David Parmenter

About David Parmenter

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So far David Parmenter has created 21 blog entries.
My vision is to change how leading organisations, around the world, measure and manage performance – by 2030
1904, 2017

KPI Masterclass Tour

Transform Your Enterprise with my Winning KPIs

KPIs are more than just a management and leadership catchphrase. The right KPIs, properly deployed, can transform your organisation – creating the kind of competitive advantage that delivers greater profitability and bigger bonus pools. The last two decades spent consulting and speaking to global enterprises and audiences in 31 countries and writing four books on the impact of KPIs, has convinced me that no other single management tool delivers more profound and positive organisational change. My winning KPIs are chosen and designed to cut through and sweep away management practices and performance issues that clog daily operations.

By adopting, embracing and implementing my winning KPIs you can expect:

Enhanced operational performance, better job alignment invariably leading to happier customers
l More clearly defined critical success factors and related performance measures resulting in a competitive advantage
An up-welling of innovation throughout your enterprise
l A better led and managed organisation dedicated to best practice performance
To attract, recruit and retain the right people.

People deliver results. But they need to know what’s expected of them. They also need to know how and when they have achieved the right results.

Who am I?
I’m David Parmenter B.Com, FCA (ICAEW) and I’m known on the international speaking and consulting circuit as the “King of the KPIs”.

I’m the author of eight business titles, all published through US-based publishing house, John Wiley & Sons Inc, I’ve also written dozens of articles about leadership and KPIs for local and global accounting and management journals.

In short, I’m a world expert in the identification, development and deployment of winning KPIs. The organisations and individuals I work with use my KPIs to build lean and focused 21st century operations that deliver outstanding performance leadership.

I’ve worked for some of the world’s largest companies and consultancies including BP Oil, Ernst & Young, Arthur Andersen and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. I’m a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

What am I offering?
A full one day KPI Masterclass
In addition to explaining, through graphic and factual examples, exactly how
and why KPIs can revolutionise your organisation, I will help you to:

l Identify your organisation’s critical success factors (CSFs) and explain
and demonstrate their importance and relevance to all parts of your
enterprise
l Establish the KPIs that are critical to your overall organization
performance and which can be effectively monitored.
l Understand the seven characteristics of KPIs and explore the myths that
adversely impact their effectiveness
Understand and apply a robust, tried and tested approach to using the
winning KPIs six-stage process covered in my masterclass
Use every brain in the game. Every organisation has oracles whose
wisdom is, far too frequently, left untapped.

And I will tell you how to put the right KPIs in place
To get selected KPIs to work you must:

Abandon performance measures that have a damaging dark-side
Understand how to best report performance measures throughout your enterprise
Develop an in-house KPI leadership team to use the toolkit I deliver with this masterclass
Know how to access and use a performance measures database that I help you create
Sell and lead the change in the use of KPIs in your organisation.

This masterclass will
Provide you with:

The answers and the direction required to tackle the problems facing organisations wishing to identify and develop winning KPIs
The means to identify your organisation’s critical success factors which are essential to accomplishing better organisational alignment
An in-depth understanding of the performance practices that consistently compromise KPIs
The seven foundation blocks and the six-stage model for developing and using winning KPIs
The understanding necessary to develop, implement and use KPIs in your organisation
Report templates that encourage action to take place
The buttons you need to push in order to sell a KPI project to your senior management team

Who will benefit?

The team in charge of a KPI/ balanced scorecard implementation
CEOs and general managers who wish to revisit organisational performance measurement
Operations, Finance and HR employees that oversee performance measurement
Consultants seeking certification for this methodology

Bring a team along
This workshop is ideal for a group of senior managers or corporate support and operational staff. Breakout sessions will allow teams to plan their implementation programmes.

