Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Summary:
It's no secret that you can't improve your organization's performance without measuring it. In fact, every function, unit, process, and the organization as a whole, is built and run according to the parameters and expectations of its measurement system.
So you'd better make sure you're doing it right. All too often, performance measurement creates dysfunction, whether among individuals, teams, or across entire divisions and companies. Most traditional measurement systems actually encourage unhealthy competition for personal gain, creating internal conflict and breeding distrust of performance measurement.
Transforming Performance Measurement presents a breakthrough approach that will not only significantly reduce those dysfunctions, but also promote alignment with business strategy, maximize cross-enterprise integration, and help everyone to work collaboratively to drive value throughout your organization.
Performance improvement thought leader Dean Spitzer explains why performance measurement should be less about calculations and analysis and more about the crucial social factors that determine how well the measurements get used. His "socialization of measurement" process focuses on learning and improvement from measurement, and on the importance of asking such questions as: How well do our measures reflect our business model? How successfully are they driving our strategy? What should we be measuring and not measuring? Are the right people having the right measurement discussions?
Performance measurement is a dynamic process that calls for an awareness of the balance necessary between seemingly disparate ideas: the technical and the social aspects of performance measurement. For example, you need technology to manage the flood of data, but you must make sure that it supports the people who will be making decisions and taking action crucial to your organization's success. This book shows you how to design that technical-social balance into your measurement system.
While it is urgent to start taking action now, transforming your organization's performance measurement system will take time. Transforming Performance Measurement gives you assessment tools to gauge where you are now and a roadmap for moving, with little or no disruption, to a more "transformational" and mature measurement system.
The book also provides 34 TMAPs, Transformational Measurement Action Plans, which suggest both well-accepted and "emergent" measures (in areas such as marketing, human resources, customer service, knowledge management, productivity, information technology, research and development, costing, and more) that you can use right away.
In the end, you get what you measure. If you measure the wrong things, you will take your company farther and farther away from its mission and strategic goals. Transforming Performance Measurement tells you not only what to measure, but how to do it--and in what context--to make a truly transformational difference in your enterprise.
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
Namibian application
Customer Rating:
Dean, I want to thank you for your book, `Transforming Performance Measurement'. It is one of the best business books I have read this year and one of the best on performance management!
Although you refer to performance `measurement', I believe the book covers the topic of performance management, including measurement, evaluation, reporting, dialogue, improvement, learning, etc. You demonstrated very good insight in the topic and were able to integrate/synthesize the various elements very well.
I would like to use your book as a key reference in the manual I am writing on Performance Management for the public sector here in Namibia.
There is such a great need in Namibia today (especially the public sector where I am involved), for proper performance management / proper implementation of strategic plans (based on the Balanced Scorecard) - presented in a simple way. Your book really stresses the important foundation of measurement, but that dialogue lies in the heart of performance management. This is so true!
Valuable resource to transform organizational performance
Customer Rating:
Transforming Performance Measurement by Dean Spitzer is recommended reading for anyone who attempts to change the culture of an organization. In a field (over)loaded with data as in education, Dean focused our attention only on the measures that will likely improve performance. Guided by measurements as opposed to intuition, the readers will often find themselves wondering how to measure their contributions toward the team's success.
The book reaffirms the notion that data without context is just isolated facts. Positive transformation occurs when more people within the organization converts data into information, knowledge and finally wisdom. For those who try to capture performance data through integrated technology, you will recognize the common pitfalls of measurement technology cited in the book (pg 160). Unfortunately, some pitfalls may be difficult to avoid even after reading this book.
Finally, the importance of measurement leadership cannot be overstated. Success of scorecards and dashboards depends largely on the "systemic" nature of the implementation. Organization that promotes open discussion about measurement deficiencies will foster the social context necessary to transform its performance.
I highly recommend this book not just for one-time reading. It has moved from my bookshelf to the desktop and remains a great daily reference as our organization moves through the process of transformation.
The Code for a New Level of Performance Measurements is Broken!
Customer Rating:
The code for a new level of performance measurements measuring organizational success has been broken and its secrets are revealed in this book! Dean Spitzer brilliantly helps readers transform performance measurements by combining technical aspects with the often overlooked social aspects of performance. This book is a must read for all who truly want to create and maintain a transformational performance measurements "cultural shift" within their organization.
Completely Useless
Customer Rating:
This book is a 304-page introduction and description of its subject. It tells how and why most measurement schemes yield disappointing results. The author never gets around to telling us how to improve measurement.
This book is a classic example of Bad Business Writing: massive introduction of the subject, followed by interminable discussion of how we get it wrong, followed by enormous build-up for the wisdom we are about to receive. Are we there yet? Not on your life. Next we get a lexicon of the elements of transformational performance measurement: context, focus, integration and interactivity. You may want to write those down, as I won't return to them. Then more buildup:
"When all four keys are working together synergistically, amazing things can, and will, happen to enable the awesome power of measurement to make a real difference--a transformational difference--in your organization!"
I am so ready now.
In a last, desperate attempt to get a plan for actually measuring something, I skipped forward to the chapter with "Action Plans" in the title. Does he begin with action plans? No, more description, more build up, then finally, an actual suggestion, the first needle in this 304-page haystack:
"[A] restaurant staff assign a "mood rating" (from 1 to 10) to each customer party when they enter the establishment and throughout the meal. The goal is to raise the mood rating, with the standard that no one should leave the restaurant with a mood rating below a 9."
I will take this brilliant pearl of wisdom back to my major financial institution and transform our business. Thank you, Mr. Spitzer.
The Social Side of Performance Measurement
Customer Rating:
This has to be the absolute best book I have read in this field of performance measurement.
Spitzer goes straight to the heart of what performance measurement is all about - transforming organisational performance - and he makes it crystal clear why it is more about the social system (the people) than the technical systems (dashboards, analysis, data).
His writing style is engaging, filled with great examples and wonderful inspirational quotes and advice from leaders in the management and performance fields.
It isn't a step-by-step how-to book, but it is essential for anyone leading performance measurement and improvement - and anyone leading an organisation - to read, to study and read again.
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