Key Performance Indicators in PMTK
Question: The CEO asked us to propose some KPIs that would demonstrate a healthy product management organization. Any suggestions?
Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are non-financial job performance indicators that help evaluate how well an individual or department is doing its job.
KPIs can measure an individual product manager's job performance or the overall level of product management practiced at a company.
Sometimes KPIs are erroneously used as an employee bonus plan or job promotion scheme.
Also, KPI's are not business or marketing Objectives, which are overwhelmingly quantitative goals that a company aspires to obtain.
For example, executive management can have business objectives (always in financial terms, e.g., revenue and profit) and KPIs that measure how well the executives internally manage employees and the company (e.g., human resources churn, leadership, process efficiency, partnerships, etc.).
Apple was well-run by Steve Jobs (KPIs) and generated significant monetary profits (business objectives).
Product management's objectives can be any arbitrary non-financial metric, from website hits to user satisfaction.
KPIs relative to product management is handled in the Blackblot PMTK Methodology™ by the PMTK Performance Review process.