M.

IMRAN
19814
7TH SEMESTER
A SECTION MORNING
• The French philosopher Voltaire once advised to ‘ judge of a man by his questions
rather than by his answers ’ and Albert Einstein maintained that all he
• ever did was asked simple questions. If that was good enough for Einstein to
• turn the study of physics on its head, then it should certainly be good enough
• for those of us who want to bring some fresh thinking to the subject of strategic
performance management. Questions addressed in this chapter include:
• What are key performance questions (KPQs)?
• ● Why are KPQs important for performance management?
• ● How can we use KPQs to design better performance indicators (PIs)?
• ● How can KPQs help us to interpret performance information?
• ● How do we design KPQs in practice?
• ● What examples of KPQs are used by other government, public sector and
• not-for-profi t organizations?
• In the previous chapter, we discussed the role of measurement. Indicators
• are designed to provide us with answers. KPQs, on the other hand, are designed
• to identify the most important unanswered questions in relation to performance.
• Questions help us identify and articulate our information needs and trigger a
• search for answers.
• Too often, do we focus on fi nding answers without asking the right questions.
Nobel Prize winner Paul A. Samuelson makes a point when he quite
• rightly says, ‘ Good questions outrank easy answers. ’ In most government, public
sector and not-for-profi t organizations, we spend too much time and effort
• on fi nding answers and not enough time on asking the right questions. The
• concept of KPQs was developed to change this.
• KPQs are a new and powerful innovation in the fi eld of corporate performance management. 1
• A KPQ is a management question that captures exactly
• what it is that people want to know when it comes to organizational performance and each of
the strategic elements and objectives on the value creation map
• (VCM). The rationale for KPQs is that they provide guidance for collecting relevant and
meaningful PIs and focus our attention on what actually needs to be
• discussed when we review performance. Far too often do we jump straight to
• designing indicators before we are clear about what it is that we want to know.
• By fi rst designing KPQs, we are able to ask ourselves: ‘ What do we really need
• to know? ’ ‘ What information do we require? ’ and ‘ What are therefore the best
• PIs we need to collect to help us answer our key performance questions? ’
•
• Starting with KPQs ensures that, by default, all subsequently designed PIs
• are relevant and address real information needs. In addition, KPQs put performance data into
context and therefore facilitate communication, guide discussion and direct decision making.
• It is important to remember that the main reason for strategic performance management is to improve future performance.
Performance improvement is based
• on learning. Deep and signifi cant learning occurs only as a result of refl ection,
• and refl ection is not possible without a question. KPQs are therefore essential
• components of good performance management. KPQs allow us to put performance information and data into context and turn it into
knowledge. Data and
• information contained in PIs are not useful on their own and cannot be turned
• into knowledge or wisdom unless we have questions we want to answer. Once
• we have got a question, we can then use data to turn it into knowledge and
• learning (see Fig. 7.1 ). Without questions there can be no learning, and without
• learning there can be no improvement.
• It is important to remember that the main reason for strategic performance management is to improve future performance.
Performance improvement is based
• on learning. Deep and signifi cant learning occurs only as a result of refl ection,
• and refl ection is not possible without a question. KPQs are therefore essential
• components of good performance management. KPQs allow us to put performance information and data into context and turn it into
knowledge. Data and
• information contained in PIs are not useful on their own and cannot be turned
• into knowledge or wisdom unless we have questions we want to answer. Once
• we have got a question, we can then use data to turn it into knowledge and
• learning (see Fig. 7.1 ). Without questions there can be no learning, and without
• learning there can be no improvement.
• We run the company by questions, not by answers. So in the strategy process we’ve so
far
• formulated 30 questions that we have to answer [ … ] You ask it as a question, rather
than
• a pithy answer, and that stimulates conversation. Out of the conversation comes
innovation. Innovation is not something that I just wake up one day and say ‘ I want to
innovate. ’
• I think you get a better innovative culture if you ask it as a question
• A MORE SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO DATA COLLECTION
• Any student of science learns that it is important to know what you are looking for
before you start collecting any data. The basics of the scientifi c method
• are that we fi rst need to defi ne a question we want to explore, we then collect
• more information and form a hypothesis. After that you decide on the most
• appropriate research method and collect the data, which we then analyze and
• interpret to draw conclusions about the question you set out to answer.
• If we start collecting data without knowing what answers we are looking
• for, then we often end up collecting wrong or unnecessary data and are left
• with few or no real insights about the important questions we need answers to.
• This is a massive and universal problem that I have observed in every organization I worked with. A typical example is
when an organization wants to
• understand whether its employees, customers or partners are happy, the management team often goes straight to the
indicators and forms a project team
• that looks for the best ways of measuring this. However, it ends up looking
• for generic and ‘ proven ’ ways of collecting such information and often adopts
• existing surveys.
• Of course, it makes sense to build on what experts have developed over
• the years. However, in our desire to fi nd measures and get our hands on the
• data, we often fail to clarify what it is we really want to know. For example,
• once we have decided that the relationships with our partners are important and
• we ought to measure it, we need to pause and clarify what it is we want to
• understand. Here is where KPQs come in – defi ning the question or questions
• we want to have an answer to forces us to be more specifi c and spell out what it
• is we want to know. Once we have the question, we then have to ask ourselves:
• What is the information we require that will help us answer this question
• and what is the best way of collecting this information?
• Let me give you an example. A major organization approached me to audit
• its performance management approach, which is something the Advanced
• Performance Institute does regularly with its clients. So we spent a few days
• with the client to really understand its performance management and
performance measurement approach.
• As part of its strategy, this organization had
• moved to a partnership model, and for that reason it was critical to successfully manage the
various partnerships it had to deliver joint outcomes. When
• this organization moved to its partnership-based delivery model a few years
• back, the organization wanted to fi nd ways of measuring and assessing its partnerships. In a
quest to fi nd measures, it came across a company which specialized in partnership
evaluations and which had designed a generic questionnaire
• to measure partnerships.
• The project team in the organization was pleased
• about this. It signed up to this survey and outsourced its data collection to
this
• outside company which then started to collect the partnership data twice a
• year. Again, managers in the organization were pleased with the service they
• received from this external company.