Organizations spend a lot of time establishing and tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and that’s a smart use of resources — as long as the KPIs selected are indicators of what your organization actually wants to achieve.
If your strategy is generic or unspecific, your KPIs will be vague at best and irrelevant at worst.
This means you and your team will put massive effort into measuring progress toward a destination that's nowhere near where you want to take your organization.
Conversely, if your strategy is clear and precise, the data you need to gather is going to be clear and precise, too. It will align with and support the strategic decisions you need to make to achieve your goals.
Step #1: Delve into your strategic plan and make sure you and your team understand your organization’s goals – especially your top priority goal for the year:
Are you trying to achieve growth?
Do you want to enter a new market with an existing offering?
Do you want to present a new offering to an existing market?
Are you positioning to sell or to grow your board or attract new talent?
Is this the year you want to nullify your competition?
Step #2: Determine exactly what will drive progress toward your goals:
Is it improving profitability?
New customer acquisition?
Increasing market share?
Step #3: Establish KPIs that will provide the best measurement of success related to your drivers and dedicate resources toward improving those key performance indicators.
Not only will you be clear on your organization’s progress throughout the year, but you’ll also be freed from crunching data you simply don’t have to crunch. Ah, efficiency!
