Deck 9: Business Performance Management

Question 1

The term business performance management (BPM)refers to the business processes,methodologies,metrics,and technologies used by enterprises to measure,monitor,and manage business performance.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

In a budget-centric operational plan,tactics are established to meet the objectives and targets established in the strategic plan.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

A comprehensive framework for monitoring performance should address two key issues: what to monitor and how to monitor.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

An organization's strategic objectives and key metrics should serve as top-down drivers for the allocation of an organization's tangible and intangible assets.

Question 5

To dramatically increase the success of Six Sigma,the Six Sigma results should "pay as you go" and be confirmed by objective parties.

Question 6

Unlike BPM,DMAIC is an open-loop business improvement model that encompasses the steps of defining,measuring,analyzing,improving,and controlling a process.

Question 7

With comparative measures,it is important to point out whether a particular number is good or bad and whether it is trending in the right direction.Without these designations,it can be time-consuming to determine the status of a particular number or result.

Question 8

Business performance management (BPM)is an outgrowth of decision support systems (DSS),enterprise information systems (EIS),and business intelligence (BI).

Question 9

An effective performance measurement system should not change measurements even when the underlying processes and strategies change.

Question 10

Six Sigma is a performance management methodology aimed at reducing the number of defects in a business process to as close to zero DPMO (defects per million opportunities)as possible.

Question 11

The Palladium Group found that 75 percent of organizations tied their budgets to their strategic plans.

Question 12

For a low-cost provider such as Wal-Mart,distribution capabilities are a critical success factor.

Question 13

During the strategic planning process,the time horizon is determined by the company's market share; rate of technological innovation; and capital intensity of the industry.

Question 14

An operational plan translates an organization's strategic objectives and goals into a set of well-defined tactics and initiatives,resource requirements,and expected results for some future time period,usually,but not always,a month.

Question 15

Six Sigma is drastically different from other business initiatives.

Question 16

Lean manufacturing focuses on the elimination of waste or non-value-added activities,whereas Six Sigma focuses on reducing the variation or improving the consistency of a process.

Question 17

Both balanced Scorecards and Six Sigma are performance management tools and methodologies.

Question 18

Operational dashboards are used by managers and analysts to track,on weekly basis,raw data generated from departmental processes and projects.

Question 19

The primary challenge of dashboard design is to display all the required information to be displayed clearly and without distraction on a single screen in a manner that can be assimilated quickly.

Question 20

The average knowledge worker spent less than 20 percent of his or her time focused on higher-value analytical and decision support tasks,according to the Saxon Group's findings.

Question 21

Which of the following is not a part of a cybernetic system?

A) Inputs
B) Standard
C) Feedback channel
D) Diagnostic mechanism

Question 22

BPM is an enterprise-wide strategy that seeks to prevent organizations from optimizing ________ business at the expense of overall corporate performance.

A) corporate wise
B) global
C) regional
D) local

Question 23

BSC translates an organization's vision and strategy into a set of interrelated financial and nonfinancial objectives.All of the following are nonfinancial objectives except:

A) Business rules
B) Customers
C) Internal business process
D) Learning and growth

Question 24

What was the most important service provided by Harrah's Total Rewards program?

A) It provided Harrah's with a vast collection of high volume, real-time transaction data about its customers and their behaviors.
B) The program served to reward customers with cash for their gaming.
C) The program served to reward customers with comps for their gaming.
D) Opulent accommodations and surroundings for loyal customers.

Question 25

The term business performance management (BPM)encompasses three key components,which include all of the following except:

A) A set of integrated, closed-loop management and analytic processes, supported by technology, that address financial as well as operational activities
B) An enterprise-wide strategy that helps to optimize local business performance
C) Tools for businesses to define strategic goals and then measure and manage performance against those goals
D) A core set of processes, including financial and operational planning, modeling, analysis, and monitoring of key performance indicators (KPIs), linked to organizational strategy

Question 26

Which of the following identifies and prioritizes the key customer,market,competitor,government,demographic,or actually impacting the company?

A) SWOT
B) SWAT
C) ROA
D) CSF

Question 27

Saxon Group's benchmarking results indicate that best practice organizations:

A) focus on competition instead of on cause-and-effect relationships between tactics and objectives.
B) develop better predictions or plans.
C) are far better equipped to quickly identify changes or problems, diagnose the root causes, and take corrective action.
D) are historic and internally focused.

Question 28

Which of the following is not what an effective performance measurement system should do?

A) Align top-level strategic objectives and bottom-level initiatives.
B) Identify opportunities in a timely fashion.
C) Determine priorities and allocate resources based on those priorities.
D) Maintain measurement when the underlying processes and strategies change.

Question 29

Logically speaking,a BPM system consists of three basic parts,or layers.Which of the following is not one of those parts or layers?

A) BPM applications
B) Dashboards and scorecards
C) Information hub
D) Source systems

Question 30

Which of the following about Six Sigma is not true?

