Polish Up Your Crystal Ball: Using End-of-Year Estimates

Wish you could foresee the future? You’ve got a better and more powerful way to “tell your fortune” than you may realize.

If you’re collecting performance information (and if you’re not, get started!) it’s natural to look at the data you collect and see how you performed. It’s a look back, and an important one.

But much of the power of performance data comes in using it to understand how you will perform. Will you meet your performance targets? How do you and your organization need to respond to ensure performance meets (or exceeds) expectations?

Performance data not only tells you how well you’re performing – it also enables you to project how well you’ll perform by year’s end. It’s like driving to the Grand Canyon for the family vacation. If you know how many miles you’ve driven and how long it took you, you can understand when you’re likely to get there – and then make changes to your driving plan if you need to. Otherwise, you’re just sort of driving along (and hoping for the best).

End-of-Year Estimates enable you, as a manager and a leader, to ask and answer key questions that are at the heart of effective performance management:

ONE: Am I on track to deliver the level of performance I projected – and promised – for the year? Will I meet or exceed my target, or does it look like I’m going to fall short?

TWO: If I’m not on track to deliver the needed level of performance, why? What changes in my processes and services do I need to make to improve performance?

THREE: Do I need to look at reallocating people or other essential resources to help ensure performance reaches the needed levels?

Indeed, End-of-Year Estimates are so important, we built our MFR Live software to calculate an End-of-Year Estimate for every measure and automatically compare it to the performance target. (It's pretty cool, if we may say so ourselves.)

It’s a powerful tool and at the heart of actively managing performance. Don't leave it out of your toolkit!