Ten KPI Project Implementation Lessons
Kaplan and Norton, in their ground-breaking book The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action,1 indicated that 16 weeks is sufficient time
to establish a working balanced scorecard with key performance indicators (KPIs). However, organizations of all sizes and complexity stumble with this
process, and 16 weeks easily turns into 16 months. The key to success […]
The Ten Rules for Designing KPIs
There are a number of rules to follow when designing measures.
Source: Extracted from Key Performance Indicators – developing, implementing and using winning KPIs (4th Edition)
There are a number of rules to follow when designing measures.
1. Understand the difference between Result and Performance Indicators
If you can phone a manager and they accept […]
Ten Common Reasons Why Organizations Get Their Measures Radically Wrong
Measuring too much e.g. aiming a service level to all customers when we should be focusing effort on key customers
A lack of connectivity with the organization’s critical success factors
Treating all measures as KPIs
KPIs being driven by performance related pay
A tendency to […]
The Seven Foundation Stones of A KPI Project
Partnership with the Staff, Unions, and Third Parties
Transfer of Power to the Front Line
Measure and Report Only What Matters
Source All KPIs From the Organization’s Critical Success Factors
Abandon Processes That Do Not Deliver
Appointment of a Home-Grown KPI Team Leader
Organization-Wide Understanding of the […]
The Three Stages of A KPI Project
Source: Extracted from
Key Performance Indicators – developing, implementing and using winning KPIs (4th Edition)
Getting the enterprise committed to the change and up-skilling the in-house KPI team
All major project implementations are deeply affected by the success or failure in leading and selling the change. Chapter 4, which outlines John Kotter’s model […]
Checklist to assessing your progress with performance measures checklist
Knowledge of the critical success factors
Is it covered?
1. Senior management have a common understanding of the organization’s success factors.
o Yes o No
2. The organization has identified the critical success factors.
o Yes o No
3. The critical success factors have been communicated to all staff and are impacting positively […]
Indicative KPI Project Rollout Durations
Project stages
One-person team
Two-person KPI team
Four-person KPI team
Size of Organization (FTEs)
Less than 100 FTEs
100- 250
250 to 500
500 to 3,000
3,000 to 10,000
over 10,000+
1 Getting the enterprise committed to the change and up-skilling an in-house KPI team.
1 week
1 week
2-3 weeks
2-3 weeks to holding company
2 Ascertaining the operational critical success factors.
2 weeks
2-3 weeks
4-6 weeks
4-6 weeks
4-6 […]
Examples of Common Future Indicators
Future innovations
To encourage future innovations, it is desirable to measure the number of new innovations that will be fully operational in the next month, month two and month three by department.
Future key customer events
To maintain a close relationship with our key customers a list should be prepared with the next agreed […]
Three rules for sorting through measures:
If it is a financial indicator – it can never be a KPI
If the time period is longer than a week -it can never be a KPI
If you cannot phone someone to accept responsibility for performance – it is not a KPI as it is a result […]
The Four Types of Performance Measures
From my research over the past 30 years I have come to the conclusion that there are four types of performance measures and thus it is a myth to consider all measures are KPIs. These four measures are in two groups: result indicators and performance indicators.
I use the term result […]
