Key performance indicators (KPIs), while used commonly around the world, have never until now been clearly defined. Management personnel have identified measures as KPIs though these measures have never been KPIs. The lack of understanding of performance measures has led most monitoring and reporting of measures to fail. The casualty has often been the balanced scorecard, a useful tool that can only work if the appropriate measures are in it. David Parmenter’s work on Key Performance Indicators represents a significant shift in the way KPIs are developed, implemented and used. His methodology is based around inhouse implementation and has received wide acclaim around the world. David Parmenter’s first edition of Key Performance Indicators was the first book to bring to light three discoveries to unlock performance measures from their shackles.
1. An organization operating without its critical success factors, known by all staff, is aimless
2. Most measures are not in fact KPIs they are result indicators — measures that show how teams have worked together, often measured monthly leading to a busy reporting machine that fails the organization
3. All KPIs are non-financial, measured 24/7, daily or at the very least, week

Visit the  Key Performance Indicators website for more

For years organizations with KPIs have not had the focus, adaptability, innovation and profitability that they were seeking. KPIs were ill conceived, mislabelled and misused. This mayhem stemmed from a complete lack of understanding of their critical success factors.  Whilst most organizations know their success factors, few organizations have:

• worded their success factors appropriately
• segregated out success factors from their strategic objectives
• sifted through the success factors to find their critical ones – their critical success factors
• communicated the critical success factors to staff

Where an organization has not completed a thorough exercise to know its critical success factors (CSFs) performance management cannot possibly function.  Performance measurement, monitoring and reporting will be a random process creating an army of measurers producing numerous numbing reports, full of measures which monitor progress in a direction very remote from the organization’s strategy.  David Parmenter’s work has outlined a process that helps organization’s crystallize and communicate the organization’s CSFs.  This will help staff to align their daily activities closer to the strategic direction of the organisation. The beauty of David’s method, like all great methods, is that it is a simple methodical process, which can be run by in-house staff.

Visit the critical success factors website for more

Companies across the world are recognizing that the existing annual budget process cannot continue. It is now seen by many that the budgetary process is a hindrance to management rather than a help. The answer is to plan on a quarterly rolling process, 6 quarters out, setting targets and allocating resources only three months out, the first quarter.

This quarterly rolling forecasting and planning (QRF) process, typically going out 18 months at a time, can be a quick process. Less than 5 working days if it follows the ‘fast, light touch’ process developed from “winning finance” teams from around the world. David Parmenter’s work on QRF represents a significant shift in the way they are developed, implemented and used. His methodology is based around self implementation and has received wide acclaim around the world. His work is a large departure in a number of areas including:

• defining the ten foundation stones for a better practice forecasting process
• outlining all the features of a ‘fast light touch’ quarterly rolling forecast process
• showing how to implement a forecasting and planning tool and get it right first time
• a step by step process that can be implemented by a skilled in-house team

Visit quarterly rolling forecasting and planning (QRF) for more

The annual planning process is part of the trifecta of lost opportunities for a corporate accountant.  The other two being the year-end accounts and the monthly accounts processes.  All three exercises keep the corporate accountant locked into processing and reporting leaving little time for added value activities.  It is interesting to note that we seldom get thanked for preparing the annual accounts, for controlling the annual budget process or for preparing the month-end accounts.

A two week annual planning process sounds impossible yet it is achieved.  It takes good organization and recognition that the annual planning process is not adding value.  Instead it is undermining an efficient allocation of resources, encouraging dysfunctional budget holder behaviour, negating the value of monthly variance reporting and consuming huge resources from the Board, senior management team, budget holders, their assistants and of course the finance team. At best you have a situation where budget holders have been antagonized, at worst budget holders who now flatly refuse to co-operate!

Visit the annual planning website for more

“What makes a good leader?” “When and how do managers become leaders”. To answer this question David Parmenter went on a long journey analysing the leadership exploits of Sir Ernest Shackleton, Sir Winston Churchill, and some modern-day leaders such as Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric. Also analysed were the writing of some of the greatest management thinkers such as Peter Drucker, Jim Collins, Ken Blanchard, to name but a few.

To the first question the answer is a person who is a “a Viking with a mother’s heart” a person who sees being a leader as one who serves rather than one who is served. By understanding the great attributes of Shackleton, arguably one of the greatest serving leaders, David Parmenter has developed a leadership model that is breathtakingly simple and one that all managers can adopt to become more than a manager, a serving leader.

David has ascertained 8 behavioural traits that need to be adopted, absorbed and applied in order to be a successful leader of large teams.

