The KPI Institute has recorded 44,900 participants across its educational programs as of July 1, 2026. Behind that figure is a community of professionals who have taken part in courses covering strategy, performance management and related areas through different learning formats.

The latest figures show that 33,234 participants joined courses organized directly by The KPI Institute, while 11,666 participants attended courses organized by training partners and resellers.

The programs have reached professionals across different regions. The latest complete regional breakdown, recorded on June 4, 2026, counted 37,860 participants from the Middle East, followed by 4,151 from APAC, 1,251 from Africa, 635 from Europe, 436 from South America and 160 from North America.

The figures also show how participants are choosing to learn. As of July 1, 2026, 22,619 participants had taken part in face-to-face courses, 20,761 in live online courses and 1,520 in pre-recorded courses.

What are participants learning?

The participant base includes professionals pursuing different types of educational and certification programs. The available figures show participation across three main course formats:

• Face-to-face courses: 22,619 participants have taken part in classroom-based learning.
• Live online courses: 20,761 participants have participated in instructor-led online learning.
• Pre-recorded courses: 1,520 participants have completed courses through recorded learning formats.

The figures also show the scale of certification activity within the participant community. As of June 4, 2026, The KPI Institute recorded 13,115 Certified KPI Professionals and 257 Certified KPI Practitioners, with 21,656 certified professionals recorded across the certification categories reported in its figures.

The educational programs have also been delivered on a broad international scale. The institute’s records show 60 countries where educational programs have been delivered, alongside 3,063 total courses delivered as of July 1, 2026.

For professionals working in strategy and performance management, these programs cover areas connected to measuring performance, managing KPIs, developing professional capabilities and applying structured approaches to organizational performance. The certification figures indicate that KPI-related professional development represents a significant part of the overall participant community.

The growth in participation has continued during 2026. The institute recorded 43,265 total participants in January, rising to 43,454 in February, 43,679 in March, 43,923 in April, 44,253 in May, 44,493 in June and 44,900 in July.

The numbers provide a view of a professional learning community that spans regions, delivery formats and certification pathways. They also show that participants continue to access strategy and performance management education through both direct programs and the institute’s network of training partners and resellers.

For those interested in following discussions and updates related to strategy and performance management, follow The KPI Institute on LinkedIn.

Considering a strategy and performance management certification can raise practical questions about registration, time commitment, certification requirements, interaction, support, resources, and technical requirements.

The KPI Institute’s FAQ for its 2026 worldwide live-online certifications addresses these questions.

How do I register for the course?

Similar to the open face-to-face programs, the online programs have an application and admission process in place. Participants are required to fill in the application form and process the payment for the course in order to register. A confirmation email will be sent once the registration has been completed.

How much time should I expect to allocate to complete all course requirements?

The total expected time is 40 hours. This includes:

• Pre-course requirements: 4 hours
• Live online sessions: 20 hours, 4 hours per day, for 5 consecutive days
• Individual Learning Map and exam preparation: 3 hours, 0.5 hours per day after each live session, and 0.5 hours for the final recap before the exam
• Certification Exam: 1 hour
• After-course requirements: 12 hours

What will I receive upon completing the program?

The certification process is finalized only when all three stages of the learning experience have been completed. Participants will receive the following:

• Certificate of Completion: After completing the pre-course activities and passing the Certification Exam
• Certificate of Attendance: After participating in the online training course
• Certified Professional diploma: After successfully completing all three stages of the learning experience
• CPD Certificate of Attendance: Once Professional status has been successfully obtained

Will I be able to interact with the facilitator and other participants?

Yes. The learning experience is designed to encourage interaction. The facilitator will address participants’ questions and provide feedback during the sessions, as well as share best-practice information on the topics being discussed.

Participants will also be encouraged to share their own experiences and work and participate in group discussions during the online course and through the E-Learning platform before and after the course.

What support can I expect throughout the program?

Participants can expect support throughout the program. Content-related questions will be addressed by the facilitator, certification process queries by the Education Team, and technical questions by IT specialists.

Challenges during the course can be addressed through the E-Learning platform, email, phone, or during the live online sessions.

What resources will I get access to?

To help participants implement the knowledge they have gained in their organization and support further learning on the topic, the following resources will be made available:

• Premium Subscription on smartKPIs.com for 6 months, providing access to 500 fully documented KPIs and over 20,000 KPI examples
• One research report from the Top 25 KPIs series
• Free access to all webinars from the 2014 to 2016 Performance Management series
• Performance Management Toolkit containing Excel-based templates for Desired State of Evolution, Strategy Map, Scorecard, Dashboard, Portfolio of Initiatives, KPI Documentation Form, KPI Report Form, and Initiative Description Form
• The KPI Infographic
• The Performance Management in 2012, 2013, and 2014 reports
• Catalogues and Fact Sheets
• VideoDoodles
• Training slides and course notes

What technical requirements are needed to join the course?

