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Key performance indicator: Difference between revisions
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{{a|devil| | {{a|devil|{{image|Richard Scarry|jpg|A [[middle manager]]’s big book of little concepts, yesterday}}}}<small>{{quote|'''From''': donotreply@sttrinians.edu.uk<br>'''To''': enquiries@jollycontrarian.com<br>'''Subject''': Behaviour Entry Notification for Violet Elizabeth Contrarian (340231)<br><br>A negative behaviour has been published for Violet Elizabeth Contrarian (340231).<br><br>The behaviour type(s) are: “Late for Lesson.”<br><br>Kind regards<br>St Trinian’s Modern Academy For The Dispositionally Truculent.<br>''This email is sent from an unmonitored account.''}}</small> | ||
{{Quote|If the answer is “a [[KPI]]”, it was most likely a stupid question.}} | |||
{{d|Key performance indicator|/kiː pəˈfɔːm(ə)ns ˈɪndɪkeɪtə/|n|}} | {{d|Key performance indicator|/kiː pəˈfɔːm(ə)ns ˈɪndɪkeɪtə/|n|}} | ||
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Such individuals 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 will have germinated. Before you know it there will be a cross-functional working group, a project, on a “sprint”, tracking red. | Such individuals 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 will have germinated. Before you know it there will be a cross-functional working group, a project, on a “sprint”, tracking red. | ||
Meanwhile, the legal eagles will flail. They will flounder. “But,” they will protest, too much, | Meanwhile, the legal eagles will flail. They will flounder. “But,” they will protest, too much, “[[legal is not part of the operational stack|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? | ||
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It is a meaningless, [[modernist]] bumf. It suits only [[middle management]], whom it gives something to do, someone to chase, someone to [[audit]], an attestation to gather and a [[KPI]] to stick on the dashboard slide on the monthly about to the [[opco]] deck. | It is a meaningless, [[modernist]] bumf. It suits only [[middle management]], whom it gives something to do, someone to chase, someone to [[audit]], an attestation to gather and a [[KPI]] to stick on the dashboard slide on the monthly about to the [[opco]] deck. | ||
===[[Key non-performance indicator|Key ''non''-performance indicator]]s=== | ===[[Key non-performance indicator|Key ''non''-performance indicator]]s=== | ||
But all is not lost. With a deft inversion we can set the management layer ''against'' itself. For while it may be difficult to explain how an inhouse lawyer ''does'' add value, it is a cinch to show all the things | But all is not lost. With a deft inversion we can set the management layer ''against'' itself. For while it may be difficult to explain how an inhouse lawyer ''does'' add value, it is a cinch to show all the things she must do, but in doing which she does ''not''. Lawyers are beset with [[Tick-boxes|boxes to tick]], forms to fill, processes to follow, policies to comply with and administrative tasks to carry out designed exclusively to satisfy management’s compulsion for ''counting formal things''. | ||
These [[key non-performance indicator]]s we can most certainly count. We can aggregate, extrapolate, model and graph them, in the certainty that every hour we spent on these formal attestations | These [[key non-performance indicator]]s we can most certainly count. We can aggregate, extrapolate, model and graph them, in the certainty that every hour we spent on these formal attestations produces precisely nil value. | ||
We could take it a step further, and set as our [[key performance indicator]], the number of fatuous [[KNPI]]s we have identified and removed in a given period. We can set the system, for once, against its usual operation, whereby as time passes we accumulate the scar tissue, silt, rust — barnacles — from near-misses, operational errors, snafus and manual work-arounds contrived to keep the jalopy running because management won’t splash out on up-to-date IT infrastructure, and instead spend our time ''removing'' these layers of crud from the operation. | We could take it a step further, and set as our [[key performance indicator]], the number of fatuous [[KNPI]]s we have identified and removed in a given period. We can set the system, for once, against its usual operation, whereby as time passes we accumulate the scar tissue, silt, rust — barnacles — from near-misses, operational errors, snafus and manual work-arounds contrived to keep the jalopy running because management won’t splash out on up-to-date IT infrastructure, and instead spend our time ''removing'' these layers of crud from the operation. | ||