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Performance Measurement case study – KPI examples in UK higher education

Friday, April 30th, 2010


What

The annual publication of “Performance indicators in higher education in the UK 2008/2009″ offers a brief presentation of the higher education institutions in the UK, in terms of performance and the indicators used to monitor it.

Who

The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) – a private limited company which has formal agreements with government departments to provide the data which they require, and it is funded by subscription from all of the universities and higher education colleges throughout the United Kingdom.

Why

To provide reliable information on the nature and performance of the higher education sector in the UK and a consistent set of measures of this performance.

To contribute to a greater public accountability by the sector, as well as ensure that policy decisions can be made on the basis of consistent and reliable information.

How

Following the recommendations of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education, the Government asked the funding councils to develop suitable indicators and benchmarks of performance in the higher education sector. The Performance Indicators Steering Group (PISG) was established, with membership drawn from government departments, the funding councils and representative bodies. Since 2002/03, HESA has published the Performance Indicators on behalf of Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) who published them previously.

Results

The set of Performance Indicators (PIs) was published in April 2010, by HESA is the twelfth in the series. The indicators are used for all publicly funded higher education institutions in the UK and they currently cover:

  • widening participation indicators
  • non-continuation rates (including projected outcomes)
  • module completion rates
  • research output

Performance indicator example

Source: HESA, 2010

Nationally, over 90% of 17 year-olds in full-time education attend schools or colleges in the state sector. 88.5% of young entrants to full-time first degree courses in 2008/09 had attended such schools, Chart 1 bellow shows the pattern.  (HESA, 2010)

Source: HESA, 2010

Reference

HESA 2010, “ Performance indicators in higher education in the UK 2008/2009”, available at http://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php/content/view/1703/141/ (accessed 25 April 2010)

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Performance Management case study: Ford Pinto – business ethics and performance measurement

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

smartKPIs.com Performance Architect update 17/2010

Company

Ford Motor Company

Setting

In late 1960s, Ford was facing increasing competition from domestic carmakers and Japanese imports.

Mandate

In June 1967 Ford started planning a new model that would outdo the competition. Lee Iaccoca, Vice-President and head of production at the time championed the project that was meant to deliver what was nicknamed “Lee’s car”. lee formulated a set of performance indicators with specific targets to define the parameters of the new product: “The Pinto was not to weigh an ounce over 2,000 pounds and not cost a cent over $2,000″ (Dowie, 1977).

Approval process

  • December1968 – Project “Phoenix” obtained the approval of Ford’s Product Planning Committee for Pinto’s basic design concept (Schwartz, 1991)
  • January 1969 – Ford’s Board of Directors, chaired by Henry Ford II gave his approval for Ford’s first domestic sub-compact: Ford Pinto. (Schwartz, 1991, Consumer Guide Auto, 2010a)

Performance indicators

The product objectives were listed in Pinto’s “Green book”, “a manual in green covers containing a step-by-step production plan for the model, detailing the metallurgy, weight, strength and quality of every part in the car” (Dowie, 1977).

1. True subcompact

• Size

• Weight

2. Low cost of ownership

• Initial price

• Fuel consumption

• Reliability

• Serviceability

3. Clear product superiority

• Appearance

• Comfort

• Features

• Ride and Handling

• Performance

Targets

The main targets were (Dowie, 1977):

# Weight of the car – Target: under 2000 lb (907kg)

$ Cost – Target: under $2,000.

# Time from conception to production – Target: 25 months (At almost half of the average of 43 months, this was estimated at the time to be the shortest production planning period in modern automotive history).

Results

The achievement of the main targets was as follows (Consumer Guide Auto, 2010):

# Weight – Actual: 1,949 lb (884kg)

$ Cost – Actual: $1,919

# Time from conception to production – Actual: less than 20, as it was launched on 11 September 1970 and the first delivery took place on 13 September 1970

Major design problem

At rear-end collisions of over 30 miles/hour (48km/hour), the rear-end of the car would buckle and the fuel-tank would break and burst into flames. Ford did 11 rear-end crash tests, averaging a 31-mph impact speed, before Pintos went on sale. Some records reveal that rear-end collision tests on the Pinto in took place in December 1970, months after it was already in production (Consumer Guide Auto, 2010). Regardless of the date, out of the 11 tests at 31 miles/hour, only three cars passed the test with unbroken fuel tanks.

