EVIDENCE-BASED MANAGEMENT (EBM)

              Today’s challenging economic times demand that the companies make the right management decisions in order to survive.  Technological developments mean that companies are able to capture and store vast quantities of material, but they often fail to use this effectively to support decision making.

              According to Robert Sutton, professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University, EBM is a simple idea based on finding the best available evidence, accepting these facts and acting upon them.

5 Key Steps TO EBM
1.	Defining goals and information	·         Determine the strategic objectives ·         How to achieve them ·         Organizations must be more systematic and selective about collecting information. ·         Managers need to establish clear objectives and information requirement. ·         Objectives of information needs 1)      Identify need 2)      Ensure relevant to the organization competitive positioning 3)      Not just the irrelevant interesting to know 4)      Identify who needs the information 5)      Define the target audience.
2.	Collecting the right evidence	·         Gather and organize the relevant facts and figures to meet the information requirements identified. ·         Have the relevant information to support decision making ·         Building evidence requires the careful collection of the right data ·         Data come in many form, including text images. ·         Asking people for opinion is usually a good way of collecting qualitative data
3.	Analysing data	·         Information/data collected need to be converted into relevant in sight. ·         Data analysis in the core requirement in creating evidence.
4.	Presenting information	·         Communicating the insights. ·         Main focus is to get the information to the decision makers in the most appropriate form ·         Present and package the information in the most appropriate way. ·         Good communication should be simple and focused on the key messages.
5.	Making evidence based decisions	·         It’s about converting information into action ·         Important to avoid the ‘knowing-doing’ gap ·         Turn the information into knowledge and better decisions on which organisations can act ·         Use it to create a culture that help transform knowledge into action. ·         Create a passion for learning and improvement ·         Ensure support from leadership ·         Develop widespread analytical capabilities ·         Use judgement ·         Share information ·         Build an appropriate IT infrastructure.

Shared from article by

Bernard Merv

Chief Executive

Advanced performance Institute (UK)

Accountant Today,

September 2009