#50 Six Performance Measure Facilitator Attributes

Over the last 5 or so years, there seems to be an ever-increasing number of organisations that are creating a new role in the corporate office: the Performance Measurement Officer. Actually, the title of this role varies from organisation to organisation, and where exactly in the organisation structure that role is placed also varies.

Titles for performance measure facilitator positions have included Performance Measurement Officer, Performance Measurement Director, Manager Performance Measurement, Corporate Planning and Performance Reporting Officer, Corporate Performance Management Coordinator and Manager Planning and Performance.

Most often the person in this role of performance measure facilitator will be associated with the corporate planning team, but they are also associated sometimes with the information services team or even somewhere in the human resources department.

The one thing that is consistent, however, is the thing this person is responsible for: to facilitate the design, reporting and use of performance information in decision making about organisational results and improvement, usually across the entire organisation. This calls for some very specific attributes, and the following six should be considered the bare minimum.

attribute #1: intimate understanding of the organisational planning process

Without a very detailed understanding of how the organisation does its strategic planning, and cascades this strategic direction down into tactical and operational plans, the performance measure facilitator will struggle to assist managers and teams to focus on measuring what matters most. Knowing how to integrate performance measurement with the planning process ensures everyone is measuring the results that will most likely lead to the organisation fulfilling its strategic direction and achieving its vision.

attribute #2: a working knowledge of several performance measurement frameworks

If a performance measure facilitator can only claim knowledge of the Balanced Scorecard, then the organisation faces the risk of having its strategy too quickly packaged into a model that may not be the most appropriate. They need know how to apply a range of frameworks (e.g. the Performance Prism, Triple or Quadruple Bottom Line, Six Sigma Business Scorecard, EFQM or ABEF or Baldrige models) to assist managers and teams to decide what types of things to design measures for.

attribute #3: experience with at least one performance measure implementation process

There are far more performance measurement frameworks out there than performance measure implementation methodologies (e.g. six sigma and PuMP)! A performance measure facilitator that is worth their salt will have experienced at least one step-by-step process for designing and implementing measures, and will be on the lookout continuously to find emerging methodologies or to continue to develop and fine tune one that works for the organisation.

attribute #4: basic quantitative skills for creating and reporting performance measures

While they certainly don't have to be a statistician, the performance measure facilitator does need to be comfortable and capable to design simple data collection processes, manipulate and prepare data for analysis, perform simple analysis calculations (such as percentages, averages, ratios, standard deviations), choose and format charts that clearly announce the true signals in the data, and validly interpret those signals.

attribute #5: change management skills that are second-nature

Performance measurement is not usually fun and enticing, and it is usually threatening and hard work. The successful performance measure facilitator will know this, and will be so well equipped with at least some basic change management techniques that they find it almost second nature to establish the support of leaders, encourage ownership and buy-in, make the reason for change clear and communicate very well to all kinds of people.

attribute #6: intermediate project management skills

Often the performance measure facilitator is running several areas of the organisation through the performance measurement process at any one time. And especially when they don't have a large enough team to meet the demand for performance measures throughout their organisation, very strong project management skills can keep them focused on the priorities and keep everything else as organised as possible.