FIELD GUIDE:

MAXIMIZING YOUR
KPI RESULTS
BERNIE SMITH
Made to Measure KPIs, KPI Academy
Made to Measure KPIs

Welcome
After three decades of helping
clients achieve results through
performance measurement, there
are some key concepts and ideas
I have discovered that can make
going live and getting results from
your KPIs much smoother. This
guide is the distilled summary of
that experience. I hope you find it
useful.

Bernie Smith
Founder, Made to Measure KPIs &
KPI Academy

“
Getting full benefit from
your KPIs can be tough

”
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 Made to Measure KPIs

Field Guide Intro

About this guide

Going live with KPIs and turning those metrics into real results can be complex,
confusing and challenging. Fortunately, many of the issues have been
encountered by others before, and practical solutions already exist.

This guide outlines field-tested advice on selecting and tackling common

performance measurement problems you will encounter in a simple, structured
way.

Thanks for downloading this guide and do get in touch if you get stuck!

Bernie

Field Guide Intro 02

Base your KPIs on the results you want 03

Focus on securing stakeholder buy-in 05

Make your meetings fact-driven 08

Use a meeting Terms of Reference 10

A final thought 11

Resources12

Get in touch 13

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 Made to Measure KPIs Maximising Your KPI Results

01. Base your KPIs on the results you want

Only measure things that can deliver the outcomes you need

There are a few ways to choose your KPIs, ranging from searching on the internet through
to copying your competitors. If you are a bit hazy about where your existing KPIs came from
then it may be time to take a structured approach to selecting them.

Signs of a lack of structure in your KPI selection and implementation approach include…
y Frequent circular meeting debates about which metrics your organization should be
using
y Different teams taking different approaches to most aspects of performance
measurement
y Decisions being made on ‘gut feel’ and ‘opinion’ rather than in a data-led way

The most powerful approach is to base your KPI selection on the outcomes and results you
seek as an organization.

Start by reviewing your existing KPIs

Ask these simple questions...
y How does this KPI help deliver an outcome I care about?
y What other things influence the outcome I care about (and what metrics show how they
are doing)?

» What could block or slow down achieving our goals and strategy?

» How can things could go wrong? Flip these blockers to identify the positive result we
are looking for.

For example, ‘Late payment of invoices’ would become ‘All our customers pay their invoices
within agreed number of days’. Next, use this to identify payment KPIs that would show how
we are doing on that result.

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Made to Measure KPIs Maximising Your KPI Results

y How can we use ‘future fact’ language, stating the outcome as though it has already
happened, using powerful, descriptive language?

Instead of ‘High customer satisfaction’ we might say ‘Our customers love us so much they
recommend us to friends and family’.

These questions follow the Results-Orientated KPI System (ROKS™), a seven step approach
that has proven to be an efficient way to develop and implement effective KPIs, quickly and
reliably.

The ROKS method

Find out more: https://madetomeasurekpis.com/roks-kpi-method-overview/

Watch out for the ‘recency’ trap

y We all tend to focus on things that happen regularly. Be careful about just focussing
on frequent events. A cyberattack may be a very rare event, so perhaps we might not
implement cyber-readiness KPIs, but as headlines show, these types of events can be
devastating for organizations of any size. Remember to include KPIs that cover Risk,
Compliance and ESG, even if these things may not be pressing issues right now.
y KPI Trees offer a systematic way to consider important drivers of performance, even if
they are low-frequency events.

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 Made to Measure KPIs Maximising Your KPI Results

02. Focus on securing stakeholder buy-in

Almost nothing matters more than securing stakeholder buy-in

Buy-in. Why it’s critical and how to win it

Most KPI roll-outs struggle, or fail, due to lack of stakeholder buy-in rather than technical
issues. Few things can derail a performance measurement program faster than an angry,
disengaged manager who has been left out of the process.

Keeping all your stakeholders engaged and positive about performance measurement is
critical to the success of your KPI system. Success means focussing on engagement through
every step of your design and implementation process.

Do not leave anyone behind

y Identify all your stakeholders, missing people out creates avoidable problems and
suspicion.
y Use HR lists and role descriptions to identify missing stakeholders. For example, if
you identify a shift manager as a key stakeholder, use your HR system to identify all your
shift managers. You may well pick up managers who are on sick leave, maternity leave
or vacation, giving you the chance to brief them on return and build allies rather than
confused ‘outsiders’.
y Safety check your stakeholder list with ‘Who have a I missed?’ emails and
conversations. Simply ask each of your identified stakeholders if there’s anyone else that
they think should be included who isn’t on the stakeholder list. This is a very effective
way of spotting missing players. If the list grows too long, we may need to adapt our
communication and engagement plans to manage the bigger stakeholder list.

