Implement Your KPIs
How we ‘really’ use management information…
When we are kids we have models of how we think things work. For example, stick people with arms coming from the middle of their bodies or the sky being a thick blue line across the top of a drawing. As adults we still carry lots of models in our minds, including how we use…
How Many KPIs Should I Have? A Guide on How to Choose the Right Metrics
Having too high a number of KPIs isn’t just annoying – it’s dangerous for your business. When organisations track an overload of metrics, they often face: Decision paralysis Wasted time and resources Confused and overwhelmed teams Diluted focus on what truly matters This leads to the common question: “How many KPIs should I have?” But how do you…
Painful report production? Why you should be worried…
The problem with a good Reporting/MI/Analytics team is that they make it all look too easy. They will often go through a very painful report production process (particularly for executive meetings) and deliver against all the odds. This usually involves heroic efforts of chasing, data manipulation and spreadsheet gymnastics. The reports get generated and the Reporting/MI/Analytics…
Managing KPIs with Excel?
Are you managing KPIs with Excel? I often hear that Excel is not capable of managing KPIs but in reality that is rare. Consider this, your PC, laptop or tablet has more than a million times the computing power of the Apollo moon missions. Excel is an extraordinarily powerful, flexible and widely used application. So…
30 Second Tip: An obvious thing that never gets done….
Define you measures. Make sure each measure is clearly described, has an owner, has a documented way of calculating it, the source of the information, what it’s intended to do, how it should be reported and what action should be taken based on what it’s saying. Here is a KPI Definition Checklist that will help you do…
Time to be be brutal….
Ditch measures that are not useful. Often measures are retained as they are “interesting”. If the measures are not useful, and used, consider ditching them.
Real life measures: Measuring efficiency in offices
Who is this article for? This article is a fairly technical article aimed at people who are looking to measure the efficiency or productivity of teams in an office-based environment, want a guide on how to measure efficiency and the system options for doing this. Article facts: Word count: 1320 Approximate time to read:…
9 Things you should never do in Excel
Excel rules the roost when it comes to real-world management information. It’s easy to knock it, but millions of people find it quick and painless to use. There are some things, though, that you just should not do in Excel. Here’s my highly subjective list. Never… Use Excel as a database. OK, I know you…
4 Dos and Don’ts For Leveraging KPIs to Improve Business Results
Leveraging KPIs does not always go as planned Rewind 20 years ago, our systems and processes did not always provide the data and reporting that we needed to effectively run our business. Today, with the incredible advances in most CRM, BPM, ERM (insert acronym here) systems, we often have too many numbers available to us.…
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…