EP#55: PuMP – A New Method for Measurement – with Stacey Barr

Stacey Barr is the creator of the PuMP methodology for measuring organisational performance and developing meaningful KPIs. Stacey is one of the world’s leading specialists performance measurement field. She is author of two books – Practical Performance Measurement and Prove It! – and writes the weekly Measure Up blog. Her content also appears on Harvard Business Review’s website and in their acclaimed ManageMentor Program.

Stacey has specialised in the field of performance measurement since 1993. This gave her a deep insight into the transformational power of measuring the right things well – and revealed the most common struggles people have with performance measurement. The most common obstacles she observes include immeasurable goals, meaningless measures, lack of buy-in, and KPI dashboards that aren’t useful. The root cause, she found, is that common KPI practice is fraught with bad habits. So she created PuMP to replace those bad habits.

PuMP is known for its practicality in making performance measurement faster, easier, engaging, and meaningful. Strategy and performance professionals say it’s made it easy to engage people and align their work to the strategy. Stacey has also received feedback from teams, saying that it’s the first time they’ve found measurement exciting.

Discussed in this episode:

  • Why PuMP is different to other measurement tools
  • An example of PuMP in action
  • Defining measurable goals and avoiding ‘weasel’ words
  • Bringing physicality to concepts
  • Identifying relevant stakeholders
  • Where to learn more about the PuMP methodology