What is Strategic Performance Management?

Strategic performance management is about creating an environment in which organizational performance becomes everyone’s everyday job. This involves a clear understanding of the strategic direction and competitive advantage by everyone in the organization as well as their accepted responsibility to continuous refinement of this strategic direction. In such an environment employees use performance indicators to test and challenge the strategic assumptions that underlie performance. Relevant performance indicators are collected to inform strategic decision making at all organizational levels, and not merely to put them into reports that no-one really cares about.

Strategic Performance Management (SPM) is therefore defined as the organizational approach to define, assess, implement, and continuously refine organizational strategy. It encompasses methodologies, frameworks, and indicators that help organizations in the formulation of their strategy and enable employees to gain strategic insights which allow then to challenge strategic assumptions, refine strategic thinking, and inform strategic decision making and learning.