KPI Definition & Context
Posted by Shalin Shah
By: Brian Bohan, Vice President of Worldwide Sales Consulting
The KPI metric definition and context provides the metadata necessary for a metric consumer to understand the implications of whatever he/she sees and the wherewithal to take appropriate action. These metadata should include:
- Descriptions – While it may seem obvious, descriptions are either fully omitted or often do little more than restate the name of the artifact.
- Objective – This is the purpose of the metric, detailing what is being measured, why, and for whom.
- Goal / Threshold / SLA – This provides meaning to the measurement itself. If the KPI is measuring event throughput at a step in an SAP process, then here we would want the measurement of the ideal level, the acceptable range, the in-jeopardy range, and the unacceptable range.
- Domain / Organization / Dimension – This places the metric in the context of the organization and details for whom the metric would be valuable. It is best if these are selectable from a variable list rather than open text. It should map to clearly defined groups and entities within an organization.
- Owner – The individual responsible for maintaining and potentially modifying the metric as well as all the metadata as described here.