Joining the platform is simple, and participants do not need advanced technical skills. They simply need to click on a link to open the app and join. After that, they select “use computer audio” and are ready to participate.

If I have attended face-to-face training before, can I get a 1:1 session with a consultant?

Yes. 1:1 sessions with subject matter experts can be organized on request, regardless of whether participants have attended a past public or in-house course.

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Check out the schedule of the strategy and performance management courses for the rest of 2026:

• Live Online Training Courses 2026: https://kpiinstitute.org/Live_Online_Training_Courses_2026_Calendar_a.pdf
• Face-to-Face Training Courses 2026 (EMEA): https://kpiinstitute.org/MENA_UK_Training_Courses_2026_Calendar.pdf
• Face-to-Face Training Courses 2026 (Southeast Asia): https://kpiinstitute.org/SEA_Training_Courses_2026_Calendar.pdf

Certification in strategy and performance management is intended to change how professionals approach measurement, planning, and execution in their organizations. To understand whether it does, The KPI Institute reviewed testimonials left by participants who completed a strategy and performance management certification course, from HR managers in Bahrain to strategy directors in Malaysia, and identified the recurring patterns, the standout accounts, and the courses mentioned most often.

What people keep saying, over and over

Read enough of these, and a few things start to repeat.

The word “practical” or “applicable” shows up more than 750 times across the testimonials. People aren’t just saying the course was informative, they’re saying they could take it back to their desk and use it the next day. “Structured” and “organized” together appear in over 650 testimonials, a strong signal that the course design itself, not just the content, is something participants notice and value.

Nearly 500 testimonials use the word “recommend,” often unprompted, often specifically naming colleagues they plan to send next. And a smaller but consistent group goes further than “useful,” describing the course in terms of confidence, career, or a shift in how they think about their work. Words like “life,” “career,” “journey” and “transform” show up hundreds of times combined.

These patterns are drawn from direct participant feedback rather than promotional material, reflecting the experiences of professionals who completed between three and five days of training and chose to describe that experience in their own words.

Where they’re writing in from

The testimonials span more than 100 countries across Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, North America, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Australia. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia show up most often, but the range is genuinely global: the same course shows up in feedback from a HR manager in Bahrain, a strategy consultant in Kenya, and a general manager in the Dominican Republic.

10 that stood out

While many testimonials describe the course in similar terms of structure and practicality, the following ten offer more detailed or distinctive accounts.

1. The one who compared KPIs to your phone battery

Taha Shahzad, IT Quality Team Leader at ARASCO in Saudi Arabia, took the Certified KPI Practitioner and Professional course and offered this:

“Either if it’s your cellphone’s battery percentage or your rate of production at work, KPIs are everywhere.”

2. The skeptic who got converted

Dayang Poh Wan Ying, known as Felicia, an Executive Officer at Brunei’s Ministry of Defence, didn’t expect much going in:

“I did not come to the course with a positive mind, but this course has changed my perspective on KPIs and the possible simplicity of it.”

3. The one who now can’t stop measuring things

Ihab Najeeb Abuziyad, Kingdom Biomaintenance Manager at Salehiya Medical in Saudi Arabia, took it home with him:

“The KPI course has changed the way to measure the performance of many elements in my everyday life.”

4. The one who called the facilitator a genius

Mohammad Afzal Saheer, a participant in Saudi Arabia, did not hold back:

“The facilitator is a genius. He managed to inject the KPIs into us slowly but swiftly.”

5. The one who was hooked before the course even started

Mohammed A. Alaryan, a Specialist at the Capital Markets Authority in Kuwait, was won over by the pre-course homework:

“Very much loved the experience. The nice thing about it is that it got me engaged on the topic even before the actual course starting, with the pre-course assessments and assignments.”

6. The one who turned into an unofficial recruiter

Naglaa Kassem, a Clinical Quality Reviewer at the International Medical Center in Saudi Arabia, did our marketing for us without being asked:

“Best course I’ve taken, as well as the most applicable and useful for me in my career… I have already encouraged several colleagues to sign up for the next time it is presented.”

7. The facilitator who made a “dry” topic actually fun

Siti Norliyana Haji Mat Salleh, from Malaysia’s Ministry of Home Affairs, expected the topic to be dry. It wasn’t:

“His friendly and funny personality made this dry, supposedly, topic become interesting and fun to learn.”

8. The one who realized everything is measurable

Onuorah Nkem Michael, from Nigeria, had a lightbulb moment:

“The course exposed me to realize that everything we do is measurable, and that measuring what people do in the workplace is fundamental to making businesses successful.”

