HPMD Bullet: Critical Success Factors

HPMD Bullets

BULLET #5
CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS

Critical success factors are an important management tool. They provide a means of focusing on the most important goals of the business and measuring whether a company has attained them. In an ever improving company, each and every department should ask itself how it will know whether it is successful, and how to keep score.

A matrix of success factors and objectives, such as those presented here, can be reviewed quarterly as a exercise for reviewing performance and setting departmental objectives.

The attached table is a possible set of critical success factors (CSF's) and measures for each department in an information services company, which sells and supports via telephone. CSF's ought to be of 3 types:

1. Quality: soft and hard measures of reliability, skill, functionality

2. Production: measures of efficiency and productivity

3. Change: measures of improvement and growth

These factors lend themselves to periodic tracking and reporting. They also get at the important "soft" factors, such as internal service and customer satisfaction.

For a copy of the CSF table, please sign our Guestbook, and request a copy of the "CSF Template for Bullet #5."

HPMD