So, this TSR Driver Chart thing. It wasn’t something that just popped out of a textbook, let me tell you. It was more like, we were fumbling in the dark, trying to figure out what was really making our projects tick, or, more often, what was making them stumble.
Getting Started – The Why
We had these TSR metrics, right? Supposed to tell us how well things were going. But they were just numbers. Numbers on a dashboard. Green, red, sometimes yellow. Didn’t really explain why a number was red. So, I figured, we needed something to show the drivers behind those numbers. What actually pushed things up or dragged them down. Seemed simple enough at first.
First Messy Steps
My first attempt? Oh boy. I basically just made a huge list. Dumped everything I could think of onto a whiteboard. It was a disaster. Looked like a spider had an argument with an ink pot. No clarity, just a big jumble of words. I thought, “This ain’t gonna help anyone.” My boss walked by, took one look, and just kinda slowly backed away. Yeah, not my finest moment.
Then I tried a spreadsheet. Started putting things into rows and columns. A bit better, sure. But still, it felt flat. It wasn’t telling a story. It was just, well, data in cells. And honestly, who gets excited about another spreadsheet?
Digging for Dirt (I mean, Data)
The real headache started when I tried to get actual, solid info. It’s like everyone had an opinion, but hard facts? Scarce. I had to:
- Go through old project notes. Some were scribbled on napkins, I swear.
- Talk to a bunch of different teams. Some folks were super helpful, remembered all the details. Others just gave me the “dunno, wasn’t me” shrug.
- Piece together timelines and try to match them with when our TSR numbers went wobbly.
It felt like being a detective, but without the cool trench coat. Just me, a lot of coffee, and piles of digital (and sometimes physical) junk.
Figuring Out the ‘Drivers’
After a while, patterns started to show up. It wasn’t rocket science, mostly common sense stuff we’d kinda known but never really proved. Things like:
- Clear goals from the get-go? Big positive driver.
- Team members pulled in ten different directions? Yeah, that tanked the TSR.
- Good communication tools and regular chats? Helped a ton.
- Unexpected changes dropped on us last minute? You can guess how that went.
So, I started grouping these. Gave them simple names. “Clarity of Scope,” “Resource Allocation,” “Communication Flow,” that sort of thing. Nothing fancy. Just needed to be understandable.
Making the Chart Actually… Charty
This is where I ditched the heavy-duty spreadsheet for something a bit more visual. I didn’t need complex stuff, just something that could show impact. I went for a sort of influence diagram, I guess you’d call it. Arrows pointing from the drivers to the TSR outcome. Made the important drivers bigger, or used stronger colors. Red for negative impact, green for positive. Basic, but effective.
I spent a good few evenings just sketching it out, moving things around. The goal was to make it so someone could look at it for 30 seconds and get the main idea. No deep dive needed unless they wanted to. I even printed out a big version and stuck it on my wall, just stared at it, tweaking bits here and there. My cat seemed unimpressed, though.
The “Aha!” Moment (Sort Of)
When I finally presented it, it wasn’t like a movie scene with dramatic music. But people nodded. They got it. They started talking about the drivers, not just the final red or green number. That was the win for me. Suddenly, conversations shifted from “Why is this TSR bad?” to “Okay, looks like ‘Scope Creep’ was a major issue last quarter, what can we do about that?”
It wasn’t perfect. It’s still a work in progress, honestly. We add to it, refine it. But it gave us a common language, a way to talk about what was really going on under the hood. And that, more than any fancy software or complex algorithm, was what we needed. Just a simple way to see what pushes the needles. Turns out, sometimes the simplest tools are the best, as long as you put in the legwork to feed them the right stuff.