Explored solutions

Option 1

Replace the fuel tank with the one used in Ford Capri. It would have been located over the rear axle and differential housing, with much better protection from rear-end impacts.

Decision: Option disregarded due to the impact on trunk space.

During the analysis process a Ford engineer stated: “But you miss the point entirely. You see, safety isn’t the issue, trunk space is. You have no idea how stiff the competition is over trunk space. Do you realize that if we put a Capri-type tank in the Pinto you could only get one set of golf clubs in the trunk?” (Dowie, 1977).

Options 2-4

Three alternative solutions analyzed pre and post production (Consumer Guide Auto, 2010)

• A plastic insulator fitted on the differential that would keep the bolts from ever making contact with the fuel tank. Cost of this item was less than $1.

• The use of a rubber bladder/liner produced by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, at a unit cost of $5.08 per car.

• An extra steel plate attached to the rear of the car just behind the bumper, at a unit cost of up to $11 per car to install.

Decision: Options disregarded due to the impact on costs.

A cost-benefit analysis was conducted to determine the costs associated with implementing such solutions versus the benefits generated by avoiding possible lawsuits resulting from accidents where the gas tank position played a role in injuries or fatalities.

The Pinto went on sale without the gas tank issue being addressed and however meeting all the targets outlined in the “Green book”.

Financial and market outcomes for Ford

  • The first domestically produced Ford passenger car with a four-cylinder engine since 1934.
  • The segment market share of imports was reduced from 15.2 % in 1971 to 14.8% in 1972
  • Made an important impact on Ford’s profits during the 1974 OPEC oil embargo. As the most fuel efficient model Ford produced at the time more Pintos were built (544,209) than the sales for full-sized models taken altogether (461,000) (Consumer Guide Auto, 2010b)
  • 2,924,773 Pintos built between 1971-1980

Reputation and ethical outcomes

  • 500 burn fatalities of people who would not have been seriously injured if the car had not burst into flames (Dowie, 1977). National Highway Safety Administration records place this figure at 27 fatalities (Schwartz, 1991).
  • In September 1978, Ford issued a recall for 1.5 million 1971-76 Pinto sedans and Runabouts, making it the largest recall in the industry up to that time.
  • Millions of dollars in lawsuits were filed and won against the automaker, including the largest personal injury judgment ever.
  • In the 1979 landmark case State of Indiana v. Ford Motor Co., Ford notoriously became the first American corporation ever indicted or prosecuted on criminal homicide charges. Ford was found not guilty in March 1980 (Schwartz, 1991).

Other outcomes

1970 – Lee Iacocca, the “father” of the Pinto became President of Ford Motor Company

1977 – “Pinto Madness”, an article revealing the story behind the Pinto to the public was published by the Mother Jones magazine. It went on to win a Pulitzer Prize.

1978 – Lee Iacocca was fired by Ford Motor Company. His relationship with Henry Ford II, chairman of the board and chief executive officer (CEO), became tensed as a result of the Pinto scandal.

1979 – Chrysler Corporation recruited Lee Iacocca as their President and CEO, where he served until his retirement in 1992.

1991 – “The myth of the Ford Pinto’s case”, an article revealing some of the inaccuracies in the Pinto scandal was published by the Rutgers Law Review. It concludes with: “If the Ford Pinto case did not exist, law professors would need to invent it: for the case raises essential issues about both the form and the substance of modern products liability doctrine” (Schwartz, 1991).

From a Performance Management point of view the set targets were met and the desired financial outcomes were realized. However this case raises questions regarding both ethics, risk management and the purpose of using objectives and targets.

Stay smart! Enjoy smartKPIs.com!

