WHAT IS A KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATOR (KPI)?
A key performance indicator (KPI) is a metric that helps you understand how you are doing against your objectives.
A KPI ultimately provides focus for a business or team. Through having them you can unite a team towards achieving a common objective which will help the business succeed.
They also allow a business or team to track performance against their overall objectives. This means that if things aren’t going well you can quickly take corrective action. Similarly, by tracking KPIs you also easily spot any opportunities to seize which will accelerate your trajectory towards hitting goals.
It’s important not to have too many KPIs as this dilutes focus for your business on the actions that are going to drive success. Having one KPI that’s important for the whole business to work towards can unite everyone to have the same focus. However, there’s likely to be other departmental and individual KPIs which influence that one KPI that matters for the whole business. Also, supporting metrics are worth keeping an eye on to ensure you’re achieving your KPIs in a sensible way, which is sustainable for the business. Just ensure that there aren’t so many KPIs that the Key in KPI is redundant and focus dilutes.