Clik here to view.
How to Test if Your Strategic Goal Is Really Strategic
When you struggle to find meaningful measures for your strategic goals, there are a few problems that have to be fixed. I’ve written passionately and prolifically about how weasel words make goals...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Are These 8 Excuses Holding You Back From Great KPIs?
If your KPIs suck, even though you’ve long wished for better ones, it’s likely that something is holding you back. That ‘something’ could be a very good reason, or it could simply be an excuse that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What Does a KPI Owner Do?
The best and most meaningful performance measure in the world can be rendered utterly useless if no one is clear about who should interpret and use it… Likewise, too many cooks spoil the broth. If...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Good Measures, In Isolation, Can Be Bad
Call centres and technical support and help desk managers love to measure their staff. The belief is that when they can measure someone, they will have more control over the performance of the person...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Are You Doing Fundamental Performance Improvement, Or Are You Working Too Hard?
This is a term that, as far as I am aware, I made up: fundamental performance improvement. It’s a type of performance improvement that possesses a quality unlike and far superior to the kind of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why You Should Start Small With a New KPI Methodology
One mistake organisations make in performance measurement is to not have a real methodology. They treat measuring performance as an ad hoc activity or event. But when you do adopt a performance...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Futility of Fixating on Outliers in Performance Measures
One of my performance measures is Measure Up Unsubscribe Rate, the proportion of readers who unsubscribe from this newsletter. Some people unsubscribe because they don’t like that I’m vegan, or they...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Has Your Measure Become The Goal?
In response to last week’s blog post, about not fixating on outliers, Martin Klubeck, author of Metrics: How to Improve Key Business Results, reminds us just how easy it is to fall into the trap of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Are You Indulging in Vanity Measures?
In NASCAR racing, you might be forgiven for thinking that a speedometer is a very important gauge for the driver. After all, racing is about speed, right? And speed should therefore be measured. But...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dealing With the KPI Terminology Problem
The words frequently used in the performance management field include ‘performance measure’, ‘metric’, ‘performance indicator’, ‘key performance indicator (KPI)’, ‘key result indicator (KRI)’, ‘lead...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Focusing On Variation Frees Up Your Capacity
Work stress, projects behind schedule, and low productivity are all symptoms of an underlying problem with workload variability. You’ll feel it as some months you can’t get the important things even...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The 8 Minimum Requirements For Performance Management
Robert D. Behn is a lecturer at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a passionate advocate for public sector performance. His regular Performance Leadership Report is always...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The 3 Signs To Say Goodbye to a KPI
Hoarding is a disorder where people have incredible difficulty parting with possessions, or an incredible compulsion to acquire more possessions. They, and everyone close to them, drown in clutter. Are...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Performance Measurement for n=1
Many of us struggle to get the support and buy-in to establish a proper and deliberate performance measurement methodology in our organisations. The timing just isn’t right, or you just don’t have a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
3 Steps to Find Lead Indicators
Lead indicators, to some, are the holy grail of performance measures. They are mysterious, difficult to find, and yet upheld as the ideal and most treasured of performance measures or KPIs. What...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The 90-day Performance Improvement Cycle
Annual planning has a few drawbacks that result in unachieved targets, wasted time, and exhaustion in the end. We set the goals and targets for the end of the year, but that feels so far away that we...
View ArticleClik here to view.
To Reach a Target, You Must Ignore It
Slacklining is the skill of balancing, walking and executing tricks on a thin strap of webbing that is suspended between two fixed points. It’s a bit like tightrope walking, except the webbing is about...
View ArticleClik here to view.
If You Could Only Measure 6 Things…
Measure Up reader, Srini, asks this question: “Is there a set of KPIs limited to 3-6 which can help ALL businesses and non-profits?” Most people ask questions like this when they’re just getting...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Failure is Feedback
As a thought leader with a message that I desperately want to share with the world, reaching out to as many people as possible is critical to success. No point shouting from the rooftops “hey everyone,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Help People Measure Results, Not Activity
Measure Up reader, Kenneth, works in a hospital and has this measurement challenge: “Different people want to follow up on different things. The nurses, for example, think it is crucial to follow up on...
View Article
