Avoid "Heroic Leaps" When Cascading Layers of KPIs

When you cascade and connect layers of measures, you’re building a cause-effect model of how performance can be improved in your organisation or company.

The “heroic leaps” are when we connect two measures together and either assume there is a cause-effect relationship there, or we don’t even think about cause and effect and instead just link up measures in a manner devoid of deliberate reason.

While I wouldn’t suggest that the cause-effect connections among measures at different layers need be as precise as the Merovingian from The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions would insist, it is important to have some rationale for allocating a connection between two measures.

This rationale can come from anecdotal history or from some simple correlation analysis between the two measures to check for association. Beware however, as association does not always mean causation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stacey Barr is the Performance Measure Specialist, helping strategic planners, business analysts and performance measurement officers confidently facilitate their organisation to create and use meaningful performance measures with lots of buy-in. Sign up for Stacey’s free email tips at www.staceybarr.com/202tipsKPI.html and receive a complimentary copy of her renowned e-book “202 Tips for Performance Measurement”.