During times of economic uncertainty, it is a competitive necessity to ensure market effectiveness and business efficiency. This requires the continuous improvement of operational performance across all key business processes and value streams. Before improvements can be made, all decision makers need a comprehensive understanding of current performance as well as the leverage points that can be used to positively impact future performance.

Those leverage points can be best found by monitoring and analyzing performance metrics that are actionable and have a direct relationship to the company's strategies and desired business results. In many cases the metrics used to measure business success are outcomes and hence are lagging indicators and not actionable. This is analogous to driving down the road by watching the rear-view mirror. To affect future outcomes we must look through the windscreen to determine what lies ahead and respond accordingly. In a business context it means we must go beyond the historical business results and examine operational performance more deeply to find truly actionable metrics.