Ask any organisation about its performance indicators and a dashboard will open. Ask when it was last opened and the answer takes longer than the question. Indicators do not die because nobody cared. They die because they were built in a way that makes ignoring them the rational response.
Why indicators die
Because they measure what is easy to measure rather than what matters. Meetings held is easier than decision quality; trainees enrolled is easier than training impact. And because most of them carry no decision: a number that rises and falls while nobody does anything differently is a ritual report, not a management tool.
Four properties of an indicator that lives
- It is attached to a decision. Ask: if this number moves, what changes in how we work? If there is no answer, delete it.
- It has an owner by name. An indicator owned by "management" is owned by nobody.
- It has one known source. Two different numbers for the same thing in two reports end trust in the whole dashboard.
- It has a threshold that alerts. A number without one is an observation; a number with one is a warning.
Start with five, not fifty
The first dashboard that works is always shorter than its owners expect. Five indicators everyone knows and acts on are worth more than fifty presented once a quarter and then closed.
An indicator that changes no behaviour is not a performance indicator. It is report decoration.
Then review them like any other tool
Indicators are not a constitution. The work changes, and an indicator that mattered a year ago may be a burden today. Review them quarterly and delete without hesitation: a dashboard that cleans itself is a dashboard that stays alive.
The Building and Measuring KPIs programme covers this in practice — from deriving the indicator to building the dashboard and reviewing it. Programme details.
