A perceived lack of data - or lack of data with reasonable quality - is a constraint that stops many people from even trying to develop meaningful performance measures. That sounds logical enough, but it assumes that value of measurement only comes at the end of the process. What if you measured without data?

We shouldn't measure something because it's easy to. Nor should we measure something because we always have. Nor should we measure something because "they" do. We should measure something only because it tells us what we need to know. Can your KPIs pass this test? ...

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.