which requires each generation to change work habits to meet the challenge of a new reality. ..
 George Shultz ...supports Kissinger's point that analysis is critical to avoid errors of understanding in the age of the Information Highway. ..
 Andrew Grove says... New realities are strategic inflection points which require strong leaders to help managers change one way or the other. Communication Metrics uses a "Communication Manager" to reduce the burden on managers of having to change work habits and expertise too quickly.
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Successful managers deny problems caused by new realities that require changing work practices.
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Analysis is essential to avoid errors due to ambiguity of mental maps, and managers gain by questioning. This takes diligence and is not fun, but it is necessary. Communication Metrics provides technology and an "intelligence" process, so that even managers who do not have enough time for analysis can avoid mistakes otherwise caused by the ambiguity of mental maps. ..
 Lt. General Henry J. Hatch (Ret) says... Communication Metrics methodology accomplishes an "intelligence" function that enables organizations to change in the right direction to meet the challenge of new realities. ..
 Stephen Covey says... Keeping a daily diary sharpens mental acuity. The SDS program automatically links diaries to form chains of chronology that comprise a web of knowledge. A Communication Manager ensures the diary is written, that effective feedback metrics are performed, that it is organized and aligned to add value to conventional analysis. The Internet delivers the resulting "intelligence" so that an entire organization benefits from "sharper mental acuity." The Communication Manager prepares key people in advance of important meetings, so the benefit of sharper mental acuity is applied where and when it is needed.
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It is hard to change work habits, echoing Andy Grove's observation that the inertia of success impedes managers from acquiring new skills. Communication Metrics adds a new player and new technology to ensure "intelligence" is generated and delivered so that managers do not have to learn anything or do anything differently, but can transition to new skills at their own pace while the organization benefits from reduced costs and higher earnings.
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Wealth is created by investing knowledge and ideas through effective communication and the synergy of independent forces. Communication Metrics uses technology to accomplish these good work habits consistently.
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Strive first to understand intent and implications, then prescribe. Communication Metrics supports this habit, and makes the fruits of understanding an organizational resource as a repository of "intelligence" that is delivered anytime, anywhere via the Internet. ..
 Edward Deming a pioneer in quality management (TQM) ...says plan, do, study, act. This management process is used in various forms by standards organizations. ISO criteria define a process of Conception, Development, Realization, Termination. The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) defines the process as Initiate, Plan, Execute, Control, Close. Communication Metrics uses technology and a new player to ensure this powerful management process is applied every day, i.e., consistently, as a continuous process of investing intellectual capital. ..
 Dr. Thomas K. Landauer ...says in his book The Trouble with Computers that technology has not improved management productivity because the right design has not been developed to adequately encompass the complexity of the management process, which requires improving the ability to think. Managers, who do not have enough time to think, understand Landauer's point. Communication Metrics solves this problem, as reported by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
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...says in his paper Latent Semantic Analysis Theory of Acquisition, Induction and Representation of Knowledge that the human mind grows new knowledge by replicating and modifying old knowledge units. The mind connects old and new knowledge to form "chronologies" of cause and effect, commonly called human "experience."
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Words have different meanings to different people due to differences in life experience in near and long term contexts, and, further, meaning changes in an individual's mind in small and large degrees due to continual life experience. The cognitive problem of meaning drift is commonly recognized in the telephone game.
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Meaning drift makes communication the biggest risk in enterprise because people are not aware of differences in meaning until action is taken later, often by others, that causes a mistake, costing time, money and sometimes injury or death (see High Cost of Medical Mistakes). Deferred and transferred impacts are compounded by information overload that increases the rate and degree of difference in meaning drawn from meetings, calls and email.
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Communication Metrics solves the problem with technology that emulates the brain's process of growing new knowledge, that is aligned with original sources. Connections are maintained regardless of the volume of information, and so provide proactive risk management that ensures timely and accurate memory of human experience, which improves the quality of decisions called out by Drucker. ..
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Updated: Jul 19, 1998