PuMP Primer Lesson 3 TRANSCRIPT - Stacey Barr · We’ll start with a very simple approach that we’ve found is the fastest and easiest way to build excitement and buy-in for your

The PuMP Primer Webinar SeriesLesson 3: The 5 Essential Design Inputs For Actionable Performance Reports that

WOW Decision-Makers.

http://staceybarr.com/webinars/pumpprimerseries

STACEY:

G’day everyone - this is Stacey Barr, and welcome to our third lesson in “The PuMP Primer Webinar Series: 12 practical insights for how to find and implement meaningful performance measures”.

Once again, we’re super lucky to also have my Australian PuMP Partner, Mark Hocknell, as my co-host. Welcome Mark!

MARK:

Hi Stacey; hi everyone.

STACEY:

And in the background today is the lovely Claire Dening, who is my business manager, and many of you have already met Claire through emailing us.

And today she’s going to give you any support you need with links that we mention, or technical help you might need while on the webinar.

She’ll be looking out for any such questions you ask using the webinar questions tool. Thanks Claire for being here too!

You really are stayers, aren’t you? Three webinars in three weeks is what you’ve given time and priority to.

Thank you so much for staying with Mark and I. We’re both loving the interaction and also getting to know you just a little bit too.

I know we’re not meeting in person, but this – for me at least – is so much more engaging than just




imagining you as I write the Measure Up newsletter each week and email it to you.

You’re participation here really makes my day. I love this!

If you’re joining us live for the first time today, and you haven’t yet caught up on the replays of the first 2 lessons, here’s a quick visual so you know who Mark and I are…




STACEY:

That’s me on the left.

MARK:

And that’s me, on the right.

Here’s where we’re up to in the program…




MARK:

Lesson 1 was about the Top 5 KPI Questions Strategy & Performance Professionals Ask Most –And The Critical One to Answer First.

That most critical question to answer first was “Is there a systematic process to design, implement and use measures or KPIs?”

And we looked at the anatomy that a robust and deliberate performance measurement methodology has. We showed you how PuMP – Stacey’s methodology for performance measurement – is one of these, with its deliberate steps, frameworks, templates and tools.

In Lesson 2 we began digging into the PuMP methodology’s first 3 steps. We played with the PuMP Diagnostic as a way of helping to get people on the same page about what performance measurement really is. We went through my procedure for how to de-weasel goals so they become more measurable. And we looked at the recipe for writing a measure properly and quantifiably.

Today we dig into the next 3 steps in PuMP.

Then next time we have our final lesson in the PuMP Primer Series, Lesson 4.

STACEY:

If you missed the first lesson or didn’t get the summary transcript, you can get the transcript with slides, and access to the replay, over at

http://staceybarr.com/webinars/pumpprimerseries/details

We’ll email you this link again after today’s webinar.




STACEY:

This third lesson in The PuMP Primer Webinar Series is “The 5 Essential Design Inputs For Actionable Performance Reports that WOW Decision-Makers”.

We’ll be going into some practical detail about how we implement our chosen performance measures and boost the engagement through clever report design.

Firstly, let’s take a look at what we’ve got in store for you today…




MARK:

We’ll start with a very simple approach that we’ve found is the fastest and easiest way to build excitement and buy-in for your performance measures, for a lot of people at once.

You’ll find out what the simplest little discipline is, that dramatically reduces waste and rework in your performance reporting.

And we’ll see how your performance reports should answer the 3 (and only 3) questions to trigger improvement rather than excuses and blame.

Let me explain why we’re talking about buy-in again, at this point in the process…




MARK:

Buy-in to performance measurement is something people feel.

They either feel interested or curious or motivated or enthusiastic or dedicated to measuring performance.

Or they feel threatened, bored, confused, fearful, frustrated or overwhelmed by it.

When people feel buy-in for measuring performance, your measures are more likely to be meaningful, implemented well and used to improve performance.

When people DO NOT feel buy-in for measuring performance, your measures are more likely to be trivial, implemented poorly or not at all, and argued about rather than being used to make decisions. There are a bunch of behaviours we typically see that are the symptoms of lack of buy-in:

• only easy measures are chosen, or measures that monitor how much work there is to do –nothing about results

• the data is hard to get

• the data isn’t accurate, people will manipulate or fudge the figures

• people focus on excuses and blame

I’m sure you can recognise pockets in your organisation where these things happen.

Why don’t people buy-in?

[Think about it and write it down before you continue reading the transcript.]

STACEY:




It might be tempting to ask how you can fix these problems or remove these reasons why people won’t buy-in to performance measurement.

I’ll bet you feel overwhelmed by the challenge. I know I did, in my early days.

