The 'science' of Performance Mangement is littered with jargon. As part of our ongoing efforts to aid clarity and specifity of meaning to on ever increasing number of terms we include our own glossary below.

If you would like to highlight additional candidates for definition, please e-mail us.

Alliances: Collaborative and sustainable business efforts that have a mutual risk/benefit for all participating bodies.

Balanced scorecard: A management instrument that translates an organisation's vision and strategy into a comprehensive set of performance measures to provide a framework for strategic management. A scorecard typically measures organisational performance across several perspectives - financial, customers, internal business processes, and learning and growth.

Benchmarking: The process of continuously comparing and measuring an organisation against leaders (be they competitors, or best in class organisations) for both performance levels and process management in order to gain information that will help the organisation take action to improve its performance.

Breakthrough goals: A small number of 'vital few' goals capable of generating major operating results in the short or medium term.

Business fundamentals: A range of goals/activities where continuous incremental attention and improvement in the performance of the fundamental business process/day to day activities is expected. The related metrics will often reflect a balance between financial, customer, process and organisational goals.

Corporate agility: The capability of an organisation to identify strategic opportunities and then to successfully respond with speed and ability.

Environment: Circumstances and conditions that interact with and affect an organisation. These can include economic, political, cultural, and physical conditions inside or outside the organisation.

Hoshin Kanri: A Japanese approach to policy deployment that aims to integrate an entire organisation's daily activities with it long term goals.

Key performance indicators: Measurable factors of extreme importance to the organisation in achieving its strategic goals, objectives, vision, and values that, if not implemented properly, would be likely to result in a significant decrease in planned performance.

Key process: The fundamental value-adding activities or group of activities, so critical to an organisation's success that failure to perform them in an exemplary manner will result in deterioration of the organisation's mission or achievements.

Mission: An enduring statement of purpose; the organisation's reason for existence. The mission describes what the organisation does, who it does it for, and how it does it - why it exists.

Stakeholder: Any person, group or organisation that can place a claim on - or influence - the organisation's resources or outputs, is affected by those outputs, or has an interest in or expectation of the organisation.

Values: The understanding and expectations that describe how the organisation's people behave and on which all organisational relationships are based (e.g. trust, integrity, support and honesty).

Vision: An idealised view of a desirable and potentially achievable future state.