Aurel Brudan

Performance Architect,
www.smartKPIs.com


References

Dowie, M 1977, Pinto Madness, Mother Jones, September / October issue

Schwartz, G 1991, The myth of the Ford Pinto case, Rutgers Law Review, Vol. 43, Issue No. 1013

Consumer Guide Auto, 2010, 1971-1980 Ford Pinto Available at: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1971-1980-ford-pinto.htm, accessed on 3 May 2010.


Discuss the case in the smartKPIs.com Forum

This Performance Management Case Study is now available in the smartKPIs.com Forum. It also includes:

  • additional details
  • links to resources
  • questions on lessons learned
  • a poll regarding the use of safety KPIs

To access these resources and contribute  to the discussion by the  you are invited to join the smartKPIs.com Forum. Members of the smartKPIs.com Performance Management community can log in to the forum using their registration details. New members are invited to join (for free) the smartKPIs.com community.

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The Top Ten Undergraduate Business Programs in the U.S.A. – A Bloomberg BusinessWeek Ranking Survey

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

In 2005 Bloomberg BusinessWeek launched a ranking survey for the best Business Undergraduate Schools in the United States. For this purpose  an academic quality ranking was build based on nine measures:

• $ Median starting salaries for graduates

• # Alumni each program sends to MBA programs

• # Average SAT scores

• # Student faculty ratio

• # Class size

• % Students with internships

• # Hours students devote to classwork

• # Senior business majors

• # Corporate recruiters

The results of the 2010 survey were made public at the beginning of March  and present a complete changed ranking classification for the “Top Ten Undergraduate Business Programs in the United States” compared with the results from 2009.

Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek, 2010

As presented in the report, one of the major challenges for the Business Schools across United States in 2010, was how to find the best methods to fight recession in order to support and secure a high employment rate for their seniors majoring in business.

This issue comes in the context in which only 38% of the students majoring in business, who responded in the 2010 survey, admitted that they received a job offer, compared to 46% in 2009 and  56% in 2008.

Schools which got involved the most in supporting their graduating students and came with the most consistent and innovative programs and methods were the winners in 2010, being positioned high in the survey rankings.

A detailed analysis of this subject was conducted in the article “The best B-Schools vs. the Recession” available online at businessweek.com.

Additionally, smartkpis.com provides its users with a comprehensive library of Academic Education KPIs in practice, which show  how universities from around the world monitor their performance.

Resources:

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Monitoring ethnic representation in UK universities

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

Recently launched report ‘Race into Higher Education’ presents a comprehensive review of current ethnic minorities in higher education. Based on detailed analysis of both the Office of National Statistics’ Labour Force Survey and the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s ‘HESA Student Record’, the report offers a support for  the Government policy makers, university boards and UK industry, to see how the current ethnically diverse generation will affect tomorrow’s  workforce.

According to the report, ethnic minority groups are better represented in UK universities than in the general population. Almost one in six (16.0%) of UK university students are from a Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) background. This is up from 8.3% in 1995-96, the year in which Business in the Community founded Race for Opportunity. This increase is virtually in line with the growth in the BAME population from 7.7% of 18 to 24 year olds in 1995-96 up to 14% in 2007-08. (Business in the Community, 2010)

Source: Business in the Community, 2010

British Indians continue to be the best represented ethnic minority group within UK universities in 2007-08 (3.3%) as they were in 1995-96 (2.1%). They were followed by Black or Black British Africans (3.2%) who have almost tripled their university presence in the last 12 years, and finally, mixed ethnicity students constituted 2.1% of the university population. (Business in the Community, 2010)

The “Race into Higher Education” report  presents the UK’s elite universities, regarding the students from ethnic minorities:Source: Business in the Community, 2010

Oxford and Cambridge recruit fewer ethnic minority students than the average for all other universities. However, the situation is different from one ethnic minority group to another.

The main performance indicator used within this report is % Ethnic minority students.