But I have something very fast, easy and fun that can dramatically boost buy-in - literally overnight…




STACEY:

I was over in Germany teaching the PuMP Blueprint Workshop, and a BI company called cubus hosted that workshop for their clients.

Step 4 in PuMP is about a technique called the Measure Gallery.

It’s an event where all the newly worded measurable goals, and their newly designed meaningful measures, are displayed like in an art gallery for visitors to see and discuss and provide feedback on.

Cubus decided to have their measure gallery right after the workshop so I could be a visitor.

They even did an English version for their results map and measure designs for me.

I thought I’d be super nice and write the letter S for Stacey on my feedback post-it notes, so they could ask me any questions later about my feedback.

They gently pointed out that I didn’t need to do that because I was the only one writing feedback in English…

This was a textbook measure gallery – every director and all the staff attended and they were very enthusiastic for the measures team’s work.

Time and again, and over many years, we keep seeing how PuMP’s Measure Gallery generates loads of buy-in and ownership for measures and measurement in general.

The Measure Gallery does this because it follows Harrison Owen’s Law of Two Feet. Harrison Owen is the creator of Open Space Technology, a collaborative and organic approach to meetings.

The Law of Two Feet states that people can come and go if and when they please; where they are and what they contribute is entirely up to them.




And that’s what makes the Measure Gallery work.

This is how it works…




MARK:

I won’t go into too much detail about the Measure Gallery, but I’ll give you enough that you can play around with the idea without too much effort.

• Book a meeting room – make sure you have wall space to hang your measures work

• Invite people to come any time – no agenda, voluntary participation

• Hang your goals and measures (the outputs of PuMP Steps 2 and 3) on the walls – multiple copies to avoid crowding

• Make it social – let people ask questions and share feedback (post-it notes) and to have discussions with each other

• Collect and use the feedback – show Measure Gallery visitors how their feedback was considered in improving your measures

STACEY:

My suggestion is just try it on a small scale first.

Small means one day, just a handful of measures, and maybe 30 or so visitors.

Test for yourself to see how much it can boost buy-in.

You’ll see how you can have a noticeable increase in buy-in, literally overnight!

We’re up to Practical Insight #7 now…




MARK:

Inviting people to openly & socially critique a set of measures - if and when and how they want to -is the fast, easy way to build buy-in.

This means no agenda, no requirement to attend, no PowerPoint presentations, none of the usual artefacts of meetings. Make it open, flexible, easy and fun. Buy-in will flourish in these conditions.

And by ‘critique’ I mean the true definition of the word: a detailed analysis and assessment of something. It’s not a negative word, it’s a neutral word. We want people to share both the strengths and weaknesses they perceive our performance measures have. And we needn’t be afraid of that.

When you get enough buy-in for your measures, it’s safe to go ahead and implement them without fear of rejection.

But as you implement your measures, there is something you should fear…




STACEY:

You should fear waste.

There is a simple discipline that is almost always overlooked by those implementing performance measures; the same people who end up bewildered about why their measures didn’t turn out the way they expected, or why they didn’t turn out at all.

We’ll get to that simple discipline is a sec, but for now, let’s see if performance measurement waste is an issue for your organisation…




STACEY:

What kinds of wasted time and effort in measuring performance happen in your organisation?

• Measures implemented too late or not at all

• Collecting unneeded or poor quality data

• Too much time & effort to extract data for analysis

• Producing reports that virtually no-one uses

• Arguing about measure integrity vs. improving performance


Waste like this is where the hidden cost of poor or ad hoc performance measurement is.

In Lesson 1 or 2 of this PuMP Primer Series, I mentioned that one client actually worked out the cost of this waste to his business.

He had people spending over 1200 hours every month producing just over 50 reports that contained almost 300 measures.

This cost him nearly half a million dollars a year.

And the reports had so much redundancy and poorly produced measures that they were next to useless.

And it doesn’t have to be that way.

But what we’re about to suggest - that simple discipline that fixes a lot of this waste - isn’t very sexy at all, and that’s probably why so many people avoid doing it…




MARK:

You can remove lots of wasted time and energy in measuring performance by having a Performance Measure Definition Dictionary.

This is a single database or repository where each and every measure in your organisation is documented. It’s the one version of the truth about how to implement each measure.

Does your organisation have a Performance Measure Definition Dictionary?

If so, what kinds of details about a performance measure do you imagine should be documented in a Performance Measure Definition Dictionary?