To make sure you have complete coverage of everyone you need to engage...
y Sound-out how the team feels about KPIs and tune your engagement strategy to
match availability, relevance and KPI-positivity. Use a RACI Matrix and a role-type matrix to
segment your stakeholders and to tailor your message and communication style to get a
positive buzz going.

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Made to Measure KPIs Maximising Your KPI Results

y Engage the wider team as early as possible. The later you leave it to communicate,
the riskier it becomes. Leaving that first engagement session to the end of the KPI design
process can often spell disaster – so never do a ‘grand unveiling’, they rarely end well.

Welcome problems

A huge benefit of early stakeholder engagement is that the participants can help you spot
problems before the system goes live. Ignoring these early warnings of problems won’t just
backfire when you go live, it’s a very fast way to demotivate and disengage your team. Make
the most of problems (and potential problems) that your stakeholders identify by…
» Acknowledging that they are indeed problems

» Thanking them for spotting them (genuinely)

» Taking action to fix or mitigate the problem (rapidly)

» Keeping the team in the loop on what actions are being taken

Being open and receptive to issues becomes a virtuous spiral – the better you handle it, the
more willing your team will be to share their concerns and the better your go-live will run.

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Made to Measure KPIs Maximising Your KPI Results

Gain visible senior sponsorship.

The old saying ‘Do what I say, not what I do’ really is terrible advice. Teams are hugely
influenced by the actions and behaviours of their bosses. That’s why one of the biggest
influences on KPI adoption are the words, and more importantly the deeds, of your senior
stakeholders. Things that will make a difference...
» Keep your senior stakeholders fully up to speed on the KPI work, ensure they are
supportive and are well-briefed.

» Orchestrate some motivational coverage from your senior team. It may not be the
speech from Braveheart, but repeated high-profile endorsement of your performance
measurement initiative really will make a difference.

» Make sure there is follow-up. Many teams are familiar with ‘passing management fads’,
repeating the messaging from your senior stakeholders helps reinforce the message
that ‘KPIs are here for the long-haul’.

» Encourage your senior stakeholders to use the KPIs and ask questions based on the
insight they are gaining. No one likes to be caught out by their boss, so this will drive
engagement and consumption of the KPIs once they are up and running.

Make it personal
y Ditch Zoom and Teams. Many of us have had our fill virtual working. Real-life contact
can be complicated to arrange and expensive, but those challenges make face-to-face
engagement even more special and impactful. If you want to press home just how
important your KPI development and launch is, nothing signals this like getting on a plane
or train to discuss it in a real room over a cup of coffee, face-to-face. If you can persuade
your senior sponsors to join the event, even better.
y Talk about the real-world benefits being supported by the performance measurement
system you are developing. For many team members, KPIs can feel quite removed from
the ‘real work’ they are involved in every day. Sharing updates on how improvement work
has ‘moved the needle’ and what this means to customers and team members, in practical
terms, can really help bring things to life. The central message should be ‘we measure to
fix problems and make things better’ not ‘we measure to pressure our team’.

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 Made to Measure KPIs Maximising Your KPI Results

03. Make your meetings fact-driven

Avoid aimless circular debates by leveraging your KPIs

Rambling, unfocussed meetings that tend to revolve around ‘Whatever is at the front of
mind for the most senior person in the room’ can be the symptom of a few different issues,
but a common cause is a lack of meaningful, digestible and relevant analysis to support the
decision-making process.

If your current reports and dashboards aren’t being used during discussions it could be
that they are not relevant to the decisions that need to be made.

The solution is to be clear on the questions you are trying to answer in your meeting. There
are two simple tools that can help with this: Firstly, Key Performance Questions (KPQs) and
secondly, a well-designed ‘meetings Terms of Reference’ (ToR).

Using ‘Performance Questions’

A Key Performance Question (KPQ) is a tool to focus attention on critical areas of your
business and strategy. Where KPIs are all about the numbers (quantitative), KPQs are
qualitative questions designed to provoke thought and discussion.

In fact, some organizations will use KPQs as the titles for their reports and dashboards, for
example using the title ‘Are our customers happy with our service?’ rather than ‘Customer
satisfaction’.

The power of this approach is that it encourages the reader to think about the outcome
we are looking for, rather than the number in isolation. It’s worth noting that this approach
can prompt the ‘users’ of the reporting output to ask for additional KPIs if they realize their
answers are only partially met by the existing KPIs.

