Developing professional personal KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)

Developing professional personal KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) can be used for companies, departments, and individuals. At the person level, KPIs are valuable tools in both professional and personal aspects of life. In the past, I have discussed KPIs for departments, but I found that the discussion applies equally well to individuals. This goes beyond the traditional annual goal-setting process. However, it does start with a deep understanding of those goals, and the outcomes the goals are designed to create.

After annual goals are established, I translate those goals into quarterly milestones. They can take the form of a traditional milestone or actions that must be completed by particular deadlines. The same process is completed for each month. This helps ensure that monthly activities support quarterly milestones, which will deliver on annual goals.

KPIs should build on one another to tell a compelling story of performance.

Looking at the monthly deliverables, we can now begin to brainstorm on the main performance indicators. This translates into daily, weekly, and monthly actions that must be taken correctly to deliver on those goals. As with all key performance indicators, they must be measurable and designed to reinforce positive actions, monitor for deviations from established norms, or prevent an adverse outcome.

Salespeople often monitor call volumes on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. This is an excellent KPI. However, assessing how customers move through the sales continuum is an equally valid KPI. This helps prevent poor quality calls for making the KPIs look good while not delivering the primary business result.A cautionary note: KPIs should not be another to-do list. These are items that are done consistently over extended periods and deliver results. They are important, regular, and can be measured.

Every individual operates at a distinctive level and so there KPIs will look remarkably different based off of their level of service to the organization. Personally, my professional KPIs do not resemble anything like anyone else on my former teams. I have KPIs focused on the synthesis of information into something actionable. Another professional KPI is the number of business processes that I review or create that develop into meaningful improvements. Projects are full of KPIs, including completion rates, on target versus at-risk activities, and responsiveness to information requests. There is no limit to the form of KPIs can be developed.

A second cautionary note: KPIs should inform a person about their productivity level. The capturing of KPIs should not become a burdensome process that takes away from delivering on the bottom-line results. The collection of KPI stats should be a natural process and integrated into the core workflow.

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