Key Performance Indicator Mapping

This exercise won’t give you specific metrics to use or things to measure. What this will do is give you
an extremely powerful tool to build the foundation to develop KPI’s that immediately beneficial and
effective. Each one will have a solid business case and you will know exactly how each one impacts
value and waste in your organization.

Although this exercise can be done alone, I highly recommend you go through it as a team. That’s the
only way to truly ensure that you have the best picture of what’s going on, and how to track it.

First things first, what is a KPI? Why do we need them? What’s the point?

KPI’s have come along lately as the “best” way to make sure that processes and projects are on track.
KPI’s are internal benchmarks of performance in terms of customer value and process waste.

But we can’t just implement a KPI because Acme Engineering down the street measures something.
Remember, this is an internal benchmark. YOU care about YOUR waste and value to YOUR customer.
Blindly doing what someone else does may work, but it also may not. By following this process you will
KNOW that your KPI will work for you.

By employing KPI’s that are specifically developed for your company you are saying that if we meet our
KPI’s then we will absolutely improve value and reduce waste.

Keep in mind that this method is template. Feel free to adapt or build on it if you or your group
identifies a better way that helps them understand. Just make sure to follow the basic steps and
structure and it will work.

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Step 1, The Issue List
The first step is to get your team together and come up with a list of issues. You’re going to have two
categories of issues, Internal and External. Internal is going to be any complaint, issue, or concern that
comes up when you’re talking about your internal process, procedure, operation, etc. External is going
to be anything that comes from a customer or outside supplier. These can be anything like “we don’t get
the parts we need on time” or “our customers say our returns process sucks”. Try to come up with 10 or
so for each category.

ISSUES LIST
INTERNAL EXTERNAL

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Step 2, Waste/Value Mapping
In this step, were going to categorize the issues as waste issues, value issues or both. This gets us started
on the path to implement KPI’s that have measurable impact on waste and value. You’ll find that many
of the external issues fall into the value category and many of the internal issues fall into waste. Take
your time and talk through each one. If you need to split up an issue go ahead. Don’t get too far into the
weeds on this one. It shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes to get 20 issues charted.

WASTE/VALUE MAPPING
WASTE BOTH VALUE

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Step 3, Issue Grouping
Now, you’re going to take a hard look and try to group together as many interrelated issues as you can.
With 20 total issues, you shouldn’t have more than 2-3 groups of issues. Some examples of groupings
may be process issues, communication issues, management issues, resource issues, etc.

ISSUE GROUPING
GROUP 1 ISSUES

GROUP 2

GROUP 3

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Step 4, Statements
For this step, you’re going to turn the grouped issues into connected statements using if, than, so, and
statements. If A then B and C so we can’t D. You may have to add conditions to make the statement
make sense. That’s okay. Just make sure all of the issues are included in one long, un-on statement. You
may have to tweak the issues slightly as well. That’s no problem as long as the root issue stays the same.

STATEMENTS
GROUP 1 ISSUES

GROUP 2

GROUP 3

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Step 5, The KPI’s
In this step, you’ll use the statement to describe exactly what your KPI for each group will do. You’ll have
to develop the specific metric and how you will track it, but with this foundation you will KNOW that the
KPI will have a direct impact on the waste and value of your product.

THE KPI’s
GROUP 1

GROUP 2

GROUP 3

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