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Part owner of a small 35 employee software/consultting firm...Having a difficult time coming up with some form of metrics to better manage the output of a VP of Finance.  Any suggestions?  O3's take place regularly but I'd like something with a little more meat around it. Thanks.

JoelKoh's picture

Yahtzee,

Glad you're looking at creating metrics for your supporting functions.  Here are some thoughts on how I go about coming up with metrics in my six sigma projects...

What is the VP of Finance responsible for?  What are the processes he or she owns?  What are the key outputs that he or she is responsible to produce? 

As you study their output, how can he or she help the business reach its goals and objectives, whether directly or in a supportive role?  Think about their outputs and goals within the framework of time, cost, or quality (or a combination of those), which are requirements to the output.  For example, they may create financial reports (output), and we want the financial reports to be timely and accurate (requirements).  I think of outputs and requirements as nouns (outputs) and adjectives (requirements).  From there, I can determine what I want to improve based on business objectives. For example, the goal is to increase accuracy of the cash flow forecast by x% or to increase cash flow by x% or $x by end of year to support the business objective of expanding the business in 2014. 

Hope that gives you some ideas. 

Joel