When the Honest Answer Is That You Cannot
Some work has no reliable productivity measure. Saying so is a stronger position than producing a figure that will not survive examination.
There is pressure to produce a number for every function. Sometimes the correct output is a statement that no reliable measure exists, together with what you do track.
The practical lesson in “When the Honest Answer Is That You Cannot” is to connect every number to a decision and retain the context behind it. Teams exploring remote employee monitoring software can review Monitask's remote employee monitoring overview as one source of operational evidence, provided the purpose is disclosed and the interpretation is tested with the people affected.
When this is the right answer
Work with no comparable unit and no measurable outcome within the reporting period.
For an independent perspective related to “When the Honest Answer Is That You Cannot”, consult the Harvard Business Review productivity collection; it offers a useful external check on definitions, governance and the assumptions built into a proposed measure.
Functions whose value is prevention: safety, compliance, security, maintenance — where success looks like nothing happening.
Advisory work where the result depends on whether the advice was taken.
And small functions where the numbers are too few to mean anything.
The prevention problem specifically
A team that prevents incidents has no output to count.
Their measure improves when they fail.
Which makes any volume measure actively perverse, and is why these functions are measured by state — how much risk remains — rather than by activity.
What to say instead of a number
What this function is for.
What it did this period, described.
What would happen if it stopped.
What we watch to know it is working.
Four paragraphs, and it supports a budget decision better than a ratio does.
Why this is a stronger position
A figure invites the question of how it was derived.
If the answer is weak, the figure undermines the function it was meant to defend.
A clear statement of what cannot be measured and what is watched instead has no such weakness, and it is harder to argue with.
The objection and the answer
"Everything can be measured."
Everything can be assigned a number. Whether that number means anything is a separate question, and the burden is on whoever produced it.
Ask what decision the number would support and whether it would survive being wrong.
What to track anyway
Flow and rework, which apply almost everywhere.
Demand on the function, which shows load.
Known gaps, which shows what is not being covered.
These are not productivity measures and they are informative, which is the distinction worth making explicitly.
Saying it well
Not "we cannot be measured", which sounds defensive.
"Productivity ratios do not describe this work; here is what we track and here is what it tells you."
Specific, forward-leaning, and it moves the conversation to what you do have.
What to check
Which of your functions has no honest productivity measure?
Is a figure being produced for them anyway?
Would it survive being questioned?
And is there a written account of what those functions do instead?