The Performance Prism measurement framework has been developed in close co-operation by the Centre for Business Performance at Cranfield School of Management (formerly at University of Cambridge) and the Process Excellence Core Capability Group of Andersen Consulting. It is currently being applied to a number of other organisations and conditions in order to thoroughly test its applicability in the field. “The Performance Prism in Action” will be the subject of a subsequent article in this series.
The Performance Prism is a thinking aid which seeks to integrate five related perspectives and provide a structure that allows executives to think through the answers to five fundamental questions,let us now briefly consider each of the five facets of the Performance Prism:
1. Stakeholder Satisfaction: Who are our stakeholders and what do they want and need?
2. Stakeholder Contribution: What do we want and need from our stakeholders?
3. Strategies: What strategies do we need to put in place to satisfy these sets of wants and needs?
4. Processes: What processes do we need to put in place to satisfy these sets of wants and needs?
it is with the Performance Prism. It illustrates the true complexity of performance measurement and management.
5. Capabilities: What capabilities – bundles of people, practices, technology and infrastructure – do we need to put in place to allow us to operate our processes more effectively and efficiently?
The Performance Prism is a broad-gauged tool that deploys a deliberately wide variety of measurement perspectives. These should be installed early in the merger planning phase and maintained for as long as they provide the data on which insights and judgements are needed to ensure a merger's benefits realization.
As we have seen, these five perspectives on performance can be represented in the form of a prism. A prism refracts light. It illustrates the hidden complexity of something as apparently simple as white light. So it is with the Performance Prism. It illustrates the complexity of performance measurement and management. Single dimensional, traditional frameworks pick up elements of this complexity. While each of them offers a unique perspective on performance, it is essential to recognise that this is all that they offer – a single uni-dimensional perspective on performance. Performance, however, is not uni-dimensional. To understand it in its entirety, it is essential to view from the multiple and interlinked perspectives offered by the Performance Prism.
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