KPQs are particularly powerful when combined with good quality KPIs and a meetings Terms
of Reference…

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Made to Measure KPIs Maximising Your KPI Results

Example KPQs

Sales and Revenue:

y Who are our biggest customers?
y What is our average deal size?
y Which products or services are contributing the most to our overall sales growth?

Customer Satisfaction and Retention:

y How does our NPS compare to our industry benchmarks?
y What is our customer churn rate trend over the past year?
y What are the top reasons customers cite for leaving or discontinuing our services?

Marketing and Lead Generation:

y What is our cost per lead acquisition?
y How many qualified leads are we generating each month?
y Which marketing campaigns have yielded the highest return on investment (ROI)?

Operational Efficiency:
y What is our average order fulfillment time?
y What is our inventory turnover ratio?
y What percentage of our projects are completed on time and within budget?

Employee Engagement and Productivity:

y What is our employee turnover rate compared to our sector average?
y What is the average productivity per employee?
y What are the top factors contributing to employee satisfaction and engagement?

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Made to Measure KPIs Maximising Your KPI Results

KPQ tips
y Use ‘open questions’. These are questions that can’t be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or
‘no’ answer, but require a more detailed and informative answer.
y Test and refine your KPQs. As part of your performance improvement toolkit, you
may need to tune and adjust your performance questions as you use them. This is
completely normal, just make sure you don’t drop questions because they are difficult or
embarassing.

Use a meeting Terms of Reference

A meeting’s ‘Terms of Reference’ (ToR) is a simple document that outlines the purpose,
objectives, structure, and scope of a meeting or a series of meetings. It’s a lot like an agenda,
but goes further, including details around the information that should be provided to the
meeting participants (and the deadline for them receiving it), the questions that need to
be addressed (yes, KPQs) and the expected types of outputs from the session (typically
decisions or agreed actions).

Defining a meetings ToR can be quite challenging for some meetings, particularly when
they lack structure currently, but it’s well worthwhile. It’s not uncommon to find structural
problems when going through this process, for example large sections of the meeting are of
little or no relevance to many of the participants, often prompting a redesign of one, or more,
meetings.

How to design a ToR

A well-designed meetings Terms of Reference serves as a guide for participants, ensuring

clarity and alignment on what the meeting aims to achieve and how it will be conducted. Key
components typically include...

Purpose and Objectives: A clear statement of why the meeting is being held and what it aims
to accomplish.
Scope: Defines the boundaries of what will be discussed or addressed in the meeting.
Membership and Roles: Lists the participants, including their roles and responsibilities within
the meeting.
Agenda and Schedule: Provides details on the topics to be discussed and the timing of the

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Made to Measure KPIs Maximising Your KPI Results

meeting(s).
Decision-Making Process: Describes how decisions will be made during the meeting, including
any voting or consensus methods.
Deliverables: Specifies the expected outputs or outcomes from the meeting.
Resources and Support: Identifies any resources or support needed for the meeting to be
successful.
Frequency and Duration: States how often the meetings will occur and their expected duration.

By establishing a meeting’s Terms of Reference, all participants have a shared understanding

of the meeting’s purpose, structure, and expected outcomes, which enhances the efficiency
and effectiveness of the meeting.

A final thought
Each element of the KPI design and rollout process is like a link in a chain. Doing a fantastic
job on building engagement won’t help if your KPI definitions are flawed, or your meetings
are ineffective. It’s crucial to view your KPIs and reports as a part of an overall cycle of
improvement and control, focussing your time and effort on the weakest part of your system.

Improvement Cycle

Collect Data
Collect accurate and Analyse
reliable data
Report the right
KPIs in a clear and
intuitive way

Review
Review the
outcomes of our
Improve
improvement Decide
work Identify the
priority problems
and issues we
Action need to take
Prioritise action on
structured problem
solving and action
on most important
issues
© Bernie Smith 2024

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Made to Measure KPIs Maximising Your KPI Results

Resources
Free resources
Writing goals https://madetomeasurekpis.com/how-to-write-goal-statements/

ToR Template https://madetomeasurekpis.com/meetings-tor

KPI Tree Guide https://madetomeasurekpis.com/building-kpi-tree/

Sample KPI Trees https://madetomeasurekpis.com/three-essential-kpi-tree-examples/

RACI Template https://madetomeasurekpis.com/raci-template

Books
KPI Checklists https://getbook.at/kpi-checklists

Getting Started with KPIs https://getbook.at/GettingStartedWithKPIs

GAMED: Target and Incentive Design https://getbook.at/gamed-book

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Made to Measure KPIs

Better KPIs Better Business

MADETOMEASUREKPIS.COM

Get in touch
KPIs can be complex, we are always happy to have a chat.

Email: [email protected]