Jennifer Jarrell, Deputy Chief Communications Officer at the Ohio Department of Commerce, is our Measurement Maven of the Month for March, 2021.
As a rebellious young hippie in the 70s with two very Republican parents, I grew up thinking that all government officials were unaccountable bureaucrats. Then I won a seat on my local town council and realized just how essential those “bureaucrats” are. Over the last few years, I, for one, have gained a new respect for government officials, most of whom go to work every day with an extraordinary level of commitment and expertise. Jennifer Jarrell is one such government official.
Jennifer attended our most recent Measurement Base Camp session. If she was willing to put herself through those eight weeks of measurement geekdom, then she clearly has a commitment to accountability. But that’s not why she’s this month’s Maven.
Many people who take a class or attend a lecture take months to actually implement most of what they hear. Not Jennifer. About a week after the last class was over, I got an email from her asking about a pivot table issue. Amazingly, she had already implemented a “Kick Butt Index” (a.k.a. quality score) for her department, accumulated a months’ worth of data, and sent me the Excel spreadsheet complete with all the data she needed for a regular reporting dashboard! Her KBI perfectly reflected the goals of her department and her organization as a whole. (Almost no one gets that right the first time.)
It took about a minute to sort out her Excel issue and she was on her way. Clearly, she’s a data geek at heart and an accountable communicator and government official of the highest order. Congrats to Jennifer Jarrell, our Measurement Maven of the Month! ∞
