Practical help with KPIs, measures and reporting
How many “top level” KPIs do you have? If you have more than 10 top-level measures then you probably have too many. Building a measurement hierarchy can help show which ones are crucial. Remember to focus on the indicators that support your strategy.
I have witnessed more debates about KPIs and measures than any human really should. They normally settle into a few clear families. We shouldn’t measure -insert controversial topic- because: It’s too hard/expensive to measure We tried that before and it didn’t work It doesn’t have a causal link with the thing that we are interested [...]
KPIs and measures are like scales and gym membership. They are great, but only if you use them (and regularly). No matter how good your management information system is, you must make sure that the team are engaged with it. This means The team use the system regularly to help make business decisions They [...]
I’ve sat through a lot of meetings. Many of them were terrible and ineffective. There are a lot of different aspects to a good meeting, some are easier to fix than others. Fortunately one of the most common failings is relatively easy to fix with some careful thought and discussion, namely “What is the purpose [...]
I tend to get sore skin if I shave with the wrong type of shaving gel. I’ve finally found a shaving gel that works (Nivea for Men, Sensitive, in case you are asking). What the hell has this got to do with KPIs? Well you can buy at least a dozen different brands of shaving [...]
Here are some really bad ways to choose the measures you use and report on: Interesting measures – People are driven by curiosity and that’s great, but don’t overdo it. I once worked with a call centre that had 128 KPIs, they just couldn’t bring themselves to leave any out. This is a symptom of [...]
How good is your organisation a producing the data you need? (we aren’t talking about analysis, see this analysis checklist for that). Carefully answer these questions (you can use a 1-5 scale to improve the resolution of the checklist, where 1 is low/poor and 5 is high/strong). Does data arrive in a structured way, ready [...]
There’s lots of ways of achieving any goal. Through a combination of trial and error, I’ve come up with the GET FIGURES method. The GET FIGURES method is 10 step process to take you from your initial strategic objectives through to a set of working measures. It’s a bit painful fitting the steps to a [...]
It’s all too easy to end up with poorly defined KPIs. If this happens then there may be confusion about the purpose or definition of a KPI. Confusion leads to mistrust and disuse. Use this checklist to see if each of your KPIs and measures is well defined: KPI Name: Use a “what-it-say-is-what-it-is” type name, so that it doesn’t [...]
What is a KPI? What is a KPI? The dull, “you can find it anywhere” answer is “Key Performance Indicator” That’s not really very helpful. So what does it really mean? Key means it’s a thing that “provides a means of achieving or understanding something” Performance means “a particular action, deed, or proceeding” Indicator means “a [...]