Here’s what we recommend, in PuMP, are the bare essentials to document about each and every performance measure…

• Name and description – just like we did in Lesson 2, in the recipe to write a good measure

• Formula – exactly how the values of the measures should be calculated

• Data items – the pieces of data required, and where to get them

• Frequency – weekly, monthly, whatever the right frequency of calculation is for this measure

• The result/goal it measures – so you know why it matters and what to use it for

• Performance owner – the person responsible for using the measure

• Definition owner – the person responsible for ensuring the measure is defined the right way

STACEY:

This Performance Measure Definition Dictionary ideally should be managed by one team, and




often this is the Strategy team or the Performance Measurement team, if you have one.

Then, you’ll always have a single place to return to, to know exactly how to implement each measure, the intended way.

It also gives you an easier way to manage your measures through their natural lifecycle.

So what is Practical Insight #8, then?




MARK:

Document the name, description, calculation method, purpose and owners of each and every performance measure in a Performance Measure Definition Dictionary.

Use this Definition Dictionary when you create a measure, when you modify a measure, when you want to implement a measure as it was intended, and when you want to decommission a measure too.

Manage your measures well, and you will avoid a bazillion tonnes of wasted time and effort.

And it makes reporting your measures a whole lot easier too…




MARK:

Performance reports have some pretty well-known problems.

• They’re a lot like the space behind your fridge: as time goes by, more and more junk gathers there and it’s really hard to clean it out:

• Performance reports still contain measures that an Executive asked for 3 years ago… and he left the organisation 2 years ago.

• They contain a variety of different graph types that a Manager prefers, because those were the graphs she had at her last position in a different company.

• They contain a running commentary about all the tasks that were done last month, and explanations if they weren’t done on time.

• They are thrown together in an ad hoc way, often by stapling together several contributions from various business analysts in different departments, making it really hard to navigate through them

• They can be an inch or more thick

How do your performance reports stack up?




STACEY:

Do your performance reports have any of these problems?

• Take a lot of time and effort to create each time

• Contain lots of commentary about actions and projects

• Have graphs, dials or charts that are hard to interpret

• Have lots of tables of numbers and few graphs

• People don’t use them to drive performance improvement


When performance reports evolve in an ad hoc way, with their evolution being mostly driven by users’ pet likes or dislikes, they become unwieldy.

And typically fail to trigger real performance improvement conversations and decisions.

They also hide true signals in the performance measures, which we’ll explore a bit more in Lesson 4.

A performance report should guide performance improvement. It should be fast and easy to use, and it should direct the agenda of performance review meetings.

Next to the meaningfulness of the measures they report on, performance report design is of the utmost importance in how well they will be used…




MARK:

There are a few dimensions to the design of useful and usable performance reports:

• What information you choose to include – and more importantly, to leave out.

• How you organise that information to make the report easy and logical to navigate, to find what you need when you need it.

• The styles and formats and layouts you choose to make the right information pop off the page, and to make it easy and obvious to interpret.

• And finally, the method in which to deliver the report to its audience, such on paper or on a computer screen.

To give you a little primer on the PuMP Report Design technique, we’ll take you through just one of these features of report design: what information you should choose to include.

This is by far the hardest feature of excellent report design to grasp and it’s also the most important one to do. It’s hard not because it’s complex.

In fact, it’s super simple, as you’ll see.

It’s hard because it goes against the grain of what the majority of performance reports seem to be like.

Here’s the PuMP guideline for what information to include in your performance report…




STACEY:

A useful and usable performance report will answer 3 – and only 3 – questions.

The first question is: What is performance doing?

You answer this question for each of your performance measures.

And the best way to answer it is with a time series graph of that measure, showing as much history as you can.

Something like a couple of years of monthly values, is what I like.

You might therefore put Revenue into a monthly time series chart that includes the previous 24 months.

Or get all the data you have from your customer surveys to plot Customer Satisfaction over time.

Time series charts help you see signals of changes in performance.

And when you can clearly see a signal, you naturally want to ask the second question…

MARK:

The second question is: Why is it doing that?

If the answer to your first question is ‘performance is getting worse’, of course you’ll want to find out why.

Often further analysis of data can help answer that question.

If you want to know why Customer Satisfaction is declining, you could start with a Pareto analysis of the types of complaints coming in.

If you want to know why Task Cycle Time is increasing, you could start with an examination of




which steps in the process are taking the longest, or you could look at how the amount of rework is changing over time.

A good answer to this second question goes a long way to helping answer the third question…

STACEY:

The third question is: How should we respond?

If there is a gap in performance you need to close, you want to choose the best actions to do it.

This might mean stopping an improvement project that isn’t working, fixing an improvement project that isn’t working, or creating an improvement project that targets the root causes of the performance gap. We’ll explore this a bit more in Lesson 4.

So, all you need to use performance measures in the context of performance improvement is the answers to these three questions.

If you include an action report, you’re mixing project management with performance management. They are two different things, and need to be treated that way.

