Published on
More KPIs Do Not Improve Steering. They Just Obscure It
Many companies have an oversupply of metrics and steering concepts. ROI, NPS, OKR, north star metric, sometimes all in use at once and often with no clear link to strategy.
Too many KPIs produce complexity rather than clarity. And anyone following fashion easily ends up steering past their own value drivers.
Genuinely useful top-level metrics are rare. They are strategically relevant, effective for steering, and measurable. And they always have a clear owner.
Together with Robert Rieg and Steffen Sindl I presented a concept for this in Controller Magazin: the 7x7 concept. It combines seven selection criteria, from strategic relevance to acceptance, with seven implementation steps, from analysing the business model to reviewing it regularly.
The aim is few but meaningful metrics that support management and controlling instead of paralysing them.
The question is rarely which metric is still missing. It is which one could be dropped without making a single decision worse.