Measuring output without measuring presence
The fastest way to make performance monitoring fail is to measure attendance: hours connected, keystrokes, time in meetings. It produces compliance behaviour within a fortnight and tells leadership nothing about whether the work is good.
What is worth measuring in professional services is narrower and harder to game: work delivered against what was committed, rework caused, and whether commitments made to clients were met on the date given. Those three describe performance in terms a consultant can recognise and argue with, which is what makes a review conversation productive.
- Delivery against commitments, not hours connected
- Rework volume attributed to its cause, not to a person
- Client commitments met on the agreed date
- Metrics a person can see about themselves, first