A) Six Sigma focuses on the elimination of waste activities, whereas lean focuses on reducing the variation or improving the consistency of a process.
B) Most companies use Six Sigma as a process improvement methodology that enables them to scrutinize their processes, pinpoint problems, and apply remedies.
C) Six Sigma is a performance management methodology aimed at reducing the number of defects in a business process to as close to zero DPMO as possible.
D) Six Sigma uses DMAIC, a closed-loop business improvement model that involves the steps of defining, measuring, analyzing, improving, and controlling a process.

Question 31

Fundamentally,an operational plan is like a project plan that is designed to ensure that an organization's ________ is realized.

A) business policy
B) plan
C) strategy
D) business rules

Question 32

A(n)________ plan translates an organization's strategic objectives and goals into a set of well-defined tactics and initiatives,resources requirements,and expected results for some future time period.

A) business
B) operational
C) tactical
D) strategic

Question 33

An organization's strategic objectives and key metrics should serve as ________ drivers for the allocation of an organization's tangible and intangible assets.

A) bottom-up
B) top-down
C) company wide
D) revenues

Question 34

The effectiveness of a campaign is measured by ________.

A) net cost and productivity
B) relative profitability and net value
C) gross revenue and net income
D) cost and quality

Question 35

A ________ delineates the process of value creation through a series of cause-and-effect relationships among the key organizational objectives for all four BSC perspectives--financial,customer,process,and learning and growth.

A) balanced scorecard
B) strategic theme
C) strategy map
D) KPI

Question 36

Best practice organizations tend to utilize ________ operational planning,which begins the operational planning process by defining the alternative tactics and initiatives that can be used to reach a particular target.

A) tactic-centric
B) budget-centric
C) cost-centric
D) revenue-centric

Question 37

An effective diagnostic control system encourages ________.

A) management by exception
B) strict rules
C) democratic rules
D) elite rules

Question 38

BPM helps organizations translate a unified set of objectives into plans,monitor execution,and deliver critical insight to improve financial and ________ performance.

A) strategic
B) tactical
C) operational
D) daily

Question 39

Sigma,σ,is a Greek alphabet letter used by statisticians to measure the ________ in a process.

A) variance
B) mean
C) inconsistency
D) variability

Question 40

Which of the following is the best-known and most widely used performance management system?

A) Dashboard
B) Performance reengineering
C) Balanced scorecard (BSC)
D) Total quality management

Question 41

To achieve a Six Sigma level of performance,the company would have to reduce the number of defects to no more than ________ DPMO.

Question 42

In a ________ plan,tactics are established to meet the objectives and targets established in the strategic plan.

Question 43

A(n)________ is a standard strengths,weaknesses,opportunities,and threats (SWOT)assessment of the company.

Question 44

Targets are measured against a baseline or ________.

Question 45

Six Sigma and Lean Production both deal with ________.

Question 46

DMAIC is a ________ business improvement model.

Question 47

In recent years,there has been a focus on combining the Six Sigma methodology with the ________.

Question 48

A ________ is a set of activities that transform a set of inputs that include suppliers,assets,resources,and information into a set of outputs for another person or process.

Question 49

________ is a framework for organizing,automating,and analyzing business methodologies,metrics,processes,and systems to drive the overall performance of the enterprise.

Question 50

A ________ is the quantification of an objective for a designated period of time.For example,if an organization has an objective of increasing profitability,that objective is turned into quantified targets

Question 51

________ refers to both the logical and physical design of a system.

Question 52

________ is used to identify and prioritize the internal strengths and weaknesses in an organization's processes,structures,and its technologies and applications.

Question 53

________ outline those things that an organization must excel at to be successful in their market space.

Question 54

Most companies use ________ to monitor organizational performance and correct deviations from present performance standards.

Question 55

A ________ delineates the relationships among the key organizational objectives for all BSC perspectives.

Question 56

________ focuses on the elimination of waste or non-value-added activities.

Question 57

KPIs stand for ________,which are strategically aligned metrics.

Question 58

Six Sigma is a performance management methodology aimed at reducing the number of defects in a business process to as close to ________ as possible.

Question 59

Dashboards and ________ both provide visual displays of important information that is consolidated and arranged on a single screen so that information can be digested at a single glance and easily explored.

Question 60

________ focuses on reducing the variation or improving the consistency of a process.

Question 61

List the basic ingredients of good performance measures.

Question 62

A number of surveys have highlighted the gap that routinely exists in organizations between their strategic plans and the execution of those plans.What are the reasons for this strategy gap?

Question 63

Describe the conditions under which an information system can be used as diagnostic control system.

Question 64

What are the characteristics of well-designed dashboards and scorecards?

Question 65

Describe the common tasks in strategic planning process.

Question 66

Explain three of the drawbacks or limitations of using financial data as the core of a performance measurement system.

Question 67

Describe the steps in DMAIC performance model.

Question 68

What are the three key components of business performance management (BPM)?

Question 69

Describe the series of three steps in the discovery-driven planning (DDP).