by Gary Knight
In this installment of our guide to organizational management we look at performance management...
Performance management plays a key role in ensuring that an organization, including its subsystems such as employees, teams, departments and processes, are working in a way that achieve the overriding goals of the company. Performance management comes in the form of general reviews, or more specific reviews of quality, quantity, time-frame relevance, or cost.
While performance management reviews should (and usually are) conducted at pre-determined regular intervals, there will be times when it becomes necessary to conduct one out of cycle, based on indications that something in a particular subsystem may be out of whack. A company will most likely have general procedures established for such reviews, they can vary significantly by the subject that is the focus of the review, as well as according to the working style of the individual who carries them out.
Step one in the process is to prepare a documented plan that sets out the desired results, the way the results will be measured and the standards the performance are based on. The plan needs to be prioritized with first-level targets being at the top, and drilling down for each first-level ...