Several years ago they developed something called the "Commander's Dashboard" on eservices that lets commanders and other key staff that have been given privileges look at a bunch of what are considered key metrics. Some of these metrics include membership (with short and long-term trend info), number of qualified people in various ES fields, # of mission pilots/aircraft, information on senior member and cadet member PD, info on cadet o-rides, etc.
Until recently, it was really only available to Wing or higher, but now it is available down to squadron level.
It does provide a valuable snapshot, but I'm not sure whether it is really being utilized.
Leaving aside the new squadron-level metrics, have any of you that operate on wing staff or higher heard the wing commander and others using this tool in any real way? For example, did someone ever say, "hey our mission pilots/aircraft number is in the red, what are we going to do about that?"
Yes, it's up on the screen most staff meetings.
Quote from: RiverAux on August 27, 2013, 02:54:33 AM"hey our mission pilots/aircraft number is in the red, what are we going to do about that?"
Cricket Sound (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8E_zMLCRNg#)
The numbers are usually indicative, but the problem is that they are results in an environment with no front-end direction or expectations. It's hard to hold
people's feet to the fire when the only thing you've told them to do it "better".
Metrics don't help when the prevailing opinion tends to be that regardless of the numbers, we're lucky they are as good as they are given [random excuse generator] we endured. As long as commanders aren't replaced for poor performance, there isn't any incentive to review the numbers.
If someone is in the top 10% or the bottom 10% it might be something to look at. For most of the rest of us, it's not something I worry about a whole lot. Kind of like the old saw about lies and statistics.
I have learned via 15 years in education that demographic and data analysis done in isolation is more of a hindrance than a boon. There can sometimes be the placing of the "Cart before the horse." I feel that the information in the "Commander's Dashboard" is of no help without true introspection of the unit, forces places on the unit (cadet home life, senior member career and job interference with CAP and a host of other things)
It is a good insight, however, it does not include the variable I mention and allude to.
If you're running a Wing that level of detail is not going to be available and I'm not really sure it would be that helpful even if it were obtainable.
It may not tell you why something is wrong or what should be done to fix it, but it does have a limited potential to reveal that you've got a problem in the first place.
On the Wing level. If I show growth every year in Senior Member and Cadet numbers I must be doing good. But what about the Squadron, in my Wing that has a 55% drop in Cadet numbers?
What about the Squadron that puts on 290 hours on it's corporate aircraft and 232 of them is on Saturdays and Sundays flying Cadets. "0" A hours but lots of great O-rides ::)
Pretty obviously, the squadron that lost half its cadets is doing bad and the squadron doing lots of o-rides is doing good (at least I would define that level of commitment to one of our missions as good).
Not sure what your point is other than that the Dashboard doesn't show every possible statistic that matters all at once.
Incidentally, you can drill down to squadron level now and the Wing Commander would have the visibility to know that one of his squadrons is seeing a catastrophic decline that he might not otherwise have heard about. Just the sort of thing that the Dashboard might be useful for.
Quote from: RiverAux on September 02, 2013, 11:53:53 PM
Just the sort of thing that the Dashboard might be useful for.
Exactly. It's a quick visual representation of what should be some key metrics. Like the dashboard in your car.