World renowned performance measure specialist, Stacey Barr, has given a four star rating to the Intrafocus e-book Developing Meaningful KPIs.
“When we follow his advice in Developing Meaningful Key Performance Indicators, our dashboards and scorecards will be more insightful and will become the very thing they were supposed to be: a fast and accurate way to get insights from our data about the results that matter most to us.” – Stacey Barr, Measure Up Blog
The e-book has been revised and the chapter on interpreting business result completely re-written to include a section on XmR Charts. The use of XmR charts and more specifically the ‘X’ portion of the XmR chart has become increasingly more important in evaluating business performance. It provides an impartial view and applies a more scientific approach to the interpretation of results. It focuses on the performance of the process rather than the individual.
The e-book follows a simple seven step methodology that provides a guide through the process of developing clear objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) to support a strategy. It describes the processes to ensure that KPIs have targets and owners. It shows how to build KPIs that provide evidence that objectives are being met, (or not!)
The methodology is drawn from decades of in-the-field experience and other published methodologies including Stacy Barr’s PuMP® Performance Measure Blueprint and The Balanced Scorecard Institute’s Nine Steps to Success™.
The seven steps are as follows:
1. Create an Objective – How to take an aspirational and loosely worded intention and turn it into a specific objective that has clarity of purpose.
2. Describe the Results – Refining the objective and describing it as something that is results oriented, using language that includes outputs that can be measured.
3. Identifying Meaningful Measures – For each objective there may be several measures. Step three introduces ways to identify and select the best measures for the objective.
4. Defining Thresholds – A measure is meaningless unless it is compared to something. The comparator may come about because of a scientific process (e.g. and XmR Chart) or because of external influences. Either way, thresholds need to be set.
5. Uploading Structure/Data – Scorecard automation, that is the use of a business performance management system, is no longer an optional extra. In today’s competitive environment, using spreadsheets and presentations just will not do.
6. Interpreting the Results – Businesses are complex entities, no single or identifiable cause can hold the key to a solution. It is important to understand how to interpret results and not make decisions based on incorrect assumptions.
7. Take Action – It is inevitable things will not go to plan. In which case remedial action needs to take place. Also, planned initiatives based on objectives and measures need to be considered.
The intent of the new white paper is to give practitioners and managers a guide to help them Develop Meaningful KPIs. In doing so, it sets a clear path from Strategy to Initiatives.
