Business is tough. It’s even tougher when your Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are contradictory. You end up fighting against yourself.
What business would do that? It’s just crazy, right?
We see it all the time and the simplest example is, any company that rolls out a big initiative to increase quantity of work. Sounds good so far, every company wants to get more productivity out of its workforce after all.
Productivity is key, so everyone hear this: Get more work done!
What a lot of companies forget to stress is that more productivity is great, if quality doesn’t suffer.
You might be amazed how many companies put the push on for getting more done and are shocked when they see their defect rates go up. Or just the opposite, there’s a well-publicized effort to improve quality, only to see quantity drop.
Any single KPI has the potential to be misused when considered on its own merit.
Use multiple KPIs together to form a well-balanced view of your organization, and make sure that your initiatives communicate a balanced approach clearly and effectively!
