Blog Writing Assignment: Detailed Analysis of Performance Measurement

This report analyzes a blog post that delves into the multifaceted concept of performance measurement. The blog post defines performance measurement as the evaluation of results and outcomes to generate reliable data on program efficiency and effectiveness. It explores various aspects such as the use of resources, including time, human resources, and funding, to conduct activities and provide services. The post highlights the importance of aligning performance measures with business strategies, corporate culture, and structures. It discusses key performance indicators, balanced scorecards, and the different types of performance measures including financial, process, consumer, and people measures. The blog post also addresses the reasons for implementing performance measurement, the different types of performance measures, and challenges companies face. It covers entities that use performance measurement, characteristics of good performance measures, and how to design an effective performance measurement system. Finally, the post examines how to narrow down potential performance measures and the importance of tracking performance measurement use.

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Blog Writing: PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT

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What is PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT?
3rd August, 2019
Performance measurement is mainly regarded as the day-to-day measurement of the results as
well as outcomes, which in return produces trustworthy data on the efficiency and
effectiveness of the programs. Besides, there are some of the resources such as time of the
workers, human resources and funding that is used for conducting the activities as well as
providing the services. There are a lot of definitions with regards to the performance
measurement. However, one of the most general definition of the performance measurement
is that it is mainly connected with a kind of measurement in terms of performance there is
only little consensus about how performance measures can be used or defined. Some of the
simplest frameworks that are used by the companies for measuring the performance are the
key performance indicator and the balanced scorecard.
The performance measurement can be mainly understood via considering the definitions of
the words such as ‘measurement’ and ‘performance’ as per to the Baldrige criteria.
Measurement is mainly the numerical information that tends to quantify the output, input
along with the performance dimensions of products, processes, services as well as the entire
company. Furthermore, the measures of the performance can either be composite or even
simple. On the other hand, performance is regarded as the output results and their outcomes
that are gathered from products, processes and the services that tend to permit evaluation and
comparing relative to standards, goals, previous results and other companies. Besides,
performance can be expressed in both non-financial and financial terms. One of the main
challenges that is faced by the companies in the recent times is that how to align and match
performance measures with the strategies of the business, corporate culture, structures, the

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number and type of measures for using, and how to deploy the measures so that the outcomes
can be used.
Performance measurement also deals mainly with the performance measures. Furthermore,
this is also the quantitative measures that tend to put a company into a place for tracking
progress against the strategy. The best performance indicator tends to cover a huge variety of
area such as: Financial measures, process measures, consumer measures and people
measures. This is the measures which will also track a company for achieving their strategy
and accomplishing the strategy in an exceptional manner. Performance measures always
tends to tell an individual where they are at present and the actions they will be going to take
for making some of the enhancements in the results for the rest of the year is also quite vital.
In terms of assessing how well a business of an individual is doing an organization needs to
develop some of the quantifiable measures. This is mainly the measures that will be
identifying some of the aspects of the business processes that need enhancement as well as
those that are working quite well. A company may also use the performance measurement for
evaluating the productivity of the firm over a fixed period of time.

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Reasons for implementing performance measurement
It can be said that no matter what the size of business an individual has they need to strictly
evaluate the processes are effective for guaranteeing the success of the future. Examination
must be done with regards to the main activities of the business and the results that are
generated by them for determining if the business operates at the highest possible levels of
the effectiveness and efficiency. A company must establish particular performance measures
that are connected to the main steps of each and every activity. For measuring the consumer
service the metrics of an organization must include the time taken by it for answering each of
the incoming call, how much time is required for talking with each and every consumer and
the percentage of call that is resolved in a satisfactory manner.
The reasons a company needs to measure the performance management
There a lot of reasons why a company may choose for measuring their performance. Besides,
performance measurement also tends to provide a process that is reliable for determining if
the present system of a company is working well or not. Furthermore, in the recent times,
there is also a demand for demanding transparency along with scrutinizing the business
practices of the company. This is the reasons that promote a company’s use of outcome data
and process as one of the tools for highlighting their performance. There are some of the
reasons why a company chooses for measuring the performance such as: Highlighting that
changes needs for enhancement, making decisions based on the strong evidences, recognizing
enhanced performance, allowing performance comparisons across all of the sites, and
establishing a baseline.
Types of performance measures

