Key Performance Indicators, 4th Edition

CHAPTER 7Finding Your Organization's Critical Success Factors

Overview

Critical success factors (CSFs) are operational issues or aspects that need to be accomplished day-in/day-out by the staff in the organization.

It is imperative that employees and management understand what CSFs are and can therefore focus their attention on finding performance measures in these areas, that will make a real difference.

This chapter looks at the alignment between CSFs and external outcomes and highlights the importance of identifying CSFs—the missing link in management theory. In addition, the chapter points out that an organization has typically five to eight CSFs, and that CSFs should be the source of all the important performance measures—the winning KPIs.

The key learning points from this chapter are:

1. In organizations that do not have clarity and agreement on their operational CSFs, managers will prioritize work based on their view as to what is important.
2. Why critical success factors are the source of all meaningful performance measures.
3. The importance of distinguishing between critical success factors and external outcomes.
4. Common misunderstanding regarding critical success factors
5. To create alignment between teams in an organization, it is important that there be only one set of between five and eight critical success factors (CSFs) for the organization.
6. How to word success factors appropriately.
7. The key tasks for identifying the organization's five to eight critical success factors. ...