Measurement in Management: Informing Leadership Decisions

Coursera MOOC / Non-credit USD 49
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Measurement in Management: Informing Leadership Decisions

About this course

Measurement in Management: Build meaningful KPIs, avoid common measurement mistakes, and improve business performance with practical tools. Taught by world renowned instructor Chris Croft, this course gives managers and professionals a practical, non-technical guide to using measurement to understand, control, and improve performance across the business. Known for his practical, straight talking and engaging style, you will learn practical tools to truly understand numbers within your business. Measurement is one of the most powerful tools available to managers—but only if you measure the right things in the right way. In this practical course, you'll learn how to use measurement to improve performance, make better decisions, and manage more effectively across every area of an organisation. You'll begin by exploring the principles of effective measurement, including when to rely on numbers versus intuition, whether everything can be measured, and the common pitfalls that lead to poor decisions. You'll learn how to avoid misleading comparisons, conflicting KPIs, measurement bias, spurious accuracy, and incorrect conclusions from graphs, trends, and statistical significance. The course then introduces practical measurement techniques for operations, projects, sales, marketing, finance, decision-making, self-management, and people management. You'll explore tools including Pareto analysis, benchmarking, process and output measures, Critical Success Factors (CSFs), Statistical Process Control (SPC), Quality Function Deployment (QFD), process mapping, productivity measures, customer metrics, ROI, profitability analysis, rating charts, risk analysis, and performance indicators for teams and organisations. By the end of the course, you'll be able to design meaningful KPIs, measure what really matters, interpret performance data with confidence, and build practical measurement systems that support continuous improvement, better management, and smarter business decisions.

What you'll learn

  • design meaningful KPIs
  • interpret performance data with confidence
  • identify and avoid common measurement mistakes
  • implement practical measurement techniques across different business areas
  • build measurement systems that support continuous improvement

Course objectives

  • explore principles of effective measurement
  • learn to rely on numbers versus intuition appropriately
  • understand common pitfalls that lead to poor decisions
  • introduce measurement techniques for diverse business functions

Skills you'll gain

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