Who are more effective – Specialists or Generalists?

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|July 9, 2009

In the book The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It, the author Joshua Cooper Ramo makes us think if specialists or generalists are more effective at understanding the future. A study described in the book evaluated short-term [...]

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Rescue Squad – A Validation of Performance Management Software

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|March 15, 2009

IT blogger Rick Sherman, founder of Athena IT Solutions, provides empirical research that validates the contributing role of Performance Management software in preparing organizations to emerge stronger and smarter from the economic downturn. His research appears in his blog titled Business Intelligence (BI) Index: Treading Water. His headline is misleading [...]

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Is Performance Management Art, Craft or Science?

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|March 3, 2009

In my recent blog about my trip to Rome, Italy, I marveled at the great architectures and sculptures, wondering how much of those achievements were from art, craft or science. I then asked the similar question about various implementations of performance management methodologies, such as dashboards, scorecards, strategy maps, costing [...]

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Innovating the Practice of Performance Management

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|February 11, 2009

Everywhere you turn in the business media there are articles about how to manage during an economic downturn. Even I have written a recent blog on this topic titled ABBA: Take a Chance on Me … Choose Performance Management in an Ailing Economy. Many of these articles are advocating the [...]

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Does President Obama’s Chief Performance Officer Validate Performance Management?

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|January 21, 2009

What could be a better validation for the progress of the performance management framework than having President Obama create the position of chief performance officer, or CPO? Obama’s announcement of Nancy Killefer, a consultant with McKinsey & Company and former chief financial officer at the US Treasury, as the USA’s [...]

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Is Performance Management Pushed or Postponed in an Ailing Economy?

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|January 15, 2009

In my prior blog to this one, I suggested that a downturn in an economy, such as now, should encourage organizations to accelerate their pursuit of enterprise performance management initiatives. There is another voice saying the same thing. In a recent BeyeNETWORK.com article titled What’s Ahead for Performance Management?, Craig [...]

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Analytics versus Performance Management – Does Anyone know the Difference?

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|October 24, 2008

One of the fun but also frustrating aspects of enterprise performance management is dealing with the confusion about what it is and is not. Debates abound among IT analysts, management consultants, business journalists and software vendors – just to name a few groups. I like to debate. That is the [...]

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Solutions in South Africa

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|October 20, 2008

I was recently in three major cities of the Republic of South Africa: Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Cape Town. I met with several customers of SAS, my employer, to discuss their performance management initiatives plus presented several seminars. There are some misconceptions about South Africa. First, when you look out the [...]

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The Broader Definition of Performance Management is Getting Amplified

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|September 23, 2008

If you read my earliest writings about Performance Management back to 2002 (including my book), I passionately argue that its perception is far too narrow. Many see it as a bunch of dashboard dials with better financial reporting. It was also viewed as CFO tools. It is so much broader. [...]

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Converting the Promise of IT into Tangible Results

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|September 16, 2008

In a recent blog by Vinnie Mirchandani, founder of the IT consulting firm Deal Architect, he highlighted the thoughts of David Axson, the founder of the Sonax Group. The blog discusses how to convert the promise of technology into tangible results. David states: “Remember when just a few years ago [...]

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