The report is available free of charge at: http://www.bitc.org.uk/workplace/diversity_and_inclusion/race/hesa_report.html

Additional resource:

smartKPIs.com (2010), “KPI examples for the Academic Education”, available at http://www.smartkpis.com/kpi/industries/education-training/academic-education/ (accessed 15 April 2010)

Reference:

Business in the Community (2010), “Race into Higher Education”, UK

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Monitoring ethnic minorities employment after graduation

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Employment rate of  British students after graduation is another topic analyzed in the ‘Race into Higher Education’ report, which was mentioned also in a previous blog post.

The numbers presented in the report show that ethnic minorities are less likely to find employment after graduation, than their white counterparts: 56.3% of ethnic minority students who graduated in 2007-08 found work within a year, compared with 66% of white students. Both White and ethnic minority females are ahead of males in employment success by around four percentage points each. (Business in the Community, 2010)

Source: Business in the Community, 2010

According to Sandra Kerr, national campaign director at Race for Opportunity, “…only if more school leavers from ethnic minority backgrounds study at Oxford, Cambridge and other high achieving universities are we likely to see British ethnic minorities progress into senior management and key leadership positions.“(Business in the Community, 2010)

In order to support the increase in Higher Education for ethnic minorities and their chances to employment after graduation, the “Race into Higher Education” report makes the following recommendations:

  • British universities should monitor, report and improve on ethnic minority representation.
  • Increase awareness amongst ethnic minority school pupils of the importance of university choice.

The main performance indicators to support and monitor these initiatives are:

The report  is available free of charge at: http://www.bitc.org.uk/workplace/diversity_and_inclusion/race/hesa_report.html

Additional resource:

smartKPIs.com (2010), “KPI examples for the Academic Education”, available at http://www.smartkpis.com/kpi/industries/education-training/academic-education/ (accessed 15 April 2010)

Reference:

Business in the Community (2010), “Race into Higher Education”, UK

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The importance of learning from practice

Saturday, April 24th, 2010

smartKPIs.com Performance Architect update 16/2010

DuPont, Toyota, Xerox, Analog Devices, Motorola…

What do they have in common?

Abstract reasoning and introspection enabled humans to advance scientific knowledge at an ever accelerating rate over the last 2500 years. As opposed to other natural sciences such as physics and chemistry, human organization or administration is more loosely defined, some considering it a science and others an art. However, both proponents of management as a science and as an art agree on its ultimate function – the one of getting things done or accomplishing desired goals.

While administrative science is one of the oldest fields of human inquiry, it is still behind in terms of maturity and impact, especially when compared to other fields. Scientific management is less than 100 years old and reporting the level of advancement in this field to others, one might consider it as being in its embryonic stage. It is ironic, as it is perhaps one of the most important aspects of human life – how as people on Earth we organize ourselves to live harmoniously and keep a balance between so many conflicting forces and priorities at so many levels.

So what can be done to accelerate the progress of administrative science, better known in practice as management, at both theoretical and practical level?

While there are many avenues to be explored, one of them is simple and with a considerable impact on both short and long term: Learning from practice.

Over time, administrative science has been driven by 3 main categories of contributors:

  • Academics – researchers employing rigorous academic research methods.
  • Consultants – commercial entities providing expert advice to challenges faced by practitioners.
  • Practitioners – business professionals that apply in practice principles of management to achieve desired results.

A key ingredient for speedy progress in management is cross-polenisation of ideas. That is exchanging opinions, learning and trying new approaches and sharing results, to contribute collaboratively to the body of knowledge. However, each of the three categories of contributors has certain limitations in terms of their contribution to this process:

  • Academics – sound academic research is slow and faces many challenges in terms of data availability and quality.
  • Consultants – as profit oriented businesses, generally the main purpose is profit generation by deploying services. The emphasis on Research and Development in management consulting organizations is inconsistent. Even when it is actively pursued, results are often influenced by marketing and revenue imperatives.
  • Practitioners – due to the ever-increasing demands of today’s fast-paced business environments, many of them have difficulties keeping up to date with professional development. Allocating time to activities such as research, documenting and sharing findings or even sharing opinions is mostly an exception rather than a rule.

For things to change, each of contributors from each of these categories needs to put more efforts both individually and collectively. Ultimately the most important category is the one formed by practitioners.

