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Chapter 3—Best Practices

When a Key Performance Indicator is quantitative, involving direct mea-
surement, a form of metric is required. A metric is a measurement of some-
thing. Something tangible, such as an error count, can be measured directly
and objectively. Something intangible, such as customer satisfaction, must
first be made tangible—for example, through a survey resulting in ratings
on a scale—before it can be measured. A metric can be binary (something
exists or does not exist), it can be more complex (such as a scaled rating),
or it can be monetary (such as financial return).

Improve-
ment Planning Directory

Figure 3-2: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) confirm the attainment of Outcomes

3.4 DEPENDENCIES AMONG BEST PRACTICES AND
CAPABILITIES
To ascertain the existence of a Best Practice—and, therefore, to assess the
organization’s maturity accurately—an organization must understand the
dependencies among Best Practices and Capabilities.
One type of dependency is represented by the series of Capabilities
leading to a single Best Practice. In general, each Capability builds upon
preceding Capabilities, as illustrated in Figure 3-3.

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