The importance of measuring what you manage

Management thinker Peter Drucker was sometimes known as the ‘founder of modern management’. One of his most famous quotes is: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” By that he means you can’t know if you are successful or not unless that success is defined and tracked.

It’s that philosophy which drives the work of CANSO’s Global Benchmarking Workgroup (GBWG), its annual Global Benchmarking survey, and the publication of this year’s CANSO Global Air Navigation Services Performance Report 2015 – 2019.

The work of the GBWG is especially important as our industry starts to recover from the impact of the global pandemic. 

Over the past 20 months COVID-19 has deeply affected our families, our communities and our economies. Its impacts are especially deep in our industry given the imposition of wide-ranging travel restrictions to manage infection risk, which are likely to be felt for years to come.

The CANSO GBWG provides an important forum for ANSPs to discuss how the current crisis is affecting their performance and to analyse the data for what it tells us about how we are adapting and responding to these changed circumstances.

At the point when our performance as ANSPs is under the microscope like never before, the activities of the GBWG are more important than ever.

Today we are pleased to release the CANSO Global Air Navigation Services Performance Report 2015-2019. The 11^th edition, this annual report is a commitment to transparency with respect to disclosing and benchmarking our performance.

For many years our annual benchmarking exercise largely reported on our strong record of handling growing traffic volumes without a corresponding increase in costs. This year it examines a period in which traffic growth rates began to soften. And for some ANSPs, the time period dealt with in the report coincides with the early stages of the pandemic, giving us an early look into what occurred as traffic fell.

We are already working on gathering data for next year’s report and discussing ways to broaden the suite of metrics tracked. Please look out for further communications when we are ready to start collecting data. The input of ANSPs on their performance in 2020 will give us crucial insight into the true impact of COVID-19 on ATM.

To come back to Mr. Druckers’ advice, benchmarking gives us, and you, the knowledge and tools to better manage the way forward in these uncertain times.

I would once again encourage ANSPs to join our benchmarking activities. It is a valuable exercise in understanding how different parts of the ATM network are evolving, and provides a vehicle to learn from each other and develop together.

The Global Air Navigation Services Performance Report is available via the CANSO publications library. An interactive dashboard which allows users to produce customised analysis of ANSP performance is also available to GBWG members. To find out more, get in touch via strategy@canso.org .