Big hairy audacious goals are scary. So are stretch targets. So scary that most of the time we avoid them or ignore them. What we don't realise is, that by avoiding them because we can't guarantee we will meet them, we end up guaranteeing a fate worse than failure.

In the PuMP Measure Design technique, one of the steps is to describe the result you want to measure in sensory specific language. This is a completely new concept to just about everyone, and they usually need a demonstration of what sensory specific language is. So here goes.

Data quality worries most users of performance measures. There is an obscene number of reported measures that only generate dialogue about how unreliable the underlying data is, rather than how performance can be improved.

Performance measurement done well takes a bit of effort and a bit of time - more effort and time that we can fit into and around all the other things we're doing. (more&hel...

It could be argued that an expert is really anyone who knows more about a subject than you do. And it's likely that you could be the KPI expert in your organisation or business. (more…)

One of the trickiest KPIs to analyse, interpret and use are those that have a seasonal or cyclical pattern. Can you make these KPIs reveal their insights about how to improve performance, without getting drowned out in the seasonal variation? Yes you can!

Brett, a Performance Manager in a large public sector organisation, asks "What do I do to get the Executive leadership team to take ownership of the agency's performance management system?"

Are you shouldering all the burden of trying to get your organisation or company to take on better performance measurement practices? Stop the struggling today, and kick off a KPI Community of Practice to share the load and the learning.

Statistical thinking is not so much about having knowledge of and being able to apply statistical techniques. It’s NOT about knowing how to perform a regression analysis or knowing the formula for putting a trend line through a time series.

Hundreds of subscribers to Measure Up ask me how to successfully measure staff performance. If you've known me for long enough, you'll know I will say: DON'T!! (more…)