“State of Strategy Management Practice Report – 2022” is an international research study that explores the latest issues, trends, and best practices impacting the field of strategic planning, KPI usage, and strategy execution.

Developed and published by The KPI Institute, the report presents the results of a survey held from November to December 2021. The survey questions were formulated by forming a focus group of internal subject matter experts and aggregating the feedback of thousands of professionals and practitioners in The KPI Institute’s community.

The report covers the major areas affecting organizations today, from target setting to performance measurement and from the role of communication in strategic planning to the common pitfalls in strategy execution.

The data captured in the study reflects the insights of 500 professionals (27% are Executives, and another 34% occupy managerial positions), and nearly half of them are either directly involved in strategy planning or responsible for the design and maintenance of the strategy and performance management system. The survey has addressed 26 topic-related items.

Inside the report, readers would find:

Report overview

• Introduction
• Methodology
• Executive summary

Key Findings

Strategic Planning

• Highlights
• Strategy formulation process
• Strategy alignment
• Strategy tools
• Key success factors
• Strategy communication

Performance Measurement

• Highlights
• KPI usage
• Target setting
• Technology

Strategy Execution

• Highlights
• Overview
• Initiative Management
• Agility

Demographics

Conclusions and Implications for Practice

• Conclusions
• Implications for practice

Get your free copy of “State of Strategy Management Practice Report – 2022” today! For inquiries regarding the report, contact Cristina Mihăiloaie, Business Unit Manager – Research Division:  cristina.miha[email protected], +61 (390) 282 223 or +40 (749) 424 517.

Building healthy work relationships is essential for both the employees and their employer when they are building a performance-oriented culture.

Citing several studies on work relationships, SHRM Foundation’s Effective Practice Guidelines Series shows that high-quality human relationships can impact one’s physical and psychological health, cognitive abilities, thinking capacity, learning, resiliency, commitment, creativity, and organizational citizenship behavior. This means more efficient employee coordination with qualities that support “greater organizational effectiveness and efficiency.”

However, the work setup of most companies changed when the COVID-19 pandemic struck the world. Organizations moved their operations online, forcing employees to perform their duties and communicate virtually. 

Cultivating professional relationships is not easy in such an environment. Employees connecting virtually rather than face-to-face communication have lesser chances of building relationships, according to a study held by Xiao-Ping Chen, the Philip M. Condit Endowed Chair in Business Administration at the University of Washington Foster School of Business.

Findings showed that it is difficult to understand the nonverbal cues of remote workers, such as facial expressions, hand gestures, silence, or delayed responses. Moreover, most employees struggle with paying attention during a meeting done via video conferencing.

What Organizations Can Do

Increasing resilience in the workplace as people recover from a crisis means giving them purpose and hope, flexibility and adaptability, and connection to their colleagues. Organizations can arrange activities that can help employees stay connected even while working remotely. 

In an interview with CNBC, Jason Fried, CEO of the project management company Basecamp, recommends a daily check-in with colleagues or a time at work where they can share ideas and express support over personal matters.

Meanwhile, education company General Assembly implemented watercooler chat over coffee through video chat rooms. Meg Randall, the director of product delivery for the company’s tech team in New York City, said that those coffee breaks help her mentally start her day. “It’s a small talk that lasts for a few minutes, but it’s a nice ritual if you’re craving that human connection every day, which I have been,” said Randall. 

Trust, transparency, and open communication can also help organizations nurture healthy work relationships. One of the ways this can be tested, particularly between leaders and employees, is performance evaluation. Assessing employee performance has changed due to the pandemic. 

In the online event held by ECCP and HURIS on August 2021, Cristina Mihăiloaie, Business Unit Manager at The KPI Institute, said that the performance criteria used for employee evaluations, whether it involves key performance indicators or not, should be “flexible, easy to adapt to changes, and more focused on the extent to which the role is successfully achieved, compared to looking at operational details.”

“For example, employees who worked from home and multitasked between being a parent and a professional may have missed some meetings, or maybe they seemed more absent during work. Overall, if the output of their job is good, the operational details may be less important,” she said. 

Join Cristina as she delivers the Certified Performance Management Systems Audit Professional Live Online course on 07 – 11 March 2022 / EMEA 18:00 – 22:00 GST and ASEAN 09:00 – 13:00 CST (US).

