Chris Crosby

A few weeks ago, my wife Amy and I had the pleasure of meeting the newest addition to our family. My brother-in-law Jeff and his wife Pam welcomed thier new son Braden Scott Parma-Kelly to the world in Feb of this year. We couldn’t wait to meet the little fella, so we headed south to Austin, TX.

Not having children of our own yet, this was our first real “hands-on” exposure to the process of baby rearing. It was quite a sight as we fumbled through that first diaper change and bottle warming with Amy screaming “What do I do, what do I do?”. But by the end of the weekend we were self-proclaimed professionals.

As I reflected back on our weekend in Texas, I was able to draw some interesting parallels between raising babies and Business Intelligence (yes, I can find a metaphor or analogy in just about anything).  

So, allow me to introduce a new kind of BI, “Baby Intelligence”. Enjoy! 

1. Baby Activity Monitoring (BAM) – Most of you have heard of Business Activity Monitoring, which is the real time management of your  business transactions and performance . However, Braden kindly introduced me to the “baby monitor”, which is basically a one-way walkie talkie that you carry around the house while a baby is sleeping. This allows you to listen for any disturbance and activity. I couldn’t help but think that the monitor looked just like a gauge on a BlueVue Dashboard. I quickly learned that they worked the same way. The occasional two bars on the led monitor indicated a little restlessness that is apparently a part of Braden’s normal “sleep cycle”, but three bars or more means you better get your butt in gear or the thing is about to go off the charts…
2. Integrated Solutions - I’m a big advocate of efficiency in not only business and call centers, but in life. I often use this as my reasoning to invest in cool toys like iPods and Blackberry’s that make me more “proficient” (although I think my wife has caught on to me). And thanks to my brother-in-law Jeff, I have now discovered the modern marvel in baby efficiency: “the instant stroller”. The day we took Braden to the park for a walk I observed Jeff take the car seat out of their new highly safety rated, four-door SUV and drop it right onto a stroller frame. My jaw dropped in amazement at the simplicity of the set-up as there was no longer a need to un-strap the kid from one overly sophisticated plastic bucket and transplant him into another. Brilliant!  
3. Key Performance Indicators and the Baby Scorecard- In a call center there are Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and metrics such as First Call Resolution and Schedule Adherence that measure performance and areas that require attention. These are often accumulated into an Agent Scorecard that can be used to manage the performance of your team. However, through my Sister-in-Law Pam, I was introduced to an entirely new set of very important metrics, which I will refer to as “The Baby Scorecard”.  These include key indicators such as: “is his diaper wet?” , “does he “stink?”, “that was a quality burp”, “how long was his nap?”. I must also mention that the term “Blow Out” now has an entirely new meaning to me…    
4. Smile - Even if you have no clue what’s going on around you

-”Uncle” Chris

I was recently asked by Call Center Magazine what I thought the difference between analytics and performance management is so I thought I’d post it here as well.

Latigent defines Analytics as the process and enabling tools for root cause and trend isolation. This can range from call volume drivers, to customer segmentation, to agent performance. You hear a lot about slice and dice and drill-down when it comes to analytics. These are very important; however a well defined analytics product should also let you correlate disparate events together and analyze their impact on each other.

Performance Management ties in broad based metrics to paint a picture of individual performance against company objectives. This is where the idea of the “balanced scorecard” comes into play.

Performance Management and Analytics are often used interchangeable. However, Analytics is more about opportunity and problem identification, where Performance Management is geared towards generating the report card and faciliating the process for improvement.

-Chris