Selecting KPI's for OBIEE

Business Intelligence is about taking raw information from the ERP systems, turning it into measurable performance and then getting the organization to improve the results. Performance Measures also known as Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) is critical for Performance Measurement and Performance Improvement aspects of Business Intelligence.

Articulate which results define the success of your business. Then come up with KPIs for them. It is common to find businesses that are finding it challenging to select the right performance measures. Once you start getting the results through OBIEE, you can change the business to make them more successful for the selected KPIs.

Are you experiencing any of these problems with selecting the KPI's -

• Too many performance measures
  
• Not enough meaningful performance measures
  
• Measures don't align with organizational direction
  
• No buy-in from staff
  
• Performance data lacks integrity

Here are some guidelines to choose performance measures:

• Choose measures that match desired outcomes. Be focused on the outcomes that matter most to you. Then select the performance measures matching those outcomes.
  
• Choose measures aligning your strategy . Use your strategic direction as the starting point for selecting measures and use it as an ongoing check point.
  
• Choose the measures that are controllable over those that are not. You should be able to do something about bad numbers.
  
• Choose the goals that capture people's attention.
  
• Choose measures that conflict with one another. Everything is about balance. Cycle time versus quality, profit versus customer retention, employee satisfaction versus productivity. Management is about balancing conflicts that are important. So if your measures aren't in conflict with one another, then you're missing essential information to manage.

Start with about 5 basic KPI's for OBIEE that are key to most organizations:

• Customer Satisfaction
  
• Product/Service Defects
  
• Cycle Time
  
• Productivity
  
• Improvement Ideas

Then fine tune new measures that are in line with your strategic direction and desired outcomes. Use these KPI's as a tool for improvement, on a personal level, on a team level and on an organizational level.