The
Measure & Goal
Evaluation Toolkit
Measure & Goal
Quickâanswer these three quest
ions:
1.
How are you doing in execu
ting your strategy?
2.
Where are your pain points?
3.
Where are you doing well?
If a typical week has you looking through reports
, comparing
data to last week or last month trying to rec
all
your old targets, or
wondering about tasks
from your last management meeting,
your
management reporting process may need to be refined. But donât
worryâitâs possible to get this proc
es
s to a sweet spot, so you
can evaluate results
quickly.
This guide will walk you through how to
evaluate your
measures and goals. By doing this,
you can keep emotion (and
error)
out
of
yo
ur
evaluation,
leaving
you
with
a
clean
and
unbiased
report. From there, you
can provide qualitative analysis to explain
issues and recommend
solutions.
The simplest evaluation mechanism you can use is
a color or
âRAGâ (red, amber, green) status indicator. Itâs like a traffic lightâ
red means âalert,â amber (or yellow) means âcaution,â and green
means âgood.â Not only will this guide teach you
ho
w to set
and view your RAG statuses, but it will also pro
vide
you with the
information youâll need if y
ou want to automate this pro
cess.
Letâs get star
ted!
The
Evaluation To
olkit
Metrics are ex
tremely important in a s
corecard, as
they help you determine if
you are meeting you
r
strategic
goals. The problem is that
measures in
and of themselves
do not show mu
ch.
For example, is 80%
customer
satisfact
ion good or bad?
Were we expecting 60% or
95%?
Using a co
lor to evaluateâ
like red, yellow, or
greenâis a
simple and helpful approach
to qu
ickly understanding your
measuresâ performance.
Measure Evaluations
A. What measure are you evaluati
ng?
This measure should
come from your scorecard.
Write the measure name: ________________________
Is increasing thi
s measure better or is decreasing this
measure better?
Examples:
With revenue, going up is
better.
With defects, going
down is better.
Write âincreaseâ or âdecreaseâ: ____________________
Measure Evaluations
ď
ď
B. Who is the
measure owner?
This person decides the tolera
nces and sets
the targets.
It m
ay or may not be the person who
co
llects the data.
Write the measure ownerâs name: __________________
Measure Evaluations
C. Do you have a
target?
Write âyesâ or ânoâ: ____________
If no, when will you have a target?
Write âwithin 3 months,â âwithin 6 months,â or
âwithin 1 yearâ: __________________________________
What is the target f
or this year?
Write target: ______________________________________
Measure Evaluations
Date
Target
C., cont.
If you have more sophisticated targets, you can add them
her
e
with their time periods.
Measure Evaluations
D. Do you want to ev
aluate more than one
series
in a me
asure?
Write âyesâ or ânoâ: ____________
Select the series* you want
to evaluate:
ďą
Monthly actual results
ďą
YTD sum
ďą
YTD average
ďą
EOY forecast
*Typically, people choose to only evaluate one of
thes
e.
Measure Evaluations
D., cont.
Example
Measure Evaluations
Date
Monthly Actual Results
YTD
Su
m
YTD Average
EOY
Forecasts
Jan
15
15
15
20
Feb
20
35
17.5
20
Mar
30
65
21.7
21
Apr
20
85
21.2
22
Most organizations will evaluate their measure based on the
actual results. Som
e
organizations have ev
aluations for actual, Y
TD actual, and EOY
forecast. They evaluate
the measure based on the best series or the worst of these s
eries.
A âseriesâ is one of the ways of displaying information in a measure. Two commo
n
series
for a measure are âtargetâ and âactual.â Additional series would include âActual Year-To-
Date Sumâ and other examples fro
m this document.
E. What is your t
ol
erance range for each se
ries that
youâre going to eval
uate?
Example
My resu
lts are green if Iâm greater than or equal to
target.
My resu
lts are yellow if Iâm greater than or equal to 90%
of target.
My resu
lts are red if Iâm less than 90% of target.
Write the following tolerance ranges for each
series:
Green is greater than or equal to
_______% of target.
Yellow is greater than or equal to _______% of target.
Red is less than _______%
of target.
Measure Evaluations
E., cont.
Example: Area Chart
Example: Gauge Chart
Measure Evaluations
75
50
100
25
0
Q1 2014
Q2
2014
Q3 2014
Q4 2014
Q1 2015
F. If you have multiple series t
ha
t are being
evaluated, how are you evaluati
ng
the measure?
