Setting KPI’s or Performance Indicators

Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are the critical (key) indicators of progress toward an intended result. KPI’s provides a focus for strategic and operational improvement, create an analytical basis for decision making and help focus attention on what matters most. As Peter Drucker said, “What gets measured gets done.”

Managing with the use of KPI’s includes setting targets (the desired level of performance) and tracking progress against that target. KPI’s:

• Provide objective evidence of progress towards achieving a desired result.
• Measure what is intended to be measured to help inform better decision making.
• Offer a comparison that gauges the degree of performance change over time.
• Can track efficiency, effectiveness, quality, timeliness, governance, compliance, behaviours, economics, project performance, personnel performance or resource utilization.

To successfully monitor performance and development progress, you need to establish performance indicators and time frames/monitoring frequency. These could come from various sources.