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Why are they poor visualizations? Well, both of them lack the visualization of trends that Line charts do provide. They only give you insights in a single period. Think about it, unable to see trend information while the data is there is a big RED FLAG for a strategic dashboard. How can you take decisions with data based on a single period? How do you track improvements if you are looking at a single period?

There are a couple of good sources on the web when it comes to data visualization, here are some well known specialists:

Perceptual Edge by Stephen Few Edward Tufte Sparklines

SMART stands for = Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound

The key ingredients for ‘good’ definitions of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and its goals. At KPI Library we believe you should add “Explainable” and “Relative” to these ingredients, making it SMARTER!

Explainable: to ensure KPIs are easy to understand and that you can communicate the KPI definition to all stakeholders involved and be assured that everybody understands what is being measured. To often KPIs are hard to understand by people and you face the risk that KPI definitions are misinterpreted.

Relative: to ensure that your KPI definitions (and goals) still apply when your business or volume grows. For example, you could take the number of open customer support calls (per period) as a KPI, but when your business gets more customers and the volume of support calls grows it is only natural that the number of open support calls grows. Therefore, the relative value against the number of reported service calls (e.g. % of open support calls) allows comparison of KPI values through time, even if the volume changes.

Therfore, not SMART but SMARTER.

KPI Library will soon be launching 2 new PREMIUM SERVICES. These services are SAAS based applications, that are tightly integrated with KPI Library.

• KPI Benchmark: A annual subscription that provides access to all the data behind KPI Library, browse KPIs by popularity, by strategy and see all the KPI scores that have been gathered over the past months. The KPI Benchmark database is growing and evolving everyday as KPI Library is used by more members. If you are a consultant in the field of Performance Management, you can’t afford not to have access. This functionality was partially already available for our premium members, but we decided to improve it and give the service its own dedicated website. Our premium members will off course get access to the new service. Pricing will start at 99 USD per year (8.25 USD per month) for a single user.

• KPI Dashboard: A SaaS service for companies who don’t want spreadsheet management and want to avoid another turning their performance management implementation into a risky and costly IT Project, this is often the case with traditional onsite EPM/BI implementation.  KPI Dashboard is a true web 2.0 SaaS offering. We focus on the core functionality, making EPM simple and understandable, allowing companies to select KPIs from KPI Library, add their own, track their measures, build their KPI Dashboards, share it with co-workers. And… using the power of the community, off course KPI Dashboard is tightly integrated with KPI Benchmark, allowing users to compare their scores against KPI Benchmark scores.  KPI Dashboard is perfect for organizations any size but especially for those with 10-1000 employees. Pricing will start at 19 USD a month a user!

In the next weeks we will tell you more about KPI Benchmark and KPI Dashboard. We definitely hope you will check them out once they are released and give them a try!

And off course we will continue to work on the Free KPI Library. In 2009 we already introduced many new features:

February 2009: Q&A

March 2009: Groups

April 2009: Benchmarking

June 2009: Expert Channels

July 2009: Personal home page with bi-weekly notifications

The following features are expected soon:

• Vendor Channels: listing all CPM and BI vendors and allowing vendors to make their white papers available to you.

• Benchmarking Groups (setup your own group, define KPIs and organize a benchmark for those KPIs. Specifically build for industry groups)

If you have more suggestions for functionality for KPI Library or for Premium Services, please let us know.