This 40-hour course will discuss how to diagnose and audit the maturity of performance architectures for five capabilities: strategic planning, performance measurement, performance management, performance culture and employee performance management.

Don’t miss this opportunity to widen your knowledge and experience in employee performance management. You can sign up here.

There is no one standard performance measurement system that would perfectly fit all organizations. Just ask Fabian Stigler, who graces the cover of the July 2021 issue of the PERFORMANCE Magazine – Printed Edition.

Stigler, a project engineer at IQ Intelligentes Ingenieur Management GmbH, specializes in project management, business intelligence, and business analytics.

One of his accomplishments as a performance analyst is developing a KPI system (KPI Performance Measurement System) that simplified multiple KPIs into an overall statement. 

He has also designed a data visualization guideline that makes reporting easier to understand and presentations clearly structured. “This system is methodical and universally applicable and can therefore be used in many departments and companies/industries,” he explains. 

With over six years of experience in the international automotive industry, Stigler tells PERFORMANCE Magazine that performance measurement systems play a significant role in decision-making nowadays. He attributes this change to “the advent of digitization in the automotive industry and the ever-increasing influence of data.”

According to Stigler, technology is important in building a robust performance measurement system. To achieve that, he emphasizes the need for powerful IT instruments, such as data lakes, powerful servers, and software.

Read Stigler’s complete interview in the July 2021 issue of the PERFORMANCE Magazine – Printed Edition. He shares his insights on the usage of KPIs, his advice to professionals in his field, and his views on work-life balance. 

The latest issue discusses the employee performance management cycle and the role of departmental values in achieving a corporate vision. Readers will learn more about the OKR system being implemented in brands like Google, Accenture, Twitter, and LinkedIn and the magazine’s recommended reading list for 2021.

Sharing your views, experiences, and strategies in managing performance is a great way to make connections and strengthen your professional brand as a business leader. 

If you would like to be considered as a contributor or an interviewee to be featured in PERFORMANCE Magazine or to send advertising inquiries, contact the editor at [email protected].

Between the 18th – 19th of November, 2019, the University of Padua, Italy, co-hosted in partnership with the Performance Management Association (PMA), the Performance Measurement and Management In Industry 4.0 Symposium. The KPI Institute was honoured to be invited and participate in the event, having been represented by Adrian Brudan, General Manager for the EMEA Region.

The symposium gathered scholars, consultants and practitioners from all over the globe, to focus their discussion, share their experiences and research findings on all of the upcoming industry challenges faced by the 21st century’s companies, as they delve deeper in what is known today as the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

For the past years, the business world has seen the rise of numerous new technological developments: Advanced Manufacturing, Additive Manufacturing, Augmented Reality, Big Data Analytics, Cloud, Cyber Security, Horizontal and Vertical integration, Industrial Internet of Things, Simulations. Organizations around the world are trying to keep up with these trends and it is becoming painstakingly clear that many are faltering in their performance measurement and management practices.

The KPI Institute, represented by Adrian Brudan, GM of the company and Ph.D. student at The West University, in Timisoara, contributed to the discussions with two research studies:

• Performance Management & Measurement Challenges at the Dawn of a New Technological (R)Evolution and
• Performance Management Maturity Model: Role for Improving Decision-Making in a Digitized World.

The first research study conducted by Adrian – Performance Management & Measurement Challenges at the Dawn of a New Technological (R)Evolution, features research carried out over a period of 5 years, with inputs received from participants that attended 199 certification programs in the field of performance management and measurement organized by The KPI Institute, in both open and in-house formats.

The programs were delivered in 48 cities, from 34 countries, on 6 continents. There were 3112 participants who took part in discussions which generated all of the data collected, representing 741 organizations, from 29 diverse industries, with an average of 16 participants per program/discussion.

The study’s central premise revolved around the main challenges that organizations highlight as being key underperformance factors when it comes to performance measurement & management. Each of these main factors represents a compilation of several sub-factors, which together end up resulting in an overarching issue for the company.

