Skip to content

ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · Enabling success: performance excellence

Medvale Hospital Group has identified 'short patient waiting times' as a critical success factor. Management proposes the KPI 'number of new buildings opened per year'. Which assessment of this proposed KPI is most appropriate?

The proposed KPI is inappropriate because a KPI must measure progress on the critical success factor it supports. Counting new buildings has no clear link to patient waiting times, so a measure such as average time to treatment would be more relevant, however easy buildings are to count.

  1. AIt is appropriate because capital expansion is easily quantified and audited
  2. BIt is appropriate because every CSF requires a financial KPI
  3. CIt is inappropriate because a KPI should be a measure of a CSF, and buildings opened has no clear link to waiting timesCorrect
  4. DIt is inappropriate because KPIs must always be expressed as percentages

Explanation

A KPI should measure achievement of a CSF and so be relevant to it. Buildings opened may be easy to count, but it does not show whether waiting times are falling, so a measure such as the average time from arrival to treatment would be better. Ease of measurement alone does not make a KPI valid, and KPIs need not be financial or percentages.

Did you get it right without looking?

One question tells you little. A timed set on Enabling success: performance excellence shows your real accuracy, how long you take and where you lose marks.

Practise Enabling success: performance excellenceFree diagnostic mock

More Enabling success: performance excellence questions