Most performance measures or KPIs will have targets. After all, we have them to focus us on improving performance. But that focus can fracture if we don't take care in how we express our measures and our targets, so they speak the same language.

Too often we assume that performance measurement depends on technical systems, like a business intelligence system or dashboard application. But for performance measurement to become entrenched in how our organisations work, it's the non-technical systems that matter most.

In PuMP we use a tool called the Measurability Tests to find out, and fix, the measurability of goals. If a goal fails the Measurability Tests, it cannot be meaningfully measured. That's rework. Wouldn't it be better if we write our goals measurably in the first place?

It's so very hard to set a target for our monthly workplace injuries measure of 5. It feels like we're aiming to injure 5 employees! That's not ethical, is it? It only feels right to set the target as 0. But then we feel like we're setting ourselves up to fail. The tension is awkward. What to do?

If your performance culture isn't very strong, if people just aren't into measuring and improving, you might think your organisation isn't yet ready for developing better KPIs. But the opposite is actually true: your organisation needs better KPIs, right now.

by Louise Watson, PuMP Partner People often talk about creating SMART measures, but that's not what this tool is for. SMART is for goals. But even then, it's very easy to get it all wrong and end up with DUMB goals anyway. In this article, Louise Watson guides us in how to use SMART properly.

Listen to the media and you'll quickly realise that measurement is too often used as a political tool, to push a political agenda rather than discover the truth. (more…)

It will be obvious to you how to measure workforce capability. But given the struggle so many have in measuring it meaningfully, it's likely only obvious in hindsight; the hindsight of seeing the unpacked thinking process of designing a measure for workforce capability.

One objection to measuring performance with KPIs is that we don't need them; we can already see what's going on by walking around, by our past experience, by our wise intuition, by what people complain about. But our human limitations make these observations inherently biased.

Seth Godin wrote a great little piece called Show Your Work,about why we should show people our work before it's done, before it's perfect, before it's ready. This invites their collaboration, and better work is the result. Do you do that when you work on KPIs?