Fifty KPIs on the wish list

Sometimes a project starts with a list. A spreadsheet with fifty, sixty, sometimes a hundred KPIs, neatly numbered, here and there with a colour. Someone put work into it. The message is clear: this has to be in there.

Carrying out that list literally is the fastest route to the dashboard nobody opens. Ignoring it is not an option either, because then the client does not feel heard. There is a third way, and it starts with understanding how such a list comes about.

How a list like that comes about

A KPI list is rarely designed. It has grown. Someone collected every report ever made, every column anyone ever asked for, and the numbers from a book or a presentation that looked professional.

The result mixes three things: numbers you steer on, numbers that need to be checked, and numbers someone was once curious about. On the list they all look the same.

There are often duplicates you do not spot straight away. Gross margin and margin percentage. Revenue and revenue excluding VAT. Number of customers and active customers. Sometimes it is the same number with a different name, sometimes two different numbers with almost the same name. The latter is more dangerous.

Step one: ask what you do with each number

Go through the list together, number by number, and ask the same question each time: if this number is ten percent higher or lower tomorrow, what do you do?

The answer falls into one of three buckets.

• I adjust. I order less, I call a customer, I change the schedule. This is a steering number.
• I check whether something is wrong. No action, unless the number suddenly behaves oddly. This is a control number.
• Nothing, really. It is interesting to know. This is context.

That exercise takes an hour to half a day. It is the most useful time in the whole project, and it ties in with agreeing on definitions, because the ambiguous names come up naturally during that conversation.

Step two: steering numbers on top, the rest below

What usually remains as steering numbers is a handful. Five to ten for the owner, a few per department. Those go on top, on the page of whoever decides with them.

Control numbers do not need to be on a screen you look at every week. They belong in an alert. Put a threshold on them and have a message come in when the number crosses it. Then you only look when there is something to see.

Context belongs on a detail page or in a table. Whoever wants to see it will find it. It takes no space on the page where decisions are made.

So nothing from the list has been thrown away. Everything has a place. It just is not all in the same place any more.

Step three: one definition per number

Every steering number gets a written definition. Where it comes from, what is counted and what is not, over which period, and which other number it is compared with.

That sounds like paperwork. It is the difference between a number people trust and a number over which every meeting starts with "but mine says something else".

The numbers that are usually missing

The odd thing about long KPI lists is that they often do not contain too much, but the wrong things. The list was drawn up from what was already being measured. What was not measured anywhere is not on it.

In retail that is often footfall: how many people came in. In a service business, the hours that were not invoiced. In construction, the time between quote and start. These are numbers that do not come out of the ERP, so they do not end up on the list.

So also ask: which question can you not answer today? The answer is often worth more than the whole list. Sometimes it means you have to build the source first.

How to bring it

Nobody likes to hear that their list is too long. So do not say it. Show it.

Build the prototype first, with the steering numbers on top and the rest neatly sorted. Let the client work with it for a week. Then ask which number he missed. Usually the answer is none. Sometimes it is one, and then you know straight away that it is a real steering number. That is also why we build first.

What you can automate

The inventory of what already exists can be drawn up automatically. From a Power BI model you can pull every measure with its formula, and duplicates stand out quickly. Alerts on control numbers run automatically, with a message by email or chat when a threshold is crossed. The conversation about what you do with a number stays manual work.

The claim

A long KPI list is not a requirement, it is an inventory. Sort it into steering, control and context, put only the steering numbers up front, and above all ask what is not on the list.