Identify the Measures First

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

Albert Einstein
Awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics, named Time’s Man of the Century in 1999, and best known for his conception of the theories of special and general relativity

Organizations today seem to have a never ending supply of performance measures. Our data rich environment feeds the need of many managers to have all things counted. Yet as Albert Einstein suggests, not everything that can be counted matters. And just because something is counted doesn’t make it important. Thus, not everything that is measurable should be assigned its own performance indicator; rather only those things that are truly important, whether currently counted or not, should be measured. The identification of performance measures should therefore start with the identification of the key factors critical to the organization’s success.

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Additional Information

The following StrategyDriven articles and whitepapers provide additional information on the identification of those performance measures important to the organization’s ongoing success:

Articles

• The New Thinking on KPIs, part 1 of 4 by David Parmenter
• The New Thinking on KPIs, part 2 of 4 by David Parmenter
• The New Thinking on KPIs, part 3 of 4 by David Parmenter
• The New Thinking on KPIs, part 4 of 4 by David Parmenter

StrategyDriven Podcast – Special Edition

• An Interview with David Parmenter, author of Key Performance Indicators, part 1 of 2
• An Interview with David Parmenter, author of Key Performance Indicators, part 2 of 2

Whitepaper

• Selection

Resource – Book

• Strategy Maps by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton