Benchmarking your performance targets

In another blog post I talked about benchmarking your degree of using SAP functions as opposed to spreadsheets and 3rd party tools. Today, I'd like to discuss how we can measure to what degree we achieved the performance targets that we hoped to get out of an SAP implementation.

Clear, concise measures and targets are not always provided to the team members of an implementation effort. During an implementation or a subsequent optimization you should focus on evaluating your degree of functional efficiency, data cleanliness, process performance and overall system setup first. Then one can set attainable targets and put forth activities to reach them in time.
The progress can be measured in a spider diagram as shown below. This allows the team to never lose focus on the important tasks at hand and ensures success. Improvement efforts without clear and concise direction and focus on performance key performance indicators are doomed to fail and usually end up in confusion, frustration and a general lack of accomplishment.

In the example we put forth the KPI we'd like to improve on and set a benchmark and actual targets we'd like to achieve. as you go forward on improving, the red line on the graph depicts progress and positive deviation on each individual target. The more the line moves to the outside, the closer we’re getting to the desired state.

Of course you'll have to customize the graphic if you'd like to use it.