KPIs 101

Unless your performance reports are focused on answering three critical questions, they're likely to bore you sleep, lead you astray, or confuse the begeesus out of you.

Here is a vision statement to help sell your performance management initiative to your executives:
“Within 12 months, every employee will be able to check their email, calendar and their personal top 10 KPIs at the breakfast table using their smartphone or tablet.”

Apparently, KPIs need to be aligned. And if you have aligned KPIs, you’re good to go. But what exactly should they align with, and why?

Paul is a Senior Executive in a large private sector company that has some KPIs but they’re not great KPIs. If you’re anything like Paul, you’re searching for quick ways to ramp up the value of and engagement in performance measurement in your organisation.

A “leading indicator” is supposed to forecast, or at least to help the person using it, to make a forecast.

Well this is not an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a list of the bad habits I see the majority of my clients consistently practicing when it comes to choosing, creating and using performance measures or KPIs. We reap what we sow, and that’s why it can be a useful exercise to see if you do have any bad KPI habits and start developing some better ones.