How do you measure how well your strategic plan is performing?
Strategic performance measures accomplish three goals:
- monitor the implementation and effectiveness of an organization's strategies;
- determine the gap between actual and targeted performance; and
- determine organization effectiveness and operational efficiency.
Good performance measures:
- provide a way to see if your strategy is working
- focus employees' attention on what matters most to success
- allow measurement of accomplishments, not just of the work that is performed
- provide a common language for communication
- are explicitly defined in terms of owner, unit of measure, collection frequency, data quality, expected value (targets), and thresholds
- are valid, to ensure measurement of the right things
- are verifiable, to ensure data collection accuracy