Planning Activities to Achieve Key Result Area Goals
The organizational system naturally seeks to remain the same in a steady-state condition. To counteract this system tendency, the organization needs to insert energy into the system via a change effort. A PMS is a way of ensuring that the energy is producing the desired results. The first component of a PMS is producing a flag chart (see Figure 7.1). Flag charts concisely portray the performance of a key result area (KRA) and its key drivers. Key drivers are the primary areas that influence KRA results. When a driver or several drivers are changed, a resulting change is expected in the KRA result.
By way of an example, we could think of a person’s desire to lose weight. The key result area would be the pounds or kilograms the person wants to lose over a specific period of time. One driver could be the number of times a person exercises in a given week. Another driver could be the number of servings of fruits and vegetables a person eats in a given week. This person’s flag chart would suggest this person thinks that if they were to increase their intake of fruits and vegetables and increase the number of times they exercise, they would expect to see an increase in the number of pounds that they lost.
As a reminder, KRAs with associated goals are defined by the vision that was established by leadership. A team is chartered to achieve the KRA goal. The KRA provides goal clarity to the team, since a KRA by definition is a specific result area with a timeline and goal. The characteristic of equifinality means that there are many ways of getting to an end point such as a KRA goal. Remembering this system behavior and permitting the team to identify how they want to focus on the improvement and select their key drivers to achieve the goal is important for building ownership in the result and empowering the team. For example, the organization may have a vision to improve customer satisfaction as measured by an 80% reduction in complaints in the next 2 years. The leadership will charter a team that has the resources, skills, and time to work on this KRA. If in this case the organization is a call center, the team may include both technical support team members and service representatives who respond directly to customers.
Figure 7.1. An example of a flag chart.
The team would analyze data and identify the key drivers of customer satisfaction. In this case, the key drivers may be response time, repeat customer problems, and complaints per representative. The team would need to decide how each key driver would be measured, similar to what was done for each KRA. The metric identified to measure each driver is also called the key performance indicator (KPI). For each driver, the team would develop a written action plan for improving the driver. Action plans should include tasks, persons responsible, and the expected completion date, at a minimum. Written action plans can be very powerful as a contract between the team and management. It is a statement of what the team commits to do in order to achieve the goal.