Performance Management: Brief Overview of Key Terms (generic to performance management)
Written by Carter McNamara, MBA, PhDAdapted from Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development
Sections of This Topic Include:
Suggested Previous ReadingKey Terms
Suggested Previous Reading
Readers will benefit most from having first read the the subsections What Do We Mean by "Performance"? and Overall Goal and General Process in the section Basic Overview of Performance Management.
Key terms include
domainresults
measures
indicators
organizational goals
organizational preferred results
aligning results
weighting results
standards
performance plans
observing, measurements and feedback
appraisal / review
reward
performance gap
development plans
The following basic terms will be described more fully later (through use of an example) in the library in the upcoming subsections Performance Plan and Development Plan.
Domain
The domain is the focus of the performance management effort, e.g., the entire organization, a process, subsystem or an employee. A subsystem could be, e.g., departments, programs (implementing new policies and procedures to ensure a safe workplace; or, for a nonprofit, ongoing delivery of services to a community), projects (automating the billing process, moving to a new building, etc.), or teams or groups organized to accomplish a result for an internal or external customer. A process produces a product or service for internal or external customers, and usually cuts across multiple subsystems. Examples of processes are market research to identify customer needs, product design, product development, budget development, customer service, financial planning and management, program development, etc. The final domain is that of employee performance management. The term domain is not widespread across performance management literature.Results
These are usually the final and specific outputs desired from the domain. Results are often expressed as products or services for an internal or external customers, but not always. They may be in terms of financial accomplishments, impact on a community, etc. Results are expressed in terms of cost, quality, quantity or time.Measures
Measures provide specific information used to assess the extent of accomplishment of results. Measurements are typically expressed in terms of time, quantity, quality or cost. Results are a form of measure.Indicators
Indictors are also measures. They indicate progress (or lack of) toward a result. For example, some indicators of an employee's progress toward achieving preferred results might be some measure of an employee's learning (usually expressed in terms of areas of knowledge or specific skills) and productivity (usually measured in terms of some number of outputs per time interval). (Note that learning and productivity alone do not guarantee accomplishment of performance results.)Organization's Preferred Goals
These are usually overall accomplishments desired by an organization and are often established during strategic planning. The level of specificity of goals depends on the nature and needs of the organizations. Typically, the more specific the goals, the clearer the understanding of goals by the members of the organization.Organization's Preferred Results
The performance management process often includes translating organizational goals to be in terms of results, which themselves are described in terms of quantity, quality, timeliness or cost.Aligning Results
Performance management puts strong focus on ensuring that all parts of the organization are working as efficiently and effectively as possible toward achieving organizational results. Therefore, the results of all parts of the organization should be aligned with the overall preferred results of the organization. Aligning results often includes answering questions such as "Does the domain's preferred results contribute to achieving the organization's preferred results? How? Is there anything else that the domain could be doing to contribute more directly to the organization's goals?"Weighting Results
Weighting results refers to prioritizing the domain's preferred results, often expressed in terms of a ranking (such as 1, 2, 3, etc.), percentage-time-spent, etc.Standards
These specify how well a preferred result should be achieved by the domain. For example, "meets expectations" or "exceeds expectations".Performance Plan
The plan usually includes at least the domain's preferred results, how the results tie back to the organization's preferred results, weighting of results, how results will be measured and what standards are used to evaluate results.Ongoing Observation, Measurements and Feedback
These activities include observing the domain's activities in terms of progress toward preferred results, comparing progress to the preferred performance standards and then providing ongoing feedback (useful, understood and timely information to improve performance) to the domain.Performance Appraisal (or Review)
In its most basic form, performance appraisal (or review) activities include documenting achieved results (hopefully, by also including use of examples to clarify documentation) and indicating if standards were met or not. The appraisal usually includes some form of a development plan to address insufficient performance. (More about this plan below.)Rewards
The performance review process usually adds information about rewarding the employee(s) if performance met or exceeded standards. Rewards can take many forms, e.g., merit increases, promotions, certificates of appreciation, letters of commendation, etc.Performance Gap
This represents the difference in actual performance shown as compared to the desired standard of performance. In employee performance management efforts, this performance gap is often described in terms of needed knowledge and skills which become training and development goals for the employee.Performance Development Plan
Typically, this plan conveys how the conclusion was made that there was inadequate performance, what actions are to be taken and by whom and when, when performance will be reviewed again and how. Note that a development plan for employee performance management may be initiated for various reasons other than poor performance. (More on this later in Development Plan.)
For the Category of Performance Management:
Related Library Topics
Recommended Books
For Your Own Performance Management, See
Personal Productivity
-- Recommended Books
For Employee Performance Management, See
Supervision -- Related
Books
For Group Performance Management, See
Facilitation and Teams
-- Recommended Books
For Organizational Performance Management, See
Organizational
Development -- Recommended Books
For Nonprofit Organizational Performance Management, See
Nonprofit Capacity Building -- Recommended Books
General Information -- Books About General Topic of Performance Management
The topic of performance management can be scoped to individuals/employees, groups and organizations. Regardless of the scope of the process, there are many aspects in common. The following books are useful about these many common aspects. For books on a specific scope of the process, see the above recommended links.
To get more information about each of the following practical books, just hover your cursor over the image of the book. A "bubble" of information will be displayed. You can click on the title of the book in that bubble to get more information, too.
