Monitoring Quarter

Monitoring Quarter (hereinafter, the Quarter) is the first of four lectures of Operations Quadrivium (hereinafter, the Quadrivium):

• The Quarter is designed to introduce its learners to enterprise discovery, or, in other words, to concepts related to obtaining data needed to administer the enterprise effort; and
• The Quadrivium examines concepts of administering various types of enterprises known as enterprise administration as a whole.

The Quadrivium is the first of seven modules of Septem Artes Administrativi, which is a course designed to introduce its learners to general concepts in business administration, management, and organizational behavior.

Outline

The predecessor lecture is Chief Execution Quarter.

Concepts

1. Monitoring. Monitoring is a continuous process of collecting data to determine how well a solution is implemented compared to expected results. See also metric and indicator.
   • Indicator. An indicator identifies a specific numerical measurement that indicates progress toward achieving an impact, output, activity or input. See also metric.
   • Metric. A metric is a quantifiable level of an indicator that an organization wants to accomplish at a specific point in time.
   • Metrics. Measures of performance that observe progress and evaluate trends within an organization.
2. Enterprise environment. Forces outside and inside an organization that affect or can potentially affect the enterprise's performance.
   • Enterprise environment. The combined internal and external forces, both individual and interacting with one another which assist or restrict the attainment of the objective. These could be business or project related or may be due to political, economic, technological or regulatory conditions.
   • Micro environment. Consideration of firm, project or client imposed policies and procedures applicable in the procurement actions.
   • Macro environment. Consideration, interrelationship and action of outside changes such as legal, social, economic, political or technological which may directly or indirectly influence specific procurement actions.
3. Data source. A place, person, or thing from which data comes or can be obtained.
   • Data source. Identification and listing of various available sources, internal as well as external, to provide relevant information on specific procurements.
   • Internal data source. Intra-firm sources and records including historical data on similar procurements, cost and performance data on various suppliers and other data which could assist in proposed procurements.
   • External data source. Extra-firm sources including industry contracts, market data, competitive intelligence and regulatory information which could aid procurement decision-making.
4. Data origin.
   • Human communications. Data generated by an informational exchange between two or more people.
   • Document data. Data that one or more pieces of written, printed, or electronic matter contains.
   • Media data. Data that one or more pieces of audio- and/or visual matter contains.
   • Measurement data. Data that is obtained by one or more datapoint devices.
   • Reconnaissance data. Data generated by observations.
5. Data collection mode.
   • Automatic data collection.
   • Controlled data collection.
6. Business surveillance.
7. Market research. The activity of gathering information about both or either consumers' needs and preferences and/or sellers' products on the market. Sometimes, the research is considered being the first phase of the market analysis.
   • Environmental scanning. Screening information to detect emerging trends.
8. Benchmarking. The search for the best practices among competitors or noncompetitors that lead to their superior performance.
   • Benchmarking. A comparison of a process or system's cost, time, quality, or other metrics to those of leading peer organizations to identify opportunities for improvement.
   • Benchmark. The standard of excellence against which to measure and compare.
   • Benchmark. The process by which a startup company measures their current success. An investor measures a company's growth by determining whether or not they have met certain benchmarks. For example, company A has met the benchmark of having X amount of recurring revenue after 2 years in the market.
   • Comparative analysis. Performing a feature by feature comparison of two or more products to determine trends or patterns.
9. Metadata. Data about data; it may include data sources, geolocation, the chronology related to data creation and further movement, data contexts, etc.
   • Metadata. Metadata is information that is used to understand the context and validity of information recorded in a system.
   • Metadata. Data that gives information about what the primary data is about (e.g., if a photo is the primary data, its metadata might consist of what its resolution is, when the photo was taken, etc.).
10. Data research.
    • Qualitative research.
    • Quantitative research.
11. Data structure.
    • Structured data.
    • Unstructured data.
    • Data validation.
12. Learning. Any relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of experience.
    • Lessons learned. The learning gained from the process of performing the project. Lessons learned may be identified at any point.
    • Lessons learned process. A process improvement technique used to learn about and improve on a process or project. A lessons learned session involves a special meeting in which the team explores what worked, what didn't work, what could be learned from the just-completed iteration, and how to adapt processes and techniques before continuing or starting anew.

