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    Performance Management

    Performance management is choosing the small set of numbers a leadership team runs on and the meeting rhythm that makes them act on those numbers.

    Service within Execution OS

    How we help with Performance Management

    A dashboard nobody opens on a Monday is a reporting exercise, not a management one.

    1. Choose the few numbers that matter

      A short set a leadership team can hold in their heads, connected to the company's outcome. A dashboard of forty metrics is a way of measuring nothing.

    2. Give each one an owner

      A number without a name against it does not get acted on, and the act of assigning owners usually exposes where accountability is genuinely unclear.

    3. Set the review rhythm

      Weekly for operational numbers, monthly for financial, quarterly for strategic, with defined inputs so the meeting produces decisions.

    4. Close the loop on the decisions

      What was decided, by whom, and what happened. Reviews that do not track their own decisions become reporting theatre.

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    A dashboard nobody opens on a Monday is a reporting exercise, not a management one.

    FAQ

    Questions founders ask about Performance Management

    What is performance management in this context?

    The numbers a leadership team runs the business on, and the cadence that makes them act. It is a management system rather than an employee appraisal process.

    How many metrics should a leadership team track?

    Few enough to hold in mind, typically five to eight at company level, each with an owner. Everything else belongs at function level where someone can act on it.

    Our dashboard exists but nobody opens it. Why?

    Almost always because it reports rather than prompts. A dashboard nobody opens on a Monday is not a tooling problem, it is a sign the numbers on it do not connect to a decision anyone has to make.

    How does this relate to OKRs?

    OKRs are one way of expressing the goals. This is about the numbers underneath them and the rhythm that makes them operational, which is the part that usually fails regardless of the framework chosen.

    What our research says about Performance Management

    Governance means a fixed three-tier operating rhythm: weekly reviews that look forward at leading indicators, monthly reviews that explain the bridge between plan and actuals, and quarterly reviews that make real strategic decisions.

    Sriram Chidambaram, in Why Startups Don't Fail to Scale Because of the Market. They Fail Because of the Process.

    At the end of the meeting, has a decision been made that changes what somebody does next week?

    Sriram Chidambaram, in Revenue governance: the cadence that makes a plan real

    A business growing quickly at a return below its cost of capital is destroying value while appearing successful, and it can do this for years before anything visibly breaks.

    Sriram Chidambaram, in The Metrics That Actually Carry a Diagnosis

    The people behind Performance Management

    Performance Management is run by the studio team: one multidisciplinary team whose pods work in tandem, matched to the sector and the stage the company is in.

    Karthik Beknal

    Financial Planning & Analysis pod

    Led by Karthik Beknal

    Lead - Strategy Consulting & FP&A. Plans, forecasts and tracks performance.

    See the pod structure
    Studio TeamThe operators, investors and builders who run engagements end to end.Meet them

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