1st Edition

Measuring Performance A Toolkit of Traditional and Alternative Methods

By David Jenkins Copyright 2012

    Do your performance measures seek primarily to detect and control undesirable activities, rather than sharing and rewarding productive behaviour? Every organisation needs to measure its performance and that of the people it employs; David Jenkins shows you how to make more productive use of such measures. For measures to be accurate and reliable there are fundamental rules that need to be applied. Ignoring or misapplying them undermines performance and impedes the achievement of the corporate goal. For any enterprise, data must be available across the whole spectrum of activity in which it is engaged. The quality of that information will depend on the way it is measured. In some commercial organisations data is regularly gathered at local level. Instead of being used at this point, it is often fed into a corporate information system which, having recycled it, issues the result in a form that does not always meet needs. In Measuring Performance, David Jenkins examines the more traditional measures of performance and highlights their shortcomings as well as assessing the merits of the alternative approaches that are currently available. The book concludes with a step-by-step guide to reviewing the effectiveness of your organisation's existing systems for measuring performance and identifying ways of improving them.

    Introduction; Chapter 1 Common Sense About Measures; Chapter 2 An Introduction to Standard Accounting Doctrine; Chapter 3 Measures in Practice; Chapter 4 Measurement of Performance; Chapter 5 Reforming Measures; Chapter 6 A New Model – Productivity; Chapter 7 Spreading Measures; Chapter 8 The Measurement Toolkit; Chapter 9 Conclusion;

    Biography

    David Jenkins was educated at Merton College, Oxford and the London School of Economics. After an initial spell in public relations he moved into industry, working as a manager in project, manufacturing and marketing roles in aerospace and polymer processing. He then spent several years as head of management studies at South West London college. In 1986, having worked as an advisor to a multinational manufacturer of elevators and a Swedish car maker, he set up TEK Associates, a small consultancy to assist organizations in finding better ways of improving and measuring their performance. Measuring Performance is his fourth book.