The Performance Management Revolution

- The Performance Management Revolution - Business Results Through Insight and Action - Howard Dresner


This book, written by Howard Dresner, is a guideline to help who wants to understand and implement the concepts of Performance Management in the companies.

Howard Dresner is known as the analyst that coined the term Business Intelligence, when he was working in the Gartner, the world's largest IT advisory company.

It is very interesting how he divides the book into three parts, and puts the name on each party in reference to the steps to make a revolution.

In Part One, entitled "A call to arms", he talks about what need to change due a paradigm shift that is occurring in how business is organized nowadays and also how to define a model for a modern management system. For it, he defines as the better process to use is the Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) process, and divides the model view in four: Vision and Strategy, Goals and Objectives, Execution, and Evaluation. He talks also about the barriers to adoption the EPM and the current tools and technologies.

In Part Two, that he called "Preparing for Battle", he explains how to implement an Enterprise Performance Management, the best practices, how to define and implement a Center of Excellence, with its roles and responsibilities, required skills, and how to standardize and consolidate the tools. He also defines how deploy an EPM system, mentioning all the components that consist an EPM Applications: planning, modeling, dashboards, scorecards, reporting and analysis. Finally, he talks about forms to obtain a comprehensive view of Performance Management, and how you can link the specific elements of an EPM solution to specific business problems.

In Part Three, defined for him as "Let the Revolution Begin", he makes several questions to you determine your immediate priorities and explains how to implement a model EPM Methodology and how to measure outcomes and define metrics and targets that drive the right behaviors.

Great book, inspiring and instigating, written by an expert.

Highly Recommended Reading.