They spend most of their time in organizations that can be considered virtual laboratories for the administrative science.

They offer opportunities to change, experiment and innovate at a scale unmatched by both academics and consultant altogether.

This is one of the reasons why practitioners are key to the progress of administrative science. They are close to the data, can make decisions and have an unbiased position towards results as they are impacted by them anyway.

Both academics and practitioner have a key supporting role in this process. They can offer guidance and facilitate the cross-polenisation of ideas. The voice of practitioners needs to be heard more often: at conferences, on discussion forums, in academic and business publications and in businesses.

Successes from the past illustrate that, the contribution of practitioners to administrative science is the key driver of innovation in this field.

DuPont Analysis, Toyota Production System, Benchmarking, Balanced Scorecard and Six Sigma…

What do they have in common?

These concepts emerged from practice, championed in the companies nominated in the first question of this post. They were not concocted by consultants or academics in research laboratories.

Indeed, furthering the knowledge and application of such concepts in practice can’t be achieved without the support of the management consulting industry and academic institutions. They have done a rather good job so far.

However, listening to the voice of practitioners and learning from practice is something that we haven’t yet improved considerably. This is a condition that has to be met before the administrative science process of maturing is to accelerate dramatically.

Stay smart! Enjoy smartKPIs.com!

Aurel Brudan

Performance Architect,
www.smartKPIs.com


Relevant links

http://www2.dupont.com/Heritage/en_US/related_topics/donaldson_brown.html

http://www2.toyota.co.jp/en/vision/production_system/

http://hbr.org/1987/01/how-to-measure-yourself-against-the-best/ar/1

http://www.managerialaccounting.org/Balanced%20Scorecard.htm

http://www.motorola.com/Business/US-EN/Motorola+University/About

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Performance Management matters – PricewaterhouseCoopers reports on Performance Management in the global economy

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) conducted during 2008-2009 an exhaustive research regarding the importance of performance management in the context of a globalized economy. The research was lead by PwC Canada, in partnership with several academic and research institutions from Canada, Switzerland and Australia.

The methodology consisted of two stages: an online survey to more than 400 senior managers in both private and public sectors, followed by 12 in-depth interviews aiming to investigate several issues in a more complex perspective.

The purpose of the research was to provide answers to several core questions (PwC, 2009):

  • Do effective Performance Management practices contribute to driving superior performance?
  • Are these contributions the same in downturns as in good times?
  • Is performance management standardized or does it have to be customized for particular needs of organizations of different sizes and in different industries?

Source: PwC, 2009

Some of the most representative findings, were (PwC, 2009):

  • The identification of seven best practices that drive high performance and superior results, among which:
  1. having a holistic, broad approach (high performers focus on broad issues, such as brand loyalty, employee satisfaction, service quality, aspects that can create competitive advantage);
  2. creating linkages, alignment and integration of the measures to the key business drivers and cascading accountability at all organizational levels;
  3. adopting high value planning practices, such as vision, mission and value statements and environmental and social responsibility plans;
  4. developing advanced technology such as dashboards and business intelligence tools to complete the spreadsheets that are still predominant across respondents.
  • Performance management practices are equally essential in both recession and growth periods. As one argument, the interviews revealed that organizations with strong performance management programs can better manage costs strategically and, if the case, make difficult decisions in ways that minimize impact on the long-term.
  • Performance management in the public sector is not as different from the private sector as it might be believed. It was concluded that high performing public organizations are the ones that employ practices also identified in high performance private entities, such as linkage and alignment to strategy, use of advanced technology and use of value planning practices in the shape of vision, mission or values.

Canada was given a particular attention, being under the loop for comparison to the rest of the world. The finding was that Canadian organizations employ less robust performance management practices, but are better at overcoming potential barriers.

For complete overview of the research, please follow: http://www.pwc.com/ca/en/finance/performance-management/global-performance-management-research-study.jhtml

You can register for a full version of the report or directly download an executive summary.

Reference:

PricewaterhouseCoopers (2009), Performance management matters. Sustaining superior results in a global economy, CA.