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It is also quite useful for categorizing the performance measures for understanding in a better
manner with regards to the processes or systems are measured. Furthermore, a company may
combine various types of measures for providing a completing picture of its underlying
systems. There are 4 types of performance measures:
Process measure- It mainly quantifies a health status patient provided on behalf by a patient
that is completely based on the scientific evidence of effectiveness. Furthermore, it also tends
to quantify a particular system
Balancing measure- it makes sure that the changes for improving one part of the system that
are not the main cause for the new problems in the other parts of the systems. Another part of
the system is also examined for making sure that the enhancements in a single area have no
unexpected results in another
Outcome measure- the health of the patient is mainly quantified that is a result from the
health care. Furthermore, in the clinical segment it also tends to measure the outcome of the
patient so that it can be contrasted to a care standard for example the test value of the patient.
Entities that uses performance measurement
To some extent each and every companies measures the performance. On the contrary, there
is a huge disparity among companies with regards to which of the performance measurement
are used with a lot of them focusing on the financial measures. Performance measurement
can be regarded as one of the most important elements for the excellence in the businesses.
The business excellence model always tends to encourage using the performance measures,
but additionally the design of the performance measurement systems is considered by them
for making sure that the measures are completely aligned to the strategy. There is a new

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report by the Performance Measurement Association on one of the new frameworks of the
performance measurement. Interestingly, the balanced scorecard was highlighted as one of
the most popular of this specific method. Furthermore, most of the firms out of the Fortune
500 companies use this method for the performance measurement.
Common challenges with the performance measurement approach
It has been observed that there are some of the most common challenges of the performance
measurement approach. Below are some of the common features of the performance
measurement systems that are outdated such as: Failure for measuring all the factors that
tends to create some value, measuring innovation in a poor manner, dominant other backward
looking indicators or financial indicator, and immediate or concentration rather than the goals
that are for long-term. On the other hand, there are also some of the challenges faced
regarding designing the performance measurement system that is effective such as: what
measures can be choosen and why? The people responsible for using the results, how to
measure the non-financial performance? And the resources that needs to be considered as
well as deploying the performance measurement system.
There are some of the main requirements that a company needs to consider before designing
an effective performance measurement system. Furthermore, apart from the lower level
measures that may be important for the operation of the processes, all of the measures must
be taken into account for supporting the attainment of the particular performance that the
leaders of the company identified. On the other hand, there are some of the main processes;
core competencies as well as drivers of performance that is required by the employees need
to be identified in a proper manner before the performance management that is effective can
be achieved.
Tracking record of performance measurement use

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It can be said that the performance measurement is the basic towards the development and
improvement of the companies. Furthermore, the importance of performance measurement
has enhanced with the realization that needs to be successful in the long-term needs to meet
each and every needs of the stakeholders that consists of the consumers, local community
stakeholders, suppliers as well as the shareholders. The importance of the performance
measurement cannot be quantified still it is quite evident that the performance measurement
is mainly a requirement for benchmarking and the excellence of business.
The characteristics of the good performance measure
If the performance measure is excellent then they have the following quality in them:
Reliable, relevant, timely, understandable, cost-effective as well as comparable. Besides,
good performance measure has the additional below-mentioned characteristics-
Relevant: The measures that are relevant matters to the intended audience and also
specifically relates towards the activity being measured.
Understandable- The performance measures that are clear, easy and concise are regarded as
excellent.
Reliable- The excellent performance measures have data that are free from any kind of bias,
verifiable, and also a perfect representation of what needs to be done.
Comparable- The performance measures that tends to have enough data for telling if the
performance is getting better, staying the same or if it is worsening. Furthermore, they also
tend to provide the reader with a frame of reference for telling if the present performance
exceeds or meets the performance or not.
Timely- The performance measures that have the availability of the information in a timely
basis for having value when decisions are being made.

