Effective review meetings: the counter‐intuitive key to successful performance measurement

Purpose - To present clear pointers to best practice in the implementation and use of performance measurement, highlighting the significance of effective review meetings, connected across functions and between levels in organisations. Design/methodology/approach - A summary of practical experience in the implementation and use of performance measurement, supported by three complementary case studies, each illustrating ways in which it can be both a catalyst and impetus for results otherwise unachievable. In particular, this paper explains why the greatest benefits lie not in specific measures themselves, nor even in the process used to develop them, but in how performance measurement is actually implemented and used in practice. It argues that the key to getting the most out of performance measurement is to grab the review process and make it work properly. Findings - Insights into how to maximise the value of performance measurement by making the review process work properly, such that strategic developments and continual improvement are effectively “pulled‐through” in a coherent and progressive fashion and the measures themselves become essentially “self‐correcting”. Originality/value - This paper brings performance measurement to life, by concentrating on how it is best implemented and used in practice through focusing on what it takes to make the review process work properly from top to bottom and side to side across organisations. It also offers some interesting hypotheses for further academic work in this field.