24/7 Software Blog

“I’ll be right behind you guys,” you shout to your operations team as they make their way out of the office.

It’s 1 AM, and you’re finishing up the final report on tonight’s event.

There’s only one last item on your to-do list.

You’ll review the incident reports from tonight, tally everything on your spreadsheet, record the information on your Monday morning report, and be on your way home.

You take the final swig of your water and begin reviewing the numbers from tonight.

“Here we go,” you whisper to yourself.

“Only one record of vomit,” you continue.

“That's pretty good,” you think to yourself.

“One fight,” you read aloud.

You continue reviewing the reports.

But, after three more minutes of review, you stop in your tracks.

“Wait a minute,” you shout.

Something is not right here.

All personnel and departments record incident types differently.

You begin listing the variations.

• “1 vomit.”
• “1 puke.”
• “2 throw up.”

The list goes on and on.

Your report for Monday will be inaccurate if you don’t fix this error.

You must fix it.

It’s now 1:12 AM.

You call Jack from security and tell him that you’re going to be a little longer.

It looks like another night that you won’t get to say goodnight to your husband and children.

But, you must ensure your numbers are accurate, and not only for Monday but all future analysis of your property’s incidents.

You need standardization.

And, you need it now.

“Police have always relied on data — whether push pins tracking crimes on a map, mug shot cards, or intelligence files on repeat offenders. The problem with all that information is that it has traditionally been slow and hard to use,” writes Martin Kaste in their recent NPR article entitled “How Data Analysis Is Driving Policing.”

"I would have to log into 19 different databases. I'd log in, print out all the tickets that were written to you, and lay them on my desk. Then I'd go and run your criminal history on another database, and print that out. And then another database to see how many times your name was associated with crime reports," says Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Dennis Kato in Kaste’s article.

Later in the article, Kaste also shares that “At the Olympic Division station, Officer Jennifer Ramirez reviews her daily mission sheet printout. She eyes the areas she'll target, ‘because these are the hot spots, these are where the crimes tend to happen, this day, this time, based on the crime mapping that we do."

Hot Spots, ok, now we’re talking.

That’s right up your alley.

Agree?

And the longer we spent reading this article, the more we realized its alignment with how Proactive Operations are handling ‘incidents’ to maximize performance.

Do you see the similarities here?

If not, we recommend reading Kaste’s article – after this one of course.

It’s an informative read with lots of facts about how policing is evolving, much like 21^st-century operations.

We’d argue that many things are congruent between policing and running a proactive operation.

So, keep reading; we’re going to share the insight we took from Kaste’s article that might help you enhance your incident management initiatives.

Ready?

You strive to be a proactive leader.

You spend countless hours recruiting and developing your staff.

It's your top priority to train the best team members in the world.

You want to be the best.

You want them to be the best.

But, that's not always easy.

The operations environment changes all the time.

No matter how well you train them, you always feel like you're behind the eight ball.

You struggle to get your team where they should be because criminals and technology evolve at a fast pace.

Faster than you.

Are you overwhelmed by the demands of your role?

We'd be surprised if you don't have any sort of anxiety.

You have many responsibilities, and the pressure to perform is high.

But, what if you could ignite the potential of your employees?

What if the inefficiency isn't a result of their abilities but a mere indication that you need to recognize a significant deficiency?

Keep reading; we're going to discuss a fundamental principle that could change everything about your operation: data.

Then, we're going to explain why you need operations management software to incite your understanding of your operation.

Last night’s event had you scrambling.

Your team responded to one incident call after another.

No one had any downtime.

About 100,000 people attended this year’s motocross show. Dirt, ramps, and professionals flying in the air on dirt bikes.

Who wouldn’t want to participate, right?

For your customers, it was a night they will never forget.

You’re just glad it’s over.

Now, it’s 5 AM Monday morning.

You always get to your office early these days to prepare for the Monday morning calls.

You start scouring through your office.

You’re looking for the stack of incident files from last night’s event.

The executives always want a snapshot of the previous week’s events.

It’s not too bad, but it’s been a real struggle to get all the information, so you’ve been dropping the ball lately.

You cannot afford to lose it again.

They need the number of incidents, customer requests, injuries, medical evacuations, fights, and ejections.

They’re known to throw some tough questions at you from time to time.

You’re running on empty because of last night, and this might be the final straw for you if you don’t find the files you need.

You already “misplaced” incident reports in the past.

You’re out of excuses.

“Where are last night’s documents,” you scream down the hall.

Everyone looks at you, and your operations coordinator, Tyler, responds, “Everything is in your office.”

But, you only see the remnants of a couple of files from customer services’ reports.

It appears that Housekeeping saw the files stacked near your trash pile.

Everything is gone.

You panic because you know you’re going to be taken out like the trash too.

It is 9 AM.

Time for your call.

You have nothing, and your job is on the line.

How does this make you feel? Could this have been prevented?

Yes.

2018 is fast approaching; less than a week away!

Now, you’ve got to find out how fast your team performed all year.

It’ll help you identify what improvements or changes are needed in 2018.

How’s your operation doing?

Are you responding to issues and incidents efficiently and effectively?

Do you have the right amount of resources available?

How are your staffing levels?

Is it time to invest in operations management software?

You need to answer these questions.

But, you’re probably asking yourself, how? Agree?

Don’t stress about it; we’ll save you the guesswork.

You need to use analytics.

You need the ability to capture data (hopefully lots of it) that results in valuable analytics.

Are you in a position to rely on your data? Can you trust it?

You need to close out 2017 and get ready for 2018.

There’s no better day to start than today!

“A big waste of money or the engine of marketplace innovation? That's how some people see basic scientific research. Now a new study shows how basic research and inventions are connected,” according to Joe Palca’s recent All Things Considered podcast on NPR entitled “New Study Highlights Strong Link Between Basic Research And Inventions.”

All Things Considered host, Robert Siegel, explains in the opening comments of the report that “Scientific research can seem abstract or esoteric. But with time, it may turn out to have practical value. A recent study has uncovered a strong link between basic research and inventions that can be brought to the market.”

Palca first asks in the article, “What does the rideshare company Uber have to do with the research of a 19th-century German mathematician named Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann?”

He continues that “Benjamin Jones can tell you. Jones is an economist at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.”

According to Palca, Jones “and a colleague decided to make a more systematic study of how connected basic research was to future patented inventions. They looked at 4.8 million patents issued by the U.S. Patent Office and 32 million scientific papers. They focused on papers that had been cited by at least one other scientist.”

What do you think their findings told them? Would you say that even some basic research could lead to innovation?