Grow your numbers - Reporting and accountability
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are essential to measure the performance of your business in order to grow your numbers. Of course, the measures themselves are pointless unless there’s reflection and discussion to ensure they’re met. Here’s a simple and effective way to link KPIs to a reporting and accountability framework.
Firstly, make sure there is ONE leader for each of the departments in your business: Director, Leadership, Product / Service Development, Operations, Marketing, Sales, Finance, HR, and Admin / IT. One person can lead more than one department, but two people can’t lead one department. You can also contract out departments to avoid needing a large head count of team memebrs (finance, marketing and IT can be outsourced relatively easily).
Be clear on who reports to who. One person can only manage 5 or so people effectively. Consider establishing teams with team leaders to enable you to achieve a ratio under 6 to 1.
Set up regular department meetings. This may be the CEO with each of the other department heads, the Operations Leader with the Operations team (if less than 5 in the Operations team) or with the Operations Team Leaders (if more than 5 in the Operations team).
Set an agenda for each meeting:
- What were your activities and targets last week or month and how did you go?
- What support do you need?
- What suggestions do you have for improvement?
- What are your activities and targets for this week or month?
Have team members report one working day PRIOR to each meeting, using the reports and KPIs you established as part of their Job Description.
Most importantly, make sure the meeting is limited to 15 minutes and in a stand-up format so it doesn’t run over time.
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"The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have." - Vince Lombardi
