Previous Next

Kieran Forde

	Category	Location	Job title
	Practitioner	Saudi Arabia	Strategy Manager

	Functional Areas	Industry	Industry sub-categories
	Portfolio and Project Management	Agriculture	Crops

1. Explain performance management by using a metaphor, comparing it to something in everyday life or an abstract concept:
If I want to pilot an airplane from Riyadh to London in the shortest and most cost-effective way possible, I have to make choices as to the best way to achieve this. Accordingly I have to set suitable and appropriate measures that will tell if I am achieving my aim in terms of time and cost. My measures could include cruising speed (target of 900km / hr), fuel consumption (10 ltr / 100 km), path deviation < 5% etc), and to achieve these I would need to ensure that I have the right qualifications and years of experience, and a suitably modern aircraft on which to fly.

2. 2010 was the international year of biodiversity. What living organism best represents the term performance?
The dairy cow, because it is set objectives for milk yield; it has to be able to deliver this yield (right breed); it has to produce the milk (and the offspring to be able to continue production); it has to have the right resources (suitable forage and feed) ---- all these are critical for performance.

3. What would you recommend as best practice in performance management?
Focus on the critically important measures for the business. Don't dwell on measures that simply reinforce organizational silos.

4. What aspects of performance management should be explored more through research?
Broaden the classic 4-perspective model of financial / customer / internal process / learning & growth to incorporate also "output" perspective, "outcome" perspective.

5. Share a short story about the use of performance management concepts in practice (experienced, witnessed or read by you).
We're just at the stage of developing our BSC Output report, so I'm not able yet to answer this question.