9. The one who found her “excellent product” thousands of miles from home

Karina Mabrich, General Manager at Talent y Management MH in the Dominican Republic, traveled to a session delivered in Lima, Peru:

“I attended this because of its reputation in the market, and once more time they deliver an excellent product.”

10. The one who kept it straight to the point

Jane Rowe, Assistant Director at ACT NoWaste, Transport Canberra and City Services in Australia, summed up her course in one line:

“Fantastic course. Very relevant, easily understood, would recommend to others happily.”

The courses behind the quotes

The testimonials cover 69 distinct course titles in total. The ones mentioned most often are:

• Certified KPI Professional (C-KPI)
• Certified Professional and Practitioner in Performance Indicators (C-KPIPP)
• Certified Strategy and Business Planning Professional (C-SBP)
• Certified Balanced Scorecard Professional (C-BSC)
• Certified OKR Professional (C-OKR)
• Certified Performance Management Professional (C-PM)

It’s never too late to see for yourself

Reading about it is one thing.

The next course could be a few weeks away.

• Live Online Training Courses 2026: https://kpiinstitute.org/Live_Online_Training_Courses_2026_Calendar_a.pdf
• Face-to-Face Training Courses 2026 (EMEA): https://kpiinstitute.org/MENA_UK_Training_Courses_2026_Calendar.pdf
• Face-to-Face Training Courses 2026 (Southeast Asia): https://kpiinstitute.org/SEA_Training_Courses_2026_Calendar.pdf

Every organization says it’s “data-driven.” Far fewer can say every manager in the room means the same thing when they say “customer satisfaction,” “on-time delivery,” or “risk exposure.” That gap — between having metrics and having shared, defensible metrics — is where most performance management initiatives quietly stall.

It’s also the gap this list is built to close. Drawing on The KPI Institute’s own sales records for the first eight months of 2026, these are the ten KPI dictionaries that strategy and performance professionals turned to most often. Each earns its place here not because of how well it sold, but because of the specific problem it solves for the people who lead performance conversations rather than just sit in them.

1. The Healthcare KPI Dictionary: 300+ Key Performance Indicator Definitions

Healthcare performance is uniquely hard to standardize: clinical outcomes, patient experience, operational efficiency, and financial sustainability all compete for the same dashboard real estate. This dictionary lays out precise, industry-recognized definitions across all of them, so a hospital administrator and a clinical director can finally sit in the same meeting and agree on what “quality of care” is actually measuring.

Download here

2. The Constructions and Capital Works KPI Dictionary: 70+ Key Performance Indicator Definitions

Capital projects are notorious for cost overruns and timeline slippage that only become visible once it’s too late to correct course. This dictionary gives project sponsors and site leadership a common set of indicators — covering cost control, schedule adherence, safety, and quality — early enough in the project lifecycle to actually act on them.

Download here

3. The KPI Dictionary: 4,800+ Key Performance Indicator Definitions — Volume 2: Industries

For leaders operating across multiple sectors, or benchmarking against companies outside their own industry, this volume is the closest thing to a universal translator. It organizes thousands of indicators by industry vertical, making it possible to compare performance logic across manufacturing, retail, energy, and beyond — instead of assuming every sector measures success the same way.

Download here

4. The Local Government KPI Dictionary: 660+ Key Performance Indicator Definitions

Public-sector leaders answer to a harder audience than most: taxpayers, auditors, and elected officials, often with conflicting definitions of success. This dictionary gives municipal and government performance teams a vocabulary that holds up under public scrutiny — turning “we’re improving services” into indicators that can actually be reported and defended.

Download here

5. The KPI Dictionary: 3,200+ Key Performance Indicator Definitions — Volume 1: Functional Areas

Where Volume 2 organizes by industry, this companion volume organizes by function — HR, finance, marketing, operations, and more, all under one cover. It’s built for leaders whose real challenge isn’t finding a KPI, but finding the right one across departments that rarely speak the same performance language.

Download here

6. The Supply Chain KPI Dictionary: 360+ Key Performance Indicator Definitions

Supply chain reporting has outgrown “on-time delivery” as a catch-all metric. This dictionary reflects how granular the discipline has become — covering everything from inventory accuracy to supplier performance to fulfillment cost — giving supply chain leaders a reference precise enough to match how the function is actually run today.

Download here

7. The Accounting KPI Dictionary: 220+ Key Performance Indicator Definitions

Accounting functions tend to inherit their KPIs informally, one controller passing a slightly different ratio set to the next. This dictionary offers a standardized foundation instead — definitions precise enough to survive an audit and consistent enough to hold their meaning as teams and leadership change.

