Posts Tagged ‘metrics’

A Rundown on Leadership Metrics and Scorecards

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

Leadership metrics and scorecards are very important in the business setting. No business would achieve any level of success without an influential leader as its foundation.

Leadership metrics and scorecards are very important tools for businesses to have today. When you look at any successful business, just what do you see at first bat? More often than not, you will see a strong and purposeful leader behind the success of the business itself. Such is the very important role a leader plays. Thus, it is quite of import for businesses to equip themselves with leadership metrics, as well as scorecards that would serve as a holding ground for these metrics.

But before we discuss leadership metrics, it is important to define first what key performance indicators or KPIs are. This is because leadership metrics would not be effectively set or developed without the use of KPIs. KPIs are actually the very key factors that greatly help in the assessment of a business’s current performance and state, especially when compared against organizations goals set by the business itself during its onset. These KPIs also help in determining the proper course of action, should there be a determined need for significant improvement in one or more of the aspects of the business. KPIs are very specific and quantifiable. After all, how can you measure something that is not quantifiable in nature? Now, you may say to yourself that leadership metrics are quite hard to establish since you cannot really quantify the abstract concept of leadership in the first place. Well, you have all the assurance that you possibly need here because leadership is indeed quantifiable, and there are leadership metrics developed to show you just that. Of course, these metrics would greatly depend on the very nature of the business, as well as its incorporated strategies.

In general, leadership KPIs actually fall into 4 categories. People Initiatives pertain to the measures undertaken by the leader, usually the manager, to foster employee management. There are a lot of factors involved in this particular category, and some of which include Improved Safety, Reduced Turnover, Employee Effectiveness, and Succession Planning.

The second category is termed as Collaboration Initiatives. This category comes with factors that describe the initiative of the leader himself towards the improvement of collaboration, as well as the information flow within the organization. KPIs here include Information Sharing, Collaboration with Shareholders, Consensus Building Exercises, and Problem Solving Time.

Broad Organizational Initiatives, on the other hand, focus on factors that define and direct the direction of the company or organization as a whole in the future. Being broad, this should already be a strong indication as to what the KPIs included in this category should be all about. For the most part, the KPIs in this category would be Goal Achievement, Evaluation, Change Management, Assessment, and Key Processes.

Lastly, Professional Success Indicators refer to the knowledge, influence, and power of the leader himself. These are the indicators that pertain to the qualities of the leader in the organization. These indicators include Experience Level, Qualification Level, Industry Contacts, and Successful Projects Undertaken.

By keeping these leadership metrics and scorecards in mind, you would now have an effective way of determining the proper behavior leaders and senior managers should exude and exhibit to foster growth in the organization.

The Key Metrics One Needs to Know when Measuring Productivity

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

To optimize productivity, there are key metrics one needs to know when measuring productivity. This way, you are sure to have an unbiased system working for you.

It is a fact that just cannot be discounted. There is indeed a need to measure productivity, especially when you are in the office setting. Remember that the contributions of each and every worker, as well as each and every piece of equipment and machine being used in the office, amount to the total success of the company as a whole. And when one particular aspect, whether this be man or machine, is not as productive as he, she, or it should be, then the business would be affected as a whole. Thus, it would be better to implement key metrics. There are key metrics one needs to know when measuring productivity.

The determination of these would depend on certain factors, namely: what the companies want to measure, what method or methods the companies would use to obtain these measurements, and what the course or courses of action the companies would employ once these measurements are obtained. The metrics might differ from one company to another. All the same, here are the factors entailed in establishing a foolproof system.

Metric’s Name and Metric Description

Of course, you need to identify what you want to measure, so that you can come up with the metric’s name. After identifying it, it would not hurt to give a brief description of the metric, to give an in-depth background on what it is all about.

Measurement Frequency and Measurement Procedure

These aspects concern the process or procedure on how the metric is to be measured, and how often this metric is to be measured. Frequency here actually gives you an idea on which metric is to be prioritized accordingly.

Threshold Estimation

When you measure certain factors of productivity, there are thresholds to be aware of, regardless of which factor you are measuring. These thresholds are basically the highs and the lows of measurement. Calculation of these thresholds should also be given attention, to make sure the process is not biased in any way.

Current Thresholds

Aside from threshold estimation, you would also have to determine the current thresholds that the metrics are now pegged at. This is actually the normal value range for each metric.

Target Values and Units

For each metric, there is a target value that you yourself would want to see achieved. This is actually the best possible value that a certain metric can be pegged at. The units here are the units that are used in the whole process of measuring the particular metric.

When you keep all of these aspects in mind, then you will surely have for yourself a productivity metric system that is unbiased and systematic. Best of all, when you break down your productivity levels into bits, you can then see for yourself the certain aspects that would need improvement for your business as a whole. Is it the production level that is not doing well? Or could it be Quality Assurance? What about the human elements in the equation? When the key metrics one needs to know when measuring productivity are at play, then productivity would certainly be optimized.