Strategic Performance Measures

How do you measure how well your strategic plan is performing?

Strategic performance measures accomplish three goals:

1. monitor the implementation and effectiveness of an organization's strategies;
2. determine the gap between actual and targeted performance; and
3. determine organization effectiveness and operational efficiency.

Good performance measures:

• provide a way to see if your strategy is working
• focus employees' attention on what matters most to success
• allow measurement of accomplishments, not just of the work that is performed
• provide a common language for communication
• are explicitly defined in terms of owner, unit of measure, collection frequency, data quality, expected value (targets), and thresholds
• are valid, to ensure measurement of the right things
• are verifiable, to ensure data collection accuracy