Writing Key Performance Indicators KPI's

Content on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) covered:

Introduction to KPI’s

Benefits of KPI’s

KPI -v- CSF

Critical Success Factors (CSFs)

Setting KPIs and CSFs

Visual KPIs

Example KPIs

Example HR KPIs

More example KPIs

Sample KPI page

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – An Introduction

What is a Key Performance Indicator?
A key performance indicator is a financial and non-financial measure used to help an organization measure progress towards a stated organizational goal or objective.

The benefits of measuring Key Performance Indicators

• Can allow management to see the company or department performance in one place.
• A team can work together to a common set of measurable goals.
• It can be a very quick way of seeing the actual performance of a goal or strategic objective
• Decisions can be made much quicker when there are accurate and visible measures to back them up.

KPI -v- CSF

Key Performance Indicators should not be confused with a Critical Success Factors (CSFs).

• CSFs are elements that are vital for a given strategy to be successful
• KPIs are measures that quantify objectives and enable the measurement of strategic performance

A Critical Success Factors (CSF) would be something that needs to be in place to achieve that objective; for example, the launch of a new product or service. For example:

KPI = Number of new customers
CSF = Installation of a call centre for providing managing the customers

Critical Success Factors (CSF)

Factors
A plan should be designed and implemented in a way that considers an environment for growth and profits as well as takes into consideration the following typical Critical Success Factors:

• Money: Positive cash flow, revenue growth, access to finance and profit margins
• The future: Acquiring new customers and/or distributors
• Customer satisfaction: How happy are they?
• Quality: How good is your organizations products and service?
• Product or service development: What’s new that will increase business with existing customers and attract new ones?
• Intellectual Capital: Increasing what the organization knows that is profitable
• Strategic Relationships: New sources of business, products and revenue
• Employee Attraction and retention: Your organizations ability to do extend your reach
• Sustainability: Your organizations ability to keep it all going

Setting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Critical Success Factors (CSFs)

While there may be many Critical Success Factors in an organization at any one time, the chances are that only one or two in a given department or division.

The number of Key Performance Indicators however may be prolific throughout an organization The reality is that the most successful organizations limit KPIs to a handful.

KPIs are measurable performance objectives. This begs the question “How many objectives should you have?”. While there is a lot of debate about this, one thing is known, individuals appear to become less efficient and effective when trying to juggle more than 10. It is often said in OD text that 7 is optimum. So if seven is optimum, can a manager really handle 20+ KPIs?

We would argue that to be effective any part of an organization should have between 5 and 8 KPIs.

Visual Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) can be effectively used as a visual cue that communicates the amount of progress made toward a goal. The use of dashboards, intranet summary pages and graphics on notice boards.

By using graphical representations of KPIs, you can easily visualize answers to the following types of questions:

• What are we ahead or behind on?
• How far ahead or behind are we?
• What is the minimum we have achieved to date?

Example Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Typical departmental or organizational key performance indicator or measure include:

• Number of active customers
•  Number of new customers
• Customer churn
• Total revenues
  

Example HR Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Percentage of screened newly recruited employees
• Percentage of employees receiving regular performance reviews
• Average response time for routine HR inquiries
• Percentage of new employee retention
• Job offer acceptance rate
• Average Number of Interviews from Submitted applications/ CV’s
• Percentage of vacancies filled within x days

More Example KPIs

Are available on our Sample KPIs page

Key performance indicators in construction, healthcare, housing, manufacturing, maintenance, call centres, not-for-profits, local authority, public sector, schools, education

Service level agreements can use key performance indicators as metrics