Month: September 2011
Guest Blog: The 12 Characteristics of Good Performance Measures
KPIs are critical for the success of any organisation. They are a measure of progress against goals. However, not every measure is a KPI. Put it in the words of Albeit Einstein,“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted”. Good performance measures allow for comparisons to be made…
Spooks, Star Trek and KPIs
Like 4.6 million other people, I enjoy Spooks. I do find myself wincing a bit when Harry, or whoever, makes completely random requests of his spy geeks and they always come up with the goods – you know the kind of thing – “can you cross reference that train ticket with his gardening bill and…
First look – Tableau 6.1, Data Visualisation Software
I spend most of my time with clients trying to get more out of their existing tools, more often than not some combination of an ERP tool (JDEdwards, SAP etc.) a selection of more “pure” databases such as Oracle, Access, SQL and a lot of spreadsheets. All of these tools have well understood strengths and…
Building KPI Engagement
KPIs are like gym memberships… 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…
Setting up your meetings well – 10 point checklist
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…
Why being bad can be good – Targets, measures and dissonance
I’ve often found that people often get very uncomfortable if you change a measure to show poorer perfomance even if you lower the target proportionately. Let me give you an example. I worked with a paper manufacturer a few years ago. Their (flawed) efficiency measure showed them bobbing between 95 and 105% efficiency. Anyone with…
Razor burn and pseudoscience
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…
Six KPI selection traps to avoid
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…
Data Analysis – 10 Point Checklist
How good is your organisation at analysing the data you produce? 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). Are data and reports separate entities? Does revision of reports require manual intervention? Is there flexibility in cutting data…
Data Production – 10 Point Checklist
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…