Introduction

The right measures can trigger dramatic improvement in the performance of cross-functional work flows.

In fact, if you want to single out the one management act that can make the greatest contribution to successful and enduring process management, it would be developing and installing a process-based measurement system. Unless you do that-and do it well-you don’t have a prayer of maintaining powerful processes.

Good measurement is crucial for a variety of reasons. Let’s start with the fact that it signals what’s important. That positions people to get their priorities straight. It focuses everybody’s efforts on what counts the most. It makes it possible for them to evaluate their performance ... to make improvements ... to allocate their time and effort to produce maximum payoff ...