The words frequently used in the performance management field include ‘performance measure’, ‘metric’, ‘performance indicator’, ‘key performance indicator (KPI)’, ‘key result indicator (KRI)’, ‘lead indicator’, ‘lag indicator’, ‘initiative’, ‘strategy’, ‘goal’, ‘objective’, ‘target’, ‘priority’, ‘critical success factor (CSF)’, ‘key result area (KRA)’, ‘strategic theme’, ‘vision’, ‘mission’ – and no doubt many more.
The problem isn’t the sheer volume of words we use. The problem is that we use them differently, with varying and overlapping meanings, and we fail to explain our meanings to each other. For example, here are some variations in definition:
David Parmenter, author of Key Performance Indicators: Developing, Implementing and Using Winning KPIs, defines some of these terms like this:
A key result indicator (KRI) tells us ‘how you have done in a perspective’
A performance indicator (PI) tells us ‘what to do’
A key performance indicator (KPI) is a performance measure that tells us ‘what to do to increase performance dramatically’, as opposed to other types of performance measures
