Do you measure behavior when you run and develop your organization?

Too often, projects and development initiatives are launched in organisations and companies without a clear awareness of what behaviour should bring about change. The increasing focus on effects-based and value-based management increasingly places end-users (customers, citizens and users) at the heart of measuring various development initiatives and the value creation and results of projects. It is quite fine to ask customers, citizens and users what they think of the changes, but there is a danger of staring blindly at the end product, without working in a structured way to gather knowledge about what behavior actually leads to the change. This can be the behavior of customers, citizens, employees, managers and other stakeholders in change processes and projects.

When behavior is measured, it influences the behavior towards the change you want. What is focused on is strengthened, and this in itself contributes to creating direction and results. Therefore, it becomes crucial to find out what type of behavior should be given additional focus by measuring on it. And while moving towards the goal, the focus must be on measuring the behavior that underlies the end product. The process forward towards the results is crucial to creating momentum.

In this article, partners in Resonance, Mikkel Ejsing and Nanna Hebsgaard, together with Ask Gielfeldt from Peopleway, provide insight into how a data-driven approach can be the way forward for behavior measurement in organizations.

Often there are many barriers that help to stop behavior change. In order for these barriers to be broken down, it is necessary that top management is involved in the process and ensures it the managerial focus, while at the same time mobilizing the relevant people in and around the system.

The article presents three concrete suggestions on how to obtain concrete data on behavior and how these can be linked to expectations of value and objectives of change efforts. In headlines, the commandments read:
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1. Target decomposition and alignment
2. Quantify
3. Create a “driver diagram for impactful behavior”

Data-Driven Behavior Management can be considered as the common denominator of the three steps mentioned and actually make it possible, in the Prime Minister's words, to “drive not only further on the letter, but also faster”.