The overlap between project management and performance management is in the third question here: how should we respond?

That’s when your performance measures are telling you something needs to change, and your current approach isn’t working well enough. That’s the trigger to look at your project implementation and see what you can change, to move actual performance closer to your desired performance.

So here is Practical Insight #9 for you…




MARK:

A useful and usable performance report will answer 3, and only 3, questions: What is performance doing? Why is it doing that? How should we respond?

Performance reports are supposed to help us improve performance by showing us what needs to be done. Good performance reports are an INPUT to project management, NOT a vehicle for it.

Now, we’ve just covered another 3 steps in the PuMP Blueprint methodology. Let’s summarise…




MARK:

Here’s what we covered today, in exploring Steps 4, 5 and 6 of the PuMP Blueprint:

Step 4 in PuMP is Building Buy-in to Measures.

Back in Lesson 1 we mentioned there was one specific framework for Step 4:

• a set of guidelines for quickly and easily engaging people with a set of measures, in an event called a Measure Gallery

Today we explored the idea of what a Measure Gallery is: an open space where colleagues and customers and partners and whoever else can come and discuss the measures you’re developing in a natural and social way that dramatically boosts buy-in.

STACEY:

Step 5 in PuMP is Implementing Measures.

In Lesson 1 we mentioned there was one specific framework for Step 5:

• a set of specifications for how to flesh out the details of each measure so it can be implemented as intended, along with a Measure Definition template and a Measure Definition Dictionary.

Today we shared a few of the essential parts of the Measure Definition template for documenting every one of your performance measures.

When you do this discipline, you end up saving lots of time and effort and angst in implementing your measures, because it becomes very clear exactly how each measure should be implemented.

MARK:




Step 6 in this approach is Reporting Performance Measures.

In Lesson 1 I mentioned there was one specific framework for Step 6:

• a set of design principles for structuring, formatting and detailing performance reports, and a template to use that embodies these principles

Today we shared what most of these design principles are, but we honed in on one of them: the 3 questions that every performance report should answer.

We have two more steps to cover, as you can see, and we’ll do that in Lesson 4 in the PuMP Primer Webinar Series.

But so far, as a result of what you’ve been learning, we’re interested to see how curious you are about learning the PuMP Blueprint, in full.

So Stacey and I are going to ask you this outright!




STACEY:

How curious are you now, to learn the full PuMP Blueprint methodology?

• Not at all curious

• Somewhat curious

• Very curious

• I've already committed to come to a PuMP workshop

• I already know PuMP


If you are keen to learn PuMP, I’ll give you the link to read more about the PuMP Blueprint Workshop.

Given that you are from all around the world, it includes all the locations where our international PuMP Partners will be running PuMP workshops too.




MARK:

The interaction on these webinars has been fun, and Stacey and I have enjoyed seeing familiar names returning and participating.

But… it would be great to meet you in person at a PuMP Workshop too!

We have 4 Australian PuMP workshops planned for 2017.

The first is in Melbourne in March, and I’m teaching that one.

Then in June Stacey will be teaching the Brisbane workshop.

I will be teaching the Sydney workshop in September.

And Stacey will wrap up the year of PuMP in Canberra in November.

And remember, our Australian workshops will be the new 3-day format in 2017, where day 3 is 100% practical and all about coaching you to implement the first few steps of PuMP to create your own meaningful measures, to take back to work with you.

STACEY:

And outside of Australia, you can also attend the original 2-day version of the PuMP Blueprint Workshop, without the implementation day.

These are run by our talented international team of PuMP Partners. [See slide for details]

If you really want the 3-day version but you’re not in Australia, just let us know and we’ll pass this feedback on to the international team and they may be able to offer the 3-day version too.

Read all the details at www.performancemeasureblueprint.com

If you have any questions about the workshop, email us at [email protected].




Let’s wrap up Lesson 3…




MARK:

Lesson 4 is about The 2 Most Powerful Habits to Master To Boost the Size, Speed & Stickiness of Performance Improvement.

We’ll cover:

• How to question a performance measure and learn what it’s really, honestly, saying about performance.

• The 180-degree reframe that’s needed in deciding exactly how to fix performance problems.

• How to bring all the PuMP Primer tips together into your action plan for meaningful and motivating performance measurement.

We hope you join us live again!

STACEY:

Thanks everyone for joining in today.

We can’t wait to spend time with you again at our fourth and final lesson in The PuMP Primer Series, tomorrow.

Thank you for sharing your time with us again today: this is Stacey Barr and Mark Hocknell signing off.

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PuMP Primer Lesson 3 TRANSCRIPT - Stacey Barr · We’ll start with a very simple approach that we’ve found is the fastest and easiest way to build excitement and buy-in for your