Programme schedule

08:30
Registration commences

08:45
Morning session begins

10:45
Break — refreshments & networking

11:00
Morning session continues

12:30
Lunch

13:15
Afternoon session begins

14:45
Break – refreshments & networking

15:00
Afternoon session continues

16:45
Day concludes

7 CPE hours

1602, 2017

Pay-to-view recorded webinars

1010, 2016

Register for a GoToMeeting with David

1409, 2016

The Unseen Costs of Reorganizations and Downsizing

Far too often the CFO and Controller have been too distant and remote when a reorganization is proposed. If anyone is to talk sense to the board and senior management team, it has to be the CFO. This article will explore the full costs of such an exercise.

A major reorganization is as complex as putting in a new runway at Heathrow Airport while keeping the airport operational. The steps, the consultation, the dynamics, and so forth are as difficult. The CFO needs to ascertain the costs of such an exercise. To assist, I set out what typically happens in a reorganization.

 

Loss of key staff in the third- and fourth- tier management ranks.  There is a period of chaos, where staff members are disillusioned and many key staff in the third – and fourth – tier management ranks walk out the door with a golden parachute and straight into employment elsewhere.

 

Dysfunctional management teams. A reorganization can leave you with the also – rans, and the piranhas (those nasty individuals busily burying hatchets in all those around).  The talented staff moving on to fresher pastures often with a nice payout.

 

Higher costs as ex-employees come back as contractors. The bedding – in process starts to kick in somewhere between the seventh and twelfth months. The completion of all the redundancies takes longer than expected and, yes, more than a few will come back as contractors at a higher cost. These costs must not be ignored.

 

Consultants’ fees will increase.  Consultant’s costs will go through the roof, as you will need help with counselling staff, the culture change and communication.

 

Designing a new logo, letterhead, signage and stationery. Look back to the last time these were done for a reasonable estimate.

 

Extra recruiting assistance is required as all staff affected will need to reapply for their position, additional HR resources will be used up.

 

Property leases. Releasing the property that will become surplus can take up to 24 to 36 months especially in an economic downturn.

 

About 24 months after the reorganization was announced, productivity is back to normal; thus for the duration you effectively have been going backward. In the 24 – to 36 – month period advantages may kick in provided that the reorganization has been successful.

 

When faced with a situation where the business is contracting, there are a number of options you need to explore before undertaking a reorganization and have everybody reapply for their jobs:

Discuss the issues with the affected operational units and ask them to find new initiatives that can help part fund their salaries. Often there are a number of income generating possibilities that have not been explored.
Can you redeploy the staff and buy some time so staff members have time to seek further employment while employed? This is a managed staff reduction process and will save a huge amount of money on redundancies, while, at the same time giving your staff an opportunity to find employment. This option is unlikely to be available in a major recession.
Working with the human resources team design a voluntary redundancy program. This has some downsides, as you can’t directly target staff members with lower skill sets.

As a CFO, you should never underestimate the long – term impact of downsizing staff. Wherever possible, I believe the CFO should argue that it is better to fund the shortfall out of retained earnings. The cost of firing and rehiring, when added to the public relations disaster it creates, often is much higher than holding on to the staff.

 

By my calculations an organization with 500 full – time employees that is contemplating dismissing between 50 and 70 staff members would be no worse off if the staff members were kept on and redeployed, where possible, for up to two to three years.

 

Next steps

Analyze the last downsizing performed in the organization so you have a benchmark cost available
Email me (parmenter@waymark.co.nz) and I will send you a checklist to put you off a reorganization and a spreadsheet to work out the hidden costs of dismissing staff

609, 2016

“If you don’t know where you are going any road will take you there”

The quote is from George Harrison’s song “Any Road” and was no doubt influenced by the dialogue between Alice and the Cat in Lewis Carroll’s brilliant book “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. The statement is very profound. With the current fixation on immediacy we are frequently confusing being busy, pushing texts and emails around the stratosphere, with forward momentum.  Never have we been so active, yet so stationary.

