What happened
Sarasota County's work-order audit and follow-up documented a measurement problem involving Priority 4 emergency work. Management's intended standard concerned initial response and assessment, while the report being used relied on recorded events such as last-labor and closed dates. The follow-up also noted that field response could occur before the corresponding activity was captured in Maximo because mobile devices had not yet been deployed to all relevant field staff. Management planned mobile deployment so emergency-response employees could log response time more accurately.
Why it matters
A KPI can be mathematically correct while answering the wrong operational question. If management intends to measure initial response but the calculation uses a later system event, the dashboard may accurately describe the database without accurately representing the event management believes it is evaluating.
What a buyer should do
For every important SLA or timestamp-based KPI, trace the chain from real-world event → captured event → timestamp → calculation → reported measure → management decision. Verify that each link represents what the organization intends to measure before relying on the result.
Define the performance expectation, identify the real-world event that satisfies or violates it, determine how that event is captured, and verify the timestamp used in the calculation before relying on the resulting SLA or KPI.