Performance Management and Six Disciplines

Most new business improvement methodologies typically begin with misunderstandings about what they are and are not. Performance management, as a buzzword, has many misconceptions, but it boils down to three issues:

• What it should be called,
• What and how broad it is, and
• What it does

The media refer to it as business performance management (BPM), corporate performance management (CPM) - even enterprise performance management (EPM). Let's simplify it - call it performance management.

Performance management includes, but goes beyond individual performance, and encompasses group or organizational performance. Think of performance management as an umbrella concept that integrates multiple business improvement methodologies often pursued by organizations. The problem is these initiatives and methodologies are typically implemented in isolation from each other.

BOTTOMLINE: To solve this problem, the Six Disciplines Methodology integrates the top 20% of best-practices from the tenets of strategic planning, quality management, organizational learning, business process automation, people performance management and measure-driven improvement. What makes it systematic is the integration of existing business improvement methodologies that most business owners and team members are already familiar with. What makes it practical is the Six Disciplines activity management system - that employees use from their desktop every day - to keep their daily activities aligned with the organization's strategy.

From this definition - Six Disciplines is a performance management methodology - and a whole lot more.

(Thanks to Gary Cokins at SAS for this one)