Is 'productivity' a valid measurement?

Jack Tanis of Steelcase says that the term 'productivity' no longer is a valid measurement.

In today's world, it is meaningless (or worse, a false indicator).

What do you think? Is productivity an obsolete measurement?

Comments

[Harold Jarche]

Interesting that you are asking a similar question to what was just posted on Worthwile:
"Kevin Kelly, in his book, 10 Rules for the New Economy, got it right: "Any job that can be measured for productivity probably should be eliminated from the list of jobs that people do. . .Where humans are most actively engaged with their imaginations, we don't see productivity gains -- and why should we? Is a Hollywood movie company that produces longer movies per dollar more productive that one that produces shorter movies?"

http://www.worthwhilemag.com/entry/2005/06/17/measuring_the_wrong_stuff.php

[Jack Tanis]

Well that is almost what I said....

The term "Productivity" comes out of the industrial term of measuring whether we get more output with the same or less input. That is great for factory work or office work which is focused on a very linear process. It is essentially what Peter Drucker called an "Efficiency" measure ("doing things right" - March 1963 HBR) Drucker went on to say that busnesses need and equal and balanced set of "Effectiveness" measures ("doing the right things") which he later called "Knowledge Work". This is the kind of work which is done in an iterative, creative process (as opposed to linear). It likewise emphasizes collaboration between knowledge workers which is why we are seeing the shift from largly individual work (I) to collaborative work (We). So you may ask, what are these new effectiveness measures? While the answer is not simple they fall into broad categories including, Innovation, Work Process, Decision Making, Learning and Communication. The actual measures are not the same for each organization, but most fall into these 5 categories.