Handbook of Corporate Performance Management

Chapter 10

Using Measures to Manage – Challenging Strategy

10.1 INTRODUCTION

In the last two chapters we discussed the tools for analysing individual performance measure data and have shown you an approach to reviewing performance using the performance planning value chain. In this chapter we will look at a third element, how you use your performance measures to test your success map and challenge your strategy.

Success maps, described in Chapter 2, begin their lives as a model of how you think your organisation works. They start as an initial best guess of the strategic objectives for your business based on your team’s knowledge and experience. Once the success map and associated measures are implemented, you will collect data that you can use to check and refine your initial assumptions. In this chapter we show you the tools for testing your success map, highlighting the difficulties and traps you will face when doing it in your own organisation.

There is a mantra: ‘happy employees make happy customers make happy shareholders’. In the main, this is true, but you should test this belief and other elements of your success map with your own data. On many occasions when we have seen this testing done in real organisations the results are not as expected. Testing your own success map with real data gives you the opportunity to understand why your organisation does not function as expected and to get real insights about your unique set of circumstances. If you simply take the results ...