Signal
A change in demand, quality, cost, time or risk.
Technology / Business intelligence
Business intelligence · one of five concerns
A dashboard is not a decision.
Business intelligence becomes useful when evidence changes what a responsible person does next. The point is not more numbers. It is a clearer relationship between signal, action and consequence.
The same decision, four questionsPerspective → Practice
A service team seeing response times rise
The chart is a starting point. It does not explain whether demand, staffing, process or system behaviour changed.
01
Perspective
Perspective
02
Performance
Performance
03
Precision
Precision
04
Practice
Practice
01 · Perspective
Perspective asks what the evidence is for.
Before adding a report, name the decision it should support. Different readers may need the same information at different speeds and levels of detail. A useful measure narrows attention without pretending to remove judgement.
If no one can act on the signal, it is information—not intelligence.
02 · PerformanceSignal Work Consequence Question
Performance is a chain from signal to action.
A measure becomes operational when its owner can see a meaningful change, investigate its possible causes and take an authorised action. Good reporting makes the next question easier to ask.
Context
The denominator, time window, segment and source behind the change.
Action
A decision someone is able and authorised to take.
Ask
What did the measure cause us to do?
03 · PrecisionDefine before selecting Accept before scaling
Precision protects evidence from false confidence.
Define the measure, owner, source, refresh rate and acceptable range. Separate observation from interpretation. A shorter time or higher count is not automatically a better result.
Name the measure
What exactly is counted, compared or excluded?
Name the response
What happens when the signal moves outside its expected range?
04 · Practice
Intelligence is practised when evidence travels into ordinary work.
The right report reaches the right owner, at the right moment, with enough context to act. Feedback then improves the measure as well as the work it describes.
Continue to Practice →Sources and notes
Read the basis, then test it in context.
The sources describe management, risk, service and information practices. The page’s language of signal, context and action is a practical synthesis.
- ISO 31000:2018 — monitoring and communication are part of risk management.
- ISO/IEC 20000-1:2018 — service management includes delivery, value and improvement.
- ISO 9001:2026 — performance evaluation informs continual improvement.