Download here

8. The Finance KPI Dictionary: 190+ Key Performance Indicator Definitions

Where accounting records what happened, finance is responsible for deciding what happens next — and that shift in purpose demands a different set of indicators. This dictionary picks up where its accounting counterpart leaves off, giving finance leaders the metrics to support forecasting, capital allocation, and strategic decision-making rather than historical reporting alone.

Download here

9. The Governance, Compliance and Risk KPI Dictionary: 130+ Key Performance Indicator Definitions

As ESG obligations and risk oversight climb further up every board agenda, “we’re managing risk” is no longer an acceptable answer on its own. This dictionary equips governance, compliance, and risk leaders with indicators built to be reported, audited, and defended — not just discussed.

Download here

10. The Knowledge and Innovation KPI Dictionary: 130+ Key Performance Indicator Definitions

Innovation is one of the hardest areas to measure honestly — it’s easy to track activity (patents filed, ideas submitted) and much harder to track whether any of it moved the business forward. This dictionary gives strategy leaders a way to measure knowledge management and innovation output with the same rigor applied to more traditional functions, instead of leaving it to anecdote.

Download here

The Common Thread

None of these are generic introductions to KPIs. Each is a specific, functional reference chosen by people who already understood they needed better metrics and were looking for precision, not inspiration. That’s the real signal here: the professionals shaping strategy and performance management in 2026 aren’t short on ideas — they’re closing the gap between having a metric and having one that survives contact with a boardroom, an auditor, or a cross-functional argument.

Most enterprises are not short on AI ambition. They are short on the KPI governance needed to point that ambition somewhere useful. A growing body of data suggests the organizations getting AI right are not the ones moving fastest. They are the ones that paused to fix their metrics first.

The scale of the problem is hard to ignore.

AI project failure rates jumped from 17% to 42% between 2024 and 2025. A separate industry report cited in the same analysis found that 72% of businesses expect to shut down AI pilots this year because those pilots failed to meet the KPIs set for them. That detail is worth sitting with.

The pilots did not fail on technology grounds.

They failed against indicators the organization had set but could not govern well enough to track, interpret, or act on. Closing that gap is a KPI governance training problem before it is an AI problem.

When AI Meets Ungoverned KPIs, Pilots Stall

AI systems amplify whatever measurement discipline already exists in an organization. Feed a model into a KPI environment with unclear ownership, inconsistent definitions, or thresholds nobody reviews, and the model produces outputs at a pace no governance process can absorb.

The result looks like a technology failure, but the root cause sits upstream, in how the KPIs were defined and managed before AI arrived.

This is consistent with what governance researchers are seeing across adjacent domains. Deloitte’s 2025 research found that 74% of enterprises plan to adopt AI agents within two years, while only 21% report having a mature governance model in place for them.

The gap between deployment appetite and governance maturity is not a coincidence. It is the same gap that shows up whenever a fast-moving initiative outpaces the measurement structure meant to keep it accountable.

Why KPI Governance Training Comes Before Automation

Organizations that treat KPI governance as a prerequisite for AI, rather than a parallel workstream, tend to sequence their investment differently.

A 2025 survey of senior data and analytics executives found that 85% were prioritizing improvements to data governance specifically to prepare for AI, ahead of investment in the AI tools themselves. The same survey found 65% prioritizing workforce upskilling and reskilling as part of that same readiness effort.

That sequencing has a logic to it. A KPI cannot be automated, monitored, or trusted by an algorithm if the people who own it cannot define it precisely, document its calculation method, or explain what a threshold breach should trigger.

Governance is not a compliance checkbox sitting beside AI adoption. It is the specification the AI eventually relies on. Skipping it does not speed up adoption. It just moves the failure point from the pilot phase to production.

The Capability Layer Underneath KPI Governance

Building that governance layer is a skills problem before it is a systems problem. Someone in the organization needs to know how to write a proper KPI definition, structure a scorecard architecture, and run a monitoring process disciplined enough that an AI system can plug into it safely. Templates for KPI documentation, scorecard design, and performance monitoring give teams a consistent starting point for this work.

Structured KPI governance training turns those templates into applied capability. Teams that understand KPI governance at a working level, not just a conceptual one, are the teams positioned to bring AI into their measurement systems without repeating the pattern behind so many stalled pilots.

Conclusion

AI adoption failures are increasingly measurement failures wearing a technology label. Organizations that invest in KPI governance training before scaling automation are the ones with a real foundation. The ones that skip it are the ones filing the failure statistics.

Getting the sequence right starts with building governance capability before adding automation on top of it.

Strengthen your team’s KPI governance foundations through The KPI Institute’s performance management training courses.