The research was lead by PwC Canada, in partnership with several academic and research institutions from Canada, Switzerland and Australia. The methodology consisted of two stages: an online survey to more than 400 senior managers in both private and public sectors, followed by 12 in-depth interviews aiming to investigate several issues in a more complex perspective.

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Guerrilla Marketing Metrics – Discovery Channel Shark Week 2009

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010
  • # Pageviews (By the end of Shark Week): more than 630.000
  • # Unique visitors (By the end of Shark Week): 551.500
  • # Pageviews (after two weeks): 1.114.384
  • # Unique visitors (after two weeks): 900.000
  • # Visitors from target market (Australia and New Zealand): more than 450.000
  • % Increase in average weekly reach for the target TV timeslot: 15%
  • $ Seeding dollars spent: 0 (zero)

Relevant link: http://www.australiancoastalwatch.com.au

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Performance Management / Measurement Jobs: Corporate Performance Management Principal Consultants required

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

The job following job ad was advertised on 14 April 2010 by Informatiq Consulting Ltd., a UK based recruiting agency:

Applications can be submitted online following this link.

Job title: Corporate Performance Management Principal Consultants
Job ref: MH41807
Job description: Leading Performance Improvement practice urgently seeks Corporate Performance Management (CPM) specialists to further develop their prestigious Big 4 Consulting offering.

This is an unprecedented opportunity to join a fast moving, dynamic and growing professional services consultancy. As a talented Financial BI Consultant you will be educated to degree level (ideally with additional ACA / CIMA / ACCA / MBA qualifications) and have a proven track record of defining, designing and delivering CPM, Shared Services/BPO or Corporate Treasury solutions.

Comfortable advising key stakeholders to CXO level you will have detailed experience leading projects in one or more of the following areas: Budgeting and Forecasting, Consolidation, Management Reporting or KPI/Balanced Scorecard.

Critically you will offer expert knowledge current CPM tool sets be that: Oracle Hyperion Financial Management (HFM, Hyperion Planning, Essbase, Hyperion System 9), Oracle OBIEE or SAP BPC (Outlooksoft). In summary, you will require full-life-cycle CPM experience from initial business development and pre-bid advice through to implementation and delivery.

This exciting opportunity provides the perfect platform to develop a management consulting career across performance management strategy, process improvement or CPM implementation.

Therefore if you have the skills and ability to make a difference why wait, apply by sending your CV to malcolm_h@informatiq.co.uk today!
Location: London or Birmingham base
Region: London
Country: United Kingdom
Type: Permanent
Hours: Full-Time
Salary: £60-85,000 + bens + bonus
Application deadline: ASAP
Start date: TBD
Company name: Informatiq Consulting Ltd.
Contact name: Malcolm House
Phone: 01923 224481
Fax: 01923 224493
Visit the website: http://www.informatiq.co.uk
http://www.informatiq.co.uk/

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Assessing organizational performance management capability – The Performance Management Maturity Model

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

A model is a simplified representation of the world. According with The American Heritage Dictionary (2001), a model can have multiple significations, one of the most used  being “a schematic description of a system, theory, or phenomenon, that accounts for its known or inferred properties and may be used for further study of its characteristics”.

In line with this definition, a maturity model is a process that describes the development of an entity over time and has the following characteristics:

• The development process is described by using a limited number of levels

• Each level is characterized by specific requirements, which must be achieved in order to pass to the next level

• Levels are sequentially ordered, from an initial level up to an ending level, and

• The development process requires a progress from one level to the next one, no levels being allowed to be left out (Klimko, 2001)

One of the most popular examples of a maturity model is the Maslow Pyramid. Maslow (1943) suggested that there is a hierarchy of human needs starting from physiological needs up to the self actualization needs, and that during the progress through the hierarchy, ideally all the levels must be achieved by individuals. However, similar adapted patterns can be applied in order to assess the development stages of almost every entity, no matter of its nature or form. Such an entity could be today’s modern organization.

