As a finance professional involved with helping organizations set and measure themselves against targets, objectives, and KPIs, I’ve seen my share of the good, the bad, and baffling when it comes to creating measurements that matter and reinforce the intended behaviors.
While often well-intended, many metrics suffer from one or more factors that actually decrease productivity, demoralize teams, and otherwise lead to a variety of cheating to ensure targets are met at year-end. There has to be a better way of going about the process, right? Well, the good news is that someone has come along to make the process better and less error-prone. Bernie Smith and his new book, Gamed, aim at solving this common pain point.
I came across Gamed as a recommendation on my Kindle, and I was not disappointed.
Right off the bat, I appreciated the fresh anecdotes that helped drive home the importance of setting KPIs effectively by learning from recent failures in the business world and government. Some examples I was aware of, but others were new to me. It was clear early on that Bernie is passionate about this topic and has put together a well-thought-out explainer that appeals to professionals at any level in their career.
The book starts by giving the reader a brief yet critical explainer on the basics of settings KPIs and worked through several case studies to explain the steps, do’s, and don’t.
This book walks you through the essential steps of designing robust, effective, and credible targets and incentives for your organization using practical examples and case studies. The approach is also perfect for selecting meaningful Key Results for OKRs.
Part 1: How and why targets and incentives go wrong
Part 2: How to design effective targets (or fix broken ones)
Part 3: How to design effective incentives (or fix broken ones)
Part 4: Making it Happen
Bernie has boiled his experience helping organizations down into sensible and practical advice on performance measurement. His book shares that expertise in a down-to-earth and conversational style. At times it’s even funny.
What I like best is that Bernie offers the reader a very well vetted and throughout the process that closes the typical loopholes and mistakes that often present themselves. His ROKET-DS system of identifying, naming, and offering remediations to common challenges in target setting adds new material to the discipline. When it comes to designing incentives, his suggestion of doing both white and black hat testing is also refreshing.
Overall, I liked that Gamed was laid out well and added helpful information even for someone like me who has years of experience in this area.
Ben
Business Processes & Infrastructure
By Smith, Bernie
