How to Set, Track, and Manage KPIs effectively
8 min read

How to Set, Track, and Manage KPIs effectively

How to Set, Track, and Manage KPIs effectively

When measuring a company or department’s performance, the first phrase that comes to mind is ‘KPIs’ or Key Performance Indicators. Simply put, KPIs help you estimate your company's performance and whether you are on the right track to achieving your targets. KPI management has been around for a long while, even holding its own against newer management frameworks like OKRs and KRAs. How has one framework managed to stand the test of time?

With the recent shift from the employers’ market to the candidates’ market, hiring and retaining talent has been the top priority of most companies. It comes more with the recent layoffs and optimization of talent doing the rounds, where people and business productivity are key to an effective work environment. Companies are moving from growth at all costs, to the importance of profitable growth. They want to build a culture where every employee can visualize how they contribute to the organization. Usually, KPIs are used to monitor employee performance and set the foundation for an inclusive workplace culture. Since setting time-bound targets and monitoring the performance of employees will always be crucial to keep a business running, KPIs continue to be a necessity. 

Most companies want to measure everything with KPIs. However, when there are so many KPIs to choose from, the true value lies in knowing how to measure what matters so your KPIs don’t miss the point. In business, key performance indicators can focus on the bigger picture, or narrow down to a specific department or individual. With newer frameworks to manage the ‘big picture’ performance (hint: OKRs), KPIs are now used to measure the tasks that will sustain the business. 

As you might imagine, the most powerful way of achieving your business goals is to link your KPIs (run-the-business metrics) to OKRs (grow-the-business metrics). That’s why we built KPI Boards – a simple way to connect your KPIs with your business goals and make them actionable, so you can reach them more often and make more progress toward your vision every day.

Why should you manage OKRs and KPIs together?

While there are many choices of KPI management tools, very few of them can link KPIs to OKRs i.e. link tasks to company strategy. Having worked with thousands of teams over the last few years, we realized that bridging the gap between daily tasks and business targets was vital in achieving our mission of simplifying the future of work. We launched our newest feature of KPI Boards onto Fitbots because it was in high demand, especially from the organizations that were moving from sustaining business to company growth.

Here's an example of how OKRs and KPIs relate to one another:

The biggest benefit of managing them together is having all your important data-making metrics in one place. When it comes to traditional performance practices, a glaring challenge is the amount of time and effort that goes into creating reports, PowerPoint, and spreadsheets. You can cut back on that time by seamlessly managing all important metrics together while visualizing which KPIs will affect the achievement of an OKR. Automated reports and pattern analysis of your KPIs within Fitbots will ensure that you don’t spend more than a few minutes reviewing company data.

Not only can you make your KPIs truly count by connecting them to company strategy, but you can also drill down to each individual task or action with regard to your desired outcome. Not all KPIs contribute to the growth of the organization but may yet be important to measure. In our new release, you can track and manage each Action that results in the achievement of your KPIs. Setting time-bound Actions reinforced with progress-related alerts is a surefire way to achieve your targets well on time.

What is the most important key performance indicator to track?

The most important KPIs are directly related to your sustaining and growing your business. When choosing a set of KPIs for your business, it is important to ask yourself if it is related to sustainability or growth. Your ideal KPIs are indicators of business performance. They should be realistic, uncomplicated, and time-bound. Here are a few points to consider when setting KPIs for your business.

1. Align key KPIs to OKRs.

Ideally, key KPIs will illustrate the company strategy and be directly mapped to strategy execution frameworks like OKRs. Unlike the ambitious nature of OKRs, however, KPIs should be far more realistic. For instance, ‘Make 60 calls per day’ is a KPI that can be assigned to an individual Sales rep. When combined with an OKR, this can impact a company-level Key Result such as ‘Increase SQLs (Qualified leads) to Opportunity from 8% to 25%.’  

2. Keep your KPIs simple and specific.

A well-written KPI is relevant to business and calls out all the important information in a concise manner. KPIs are the list of metrics that give clarity on what the role or individual is to measure and improve. Consider it as metrics that call out 'success' for the role or individual. 

3. KPIs should be actionable and measurable.

When setting your KPI, you should have clarity on what steps you will take to achieve the KPI and how often you will measure your progress. Checking in on the progress of your KPIs is important to sustain efforts toward achieving your targets, so they should be crafted in a way such that progress can be tracked transparently. For example, ‘Make 60 calls per day’ is a clear KPI, in comparison to ‘Increase daily calls.’

How can you manage KPIs on Fitbots?

If you are managing KPIs on multiple spreadsheets, switching to automated tools such as Fitbots will save you a ton of time, and effort while delivering powerful insights.

Getting started with KPIs on Fitbots is quick and easy. Here are some ways to help you manage your KPIs better and link them to business objectives.

1. Pin a KPI Board for quick access.

When working in a culture where you constantly collaborate with each other, you may find yourself supporting multiple OKRs and KPIs. However, KPIs assigned to you should always have the spotlight. Upon signing in to Fitbots, you can quickly move to the KPI section using the Navigation drawer on the left. Pin the most relevant KPI Boards to the top of your dashboard so you are always in ‘focus’ mode.

Your KPIs are always displayed in a board-ready report that showcases progress on whichever metrics you deem most important. You’ll find it easy to spot trends and gain valuable insight into KPI achievements, especially when making use of different tracking views (daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly).

2. Manage accessibility with configurable control

You can also configure the accessibility of your KPI Boards by making them either private or public. While this takes less than 10 seconds, it has an immense impact on controlling the focus of your team. Public Boards let your teams view all that drives the business forward, while Private Boards let you manage confidential data with ease. 

3. Manage KPIs on autopilot

Fitbots KPI Boards have multiple ways to save you time and effort, so all you have to do is log on and update the metric according to your tracking frequency. Here are the ways we’ve made it easier for you:

  1. Use our AI-suggested KPIs directly or as an inspiration to get started
  2. Connect each KPI to a set of Actions, then track the progress of the Actions to achieve your KPIs
  3. Communicate and collaborate in-app to have outcome-focused conversations
  4. Receive automated alerts on actions and upcoming deadlines to stay ahead of the game
  5. Track important metrics through multiple statuses, making it easier to review and reprioritize based on trends and insights
  6. Configure 
  7. Tracking OKRs and KPIs together will give a single source of truth for all data and insights, removing the requirement of using multiple tools
  8. Our available-on-demand coaches can guide you through any challenges in achieving your KPI and OKR targets.

Get started with effective KPI Management

In conclusion, tracking your Key Performance Indicators give clarity to what each individual is measured and brings to the table, making conversations very objective. Get all your decision-making metrics in one place when using a platform like Fitbots OKRs, and connect each task to the bigger picture. Spend less time drawing up reports and spreadsheets and get much more done since Fitbots gives you real-time data visualizations in just a few clicks.

Want to dive deeper into managing KPI Boards on Fitbots? Click here to learn more.

About the Author

Bani is an OKR enthusiast who anchors content and marketing at Fitbots OKRs. She loves spreading the love of OKRs to enrich workplaces and collaborating to create engaging content for her readers.

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