9 Ironman Tips For Performance Measurement Success
"No-Meat Athlete" and Ironman Triathlon finisher Susan Lacke wrote an article called "From Couch Potato to Ironman - In 20 Months" and it discussed the 9 keys to her successful accomplishment of that great feat. Those 9 keys, to me at least, seem to perfectly apply to the successful accomplishment of great performance measurement. So here's my take on how Susan's 9 keys can work for we performance measurement practitioners too:
Key #1: Start small
Zoom in on a single goal or performance result and work to only measure that. They say a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and I say a measure you can use right now is worth dozens you're putting off until later.
Key #2: Commit
Lock it into your diary the tasks to choose that single goal or performance result, to design its performance measure, to get the data and graph it, to use the measure to improve performance. Keep a reminder close to your person at all times about why it matters (a note, a picture), so your commitment stays true to real performance improvement and you don't just jump through performance measurement hoops for the sake of having a measure.
Key #3: Find those who know
Make a list of all the experts or specialists or authors or colleagues who have succeeded to measure the right things and improve performance. Learn from them, take their advice, model their approaches so you don't waste time reinventing wheels or falling into traps.
Key #4: Build gradually
Start with meaningfully measuring a single goal, and when you've succeeded at that, continue with two goals, and when you've succeeded at those, continue further with four goals. Practice takes multiple iterations of action learning: select an approach, try it out, learn from the results, improve the approach.
Key #5: Make mistakes
Make mistakes, but make new ones. Don't repeat the mistakes that others have already shown you how to avoid. If you're stuck on how to do something, then design a little experiment and try it out. Learn, whether it fails or succeeds.
Key #6: Balance, not sacrifice
Yes, you're super busy. Yes, your colleagues are super busy. That's not a reason not to measure performance. It's an excuse. The idea is to take the time you can get. Give 15 or 30 minutes to design a better measure this week, rather than delaying for months until you have a full day to design 10 better measures.
Key #7: Have a support system
Form a Measures Team of four to six volunteers in your business or organisation and meet weekly or monthly to share the performance measurement workload. Grow a network beyond your organisation of fellow performance measurement practitioners for sanity checks and inspiration. Find and use templates that save time. Be organised so you always make the time.
Key #8: Blinders on
People have more objections to performance measurement than just about anything else. They're very well practiced at saying why it doesn't work, why it fails, why they can't do it. Don't let anyone's objections get into your head. Hold on to your beliefs about why measuring matters, how it can work, what the true value is in doing it.
Key #9: Enjoy it
Stay connected to the reason why we measure performance - ongoing improvement and excelling at what our organisations exist to do. Rise to the challenge and enjoy the success of making things fundamentally better. Experiment with ways to inject fun into performance measurement tasks.
TAKE ACTION: Is there just one of these nine keys that resonates with you, that feels like improving it would make a noticable difference in your performance measurement success? Give it a two-week focus, thinking about it each day, coming up with ideas to strengthen your ability to do it, testing those ideas. Aren't you tired of waiting for the planets to line up before you make some real-deal performance measurement progress?
Questions and Answers
Article Tags:
performance measure
,metric
,kpi
,key performance indicator
,business goals
,balanced scorecard
We want people to buy in to KPIs, metrics and measures, because it's through people that measuring performance becomes improving performance. But they don't buy in because it's boring, it's often used as a big stick, and it's not easy to meaningfully measure what matters. What can you do?
If you haven't yet heard of the Balanced Scorecard, it's a world-renowned model developed in the mid 1990's to encourage corporations to realise that relying on just the financial metrics is relying on too little, too late. They landmark book, "The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy Into Action" was written to demonstrate how to measure corporate performance in a more balanced way, that aligns everyone in the corporation to its strategic direction. But does it?
There are no professional guidelines (yet) which define what it means to be a Performance Measurement Practitioner - not like there are for Accountants, Project Managers, Finance Officers and Engineers. So there's little wonder that there are so many talented and capable performance measurement practitioners out there who are underselling themselves. Are you one of them? Find out with this quiz
We have to applaud the Balanced Scorecard for the evolution it triggered in organisational performance measurement and strategy execution. But no model is without its limitations.
It's a great idea to diagnose where your own performance measurement process might be in most need of improvement, because if you want more meaningful performance measures and KPIs, you need to change the process that you use to produce them.
If you're not quite sure about the best way to use performance measures or KPIs to manage the performance of your staff, and uncover who's adding value to the business and who's not, you're looking at it all wrong! There are two ways that performance measures link to staff performance.
An efficient receiving operation reduces costs and improves order fulfillment. Managers can optimize receiving by automating inventory control, slotting, ensuring vendor compliance, robotics, cross docking, employing experienced people.
The ongoing trend in internet marketing leans to going local. Gone are the days when company websites would post content concerning their products and services without taking into consideration where they might be available,
In these difficult times, most businesses are finding it hard to stay profitable and maintain their revenues, never mind moving their performance to the next level. So what can you do to make a step change in your business output – and get more money to the bottom line?
Each year a sizeable portion of the job seekers who apply for rail jobs are the ones who prefer taking a job that gives them ample scope of indulging with something adventurous. Since these kinds of jobs fit their bill, they do not think twice before applying for these jobs.
Today, the use of technology in almost all industries have made processes safe and efficient. This has resulted to more benefits to the overall operation in a business of company for example.
This case study is a process definition for a Billing Process, adapted from a real freight business. It shows the steps for not only improving a business process, but using the process to identify both Process Result and In-Process measures.
Many people still believe that the purpose of business is make a profit, that financial success is the ultimate measure of business success. But at what expense?
Bec used the PuMP technique of Results Mapping with one of DECS' country schools. This school had fairly high levels of disadvantage, and fortunately it also had the most enthusiastic and positive staff that Bec has worked with. This school underwent a review that recommended specific improvements to their performance.
You might think that rolling up your performance measures or KPIs into weighted indexes or scores is a great strategy to simplify your dashboard, to deal with lots of measures, or to create proxies for hard-to-measure goals. Think again.
Needless to say, "Action Plans" are very important for every organization. However, when it comes to setting KPIs, "Action without a Clear Goal" is equal to "doing NOTHING" or even wasting your time and resources before you notice...
Discuss this Article
