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Keeping Score & Rats in Hanoi
Benjamin Wann Guest author Keeping Score “If a strategy is to be achieved, it must be publicly tracked, measured, and monitored. If you are trying to lose weight, you must get on the scales regularly.” -David Maister “What Gets Measured, Gets Done.” -Unknown Think about the last time you watched a casual game of pickup…
ROKS in the wild…
Teradata like the ROKS KPI Canvas… It looks like Dan Simerlink, of Teradata Business Value Consulting, read KPI Checklists and really liked the KPI definition template I shared, check out page 8 of his PDF white-paper below. Click on the image to download the original PDF.
Your strategic objectives are probably not unique. That’s a good thing
It’s always said that there are two things that everyone thinks they possess – good driving ability and a sense of humour. I’d like to add one more to that list – thinking ‘their business is unique’. After a frightening number of hours running KPI selection workshops, I realised I had a problem. To build…
Are you making these five classic dashboard design mistakes?
Mistake 1: Using pie charts (or their trendy cousin) Pie charts get used a lot more than they should. The main reasons for this seem to be… They are easy to understand (good reason) You can make 2 data points look impressive and take up a lot of dashboard space (bad reason) They look a…
How to avoid this common Excel disaster…
On 4 January 2010, in the Marriott hotel in Atlanta, two giants in the world of economics, Prof Carmen Reinhart and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, Ken Rogoff, were presenting their research paper, ‘Growth in a Time of Debt’. Their message from their research turned the heads of global leaders and pushed…
Did an Excel mistake cripple the world economy?
On 4 January 2010, in the Marriott hotel in Atlanta, two giants in the world of economics, Prof Carmen Reinhart and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, Ken Rogoff, were presenting their research paper, ‘Growth in a Time of Debt’. The headline message was clear and head-turning… When the size of the country’s…
The worst Excel user ever?
At the start of my career, I worked with someone who used to moan ALL the time about how terrible Excel was. After weeks of complaints, I decided to see if I could help, just to stop the complaining. I sat down next to him and quickly discovered he was using the ‘shapes and lines’…
Interviewing KPI Stakeholders and Subject Matter Experts
It is usually best to have a mixture of semi-structured interviews and stakeholder workshops. A semi-structured interview is one where you ask open questions and then listen carefully to the answers. When I conduct an interview I include: Introductions About you (the interviewer), who you are and why you are here. What your objectives are,…
Running KPI Stakeholder Workshops
KPI Stakeholder workshops are particularly useful when you are interested in gathering problem-related information or need to understand processes. Workshops are less suited to exploring more sensitive topics. Most of the steps are the same as for a semi-structured interview, although it is wise to dwell a bit less on the background of the participants…
Identifying KPI Stakeholders using RACI
Knowing who you need to talk to, gain agreement with or keep updated is central to implementing successful measures. Many management information projects fail because of political or communications problems. This makes it especially important that you clearly identify, document and manage your stakeholders. The first step is to identify who your stakeholders are. Stakeholders…