Methods

1. Data-gathering technique. An established procedure for carrying out gathering of data.
   • Observation. The data-gathering technique that is based on watching something or someone; an observation can also be a statement based on something one has seen, heard, or noticed.
   • Document research. The data-gathering technique that is based on a systematic study of documents in order to gather data.
   • Media research. The data-gathering technique that is based on a systematic study of audio- and visual- materials in order to gather data.
   • Needfinding. Needfinding is the art of talking to people and discovering their needs; both those they might explicitly state, and those hidden beneath the surface. It is only in truly understanding people that we can gain meaningful insights to inspire and inform a final, impactful design.
2. Interview. A data-gathering technique that represents an arranged meeting of people face-to-face, especially for consultation or other informational exchange.
   • Interview. A systematic approach to elicit information from a person or group of people in an informal or formal setting by asking relevant questions and documenting the responses.
   • User interview. Used for understanding the tasks and motivations of the user group for whom you are designing, user interviews may be formally scheduled, or just informal chats.
   • Structured interview. A planned interview designed to gather job-related information.
   • Unstructured interview. A short, casual interview made up of random questions.
   • Open-ended interview. Covers a variety of data-gathering activities, including a number of social science research methods.
   • Stakeholder interview. A conversation with the key contacts in the client organization funding, selling, or driving the product.
     1. Focus group. Small (5-15 individuals) and composed of representative members of a group whose beliefs, practises or opinions are sought. By asking initial questions and structuring the subsequent discussion, the facilitator/interviewer can obtain, for example, information on common gear use practices, responses to management regulations or opinions.
     2. Panel survey. Involves the random selection of a small number of representative individuals from a group, who agree to be available over an extended period - often one to three years. During that period, they serve as a stratified random sample of people from whom data can be elicited on a variety of topics.
3. Meeting. An occasional or arranged gathering of people for informational, emotional, or physical exchanges; particularly, this gathering can serve as a data-gathering technique.
   • Town hall meeting. An informal public meeting where information can be relayed, issues can be discussed, or employees can be brought together to celebrate accomplishments.
   • Requirements workshop. A requirements workshop is a structured meeting in which a carefully selected group of stakeholders collaborate to define and or refine requirements under the guidance of a skilled neutral facilitator.
4. Event-powered survey. The data-gathering technique that is based on a systematic study of behavior of people at arranged events such as pooling, sampling, and/or querying, either virtual or physical, undertaken in order to gather data primarily of the results of their behavior.

• Document analysis. Document analysis is a means to elicit requirements of an existing system by studying available documentation and identifying relevant information.
• Observation. Observation is a means to elicit requirements by conducting an assessment of the stakeholder's work environment.

Instruments

1. Data-gathering tool. An tangible or software implement used to carry out gathering of data.
   • Questionnaire. The data-gathering tool that represents a set of questions composed for the purposes of conducting of one or more event-powered surveys.
     1. Questionnaire. A research instrument consisting of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents.
     2. Survey. An online form designed to solicit feedback from current or potential users.
   • Human testing. exams and quizzes.
   • Datapoint device. Any data-gathering tool that counts, detects, gauges, meters, records, scales, scores, senses, surveys, and/or tests somebody or something and is located at some point where relevant data can be gathered.
2. Search engine. A software system that is designed to search for data on corporate networks or, as a web search engine, on World Wide Web.
3. Content gathering.
   • Content management software (CMS). Software that allows publishing, editing and maintaining content from a central interface. See also: Content management
     1. Content management. The suite of processes and technologies that support the collection, management, and publication of information in any medium.
   • Digital form. Online forms and form filing
   • Download portal. Online forms and form filing

Results

1. Enterprise data. All data that has been gathered to support all of the enterprise efforts.
   • Data. Factual communications, raw documents, unprocessed measurements, and/or recorded observations collected for further analysis in order to create information.
2. Knowledge base.

Practices

• Assumption. The factor that, for planning purposes, is considered to be true, real, or certain. Assumptions affect all aspects of project planning, and are part of the progressive elaboration of the project. Project teams frequently identify, document, and validate assumptions as part of their planning process. Assumptions generally involve a degree of risk.
• Elicitation. An activity within requirements development that identifies sources for requirements and then uses elicitation techniques (e.g., interviews, prototypes, facilitated workshops, documentation studies) to gather requirements from those sources.
• Focus group. A focus group is a means to elicit ideas and attitudes about a specific product, service or opportunity in an interactive group environment. The participants share their impressions, preferences and needs, guided by a moderator.
• Survey. A survey administers a set of written questions to stakeholders in order to collect responses from a large group in a relatively short period of time.

The successor lecture is Business Analysis Quarter.

Materials

Texts and graphics

• https://cyfar.org/data-collection-techniques