ABSTRACT
Companies are more performance focused and awash in data sources than any time in the history of business. The BIG DATA push seems to amplify this. This data overload and urgency to use more data is compounded by weak fundamentals in organizations for how to build sound indicators that consider the intent, metric, target and data source. The result: too many metrics get put into too many reports that do not get effectively used to manage POSITIVE and NEGATIVE variations in performance. CEOs must downsize their metrics to the critical few. Once metrics are cloaked in importance, the reports begin to pile on, dashboards spring up and soon an inordinate amount of time and resources are consumed to create reports that are never used. Metrics should be part of the management process to assess performance and use data to determine actions that will enable them to prioritize issues, solve problems and make decisions that affect performance.
