What’s the appropriate resolution?

If you don’t ask the question, you probably won’t get the answer.

The microwave in my office has a button that says, “add a minute.” That’s not helpful, as there are plenty of items that need thirty seconds or ninety seconds, neither of which is possible if all you can do is add a minute. On the other hand, “add five seconds” would be a waste, because no one wants to press a button 18 times. The appropriate resolution for a microwave is either fifteen or thirty seconds.

On the other hand, it doesn’t pay for the readout on a radar gun to be a tenth of a mile an hour. Given its accuracy and the need for proof, five miles an hour is probably fine, and one is just the right amount of apparent authority.

Should you be measuring your call center team’s performance on a given interaction on a scale of one to a hundred, or is one to five more reasonable?

Often, we don’t even bother to ask.