Data collection, Development and Improvement

Are these three mutually dependent or are they mutually exclusive?

Can there be development without data collection? Can there be continuous improvement without development or data collection?

Are development and continuous improvement dependent on data collection?

In my opinion the answer to the above questions is YES.

How can you know there has been improvement if you cannot substantially quantify the previous state?
How can you ascertain that development is needed, positive and indeed leads to growth if you are unable to measure both the current state and the previous state.

Some might think that data collection is too much hassle and leads to  a lot of information being accumulated, but we cannot continue to grope in the dark and hope for the best, can we?

In Nigeria, a culture of conscious record keeping/data collection is really needed because that is the only tangible quantifiable proof that anything has been done and that they have yielded desired results. Then we can know the true extent to which interventions that are supposedly rolled out and supposedly improving the state of Nigeria are doing just that. For example, we know that the burden of malaria both on the economy, on our morbidity and mortality rates is heavy and there are interventions like the roll back malaria for  malaria to be eradicated. How do we tangibly track or measure success. We need data to inform where to channel our efforts, to know where there are improvements and where more work needs to be done.

At the organizational level, data collection is the only means for effective quality management and performance management. If an organization is to grow, it has to be an organization that learns. Performance management and continuous improvement can only be effective and successful if information gotten from data is used to inform feedback and practice.

In relation to our daily lives, if for example we paid attention to, and kept a record of our physiological changes, we’d be able to more effectively manage our health without feeling the need to overload our system with drugs. For example, not every headache is deserving of pain killers. Sometimes its your body’s way of saying you need to sleep more, you are over sleeping, you need to drink more water etc.

Whatever we do, we need to learn to pay attention and keep some sort of record since we are constantly striving for better.

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