Key performance indicator

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A metric. A box to tick. A means of explaining a complicated concept to a dullard with no background who has no hope of understanding it, so he can quantify it.

Something less edifying than a film’s audio-description soundtrack, but intended to have the same effect. A functional, if ungainly, transmission of basic ideas designed for someone who is physically incapable of consuming them in their native state.

Just one wouldn’t usually send in the visually impaired to review movies, nor should one send in the clowns to evaluate complex legal processes, but this doesn’t stop it happening, daily.

So, for a poor ISDA negotiator, charged with navigating thousands of policies any the kaleidoscope of control functions to conclude an agreement which achieves the firm’s trading objectives while protecting its exposure to its counterparties, key performance indicators will be not the quality of the agreed termination events nor the validity of the security package, much less the practicality of margining arrangements, the sensitivity of the NAV triggers or the robustness of the indemnity, but how quickly she finishes the negotiation.

See also

• Outsourcing
• Service level agreement
• Management consultant
• Subject matter expert
• Metrics
• ClauseHub: theory

Don’t tick boxes