Wednesday , November , 21 , 2018
The Institute Way Blog
14
Nov
2017
Let’s say our organization needs to buy a fleet of vehicles and we have two procurement teams. We tell team 1 that we want quiet, blue, four-door, fuel-efficient cars. We tell team 2 that we want world-class, high-quality, great-value, high-performing cars. Then we give both teams a few weeks to find their vehicles. Guess which team will be able to produce measurable results?
As part of the KPI Basics series of content we are developing as part of the launch of the KPI.org website, I thought I would introduce the different types of key performance indicators. As I describe in the accompanying video, we like to use a framework called the Logic Model to describe the first four types.
I learned two lessons in college that I still think about – one in the kitchen and one as a strategy execution consultant. My professor claimed during a cell biology lesson that if you leave iceberg lettuce in water for about 20 minutes its cells expand as they soak up the water. He said that many chefs knew that soaking lettuce in cold water made it seem fresher and...
My daughter recently took an art camp offered by the city. When I arrived for pick up on the last day, the students were filling in program evaluations. Our later conversation about randomly filled bubbles, porta-potties, and palaces inspired me to revisit some important principles in KPI development.
Most MBA programs pride themselves as being the ”practical” degree that will best prepare its students for any number of management roles. But it wasn’t until I became a Balanced Scorecard Professional that I learned the following principles that I have found to be key to being a good manager and leader.