At Cervus we try to find new and innovative ways to evaluate performance, gather and manage data and optimise operations to give our customers the advantage.
At our Strategy Day this week, we had to employ VR technology to hold our workshop and conduct our office festivities as COVID-19 keeps us all at home. As part of the group work (after we finished laughing at each other’s avatars), we decided to develop a range of metrics and measures by which everyone can evaluate Christmas this year, so that we can develop a baseline for an even better celebration post-lockdown. (We are going to have to make up for all the missed socials with a Summer Christmas/Easter/New Year/various birthday/leaving-and-other-excuses-for-a-great-big-party Do one day!)
- Given the limitations on Christmas this year, the team quickly ruled out the more commonly agreed metrics such as the size of your Christmas gathering, number of mistletoe encounters, number of parties attended and, after a brief sojourn into metricating Rudolph based on his load carrying ability and the size of his antlers (amongst other attributes), we focused on what would really matter for Christmas 2020:
- Number of Santa sightings (from a distance of greater than 2m (10 extra points for tracking him on NORAD instead in the ultimate show of social distancing)).
- Weight gained or waist girth increase in addition to lockdown weight – Hello 2021 diet regime…
- Pants to socks gift ratio (analogue to pants and socks actually needed by recipient) (deduct 10 humbug points if you catch yourself saying “When I was little, all I got was a tangerine in my stocking” or similar).
- Amount of mince pie/Christmas pudding/cake/cheese/chocolate eaten (20 extra bonus points if any of these were consumed for breakfast (note: putting Irish cream liqueur on your cereal instead of milk still counts as breakfast because, Christmas!)).
- Number of Die-Hard Movies watched (10 extra points for bingeing the entire franchise in place of going to a party).
- Number of Christmas carols and songs sung without resorting to making up the words because you can’t remember them (Jingle Bells, Batman smells counts as a valid carol).
- 10 points for each innovative method for delivering Christmas presents to relatives and friends outside your bubble (Our carrier pigeon idea hasn’t really taken off!).
- Number of pets wearing Christmas hats pictures taken multiplied by the number of social media outlets they are posted on.
- Number of people able to dial into a Christmas Zoom (or insert VC of choice) party successfully, added to the amount of time spent Zooming before someone yells “Graham! you’re on MUTE!”.
- Number of times we say “Maybe next year” …
So, tot up your scores over the Christmas season and add as many extra points as you like for feeling happy, merry and bright at any point over the holidays.
From all of us at Cervus, we hope that your Christmas and New Year celebrations are fabulous, however different they are from what you may have had planned.
We leave you with a picture of Amanda’s pet wearing a Christmas hat, so we are ahead on points already!
Happy Christmas and see you in the New Year.
