FAQs

• What is Performance Management?

Performance management is a ubiquitous term in today's business environment. It is embedded in the body of knowledge of various disciplines and it is used at all organisational levels. In scientific management, performance is associated with two key processes: performance management and performance measurement. These two key processes can't be separated from one another and performance management both proceeds and follows performance measurement.

As in the case of management, the term performance can be used at various levels (individual performance, team performance, organizational performance), to express general achievement (such as performance in sport), or to reflect a benchmark against peers.

Performance management is the overarching process that deals with performance. It reflects the approach one entity has towards performance and it includes sub processes such as: strategy definition (planning / goal setting), strategy execution, and training and performance measurement.

Performance measurement is a sub process of performance management that focuses on the identification, tracking and communication of performance results by the use of performance indicators.  It deals with the evaluation of results, while performance management deals with taking action based on the results of the evaluation and ensuring the target results are achieved.

  

• What is the balanced scorecard?

The Balanced Scorecard is an organizational framework for implementing and managing strategy at all levels of an enterprise by linking objectives, initiatives, and measures to an organization's strategy. The Balanced Scorecard processes allow an organization to align and focus all its resources on its strategy.

Balanced scorecard is a complex measurement and strategic management system introduced by Robert Kaplan of Harvard Business School and David Norton of Renaissance Solutions, as a complement to traditional financial measurement systems that helps companies to achieve and sustain performance and progress in a changing business environment. 

It provides a method of aligning business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improving internal and external communications, and monitoring organization performance against strategic goals. The balance scorecard enables companies to track financial results while simultaneously monitoring progress in building the capabilities and acquiring the intangible assets they need for future growth.

The balanced scorecard suggests that we view the organization from four perspectives: financial, customer, internal business processes, and learning and growth.

 - Financial perspective: How do we look to shareholders?

 - Customer perspective: How are we seen in the marketplace?

  - Internal business perspective: What must we excel at?

 - Learning and growth perspective: How can we improve and evolve?

 

• What are the benefits of the balanced scorecard approach?

The benefits of implementing the balanced scorecard have been identified by many companies and organizations:

 - Improved organization alignment

 - Stronger communications, both internally and externally

 - Linked strategy and operations

 - More emphasis on strategy and organizational results

 - Integrated strategic planning and management 

 

• What is a KPI?

A quantitative or qualitative factor or variable that provides a simple and reliable means to measure achievement, to reflect changes connected to an intervention, or to help assess the performance of a development actor".

 

• What is strategy map?

Organizations need tools for communicating both their strategy and the processes and systems that will help them implement strategy. Strategy maps provide such a tool. The map provides a visual representation of a company's critical objectives and the crucial relationships among them that drive organizational performance

They give employees a clear line of sight into how their jobs are linked to the overall objectives of the organization, enabling them to work in a coordinated, collaborative way toward the company desired goals.

 Strategy maps show the cause-and-effect links by which specific improvements create desired outcomes. From a larger perspective, they show how an organization will convert its initiatives and resources, including intangible assets such as corporate and employee knowledge, into tangible outcomes. 

 

• What is Project Management?

Project Management is the discipline of planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives.

Project management includes developing a project plan, which includes defining project goals and objectives, specifying tasks or how goals will be achieved, what resources are need, and associating budgets and timelines for completion. It also includes implementing the project plan, along with careful controls to stay on the "critical path", that is, to ensure the plan is being managed according to plan. Project management usually follows major phases (with various titles for these phases), including feasibility study, project planning, implementation, evaluation and support/maintenance.

  

•  What is a Project Management Office?   

PMO or Project Management Office is a group or department within a business, agency or enterprise that defines and maintains standards for project management within the organization. The primary goal of a PMO is to achieve benefits from standardizing and following project management policies, processes, and methods. Over time, a PMO generally will become the source for guidance, documentation, and metrics related to the practices involved in managing and implementing projects within the organization.  

A PMO generally bases its project management principles, practices and processes on some kind of industry standard methodology such as PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) or PRINCE2 Project in Controlled Environments) 

  

• What is Portfolio Management?  

The total set of programs and projects within an organization is known as the "portfolio" and this represents a complete picture of the organization's commitment of program and project resources and investment to delivering its strategic objectives.

Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is a management process designed to help an organization acquire and view information about all of its projects, then sort and prioritize each project according to certain criteria, such as strategic value, impact on resources, cost, and so on.

 

 

 

• 05 Feb 2012
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