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On the other hand, the performance measures must have the following characteristics also
such as: Being feasible, significant, useful and influencing.
Designing the performance measurement system
There are a number of suggestions that can be recommended by the different experts with
regards to designing the performance measurement systems. The measurement of a
company’s performance measures must be the following: Having a clear purpose, providing a
fast feedback, not conflicting with one another, focusing on what is vital for the consumers
The major performance measure types
Input measures- It is the measure of the resources that is used by the process or activity.
Examples- The hours used by employees and dollars spent.
Output measures- the number of units of a service or product generated. Examples- The
eligibility interviews that are being conducted.
Process measures- It mainly tends to describe the business aspects such as processing time,
error rate and etcetera. Example- days for issuing a permit.
Outcome measures- It mainly measures of the main benefits connected with the program or
the service. Example- enhancement of the air quality in some of the areas.
How to narrow down the potential performance measures?
It is quite important for narrowing the list of the performance measures an individual uses to
an important few that really mean something to the audiences that are intended. If the list is
narrowed then it requires some amount of knowledge and judgment about the consumers and
systems of a company. Failure for measuring all the factors that tends to create some value,
measuring innovation in a poor manner, dominant other backward looking indicators or

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financial indicator, and immediate or concentration rather than the goals that are for long-
term.
How many performance measurements an organization must have?
It can be said that there is no such formula or rule that will be determining on how many
performance measures an organization must have. There are a lot of studies that have found
out that tracking a lot of performance measurements at the same time may create employees
and managers for losing their sight of which ones mainly directly contributes directly to the
strategic objectives. An organization must keep the following things in mind when they are
thinking about the number of measures for engaging: If an organization has a single
performance measure then it quite be quite same of driving a car with an individual gas
gauge, performance measures also tends to cost time, money, as well as employees. The more
a firm uses it the more it will be costing them for storing, collecting, monitoring, reporting, as
well as analyzing the data, and using a lot of performance measures will not be good for a
firm as they will be confused.
One of the main thumb rules is difficult for managing more than 10-20 performance measures
at any given level of a company. It is quite evident that various levels in a company will be
using different types of performance measures. There are some of the performance measures
that are used at both division level and senior management and by both a work team at the
division level.
The importance of performance measurement and target setting
It can be said that the target setting along with the performance measurement is one of the
most vital to the growth process of a company. The following are some of the benefits of the
target setting:

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- Knowing how the various areas of the business are performing is valuable information
in its own right however, a good measurement system will also let an individual
examine the triggers for any alterations in the performance. It puts an individual in a
better position for managing the performance in a proactive manner.
- One of the main challenges with the performance management is selecting what to
compute.
- An organization must keep that in mind that quantifiable is not the same as financial.
On the other hand, the financial measures of the performance are among the most
widely used by the businesses, non-financial measures can be quite vital.
However, getting the performance measurement right mainly consists of identifying the areas
of the business it makes most of the sense for focusing on and then also deciding how best for
compute the performance in those given areas. The performance measurement of a company
can be regarded as one of the most powerful tool if a firm focuses on the areas that determine
the entire business success of the company. Furthermore, it is also quite important that a
company must tailor the measurement to the company’s objective and particular
circumstances. Besides, getting on the best financial measures of the performance of a
company is a vital thing for running a business. On the other hand, most of the businesses’
main target is increasing their profits, so it is an absolute necessity for knowing how they will
measure the profitability. The main standard measures are as follows: Net profit Margin,
operating margin, gross profit margin, return on capital employed. There are also some of the
other accounting ratios that provide useful measures if the business performance and this
consists of: Efficiency ratios, liquidity ratios, and gearing ratios.

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