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Project Management Warning Flag 4 – Too Much Time, Too Few People

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Project managers know successful projects establish and maintain a balance between the elements of scope, time, and cost. Adding to or depleting any one of these elements necessitates a compensating change in one or both of the other elements; the integrity of the project management triangle being maintained.

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The New Thinking on KPIs, part 4 of 4

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Removing the lead / lag confusion

Many management books talk about “lead and lag indicators” which I believe merely clouds the KPI debate. Using this new way of looking at KPIs we dispense with the terms lag (outcome) and lead (performance driver) indicators. I have presented to nearly two thousand people on KPIs and I always ask “is the late planes in the air KPI, a lead or lag indicator?” The vote count is always evenly split. Surely, this is enough proof that lead and lag labels are not a useful way of defining measures.

Key result indicators replace outcome measures, which typically look at activity over months or quarters. PIs, and KPIs are now characterised as either past, current or future measures. The new concept called “current measures” are those monitored 24/7 or daily. You will find the real KPIs in your organization are either “current” or “future” measures.

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About the Author

David Parmenter, author of Key Performance Indicators: Developing, Implementing, and Using Winning KPIs and Pareto’s 80/20 Rule for Corporate Accountants, is an international presenter who is known for his thought provoking and lively sessions, which have led to substantial change in many organizations. He is a leading expert in developing winning KPIs, replacing the annual planning process with quarterly rolling planning, accelerating month-end processes, and converting reporting to a decision based tool.

David’s work on KPIs has received international recognition with clients in Auckland, Wellington, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, Perth, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Tehran, Prague, Dublin, London, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh. David is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales and has worked for Ernst & Young, BP Oil Ltd, Arthur Andersen, and Price Waterhouse Coopers.

David’s recent thinking is accessible from www.davidparmenter.com. He can be contacted at [email protected] or telephone +64 4 499 0007.

This articles is an extract from his “Implementing winning KPIs” whitepaper which can be downloaded from http://davidparmenter.com/how-to-guides)

StrategyDriven Podcast Special Edition 36 – An Interview with Robert Wysocki, author of Adaptive Project Framework

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StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.

Special Edition 36 – An Interview with Robert Wysocki, author of Adaptive Project Framework explores how to deal with the often monumental uncertainty associated with project scope, resources, and time; increasing the organization’s rate of project success and improving its bottom line returns. During our discussion, Robert Wysocki, author of Adaptive Project Framework: Managing Complexity in the Face of Uncertainty and President of Enterprise Information Insights, shares with us his insights and illustrative examples regarding:

  • the differences and benefits of using the Adaptive Project Framework to deal with project uncertainty
  • core values of the Adaptive Project Framework
  • types of projects for which the Adaptive Project Framework is ideally suited
  • how the Adaptive Project Framework is executed through its five phases
  • how the Adaptive Project Framework helps leaders evaluate the ongoing viability of an initiative and terminate it, if necessary, while still receiving value for the time and resources expended

Additional Information

In addition to the invaluable insights Robert shares in Adaptive Project Framework and this special edition podcast are the resources accessible from his website, www.EIICorp.com.   Robert’s book, Adaptive Project Framework, can be purchased by clicking here.

About the Author

Robert Wysocki, author of Adaptive Project Framework, is President of Enterprise Information Insights, a consulting and training practice that specializes in helping large organizations run projects more effectively. For more than forty years, Robert has served as a project management consultant, information systems manager, and training developer and provider. His clients range from AT&T and Aetna to the U.S. Army Signal Corps, Wal-Mart, and Wells Fargo. Robert has written sixteen books on project and IT management including the Project Management Institute-recommended book, Effective Project Management. To read Robert’s complete biography, click here.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:10 — 45.6MB)

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The New Thinking on KPIs, part 3 of 4

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The four types of performance measures

I have come to the conclusion that there are four types of performance measures, as shown in Figure 3. This conclusion has come from: the research I have conducted; workshop feedback across diverse industries; and as a by-product of writing my book “Key Performance Indicators – developing, implementing and using winning KPIs”.


Figure 3: A scorecard with six perspectives

  • key result indicators (KRIs) – give an overview on past performance and are ideal for the Board as they communicate how management have done in a critical success factor or balanced scorecard perspective
  • performance indicators (PIs) – tell staff and management what to do
  • result indicators (RIs) – tell staff what they have done
  • key performance indicators (KPIs) – tell staff and management what to do to increase performance dramatically.

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About the Author

David Parmenter, author of Key Performance Indicators: Developing, Implementing, and Using Winning KPIs and Pareto’s 80/20 Rule for Corporate Accountants, is an international presenter who is known for his thought provoking and lively sessions, which have led to substantial change in many organizations. He is a leading expert in developing winning KPIs, replacing the annual planning process with quarterly rolling planning, accelerating month-end processes, and converting reporting to a decision based tool.

David’s work on KPIs has received international recognition with clients in Auckland, Wellington, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, Perth, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Tehran, Prague, Dublin, London, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh. David is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales and has worked for Ernst & Young, BP Oil Ltd, Arthur Andersen, and Price Waterhouse Coopers.

David’s recent thinking is accessible from www.davidparmenter.com. He can be contacted at [email protected] or telephone +64 4 499 0007.

This articles is an extract from his “Implementing winning KPIs” whitepaper which can be downloaded from http://davidparmenter.com/how-to-guides)

The New Thinking on KPIs, part 2 of 4

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The characteristics of KPIs

KPIs represent a set of measures focusing on those aspects of organizational performance that are the most critical for the current and future success of an organization. There are only a few KPIs in an organization (no more than 10) and they have certain characteristics.

KPI characteristics include:

  • Non financial measures (not expressed in $s, Pds etc)
  • Measured frequently e.g. daily or 24/7 (KPIs are not measured monthly)
  • Acted upon by the CEO and the senior management team on a daily or 24/7 basis
  • All staff understand the measure and what corrective action is required
  • Responsibility can be tied down to a team
  • The KPI has a significant impact on the organization e.g. it impacts on most of the critical success factors and balanced scorecard perspectives
  • Positive movement affects all other performance measures in a positive way

When you put a Pound or Dollar sign to a measure you have not dug deep enough. Sales made yesterday will be a result of sales calls made previously to existing and prospective customers, advertising, amount of contact with the key customers, product reliability etc. I label any indicator expressed in monetary terms as result indicator, see below for more explanation.

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About the Author

David Parmenter, author of Key Performance Indicators: Developing, Implementing, and Using Winning KPIs and Pareto’s 80/20 Rule for Corporate Accountants, is an international presenter who is known for his thought provoking and lively sessions, which have led to substantial change in many organizations. He is a leading expert in developing winning KPIs, replacing the annual planning process with quarterly rolling planning, accelerating month-end processes, and converting reporting to a decision based tool.

David’s work on KPIs has received international recognition with clients in Auckland, Wellington, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, Perth, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Tehran, Prague, Dublin, London, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh. David is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales and has worked for Ernst & Young, BP Oil Ltd, Arthur Andersen, and Price Waterhouse Coopers.

David’s recent thinking is accessible from www.davidparmenter.com. He can be contacted at [email protected] or telephone +64 4 499 0007.

This articles is an extract from his “Implementing winning KPIs” whitepaper which can be downloaded from http://davidparmenter.com/how-to-guides)