Morris Wallack Director, Presales support; HP Imaging and Printing Americas

“It turns out you have two choices: You can try to control people, or you can try to have a system that represents reality. I find that knowing what's really happening is more important than trying to control people” ~ Larry Page, NY Post, 8/24/04

In my prior posts, I focused on: what MPS is (definition),how to build a solid plan or output strategy, and most recently, a discussion of assessments as part of the process for developing a data driven business case for change.

One question I often get from MPS customers, users and sponsors is how to keep something they have started “on track” and ensure that the results expected from an endeavor like MPS are realized.

The answer? Some people call it metrics, some call it governance, some call it measurement – in reality all of them are part of an overall governance process needed to ensure results are realized and sustained over time.

Managing a project can be episodic; managing a process is a never-ending thing.

We all know what well managed projects look like: defined outcomes, clear deliverables, clear budgets and committed timelines. Those are relevant factors to track if you want to know if something is getting done according to plan. However, if you want to know if the system you’re using is working as intended, you may need others. In MPS environments, the challenge comes down to “how much do I need to measure and control to get the results I want? “

Here are some guideposts:

System metrics: overall only a few high level metrics are needed to know if an MPS project is yielding expected results:

• Overall total costs (in $$); before and after optimization, and trend thereafter
• Overall costs per page (total costs to produce pages divided by total pages produced)
• Number of devices in the fleet; before and after optimization and trends thereafter
• Ratio of employees to devices
• Percentage of devices shared/on network
• Percentage of users satisfied with MPS service/availability of technology

Armed with data on those key measures, you can see trends related to the entire fleet, employee or user satisfaction, and whether or not the overall design is working as intended. Here’s an example: if initially the percent of devices shared vs. personal goes up and then over time starts to creep back down, it’s likely people are buying personal printers despite the best intentions of your MPS program. If the overall costs per page are rising – either you have too many devices (underutilization), page growth beyond expected device range (wrong device for the job), or other costs not under control.

Performance metrics for ongoing optimization:

At a lower level you can institute device by device or group by group metrics to actively tune performance. Now the relevant metrics include:

• Pages per device printed per month
• % duplex (particularly relevant today if you are tracking green or environmental initiatives and their impact
• Device uptime as % of workday available
• Color/mono mix (if applicable)
• Media size mix (A4, A3, 11x 17 8.5” x 11)
• Page coverage percentage
• Percentage of print/copy/fax

Ideally, all of these metrics would have predetermined targets or forecasts. Deviations from the target would trigger corrective action. Sustained deviations over longer periods of time might be reason to change the fleet, usage guidelines or practices.

Instituting metrics: keep it simple

Remembering that metrics should be used to help really understand what’s going on (rather than only for control) – you don’t need a long list. Focus first on the things you can measure, next on items uncovered by other lists, and finally, on any critical items that must be tracked (either for compliance, legal audits, or business critical applications that need tracking). Too many metrics likely mean you aren’t sure what’s critical for tracking. Simple metrics increase the likelihood employees will understand them when communicated, remember them if important, and align with them if meaningful.

Things to avoid:

• Measuring things you won’t change even if you had the data. For example - if you won’t pull out a personal printer from a Sr. Vice President’s office even if it printed only 10 pages per month, why spend lots of time tracking it?
• Focusing on data that’s more a dial than a knob. Cost per page really is just a dial, not a knob. You can’t really “manage” cost per page – any more than you can “manage” the cost per device (or profits…which are just the difference between revenues and expenses). What you can do is manage the usage – by giving people the right tools to know how and when to print. You manage the supply chain that supports the devices to get lower unit costs per page by reducing waste and redundancy. Those are examples of knobs you can turn.

Governance and dialogue: “without data we’re all folks with an opinion”

Finally, the enforcement of guidelines, particularly who can purchase what kind of printer, when a new device is added to the fleet or when exceptions are made to published guidelines is the acid test for whether policies are real or just words on paper. To make those policies come alive and for them to have teeth, leaders need to be well informed with the right system or performance level data and then make informed judgments supported by facts. Employees asking for new a printer “because I need it” without the data to support the request is no longer an acceptable perspective in many companies, and with environmental concerns reigning large in many offices, is no longer a hard thing to deny.