Are We There Yet? A Map of Performance

That is a question we ask ourselves every day.  In business, in life and in everything we do.  How do we know where there is?   We need a map, a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of space, time and themes.  In our world, working with clients to create practical corporate performance management solutions our maps are storyboards, visual depictions of the outcomes and targets of organizational performance:

Why?  When?  How?

As people managing outcomes and resources, we ask these questions every day. So why is it so darn hard to get the insights we need here.  It isn’t.

Marketing folks tell us we need fancy dashboards on our iPads and laptops to mind meld with our organizational performance.   Balderdash !

I govern a $5M Not For Profit social agency with an Excel spreadsheet, and we have been creating a surplus for the last six years.  Yeah right?

Simplicity and focus are the key and yes an efficient use of operational metrics monitors outcomes.

Now think what can happen if we jump up the CPM maturity curve and automate our performance monitoring.

Our use of data will be easier.  Financial and operational data will be structured to report on, and deep dive analyze. We could also compare projections to actual performance and change up to improve.

There a plethora of applications to help with this but applications won’t create success. Success will be earned by applying three simple rules;

• Simplify what is monitored. 100 KPI’s won’t change the world.  3-5 measures will provide insight into the When and Why outcomes occur
• Allow people to stay focused on their roles & responsibilities. This will allow us to study the How, e., what leading indicators will influence outcomes
• Use data at will. Be curious and experiment. Nothing will break.

There ain’t no cure for data.  Data is the cure.