Weasel words are the enemy of measurability. When a goal is written with them - agile, benefits, capacity, diversity, efficiency, fit for purpose, holistic, livability, productivity, sustainability, and so on - that goal is impossible to meaningfully measure. But yet there is often resistance to removing those weasel words.

Management guru Peter Drucker is quoted over and again for his message that the key to strategy is omission. Good strategy is ruthlessly about what not to do, than it is about what to do. The same goes for KPIs. We must be ruthless about what to measure.

Nijntje, or Miffy as she is known in English-speaking countries, is the little rabbit character who is drawn with only a few simple lines and primary colours. Yet she's meaningfully recognisable as a little rabbit. She doesn't need any more detail to be meaningful. But any less detail and she looks incomplete. Goals that are meaningfully measurable are just like Nijntje.

The step in your performance measurement process at which you set targets has a critical impact on how sensible and achievable those targets will turn out to be. (more…)