Glossary

KPI

Also called: Key Performance Indicator · indicator · indicators · performance indicator

A measure that quantifies a declared attribute of something in the architecture, and therefore verifies whether an objective was met.

A KPI is a measure that verifies. In a traceable model it is not a number on a dashboard: it quantifies a declared attribute of a specific object — a process, a service, a capability — and so it answers whether that object is doing what it was designed to do.

Two failure modes are common. The first is measuring what is easy to count rather than what the objective requires, which produces dashboards nobody acts on. The second is calculating indicators from extracts rather than from the operation, which makes them stale and disputable. An indicator computed on the running process is harder to argue with, because it is the same data the process used to decide.

Related terms

Achievement indicator

An indicator measuring whether the process's expected outcome was actually achieved, as distinct from those measuring flow, quality or control.

Balanced scorecard

Kaplan and Norton's framework for measuring strategy across four perspectives — financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth.

Base measure

The direct quantification of an attribute using a defined measurement method and scale.

Correlation and causation

Two measures moving together is correlation; one producing the other is causation — and a dashboard can only show the first.

Derived measure

The result of combining two or more base measures through a formula, such as a compliance percentage or an average cycle time.

Goal

The quantification of a strategic objective for a given period, with a threshold and an accountable owner.

Goal-Question-Metric

A disciplined procedure for deriving indicators: from each goal one derives questions that characterize its fulfilment, and from each question metrics that answer it with data.

Indicator families

The classification of indicators by the chain link they measure: strategic, capability, service, process and data.

Measurement object

Any metamodel object on which an indicator rests: capability, service, offering, process, activity, entity or CI.

Objective-outcome-KPI matrix

A second-phase artifact linking each expected outcome to the indicator that verifies it.

OKR

A strategy management framework in which objectives express qualitative intent and key results make it measurable and time-bound.

Orphan metric

An indicator computed because the data exist, but which answers no relevant question and connects to no objective.

Process mining

Reconstructing how a process actually runs from the event logs its systems already produce, rather than from what people describe in workshops.

SLA

A committed and measured level of service, meaningful only when the commitment is calculated against real operations and can be explained.

Strategy map

A representation of an organization's objectives connected by explicit cause-and-effect relationships.

Threshold

The quantification of the tolerance allowed for a satisfaction criterion, with a target, a band and a direction (maximize, minimize or stay within range).

Total alignment

An approach requiring vision, strategy, roles, accountabilities, objectives and indicators to be connected within a single execution logic, so that each person can see how their work…

Traceability chain

The ordered relationship from strategy through capabilities, services, offerings, processes and data to the indicators that verify results.

Value proposition

A concrete statement of what outcome a stakeholder expects, under what condition they recognize the value as delivered, and which indicators verify it.