Guest author Martin Klubeck, author of Metrics: How to Improve Key Business Results, suggests that seeking quick-fix KPIs means you're not really ready for proper KPIs.

Don't default to familiar or traditional KPI monitoring methods; focus first on the two comparisons that get the most insight from our performance measures. (more…)

When I first started my career in performance measurement, the Balanced Scorecard was the new thing. I was really excited at first, as it was being heralded as the best methodology for measuring organisational performance that had ever been developed. I was the Measurement Consultant in Queensland Rail at that time, and my hope was that I’d found the guidance I’d been looking for to lead my col...

One of the challenges of making data-based decisions - using our KPIs or performance measures to guide our choices - is that often the data can prove us wrong. As Seth Godin says in his post The Do Over, if we're really going to let data inform our decisions, we have to be brave in admitting...

One of the biggest objections to measuring performance is the perceived effort and time it will take to do it. Is it true? Is the benefit of measuring not worth the burden? (more…)

Do you want to improve the validity of your survey-based performance measures? Upping the response rate is one of the ways to do that. Harvard Business Review posted this article about how attaching a hand-written personalised sticky note to each survey form you send to a recipient can double your response rate:

Are you holding back from better performance measurement because your leaders aren't open to it, or because your colleagues are too busy, or because your organisation isn't ready for it? What's really holding you back is YOU and not them...

We've all seen performance targets that work and ones that don't. They can motivate teams to make big-step improvements or they can manipulate teams into behaviours that sabotage other important results. So should we get rid of targets? Or can we do something else to make them work?

Having performance measures or KPIs is not an end in itself. If we’re not constantly returning to the reason why we measure, we risk losing the motivation and momentum that’s really needed to implement great measures. (more...

Culture is a word we use to describe the interplay of values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours within a group of people. In organisations, workplace culture is one of the hardest things to measure. But we want to measure it, because we want to influence it.