By David Parmenter “The basic building block of any forecast is the sales or income line. Most other variables are related to sales. But obtaining an unbiased sales forecast is no easy task. A well-prepared sales forecast should take account of marketing and promotion and new product launches. It should consider market share, production capacity,…

Continue Reading

By David Parmenter Quarterly rolling forecasting is a process that will revolutionize any organization, whether public or private sector. It removes the major problems that are associated with annual planning including: There are a number of QRF foundation stones that need to be laid down and never undermined.  You need to ensure all the construction…

Continue Reading

By David Parmenter These lessons have come from my implementation guide (Whitepaper + e-templates) “How to Implement Quarterly Rolling Forecasting and Quarterly Rolling Planning – and get it right first time” I have come across a number of examples where companies have had to rebuild the forecasting model within 18 months of its commissioning, as…

Continue Reading

By David Parmenter 1. Gather success factor wording used in the past The KPI team needs to review the strategic documents in their organisation covering the past 10 years, then extract and develop success factors from these documents. You may find an old strategic document written by an executive, long since moved on, which could…

Continue Reading

By David Parmenter The “sphere of influence” process is a derivative of the BSC cause-and-effect and is a faster process. The aim of the “sphere of influence” process is to understand and document relationships between success factors e.g., late planes will lead to a loss of customers (both key and non-key customers), late maintenance, low…

Continue Reading

These steps are best undertaken in a two-day workshop. Step 1: Train attendees to derive measures from the CSFs When designing measures, you need a very structured process. You begin with the CSF that will be the easiest to measure, and then you ask the audience “What results you would expect to see if the…

Continue Reading

By David Parmenter To help organisations around the world find their CSFs, I have developed a four-task process. Task 1: Documenting the already identified success factors Review the strategic plans covering the past 10 years, then extract and develop success factors from these documents. You may find an old strategic document, written by a talented…

Continue Reading

By David Parmenter (Extract from the CSFs implementation guide) Many organizations that have operated with key performance indicators (KPIs) have found the KPIs made little or no difference to performance. In many cases this was due to a fundamental misunderstanding of the issues. Organizations often begin to develop a KPI system by immediately trying to select KPIs…

Continue Reading

By David Parmenter Key performance indicators (KPIs) in many organizations are a broken tool. Measures are often a random collection prepared with little expertise, signifying nothing. KPIs should be measures that link daily activities to the organization’s critical success factors (CSFs), thus supporting an alignment of effort within the organization in the intended direction. Here…

Continue Reading

By David Parmenter It is concerning that many organizations run their enterprise without shared and communicated CSFs. For this to happen there has to be a serious misunderstanding.  I have set out in Exhibit 1 some common misunderstandings. Exhibit 1 Common misunderstanding regarding critical success factors (extract from the CSFs implementation guide) Common Misunderstandings Better practice solution Thinking that “We…

Continue Reading