What are K.P.

I's

Definition: KPI are quantifiable measurements, agreed to beforehand, that reflect the
critical success factors (of the company, department, project.)

Also Known As: Key Performance Indicators, Key Success Factors, KSI Examples:
One of the Sales Department's KPIs is number of new customers and the goal for the
second quarter is 5 per salesperson.

A KPI defines itself, to a large extent, by its name; it is a performance indicator, i.e.
the performance of the process it is measuring should be clearly indicated by the
KPI.

In fact, among all the tools available to executives to change the organization and
move it in a new direction, KPIs are perhaps the most powerful.

KPIs focus employees' attention on the tasks and processes that executives deem
most critical to the success of the business. KPIs are like levers that executives can
pull to move the organization in new and different directions. Without KPI an
organization will not perform to its maximum There are two major types of KPIs:
leading and lagging indicators. Leading indicators measure activities that have a
significant effect on future performance, whereas lagging indicators, such as most
financial KPIs, measure the output of past activity.

To do this, leading indicators either measure activity in its current state (i.e., number
of sales meetings today) or in a future state (i.e., number of sales meetings
scheduled for the next two weeks), the latter being more powerful because it gives
individuals and their managers more time to influence the outcome.

Characteristics of a good KPI

KPI is always connected with the corporate goals

A KPI is decided by the management

It belongs to an individual who is accountable for its outcome

They are leading indicators of performance desired by the organization

Easy to understand

A KPI leads to action

Few in number

It should be balanced not undermine each other

Users can gauge their progress overtime

Characteristics of a good KPI

1. KPI is always connected with the corporate goals
2. A KPI is decided by the management
3. It belongs to an individual who is accountable for its outcome
4. They are leading indicators of performance desired by the organization
5. Easy to understand
6. A KPI leads to action
7. Few in number
8. It should be balanced not undermine each other
9. Users can gauge their progress overtime
10. KPI’s loses its value overtime so they must be periodically reviewed and
refreshed

The employees themselves are made aware of the existence of the indicators. They
will try to improve their own selves in terms of performance, then a significant
increase in the overall productivity of the company is not a long way off at all.

KPI's need to be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Result-oriented or Relevant
• Time-bound

Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is neither a Goal, nor a Key Result Area (KRA), nor
a Target, nor a Result nor a Critical Success Factor. And yet these terms are often
the KPI is compared against actual results to determine the level of success.

A KPI is associated with a specific process and is generally represented by a numeric

value. A KPI may have a target and allowable margins, or lower and upper limits,
forming a range of performance that the process should achieve. A KPI can be
thought of as a metric with a target. An example of a simple KPI is: Average time for
response to a customer inquiry is less than two days.

As more detailed example, say that an organization sets the following business
Objectives:
• Orders must be processed within three days compared to the current average of
five days
• Average amount of an order must increase by 10%
• Average order amount KPI: For the Customer Order process, track the average
amount of each order

KPIs can be made up of one or more metrics. The calculated results of the metrics
during process monitoring are used to determine whether the target of the KPI has
been met.