Follow the fewest possible

Numbers have to be shown in context to be understood.

Choose the Key figures well

What you focus will be resolved. It is easy to get carried away and try to get into every detail, but it will not be beneficial to the organization. The trick is to start from the strategy and find very few Key Performance Indicators (KPI:s) to follow on a relevant scale. The ideal is one, never more than three.

If your machines break down three hours at a time, there is no sense in following stoppage on a 5 minute level. First you map the frequency of three hours stops, when they are resolved you start to follow one hour stops - and so on.

Show them in context

Figures have to be given a context, they have to be compared or explained, there are several ways of doing that:

1. Compare the figures to historical data.
2. Compare the figures by benchmarking with competition or other inspirational sources.
3. Insert the figures into a larger context as for example the Du Pont structure for ROE and ROI.

Show them with illustrations

A picture is really worth more than a thousand words. For those who work every day with numbers it is easy to remember if a certain figure going down translates into heaven or hell, but to engage everyone else the communication has to be clearer. Here are some suggestions:

• Use an excel dashboard (some suggestions can be found here).
• Put a smiley green face beside a good result, a yellow straight face when there is no evolution and a red sad face beside a bad outcome.
• Put a red arrow pointing in the direction of worsening results when you prepare a diagram and a green in the positive direction.
• Add a line, in your diagram, with the best result achieved as a reminder of what has been possible to accomplished in the past.

I hope you find these suggestions practical, do you have any other suggestions or comments?