Do the subject matter experts know what "good" looks like?

For some of you, I'm sure that your reaction to the heading for this section is, "They are subject matter experts, and they should know what good looks like!" Well, perhaps not.

Subject matter experts are experts in what should be happening on a daily basis. They know how the plant should run, when the supply chain should deliver something, or when the process will complete. They are not experts in how much improvement can be wrung out of a process by using data and analytics.

There are too many stories to recount where the analytics team has undertaken a project and presented the results to the functional managers and subject matter experts only to have them sit in a meeting and ask, "Is that a good result?" I often say, or want to say, "We are presenting it, so, yes, it is a very good result." Most of the time, I do not say that or something like it, but if the team has...