Guest Blogs

Welcome to the guest blog section.  All individuals are invited to submit an entries to smithk@willamette.edu

Our first guest blog is from Phil Harpster of the Department of Administrative Services for the State of Oregon.

Getting Started in Performance Management

I recently attended a performance measurement and management daylong seminar at Willamette University. I didn’t know what I was getting into for the day. Is another TQM or Six Sigma program? Is it an auditing system? As we went through the learning objectives for the day, I began understanding just what I had signed up to learn more about.

According to Wikipedia: “Performance management is the process of assessing progress toward achieving predetermined goals”.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_management) This is certainly a concise definition in and of itself and it sounds simple enough. However, this notion of measuring and managing performance in any organization be it public or private sector, or within the non-profit realm is a comprehensive effort that requires several discrete components executed well in order to be successful.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that this is a large field; a query of “Performance Management” through Google.com will elicit over 73 million hits for the topic. Just a 15 minute session exploring the myriad of consultants, white papers, articles, and other information through these links can have quite the dizzying affect on the rookie (such as myself) performance management student.

Where to begin? Diving straight into the world of performance management is a dangerous thing; a thoughtful approach to the journey is necessary. The following is what I am doing to fully explore the science, its major players, and its benefit to the business I am in.

1)      Explore

a.       Do the Google search for “Performance Management” and try to understand the rudimentary components of the field. Start to learn the language and discover the landscape.

2)      Connect

a.       Connect and network with people that are involved in this world. Talk to academia, business, and public sector people about their performance management system. Discuss benefits, pitfalls, success stories.

3)      Align

a.       Think about how performance management techniques, at least at an elementary level, can positively impact your business or personal life. Business units, projects, and departments are but a few examples of systems that can benefit from performance management.

4)      Outline

a.       What am I measuring today (if anything)?

                                                               i.      Is it satisfying a specific need?

                                                             ii.      Can we make any decisions from the measurement results?

                                                            iii.      Do we make any decisions from the measurement results?

b.      To what end do we need to measure?

                                                               i.      Are we generating reporting metrics to generate beautiful charts for senior management or are we looking at performance with the specific intent of changing the system to improve it?   

5)      Grow

a.       Asking some of the questions in #4 above will inevitably generate dialogue in the organization. Foster that dialogue, get excited about the discussion, and nurture it into an organic concept for your group.

6)      Subscribe

a.       Get a free RSS Reader (http://www.rssreader.com, http://www.yeahreader.com) and stay involved with this blog. I use YeahReader and am very satisfied with usability and performance. 

For the novice in the world of performance management, this is how I have started my journey and I hope to see many of you there with me.

Comments

[Ryan Bushek]

Phil,
As a fellow newcomer to the world of performance measurement, I applaud your effort to explore the subject in greater detail! I agree that the most important factor in developing any performance metric is relevance, and I think you are on the right track using the outlining technique to test the usefulness of any proposed measure. I also think that continued discussion among practitioners is and will continue to the most effective way to share and develop best practices for performance targeting, measurement, and reporting. Looking forward to keeping up with the discussion in the months ahead!
All the best,
Ryan

[Phil Harpster]

Thank you for the encouraging words Ryan! I look forward also to furthering our dialogue about this most interesting topic in the business world.