Measurement
The relevant unit is a completed service: an onboarding case, reporting cycle, resolved query or other agreed outcome. Measure the human effort and total cost required to deliver it at the required standard, including verification and exceptions.
The measure
Every measure is taken on the completed service.
Define the start, completion criteria and scope of the work. Compare representative cases of similar complexity and record the sample size and conditions. Active effort and elapsed time are separate measures; a reporting delay may matter commercially without representing continuous labour.
Include preparation, investigation, coordination, review and correction, with no double counting. Record continuing administration and work transferred to other teams. A quicker intermediate task is useful only to the extent that it reduces the effort or improves the performance of the completed process.
Quality and failure severity
Errors recorded wherever they are caught
Record errors caught during the process as well as those that reach the final output. Distinguish ordinary corrections from material failures, and apply the agreed acceptance criteria. A serious access or execution failure cannot be offset by faster routine cases.
Capacity and financial effect
What the firm does with the capacity
Less effort per service creates capacity. Its financial effect depends on what the firm does with it, and a salary-rate calculation is not a cash saving.
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Additional mandates
The same team takes on further clients, funds or entities.
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Avoided recruitment
An identified recruitment need that no longer has to be filled.
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Removed cost
An actual cost taken out of the operation, measured as such.
The business case includes development, internal participation, computation, product charges, support and maintenance. It should show how the cost of an additional unit of service changes as volume and complexity change.
Evidence and operating decisions
Evidence that matches the decision
The evidence supporting an expansion in scope must match the decision being taken.
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Illustration
Explains how a design should work; it establishes no measured result.
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Controlled test
Records performance on representative cases under stated conditions.
Operating result
Describes the work completed in practice, in live operation.
Retaining manual work
Retaining manual work also has a cost.
Where the system meets the required standard with less total effort, continued manual execution should have a specific reason. Familiarity with the existing process is not, by itself, evidence of superior performance.
Continuing measurement
Measured after release as well as before it
After release, monitor changes in case mix, inputs, performance and intervention. New model capabilities should be evaluated against the same service outcomes. A system can remain technically functional while becoming unnecessarily expensive to operate because its original manual steps were never reconsidered.
Delivery, controls and an example
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Delivery method
The first phase, the five stages of every service and what is agreed before the work starts.
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Controls
Access, permitted actions and required evidence, and where human review adds to the result.
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Reporting example
An invented reporting case showing how sources, calculation and review fit together.