When a company is engaged in Performance Measurement, it’s important to look out for the common pitfalls and even try to fix issues before they become real problems. One trap that so many fall into is duplicate or inaccurate measures.
There is no point in having two different people, or two separate departments measuring the same things. When this happens staff members produce their own interpretations and (depending on different measuring techniques) different overall results. This inaccuracy can be detrimental to the whole Performance Measurement project.
All is not lost! There are simple things you can do to reduce duplication and remove the wasted effort from the measurement process.
4 Steps to removing duplication:
Review
Review your measures regularly. Just because two measures have the same name, it doesn’t mean they are tracking the same results. If they are looking at different results, and both measures add value, keep tracking them, but rename them to prevent future confusion.
Delegate
Delegate the authority to measure. Stating clearly who is responsible can be just as important as being clear on what you are measuring. Pick the right person to measure the right thing. This will ensure that there are no duplicate results and it will remove an unnecessary task from someone’s workload.
However, keep the measures relevant at all times. This will help stop seemingly similar measures interfering with one another and distorting the overall.
Frequency and Availability
There is no rule for how often to measure a KPI – every measure is different. So include measures in reports as frequently as it makes sense for that KPI. But, always make measurements freely available to those who need the information. By making sure the right information is available and distributed, problems and inaccuracies will be flagged up faster, improving the level of consistency throughout.
Standard Processes
Finally, create a framework for your measurement processes. Everyone has their own way of measuring and this is one of the larger causes of inaccurate measurement. Find the methodologies that work best for your organisation and stick to them. Write it down in your company’s performance definition dictionary so it becomes a rule. Doing this will ensure that measurements retain a higher level of consistency and accuracy.
Implementing the measurement process in your organisation
Follow these steps as closely as possible, or for more help and advice, contact a professional. Lavery McGlynn specialises in performance measurement and can help in the implementation of business improvement solutions. Get in touch to find out more.
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