Management, Leadership and HR
Performance and People
Key Performance Indicators and Optimisation
Choosing the few measures that change a decision, and retiring the ones collected because they always have been.
- Duration
- 5 days
- Contact hours
- 30
- Level
- Intermediate
- Fee from
- On enquiry
Overview
Most performance frameworks measure what is easy to count and report it to people who cannot act on it. The result is a monthly pack nobody reads and a set of targets that are quietly gamed, because any measure attached to a consequence will be optimised, including in ways nobody intended. This week is about choosing measures that are hard to game and tied to a decision, and about the uncomfortable discipline of deleting the rest. Delegates work on their own scorecard.
Who should attend
Managers accountable for a performance measure, planning and performance staff who design scorecards, and finance business partners who report against them.
What you will be able to do
- Trace a proposed measure to the decision it would change, and discard it if there is none.
- Tell a lead indicator from a lagging one, and know what each is good for.
- Predict how a target will be gamed before it is published.
- Set a target from demonstrated capability rather than from ambition.
- Retire a measure, including one somebody senior asked for.
How it is taught
Short input, then work, across 5 days of roughly 6 teaching hours each. Exercises run on situations delegates bring rather than on a case study written for a different organisation. Cohorts are capped so that everybody is asked something.
Available as classroom, live online, in house.
Programme outline
Day 1
What a measure is for
- Measurement for control, for learning and for accountability
- Why the easy things to count are rarely the things that matter
- The decision test: what would change if this moved
- Measures that exist because they always have
Day 2
Choosing them
- Lead and lag, and the delay between them
- Few measures understood, against many reported
- Measuring an outcome when only the activity is visible
- The cost of a measure, including who has to collect it
Day 3
Targets and the behaviour they buy
- Setting a target from demonstrated capability
- Predicting the gaming before publication
- Measures that are hard to game, and why they cost more
- Ranges and thresholds instead of a single number
Day 4
Reporting
- Reporting to somebody who can act, in time to act
- Variation against a real change, and not reacting to noise
- Visual reporting that does not mislead
- Commentary that explains rather than restates
Day 5
Keeping the set honest
- Reviewing whether a measure earned its place
- Retiring one a senior person asked for
- Cascading without multiplying
- Tying measurement to how the organisation actually decides
What you leave with
- A reduced scorecard for the delegate's own area, every measure tied to a decision.
- A gaming analysis of their current targets, naming the behaviour each one rewards.
- A reporting format that fits what the recipient can actually act on.
Dates and fees
| Dates | Location | Format | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23 to 27 November 2026 | Cairo, Egypt | Classroom | US$1,500 |
| 30 November 2026 to 4 December 2026 | Accra, Ghana | Classroom | US$1,500 |
| 7 to 11 December 2026 | Dubai, United Arab Emirates | Classroom | US$1,500 |
| 14 to 18 December 2026 | Durban, South Africa | Classroom | R15,000 |
Fees are per delegate and cover tuition, all programme materials and the certificate. Travel, accommodation and visas are arranged by the delegate. Registration closes two weeks before a programme starts.
Certificate
A GATI certificate recording what was attended, issued after the programme has run and attendance has been taken. Attending at least 80 per cent of the days earns a certificate of completion; attending less earns a certificate of attendance stating exactly what was attended. Every certificate carries a code that anybody can check against GATI's own record.
It records participation. and GATI does not claim one it does not hold.