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Can you quickly and easily develop meaningful KPIs or performance measures, that measure what matters and have everyone’s buy-in? If not, you need PuMP.

I want you to use PuMP to develop KPIs and performance measures. I want this because I know it will work better for you than any other approach you might have tried.

So if you do care about measuring performance and you want to do it well, but you’re not using PuMP yet, then maybe I can persuade you to at least try it. Hence, here are my 7 reasons why you should use PuMP:

1. PuMP is about how to measure performance, and only about that.
2. PuMP is based on in-the-trenches experience and practice.
3. PuMP was created by someone with true quantitative credentials.
4. PuMP has a unique level of detailed, logical and practical how-to instruction.
5. PuMP balances the technical and social sides of measuring performance.
6. PuMP removes reliance on expensive consultants.
7. PuMP is used and loved around the world for its experience and its results.

If one of these reasons piques your interest, you can dive a little deeper below.

Reason 1: PuMP is about how to measure performance, and only about that.

PuMP is not a strategy methodology with a step that says ‘develop KPIs’. It’s not a dashboard app that assumes KPIs automatically materialise out of datasets. It’s not a library of thousands of (usually vague and irrelevant) KPIs you choose from.

That said, PuMP will almost seamlessly blend into any other methodology you have that makes use of KPIs. Methodologies for project management, strategy design, strategy execution, process improvement, and so on. Where your method says ‘develop KPIs’, that’s when you start with Step 1 of PuMP.

Reason 2: PuMP is based on in-the-trenches experience and practice.

Real people have real struggles with measuring performance. It’s not taught in high school, management school, or university. It doesn’t come naturally to most of us. And yet most of us have to do it at some point in our careers. This is why we need a practical methodology for performance measurement.

But for any KPI methodology to work well in practice, it needs to improve both the experience and results of measuring performance. This is what sets PuMP apart from any other KPI methodology: each technique in each step was designed in the trenches, to solve the most common struggles we have, the world over, with measuring performance.

Reason 3: PuMP was created by someone with true quantitative credentials.

Performance measurement is about quantifying our goals so we can know how much and in what direction they are changing. And to do this in a complex and uncertain world. That’s what the field of statistics is all about: measuring uncertainty and pulling signals out of complexity. It’s often this statistical side of performance measurement that many people struggle to get right.

So a robust performance measurement methodology needs to be developed by someone with formal statistical skills. Not HR specialists, not strategy specialists, not management specialists, not software development specialists. It’s mathematical statistics, the science of quantifying and measuring, that gives the rigourous foundation to PuMP.

Reason 4: PuMP has a unique level of detailed, logical and practical how-to instruction.

Measurement is something you need to do routinely, as part of almost any job or role. It doesn’t help to be fed an overwhelmingly large set of industry or functional KPIs someone else came up with. In front of a computer. With no knowledge of your strategy, your priorities, your culture, your context. With PuMP, you get KPI training that skills you in setting KPIs perfectly tailored for your situation.

You won’t find a single vague instruction in PuMP, like “develop KPIs” or “brainstorm measures” or “set metrics”. Every technique in PuMP breaks down the exact series of thinking and decision tasks necessary to create meaningful measures. Even people with no measurement experience can follow the steps of PuMP and do them well.

Reason 5: PuMP balances the technical and social sides of measuring performance.

Measuring performance has been done so badly in many organisations that people have learned to hate it. At the very least, they are cynical or they just seem to never have time to do it. We call this a lack of buy-in. And without buy-in, trying to develop KPIs or performance measures will be a waste of time and effort.

Every organisation and business I’ve worked with struggled with KPI buy-in. PuMP overcomes this by involving people in a unique way. The techniques are collaborative and non-threatening. They feel logical and sensible. They help people get a deeper understanding of the results they produce like never before. PuMP gives the power and control to the people that will use the measures.

Reason 6: PuMP removes reliance on expensive consultants.

In my corporate years, the Strategy Manager for the organisation I worked for called me to his office one day. He handed me an inch-thick report and asked me what sense to make of it. The report was a printed slide deck, with a KPI named and very vaguely described on each page. It had been produced, for many tens of thousands of dollars, by a big consulting firm as their answer to our KPI needs. It was useless.

That conversation was when the seed of PuMP was planted. It was clear to me then, as it has been hundreds of times since, that KPIs can only be meaningful when people have the know-how to create the ones they need, themselves. PuMP makes people capable of measuring what matters to them, when they need to.

Reason 7: PuMP is used and loved around the world for its experience and its results.

I was probably one of the slowest people on the planet to believe in PuMP. When we create something, and we want it to be really good, we tend to need more proof than others about how good it is. Over the last 20 years of PuMP’s existence, I’ve collected thousands of data points that finally gave me proof enough.

In addition to many hundreds of qualitative comments and testimonials, the proof comes from using PuMP to measure PuMP:

• Overall Value Rating is 8.5 out of 10
• Likelihood to Recommend is 8.9 out of 10
• Net Promoter Score is 61.6% (half-way between excellent and world class)

Like I said in the opening of this article, I want you to use PuMP. That’s because I know it works, and I know that it will transform the way you think about and do measurement, forever. In a powerful way. It won’t just change your KPIs; PuMP will change the way you think about results and the way you feel about making a difference.

And if I’ve managed to intrigue you about PuMP, you can read more about the foundation, design and impact of PuMP to decide if you should be using PuMP too.

If your current approach to develop KPIs produces useless KPIs with little buy-in or performance improvement, you need PuMP.
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Take a closer look at PuMP, and compare and contrast it to your current approach to develop KPIs or performance measures (and its success).