The recent resurfacing of the BI vs. PM controversy got me thinking about the longstanding confusion between financial, workforce, and IT performance management. When most people hear the term performance management, they think of what I might describe as human capital management. That is clearly different than budgeting, planning, and consolidation. The multiple uses of…
Last week I weighed in on the on-going debate as to whether PM is the same thing as BI. The Performance Guys seemed to agree with my assessment and echoed my belief that performance management involves motivation, not just monitoring and measuring. I’d only point out that motivation doesn’t necessarily require money; I once did…
I thought the debate as to whether business intelligence (BI) and performance management (PM) were the same thing had long since been settled. Imagine my surprise when Mark Smith points out in “BI Is Not Performance Management” that the discussion is alive and well. Rather than spill more ink documenting the differences between business intelligence and…
If you weren’t convinced that dashboards have become over-hyped, these two Dilbert strips that appeared last week should be the final straw: (Click twice to enlarge the comics) The intellectual side of me would like to defend our profession and chalk these up as simply cartoons designed to elicit a laugh. Unfortunately, they are…
You can always count on Bob Hanson of Sarasota County for a good performance management story. Here’s one that I heard him tell recently: The Parks and Rec department struggled with recruiting and retaining lifeguards for the public pools. People viewed being a lifeguard as only a summer job, not a career, so job satisfaction…
If you’re a performance management practitioner, you already know metrics should have both an actual and a target value. Actual is the current value of a metric while target is the value you would like it to be. (NB: I strongly prefer using the word target instead of goal because the latter can easily be…
Does the following resonate with you? “It seems that everywhere you turn, people are talking about performance management; vendors, consultants, press, public sector and commercial organizations alike. Amidst the buzz however, one troubling trend is beginning to emerge. Many performance management projects have languished, burdened by unrealistic expectations, delayed schedules, and intangible benefits. Performance management…
It seems like every few months someone tries to claim performance management is bad for organizations. The latest one comes from Phil Dourado who writes, “Target-based systems distort everything and most people’s behaviour.” Phil bases his indictment of performance management on several stories about the UK’s National Health Service in which “brilliant, dedicated people [are] pushed…
At a recent performance management conference, I attended a talk by the Manager of Strategic Business Planning at the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) who described how they used performance management concepts to dramatically improve the agency. I showed up at the talk with skeptical attitude, as the post office does not have the best reputation…
I often use call centers as my default example when describing how better objectives and metrics can help improve performance. It’s not that performance in call centers is always poor. It’s just that executive management often regards the call center as nothing more than required overhead that burden the bottom line. Call center sometimes unwittingly…