Is it the best
evaluation for the time period or the wors
t evaluation
for the time period?
Example: If my monthly actual is on tr
ack, but my YTD
sum is o
ff
track, what does that mak
e the measure? On track or o
ff
track?
In this table, below target is red and abo
ve target is green. You
can see that the month of April was above target, but the year-
to-date is s
till well below target. How will you evaluate April?
Measure Evaluations
Date
Month Actual
M
onth Target
YTD Sum
YTD
Target
Jan
7
10
7
10
Feb
6
10
13
20
Mar
5
10
18
30
Apr
12
10
30
40
F., cont.
Check how youâll evaluate y
our measure:
ďą
On the actual results.
ďą
On one of the other series.
ďą
On the best result from all the series being evaluated.
ďą
On the worst result from all the series being evaluated.
G. Put all
your answers into the final
measure
templat
e at the end of this s
ection.
Measure Evaluations
H. Repeat
steps A-G for all measur
es. Then take
a step back and give it the âsme
ll test.â
Are the evaluations cons
istent, or do any stick
out as being too
liberal or too cons
ervative? Each measure should follo
w a similar
structu
re.
â˘
Example: If mo
st measures are yellow if theyâre within 5% of
target, but one measu
re is yellow if itâs within 30% of target, is
that OK?
Evaluations have a lo
t to do with targets. Are y
our targets too
conservative or aggressive in some areas? If they are really
aggressive, maybe the evaluation range
should not be as tight.
â˘
Example: If we set a stretch goal of doubling our
revenue, but
instead of our revenue going
up 100%, we went up 80%, we
may still be green. But if we had a g
oal of reducing defects
by 10% and we reduced defects by 8%, that might be
red if
defects are critical to our organization.
You may no
t have automatic evaluations fo
r all of your measures.
Manually evaluating or no
t evaluating at all might be appropriate
solutions
for measures that are new or measures
that have no
target associated with them
.
Measure Evaluations
Print this page for
as
many measures as y
ou have to set evalu
ations.
Hand these pages o
ff to your ClearPoint team, or hand them o
ff to your
Excel master so t
hey
can create conditional format
ting based on your answers.
This may look like a bunch of random numbers, but the pers
on youâre
giving this info
rmation to needs the details you fleshed out
in this
process in order to set up eff
ective evaluations.
A. Measure Name:
__________________
Increase Or Decrease: __________________
B.
Measure Ownerâs Name: __________________
C.
Have a target? __________________
If no, when will you have a target?
__________________
Target: __________________
(Optional, bu
t itâs ideal to fill
out the table below.)
D. Evaluate more than one
series? __________________
The series you want
to evaluate: __________________
(For each series, fill ou
t section E.)
E
.
Green
is
greater
than
or
equal
to
_______%
of
target.
Yellow is greater than or equal
to _______% of target.
Red is less than _______%
of target.
F.
How will you evaluate y
our measure? Check one:
ďą
Actual
ďą _______ Series
(In the blank, insert the name of the series
that the measure will be evaluated on.)
ďą Best Series
ďą
Wo
rst Series
Final Measure T
emplate
Date
Target
Now that
you have seen how measure evaluatio
ns
work, letâs move on to ev
alu
ating goals.
Many people think goals ha
ve to be subjectively
evaluated, but they can
be aut
omatically evaluated
as well. This is a bit
diff
erent than the process above,
because you have to fill in the numbers as
you go and
those numbers arenât
provided for you.
(Bu
t, donât
worryâthis template will break it down into easy,
digestible steps.)
Goal Evaluations
A. List a goal and
the measures associat
ed with it.
Goals, or objectiv
es, can be automatically evaluated similar to
measures.
Weâll
follow
the
example
o
f
a
goal
with
three
measures
associated with it.
In the first part of this template, list the goal and the three measur
es.
Goal Evaluations
List Goal
List Asso
ciated Measures
Goal
Measure
1
Measure
2
Measure
3
Measure 4
List Goal Below
List Ass
ociated Measures
B. Determine
how youâre going to weight the
measures.
Example:
Measure 1: 40%
Measure 2: 35%
Measure 3: 25%
(You want your total weight to equal 100%. So, for goals wit
h
one
measure, the weight
would be 100% for that
measure.)
