I am running out of gas… Yesterday!!

If you are traveling with your family and your car indicates that you have ½ of a tank…


and suddenly you find a sign that reads “NO GAS 82 Miles”



Do you stop and fill the thank or not? Now imagine that your “Full/Empty” meter is actually telling you how full your car was yesterday at this time. (delay of a day) And that you gas status is actually…



Most likely you will end up …


Definitely that this situation could have been avoided. The fundamental problem that we are trying to address is that it is important to have information as long as it is opportune. If it is not on time (real time) we will be making decisions based on it, and most likely will be causing a greater problem or making a very bad decision.
If our car would not have a “full/empty” meter then the very cautious ones are going to be filling the tank every Hour. When we have a meter we assume two things: That the information is correct and that it is real time, in other words, that it reflects the reality at this very minute.

Now a day’s organizations are putting a lot of effort in having measurement tools and scoreboards; however we have to take into consideration that it must be correct and should reflect the reality of today and not yesterday´s. By not doing this the risk is higher since we will be making decisions and generating action plans based on information that we believe blindly.
I do not want to leave you with the impression that I am against measurements and managing using indicators, what I am trying to make clear is that once you decide to go this way you MUST make sure that the information is CORRECT and OPORTUNE (real time) because if it is not, we are better off without them.
“I am better off NOT knowing my reality, than being sure of an incorrect one”
We can conclude that if information has value, its highest value is when is generated and with time it loses its value until it reaches Zero or close to it.
It is my goal that from this point on when we say “I got that information” we actually mean “I got a system that can give me real time and accurate information, everyday”.