There are many books on leadership and you can spend your entire life reading them. But they will make you more confused than enlightened. Author and performance management leader David Parmenter has determined the practices that will help you deliver, the personal traits that can limit our potential, the pathway of self-development, the 21st century management better practices you need to master as you climb the management mountain, culminating in what makes a CEO special.

Visit the Management & Leadership site for more.

Chief Financial Officers around the world are seeking ways where they can be a better leader and business partner. They are seeking to learn from their peers better practices—and become more effective, creating a positive footprint in every organization they are part of. All the stalwarts of the finance team are being questioned. Why spend months on an annual planning process you know is flawed? Why spend precious time on an annual report recasting numbers that were available the first week of the new year? Why spend a week on the monthly finance report that won’t be read? Author and performance management leader David Parmenter has determined what makes winning CFO and winning finance teams. His methodology is based around self implementation and has received wide acclaim around the world. His work covers the practices that will help finance teams deliver:

• Reporting daily, weekly, and monthly in a decision based way
• Rapid month-end reporting within three days or less
• Signed audited annual accounts within three weeks of year-end
• Implementing quarterly rolling forecasting
• Getting your KPIs to work
• Completing the annual plan in two weeks or less
• Investing in the right financial systems
• Developing winning leadership traits
• Re-engineering processes using “post-it” stickers
• Selling and leading change
• Making the finance team a great place to work.

Visit the lean 21st century finance team processes website

Never has there been a better time to unleash innovation in your organisation. There is a perfect storm that offers: an unprecedented amount of talented and entrepreneurial young people; accessible technology- many of it for free; and a colliding of ground-breaking knowledge which gives us a clear route forward; and customers who are accessible, around the world, because they are only a few clicks away from ordering.

However there are six common barriers to innovation that need to be understood and surmounted.

There are two types of innovation, and understanding the difference is paramount for the successful introduction:

1. Gemba Kaizen innovation (innovation at the workface is a daily activity) which focuses on improving internal processes as a daily activity.
2. Blue ocean innovation where an organisation moves away from the cut throat, dog eat dog bloody red oceans of competition to the clear, calm and rewarding waters.

I have written a working guide will penetrate into the great work of Jeffery Liker, The Toyota Way, Masaaki Imai author of Kaizen and his follow-up book Gemba Kaizen, and show you how you can move towards Toyota’s amazing achievement of 10 innovations per employee per year worldwide. There are ten basic rules for practising Kaizen.  There are eight different types of waste that need minimising. There are four foundation stones for Kaizen implementation.

Visit the innovation website for more information.

I have written two self-help guides called, “How to become comfortable -‘Old money’ advice for the savvy millennial” and “Life Skills to Master For A More Comfortable Life,”

These guides contains no get-rich-quick schemes, just old-fashioned, tried and tested, “Don’t say I never told you” styled advice for the savvy millennial. It started as a handbook for my daughters as the sudden death of a friend, who was younger and fitter than me, reminded me that I might not be around to offer advice when needed.

Successful people won’t say they’re rich. They’ll say they’re comfortable. And if you really think about it, comfortable sounds marvelous.

How to become comfortable includes content on:

• Finding Wally – tips to help you find a life partner worth keeping
• Guidelines when weighing up ‘Should I stay or should I go’ from a relationship
• Importance of identifying your and your partner’s love languages
• How to separate without funding the legal profession
• The twenty tips when buying your first home
• Tips to secure your financial future
• How to avoid dumb investments
• How to avoid buying a ‘lemon’ of a car
• How to get your fines waived
• How to complete your life’s purpose (your Ikigai) and your treasure map
• How to handle your personal baggage
• How to ascertain your natural talents
• Making sure your career is as secure as a hedgehog
• How to use ‘Magnetic Marketing’ to find a better job
• Steps to help you find the right job and avoid being conned
• What to check when intending to make a major career change
• Working more effectively with others
• How to make progress renovating your first home

Life Skills to Master For A More Comfortable Life includes content on:

• The six types of friends
• Being more effective with your time
• How to face tough times
• How to complete your life’s purpose (your Ikigai) and your treasure map so your life has a direction you have actively chosen
• How to handle your personal baggage
• How to master effective communication and your anger
• How to negotiate to a “Yes”
• You and your mental health
• Simple things to do to increase your survival odds when driving
• Embracing abandonment- the most important life skill
• Creating strong and healthy work relationships
• Handling office drama and a ‘bully of a boss’
• The importance of a second passion, a respite from stress