Practice has shown that it is often meaningful to adapt the ­existing goal system at the time of the implementation of a PPMS as a way of assuring goal transparency and consistency and the relationship of the set goals to performance for the process areas under consideration. This requires identification of the ­legitimate claim groups (stakeholders) in the relevant process areas at the beginning so that the identified requirements can be used as a foundation for deriving the goals for the specific department. It is important to identify the relevant claim groups uniformly throughout the company and to utilize the findings for the derivation of goals. This ensures the consistency of the goal as well as the performance indicator structure later on.

Performance drivers support the relevance of KPIs

The initial step in the creation of the PPMS concept is the development of so-called key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs measure the quality of the performance with respect to a goal. Consequently, they are identified on the basis of the set goals, emphasizing once again the dependency of the PPMS on the goal structure. The purpose of the KPIs is to reveal the degree of goal achievement and thus of goal deviations and to make necessary fields of action transparent. However, KPIs only rarely give advance indications regarding the establishment of a trend. In many processes, process costs appear as a KPI, based on the goal of reducing unit costs. But the positive or negative change in process costs is initially nothing more than a result, which can then be used as a basis for the incentivization of employees or the creation of benchmarks for comparative processes. The process costs (KPI) themselves, however, do not provide any implications for action leading to structural reinforcement or reversal of a trend.

This schematic example shows that it is useful to implement indicators which provide for the establishment of a trend in addition to KPIs with a direct relationship to goals. The key data at this second level of indicators are called performance drivers (PD). The implementation of such PDs increases the transparency of action in companies because, in the ideal case, the causality for improved or worsened performance is quickly determined and the appropriate measures can be initiated.

For example, PDs can be used to analyze directly whether process costs have changed due to fluctuations in utilization of ­capacity, process errors, or interface problems (PD internal ­customer ­satisfaction). If the PD level is missing, a cause analysis which greedily consumes resources is often necessary. If the PD level has been implemented, causes can be quickly identified or at least excluded. The reduction in the time span between trend identification, analysis, and initiation of measures thus achieved is a decisive competitive advantage on global telecommunications markets because of the keenness of the competition.