List the weights of the measures below.
Goal Evaluations
Goal
Measures
Weights
(Insert
Weights
Below)
Goal Name
Measure 1
40%
Measure 2
35%
Measure 3
25%
Goal
Measures
Weights
(Insert
Weights
Below)
%
%
%
C. Score your status
indicators.
Some measures may be
currency denominated (like revenue),
while others may be in percentages or number
s. Therefore, you
need to create a common denominator for your measures in or
der
to evaluate them. Simply put
, if you try to
multiply $100 x 40% x 13,
your outcome will not make sense.
A common way
to do this is to
give values to each color s
tatus.
You may u
se the values in our example below. And you
may have
more than three colors, which is
fine. Simply score your
statuses
accordingly.
Goal Evaluations
List Status
Indicator Below
Create A Numeric Value
Green
5
Yellow
3
Red
1
Blue (Assuming blue is blank)
0
Purple (Assuming purple is better than green)
7
List Status
Indicator Below
Create a Numeric Value
D. Apply the e
valuation to the
measures with
some simple
math.
Equation: (Measure 1 Status Value x Measure 1 Weight) +
(Measure 2 St
atus Value x Measure 2
Weight) + (Measure 3
Status Value x Measure 3 Weight) =
Objective Value
Goal Evaluations
Measure Status
X
Measure Weight
=
V
alue
5
40%
2.0
3
35%
1.05
1
25%
0.25
Total
3.3
Measure Status
X
Measure Weight
=
V
alue
Total
E. Create
a rule that dete
rmines how your
objectiv
e or goal value
is evaluated.
The evaluation should be the same for all objectives (but in
some instances,
it
could be diff
erent on an objective-by-objectiv
e
basis). You
r evaluation should be determined by the scorecard team
and approved by leadership.
Example:
Green is âĽ4.
Yellow is âĽ2.
Red is <2.
(In our example on the previous pag
e, a 3.3 is yellowâso our
objective would be yellow.)
Goal Evaluations
Status
Evalu
ation Criteria
Green
âĽ4
Yellow
âĽ2
Red
<2
Status
Evalu
ation Criteria
Green
Yellow
Red
F. Perform a âsmell testâ to ensure
expected results.
This test will show if you have your weights
and y
our evaluation
equation correct. If you run through a few scenarios and find a
value of 3.1 (which is yellow), but you know it should be g
reen, t
hen
in response, your meas
ure weight one could be moved to 60%,
making the value a lower number.
Pro Tip: Think about how you are going to handle an ob
jective
that needs to be evaluated monthly, but has
meas
ures that
are
updated monthly, quart
erly, or annually.
Question
Do you have a hig h or low degree of confidence in your objective evaluation? _______________ If you can run it on past results and y ou get the results yo u expect, then you should have a high degree of confidence that your objective evaluation is good. Otherwise, until you ru n this for a few reporting periods, you should have a low degree of confidence that your objective evaluat ion is valid.Goal Evaluations
G. Repeat st
eps A-F for all obje
ctives.
This equation does not have to be exclusively for
meas
ures. A
goal can have some meas
ures and some initiatives ass
ociated with
it, and you can weight them ju
st as much as y
ou can weight your
measures. The trick
is to remember that if there are too
many things
going on, then the goal evaluat
ion will not be as meaningful.
Goal Evaluations
For your scorecard, you need to figure out your status v
alu
es
.
And for every objective, you need
to fill in the following template. (Print as
many copies as y
ou need.)
Final Goal Template
List Status
Indicator Below
Create A Numeric Value
G
r
e
e
n
Y
e
l
l
o
w
Red
Goal
Measures
Weights
(Insert
Weights
Below)
%
%
%
Status
Evalu
ation Criteria
Green
Yellow
Red
As you
can see, having evaluations in
your scorecard
is extremely impo
rtant. They allow for
organizations
and leadership teams to qu
ickly discuss
results
and make decisions for
the future based on clear data.
Automat
ically
evaluating
measures and
goals s
aves
you t
ime in
the long ru
n
and prevents
anyone from
âgaming the system.â Ultimately, that means
you can
become more confident
in your statu
ses and spend
more time analyzing
results, discus
sing next steps,
and actually managing.