I attended a key note address delivered by Dr David Keane, who was a fellow speaker at a conference.  His talk was about “The Art of Deliberate Success”.  He asked a question ‘What do you consider success means to you?’.  This is a question we should be asking ourselves . Keane pointed out the importance of having clarity, priority and execution working together.  Where you have clarity and prioritization working, but execution missing, you become stuck and are not making progress toward success.  The sweet spot is where the three collide.  Jim Collins called it “Your hedgehog”;:meaning  you were untouchable.

Jim Collins in his “Good to Great book” had three circles when looking at success from an organisation’s viewpoint. The three circles are as relevant to us as individuals.  The Collin’s circles remind us to look and focus in an area where we can be a world expert.  This is not as hard as it sounds providing you look for a very specific area relevant to  your experiences to date and one where you  have already made some progress.  Find an area which is free from competing experts and get your 10,000 hours into that space as soon as possible.

The second circle is passion.  Where passion and being a world expert collide is an agreeable place to be. Work and play merge together.  The last circle is economic demand.  It is not only practical to focus on something that others are happy to pay for it is commonsense.

I attended a life skills course several decades ago.  It was called turning point.  It lived up to its name.  It was the first time I was exposed to the power of the subconscious and its ability to pursue a target.  If we have a vision of what success looks like, a treasure map in other words, then we will travel towards it.

For a treasure map you need an A3 page, where you set out how you envisage success will be like with your life partner, your family, your friends, your health, your hobbies, your career and your retirement savings.  State the goals and glue pictures to help you visualize the outcomes you seek.  The more pictures the better, pictures from magazines and journals are an excellent source, (e.g., If you want to be fitter, then a picture of a person similar to you with the body shape you aspire to., If you want to practice yoga daily then a picture of a person, like you, doing yoga, etc.).  My first treasure map had a picture of a particular motorbike, a BMW 100RS, which is reasonably rare.  Two years later I owned the exact replica of the bike in the photo, even the same paint combination.  Read any self- help book and ask any achiever, and they will tell you that visualization is the key.

I discovered the book “The Winner’s Bible” while browsing in an airport bookshop. It resonated with the concept of treasury mapping, albeit in a different way. The concept being you have a folder with inspirational sayings and the goals you have set for yourself.  Each day you pick-up your Winner’ Bible and read the pages that resonate that day.

 

 

609, 2016

EFFECTIVE RECRUITING- GETTING THE RIGHT PEOPLE ON THE BUS

In every workshop I ask one question “Who has made a recruiting decision they have lived to regret?” Every manager puts their hand up. The carnage caused is relived in their facial expressions. Why does this happen so often?

609, 2016

“The five mistakes leaders make setting KPIs”.

KPIs are failing to deliver to their potential. Far too often the measures in an organization amount to a random collection of metrics prepared with little expertise, signifying nothing. David Parmenter explains the common mistakes.

406, 2015

Key Performance Indicators : Developing, Implementing and Using Winning KPIs (3rd Ed)

This book written by the King of KPIs, David Parmenter, gives a clear set of steps for the KPI team to follow. It is the only book that shares the entire methodology of how to complete a KPI project successfully. The book comes with a 90 page KPI team resource kit (questionnaires, workshop timetables & agendas, checklists, and project worksheets).

406, 2015

Key Performance Indicators for Government and Non Profit Agencies

This book written by the King of KPIs, David Parmenter, gives a clear set of steps for KPI teams in government and non-profit agencies to follow. This book has content and case studies specifically for these agencies and comes with a 90 page KPI team resource kit (questionnaires, workshop timetables & agendas, checklists, and project worksheets).

406, 2015

Winning CFOs – Implementing and applying better practices (Second Edition)

Winning CFOs equips CFOs, controllers, and corporate accountants to radically transform their contribution to their organisation. This book has been superseded by The Financial Controller and CFO’s Toolkit: Lean Practices to Transform Your Finance Team.