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Key performance indicator: Difference between revisions
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===[[KPI]]s as a weapon ''against'' [[modernism]]=== | ===[[KPI]]s as a weapon ''against'' [[modernism]]=== | ||
Let us say someone has had the bright idea of commissioning a set of [[KPI]]s to measure the legal | Let us say someone has had the bright idea of commissioning a set of [[KPI]]s to measure the legal department’s contribution to the bottom line. | ||
“I can see the future of inhouse legal” [[thought leader]] types will feel an adrenaline rush at the very mention. They will wonder at the magic money tree that is modern [[Magic circle law firm|commercial law practice]], wonder why that does’t translate to inhouse legal, put two and two together, arrive at thirty seven, before you know it they will be drawing up plans to recast the legal department as a profit centre, with its own P&L. They may need to be dashed in the face with water or slapped to bring themselves to their senses, but even if you do this, the germ of the idea — | |||
The legal eagles will flail. They will flounder. “But,” they will protest, too much, “we are not part of the operational stack. We don’t make widgets. We are special. We handle exceptions, crises, novelties and conundrums exactly the sorts of things that one can’t awfully well count. Things that we have not seen before and are unlikely to see again. Our value proposition is therefore hard to articulate, let alone quantify.” Seeing where the management layer are going with this, they quickly append: “''But you know it when you see it.'' Our value is not a function of the things we have done, the time we have spent or the units we have produced. Our value is oblique. It does not always accrue immediately, or obviously, or with an observable consequence. Sometimes our value is in ''avoiding'' consequences.” | |||
This seems self-serving, but it is true: a well-timed intervention may head off litigation. How do you value that careful meeting, against the 18 months’ of [[dispute resolution]] and [[litigation]] that was its alternative? Do you measure the value of nine months’ excellent work, however insightful or ineffable, on a deal that cratered? And how do you value the time your experts waste filling out their [[PowerPoint]]s attesting to the performance of their key indicators? | This seems self-serving, but it is true: a well-timed intervention may head off litigation. How do you value that careful meeting, against the 18 months’ of [[dispute resolution]] and [[litigation]] that was its alternative? Do you measure the value of nine months’ excellent work, however insightful or ineffable, on a deal that cratered? And how do you value the time your experts waste filling out their [[PowerPoint]]s attesting to the performance of their key indicators? | ||