Performance management reports

1. Performance management reports
Data is worthless, but knowledge is priceless. Perhaps no single event in history
underscored this more dramatically than the rise and fall of the Dot Com Era.
Accumulating massive data warehouses of information and customer records proved to
be worthless when data could not be converted into real world revenue.
During the Dot Com Era, some organizations recognized the benefits of using data as a
means to provide meaningful and informative results. These organizations enjoyed
exponential growth with intelligent decisions, both for themselves and as a service for
their customers. The organizations that collected massive amounts of data and failed to
transform the data into business intelligence and performance management became
colorful examples of failed business plans. The failed organizations became vacant high
rise versions of ghost towns, lined with ping pong tables and beanbag chairs. Meanwhile,
the organizations that turned data into knowledge, metrics into performance management,
and fed intelligent responses to customers, became dominant forces in a new economy.
One need not look any further than Google to see a brilliant example of turning access to
data into a responsive, informative, and intelligent tool for client convenience and
generating internal revenue. The Internet is an ocean of publicly accessible data, most of
which may be considered worthless when taken out of context. However, when this
enormous vault of human knowledge and creativity is harnessed and focused through the
single microscopic lens of a search engine to sort, filter, and present the relevant data,
then the data becomes knowledge on a silver platter.
Does your organization harness the power of data or the power of knowledge?
Does your organization collect information for reporting or for informed real time
business decisions?
Does your organization use data to measure the performance of the past or to apply
measurements to predict and alter the course of the future?
You really do have a crystal ball, because history really does repeat itself. If you have
collected historical data and measurements, then you have the framework to begin
building your the future according to your own plans and blueprints. If you understand
the cause and the effect of your actions and your decisions in market conditions and
environments, then you can make knowledgeable decisions to chart the course of your
destiny. You can respond to external conditions, you can react to internal changes, and
you can change the course of your own destiny.
You can choose to use information to deliver focused and informed results for better
understanding and decisions, using your data like Google. Alternately, you can collect
data to make colorful roadmap reports of where you have been, and select the graphs that

2. portray only the desired perspectives. Reports tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, but
often do not portray the whole truth. You will know when you are on the right track when
your metrics, dashboards, and performance management look forward at least as much as
they report backward on historical trends.
Cashing in data and history for performance management, knowledge, and revenue is not
just for big organizations. The same principles apply for individual planning and
performance as well.
Advance Alerts and Exception Based Reports
Gather your most relevant data and reports that demonstrate the key metrics for
measuring success. The key metrics for measuring success quite often include the
following topics
-Finance, revenue or costs
-Customer satisfaction
-Quality
-Productivity
-Speed
-Performance
Refer to the data that you have been using to measure your performance in the past.
Identify the critical components that have influenced finance, customer satisfaction,
quality, productivity, speed, or performance. Make a list of events, internal, and external
catalysts that have resulted in specific desired or undesired outcomes. Using your
experience and historical data, make a note of the cause and effect illustrated in your
trends. Study the causes to extract meaningful measurements that result in desired and
undesired trends.
Once you have identified critical catalysts with associated metrics, then you can create
new predictive reports to help guide your business with intelligent information.
Reports that contain all available data may be overwhelming and may actually hide
important facts or trends. If you are measuring hundreds or thousands of transactions, the
average performance might be acceptable enough to temporarily hide a few individual
exceptions that could create a future catastrophe. Augment the reports of overall activity
with specific, focused, exception based reports that isolate the data elements that you
have determined to be catalysts for your business. The exception based reports are based
on those exceptions from normal business that you have identified as the root cause for
good or bad effects. These concentrated reports should be reviewed for immediate
response, and the overall effects should create a consistent result in the reports for overall
accumulated activity.
Short Term Goals and Long Term Goals

3. Be sure to compare short term and long term plans, goals, and trends. Monthly and
quarterly activity may be the result of seasonal trends. Weekly trends may reflect
consistent activities on certain days of the week. Marketing and sales activities are
especially impacted by daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly trends. These
activities may also be greatly impacted by external events. When gathering data for
historical analysis to create predictive trends, document footnotes as a reminder of
external events and activities that may influence your results.
For personal planning and internal organizational planning, balance short term goals with
long term goals. This is especially true when balancing personal and professional
budgets. Short term investments should be balanced with long term rewards. Spending a
budget when it is available, to avoid losing it, is sometimes in the best interest of both
short term and long term goals. Putting off an activity, scheduling time and resources, is
often highly influenced by immediate and urgent needs. Compare urgent needs to long
term priorities and extended impact to determine the best balanced approach.
Balance Company and Personal Objectives
Are the management reports accurately reflected in the personnel performance metrics?
When it comes time to provide yearly reviews, have the specific measurements for
individual performance been accurately reflected to coincide with the performance
reports administered by the organization?
Each individual should have a personal set of defined goals and objectives that can be
measured for performance. The measurement for performance may be based on speed,
accuracy, quality, or simply based on completion of certain tasks. Timeliness and
customer satisfaction are also common measurements for performance. Individual
indicators should be directly connected with the overall performance management
reports. This enables each individual to recognize how much personal performance
impacts the total team achievement. When this happens it is very easy to conduct
performance appraisals in a fair and unbiased manner, with no surprises for anyone. More
importantly, the recognition of personal contribution becomes a daily conversation of
mutual commitment, rather than a yearly review.
Balance Internal and External Objectives
If you achieve your goals and objectives, is it at the expense of your vendors, suppliers,
or clients? If meeting your objectives requires unbalanced sacrifice from business
partners or customers, then you have only delayed inevitable decay and your own demise.
If your success can only be achieved by sacrificing vendors or suppliers, then the best
ones will eventually lose interest and find alternatives to protect their own organizations.
Creating this culture with vendors causes conflict and a lack of mutual commitment.
Treat vendors and suppliers as partners for mutual success, and expect the same in return.
If your success requires the unilateral sacrifice of clients, then you will likely find
yourself without any customers. Clients can be as loyal as vendors and suppliers when

4. treated with dignity, value, commitment, and respect. Clients will not be as patient as
vendors if this relationship is lacking.
Use Technology to Empower Business Objectives
Use technology to collect, collate, and isolate the key catalysts for your business. Use
historical trends to create exception based predictive reports. Monitor the trends of short
term and long term activities and objectives. Use real data to demonstrate individual
performance as it contributes to overall performance, and make this available to
individual contributors on a daily basis. When you empower individuals to monitor
performance on a daily basis, the individuals begin to manage success of the overall
business. The individual contributors are most likely to recognize the cause and effect as
illustrated in exception based reports, and have the ability to apply effective change when
necessary. Individual contributors typically have the most significant personal
relationships or interactions with vendors, suppliers, and customers. Technology can be
used to enable visibility throughout the entire organization. Technology can facilitate
empowered and informed communication, supplying not only the exceptional trends, but
also the specific supporting data that is necessary to make real time educated decisions.
Now the decision is yours. Will you use technology to aggregate and communicate
relevant data in focused response like Google, or will you be sitting back in your beanbag
chair with your colorful graphs of a bygone era?
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