The findings reflect that organizations encounter as many challenges as per the number of categories of sub-clusters identified in the study, which led to the development of its main categories. The challenges reflect both technical issues with the concepts of KPI selection, standardization and activation, as well as more generic challenges that pertain to matters such as system deployment, maintenance and maturity due to lack of proper buy-in and nurturing of a performance-driven culture.

The second research study – Performance Management Maturity Model: Role for Improving Decision-Making in a Digitized World, focused on bringing to the fore all of the field-related research work and knowledge, gathered in the last 10 years, under the coordination of Adrian Brudan, GM of the Global Performance Audit Unit – GPA Unit, the strategy and performance audit division of The KPI Institute. Its purpose is to provide integrated strategy and performance management systems assessment solutions through rigorous research, education and analysis.

The GPA Unit developed the Performance Maturity Model Framework, in order to assess the complexity of an institution’s organizational capabilities. The framework relies on approximately 300 assessment parameters, grouped under 5 major areas of organizational performance improvement that reflect best practices in the field.

The Performance Measurement and Management In Industry 4.0 Symposium was a most insightful and inspiring experience. With each year, every new edition brings forth greater and more novel ideas, signaling that the way to deal with today’s recurrent performance challenges does have a one-size fits all solution, but multiple ways to reach the end goal. The symposium acts as a platform for establishing links between research groups with complementary activities, and an opportunity to share experiences with the business world.

We are honoured and proud to have been a part of this event and look forward to its future editions!

We are proud to announce that between the 20^th–22^nd of March 2019, Alina Miertoiu, Senior Consultant for The KPI Institute, hosted the first Certified OKR Professional 3-day training course in Kuala Lumpur.

Participants from various functional areas, such as trainers, consultants, sales professionals, HR professionals, CEOs or IT Product Development joined us for this learning experience.

The main expectations of the attendees from the course were to:

• Understand what OKRs are;
• Understand what key results are and how to set them;
• Understand the difference between OKRs and other Performance Measurement Tools;
• Understand how to align OKRs between different organizational levels, especially at the employee level;
• How to set OKRs for specific functional areas.

Course journal

The C-OKR training course provides a deeper understanding on how to set and work with OKRs, in order to support fast decision-making and innovative thinking.

The three days learning experience blends the theory and best practices, with case studies meant to increase the understanding of the main concepts through practical applications.

Day I

The most engaging part of Day 1 was the exercise highlighting what makes the OKR system a hot topic nowadays, and how is it different from KPIs or MBO.

Attendees were also introduced to the concept of stretched goals, which are meant to push the employees and the organization to do more than what is expected and to the various types of OKRs, such as aspirational and committed ones. It was definitely a very challenging day, with a lot of questions being asked and several debates taking place.

Day II

During Day 2, which was a more practical and hands-on day, the participants’ view on performance measurement and cascading was challenged.

Emphasis was placed on the importance on having all employees able to understand the strategic objectives of the organization, and create quarterly personal objectives, which go beyond just operational work, focusing on adding value and working towards achieving strategical objectives.

Day III

Day three was quite dynamic, since it was wholly dedicated to a third case study for OKR selection and alignment, and ended with these OKRs’ review.

Based on the data provided, participants were asked to simulate intermediate or final OKR review sessions, while I, as the facilitator, took part as the responsible employee for those OKRs.

I made sure to play the “bad cop” role for the first time, so that the review could feel more than just a simulation, with attendees considering this exercise one of most successful one.

Sign-ups and registration!

As performance is a constant preoccupation, we would be more than happy to assist you throughout your performance journey!

If you enjoyed reading our course journal and feel that this learning environment would be suitable for your needs, why not visit our training calendar and check what best suits your learning needs?

If you’re someone that does not have a lot of time on their hands, to go to a course in person, we also have online training courses that align well with Performance Management topics:

• Certified Performance Management Professional
• Certified KPI Professional

Otherwise, if the opportunity of customized training courses is of interest to you or you’d like to know more information, contact Alina Miertoiu directly, at alina.miertoiu@@kpiinstitute.com.

Cristina Tărâță, Research Coordinator at The KPI Institute, delivered on the 21^st of May 2014, a 45 minutes presentation as part of the 15^th HR Shared Services & Outsourcing Summit 2014, which took place in Chicago, Illinois.

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