Over the last decades, management models designed to assess performance and identify different opportunities for improvement have began to be identified by the organizations as important strategic tools for building capabilities and achieve competitive advantages. In line with these developments, the specialists from the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), UK (2008) consider that maturity models, in particular, have become essential tools in assessing organizations’ current capabilities which help in their processes to implement change and improvements in a structured way. According to OGC, there are a number of reasons why organization might choose to use a maturity model in order to assess their current capabilities, such as:

Source: Adapted  from P3M3 (2008), draft paper

The model proposed below is a Maturity Model for Performance Management and is the result of an academic research project using three data sources:

  • review of specialized literature in performance management and measurement,
  • review of highly acknowledged maturity models, and
  • insights from performance management practitioners.

The proposed model is built on seven dimensions each describing an important characteristic of a Performance Management System:

Source: Adrian Brudan, 2009

The Performance Management Maturity Model uses a five level maturity framework which is adapted from The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI, 2001) and Portfolio, Programme and Project Management Maturity Model (P3M3 Models, 2008). Thus, organizations can assess the maturity level of their performance management practices in each of the seven dimensions of the model against the 5 maturity levels  identified and described below.

Source: Adrian Brudan, 2009

Source: Adrian Brudan, 2009

The model presented above represents a new tool that organizations can employ for assessing the maturity of  their performance management capability. For more details about how such a model can generate value in an organizational context, contact eab group.

References:

  • Adrian Brudan (2009) - “Performance Management Maturity Level in  Business Organizations“, Master thesis, Arhus School of Business, Denmark
  • Klimko, G. (2001) – Working paper. Knowledge management and maturity models. Building common understanding. Second European Conference of Knowledge Management, pp 269-278
  • Maslow, A (1943) – A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, Vol. 50, pp 370-396
  • P3M3 – Portfolio, Programme and Project Management Maturity Model (2008) – Pubic Consultation Draft, Office of Government Commerce, available at www.p3m3-officialsite.com (accessed 16 April, 2010)
  • SEI -Capability Maturity Model Integration -CMMI- (2001) – Carnegie Mellon University, Software Engineering Institute, available at www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi (accessed 16 April, 2010)
  • The American Heritage Dictionary (2001), 4th Edition, American Heritage Publishing Company

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BARC research study: Performance Management – Current Challenges and Future Directions

Monday, April 19th, 2010

Between March and May 2009, Business Application Research Center (BARC) an unbiased market analyst based in Germany, conducted a study regarding the maturity of organisational Performance Management processes. The study had 553 respondents from around the world, across a wide range industries, countries and organizations.

The topics addressed by this study are related to performance management maturity in terms of current challenges, future improvement priorities, the status of processes and their integration levels in the organizations.

 

Five processes that support the performance management of organizations were explored in detail (BARC, 2010):

  1. Planning, budgeting and forecasting
  2. Legal/financial consolidation and financial reporting
  3. Other reporting
  4. Compliance and risk management
  5. Strategy management

 

Some of the main conclusions of this study are:

  • Business processes are highly accelerated (faster reporting, shorter planning cycles, fast close)
  • A major integration priority is the better linkage between strategy management and other performance management processes
  • More people are involved and an increasing number of tools is used in performance management, this making the processes more complex
  • Increasing speed and improvement of performance management processes will be a focus for the future

Source: Business Application Research Center, 2010

“When asked which goals are pursued in the initiatives to improve Performance Management processes improving data quality, implementing the corporate strategy and reducing the complexity of the process were ranked as the top three.” (Bange et al., 2009)

The study is available free of charge at: http://www.tagetik.com/downloads/reseach-reports/performance-management-current-challenges-future-directions-barc

 

References

Bange, A., Bange, C.  and Marr, B., 2009, “Performance Management – Current Challenges and Future Directions“, working paper, Business Application Research Center, July

BARC, 2010, Performance Managment Survey, available online at http://www.barc.de/en/marktforschung/performance-mangement-survey.html (accessed on 10 April, 2010)

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$99 USD
 
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$289 USD
 
[no image]
$99 USD
 
[no image]
$99 USD