How’s it going? Setting KPIs, assessing performance and the importance of quality evaluation

Do you remember that feeling when your parents, or those who looked after you, opened up your school report at the end of term? You stood there, waiting for them to read it and let you know what your teachers had written about you. Or maybe you were allowed to read your report first and then had the job of relaying your results to your loved ones yourself.

Either way, this was, for most of us, one of our earliest experiences of being evaluated against expected performance criteria and finding out whether or not we had met our targets or not. If we had come up well, it was cheers all round. If we had ‘areas to improve’, this was usually less straightforward, but at least it gave us a good snapshot of where we were, and the areas requiring improvement.

KPIs, or key performance indicators are an important part of project management. Just as our teachers explained what we needed to do to get that sought-after top grade from their class in our school reports, so setting out the key targets and objectives in black and white helps a project team work out how they are doing and whether they are on track, ahead of schedule or need to work harder to catch up with anticipated progress.

For projects, KPIs tend to fall under the broadly defined categories of budget, timeliness, quality and efficacy[1]. In other words, is the project running to cost and on time – and are the results good quality and fit for purpose? In order to ascertain that this is the case, they must be written carefully in order to give team members the best possible chance of meeting them and ensuring a successful outcome.

Effective KPIs

So, how do you write an effective KPI? Let’s look back at our example of school teachers evaluating their students’ progress against previously agreed targets. Teachers must follow strict guidelines when writing up their school report evaluations[2]. Priorities include keeping comments simple, providing specific feedback that is meaningful to each student, following school guidelines and house style and – perhaps most importantly of all – ensuring there are no nasty surprises in them that have not been raised with the parents (or students themselves) in advance.

All of this is good advice for writing project KPIs. Keeping objectives simple, yet specific enough for project team members to understand the details of what they need to do is clearly very important, as is sticking to the preferred style and way of working. Projects can quickly come unstuck if there are too many nasty surprises too, so KPIs that take into account multiple scenarios and outcomes while remaining honest, transparent and collaborative can help keep everything on track.

Also, just like school reports, KPIs that put people’s priorities and concerns first are usually more successful than those that do not take the human factor into account. People tend to react better to positive, encouraging communications that acknowledge their talents, limitations, challenges and personal hopes for the project. KPIs must also be achievable and realistic to avoid demotivating people, as well as specific enough to give team members enough targeted guidance to meet the wider project requirements and their own individual goals.

Working SMART-er

I have written in previous blogs about the SMART model for setting objectives, but it is worth repeating here. This clever acrostic helps project managers set KPIs that are detailed, meaningful and achievable[3].

SMART stands for:

S Specific

M Measurable

A Achievable

R Realistic

T Timebound

Following this list can help project managers break down each KPI into smaller chunks, looking at how specific the details are, how they are measured, whether they can be achieved – and so on. This more detailed approach can be hugely reassuring to those expected to deliver the KPIs, as they can understand really well what to do – and how they will be evaluated at the completion of their work.

Consider the difference between a KPI that measures people on their ability to ‘increase sales’, as opposed to one that looks at whether or not they have ‘increased sales of yellow cars to the domestic market by 10%, based on previous year’s figures by the end of October this year’. Evaluation of how well people have met this KPI can be carried out very easily by checking sales figures for yellow cars, comparing them to last year and seeing what the data looks like (or is forecast to look like) when October comes around.

Coming back to the school report comparison, this is the difference between a teacher asking their students to ‘do better in maths’, compared with ‘work on specifically named areas of weakness with the aim of moving up at least one grade by the end of the spring term.’

Evaluating performance

Aside from KPIs, there are several other valuable criteria that can help project managers evaluate the performance of their teams and the progress of the project itself[4]. Evaluation is not something that slots in at the very end. The most effective methods start as early on as the initial planning stages. This is when SMART objectives and KPIs are set and expectations put in place.

Then, as the project progresses, you can collect data and analyse it to see how well you are performing against those initial KPIs. This is another important form of evaluation, especially as you still have time to make changes and correct your course if you see the project veering off in an unwanted direction, or stalling altogether. This type of evaluation is dependent on project team members talking, collaborating and sharing insights, challenges, successes and concerns. It is an exciting, agile form of evaluation, as it can set in motion real-time changes and spark new ideas and suggestions for improving performance on the spot.

Finally, the evaluation that happens at the end of a project brings the whole thing to an end, ensuring that all-important ‘closure’ and providing valuable insights into what worked, what did not and how you can use what you learned to improve your whole team’s performance on the next venture. This stage depends on accessing quality data and not being afraid to ask difficult questions or share challenging feedback alongside positive results.

Personal approach to evaluation

Project managers need a wealth of ‘soft skills’, from time management and organisation to people skills and knowing how to handle conflict. Evaluation requires a delicate mix of these skills, especially at the end of a project, when all focus is on answering the question ‘how did we do?’

One of the key techniques used in neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is asking ‘how’, as opposed to asking ‘why?’[5]. Focusing on ‘How’ opens up discussions to include ways to solve an issue, or move forward, rather than trying to come up with reasons for the way things have turned out. This latter approach can quickly turn into a negative process, including apportioning blame and complaining about the things that have not worked out as planned.

In evaluation terms, asking someone ‘why didn’t this work?’ will bring about a negative mood and defensive reply. On the other hand, rephrasing the question to ask, ‘how can we improve matters/make this work next time?’ is motivational and much less accusatory.

Asking ‘how’ also encourages collaboration and co-operation instead of causing anxiety and fear of being reproached. ‘Why’ forces people to look ahead instead of behind. It results in a finite number of answers – all centred around what has already happened and cannot be changed. Asking ‘how’, on the other hand, can produce an endless number of responses and ideas, as people are encouraged to use their imagination to come up with possible solutions to bring about future success. All of which are central to effective evaluation, insightful KPI setting and motivational people and project management.

Do you need help with your project evaluation methods? Give me a call to see how my coaching approach could help.

[1] Source: https://www.clearpointstrategy.com/blog/important-project-management-kpis. Accessed 25 August 2024

[2] Source: https://www.learningladders.info/blog/school-report-writing/. Accessed 25 August 2024

[3] Source: https://www.mindtools.com/a4wo118/smart-goals. Accessed 25 August 2024

[4] Source: https://www.apm.org.uk/blog/evaluation-in-project-management-what-you-need-to-consider/. Accessed 25 August 2024

[5] Source: https://peoplebuilding.co.uk/asking-great-questions-using-nlp/. Accessed 25 August 2024