Using the 6 A’s to Create Strong KPIs

Learn about 6 attributes your Key Performance Indicators should have

Analytics can be a powerful tool for managing and growing your business. However, your analytics will only be as good as your data. Getting the right data requires choosing the right metrics that can serve as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for your business.

Strong KPIs will be effective in evaluating business performance and create value for your business, while tracking weak KPIs will be a waste of time, effort, and money. By using the following 6 attributes to design your KPIs, you can ensure you keep your metrics on the useful, value-creating side of things.

The 6 A’s of KPIs

Aligned

If you want to know how your business is performing, your KPIs should be aligned with your overall strategic goals and objectives. Don’t forget that you may need separate KPIs for short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals.

Attainable

Obviously, there’s no point trying to track a KPI if the data you need for the metric is all but impossible to collect. So, when creating KPIs, be sure to consider what data is needed and what technologies or processes may need to be implemented in order to secure this data. The data must be attainable (and preferably cost-effectively attainable) for a strong KPI.

Acute

The more acute or specific your KPIs are, the more useful they will be to you. KPIs that are too broad or vague tend to leave too much room for interpretation, meaning you may miss out on actionable insights.

Accurate

In order to draw useful conclusions from your KPIs, they need to be giving you accurate information. The accuracy of a KPI can be affected not only by the quality of the data you’re collecting, but also by the comprehensiveness of the data. So you’ll want to make sure the KPI includes all relevant information.

Actionable

While you do need to be aware of external pressures that affect your business, the best KPIs will be focused on internal factors that are entirely in your control. This will make them actionable. After all, you must be able to control a situation in order to improve upon it.

Alive

Your business is always changing, which means your KPIs need to be alive. Don’t hesitate to change them to make sure they still reflect your business priorities and are delivering useful information to decision-makers.

Track your KPIs with MyFieldAudits

Selecting your KPIs is just part of the challenge of evaluating and improving business performance. You need the right software to collect and analyze the data for your KPIs. MyFieldAudits is an excellent choice of software tool. It includes convenient digital auditing capability for collecting data as well as reporting functions and real-time dashboard displays to help make your data accessible and useful. To learn more about how MyFieldAudits can be tailored to the needs of your business, please contact us at info@MyFieldAudits.com today.