ERGOMETRICS

Glossary of Terms

Balanced Scorecard

A Balanced Scorecard is a method of measuring and managing business performance giving a balanced view of financial and operational perspectives to accelerate the management process.

Boundary

A boundary is the dividing point between two performance sectors.

Business Excellence Model

A business excellence model is a model for assessing the performance of a business based on a Total Quality Management approach.

Context

The Context is the family or entity group to which a Dashboard measure belongs. The purpose of a context is to enable you to make groups of related measures that are of a manageable size.

Current Performance Band

The Current Performance Band is a measurement to show the current performance in immediate form.

Dashboard

The ERGOMETRICS Dashboard is a collection of Gauges, used to present a consolidated view of business performance. The Gauges represent critical measures, and the performance measured can be that of the enterprise, its divisions or units, or the people.

Data Mart

A data mart is a local source of data.

Data Warehouse

A Data warehouse - a collection of data which is drawn from operational systems and stored in a form that's optimised for queries.

Fact

Fact is a term used to represent a measure of business performance, often referred to as a Key Performance Indicator or Metric.

Fulcrum

The Fulcrum is the ideal performance level on a Balance Gauge. It is also known as the point of balance.

Gauge

An ERGOMETRICS Gauge is a consolidated measurement of one area of business performance. There are two types of Gauge: the Performance Gauge and the Balance Gauge.
Both Gauges measure business performance but the Balance Gauge employs the definition of a steady state, or a normal level of activity.
The Performance Gauge shows four Performance Sectors and the Balance Gauge shows seven Performance Sectors, the middle one being the point of balance, or fulcrum.

Grab Handles

Grab handles are small black rectangles displayed on the border of a screen object, when the object is clicked on with the mouse. They are used to move and size an object on screen.

Knowledge Management

Knowledge management is a method of dealing with large quantities of unstructured data. ERGOMETRICS translates unstructured information into contexts that accelerate the management process.

Management Performance Accelerator (MPA)

A Management Performance Accelerator is a highlighter of trends in business performance, such as the ERGOMETRICS Dashboard.

Management Performance Indicator (MPI)

A Management Performance Indicator (MPI) is a measurement of a key performance area, used in monitoring the actual performance of the business.

OLAP

OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing) is a multi-dimensional database or data structure that contains summary data. These databases are ideal for answering management's ad hoc queries.

Periodic Needles

Periodic Needles are lines which show actual performance for a selected period. There are three needles. They show performance for the current period, previous period and previous period minus 1.

Sector

A sector is a range of measurements. In ERGOMETRICS, sectors are used to measure business performance, for evaluation. Performance Sectors are displayed in Performance Gauges and Balance Gauges. For the Performance Gauge, you can define up to four Performance Sectors as, for example, unacceptable through to excellent. You can define up to seven Performance Sectors for the Balance Gauge, the central one being the normal level of activity.

Steady State

Steady State is an ERGOMETRICS measurement used to define the normal level of activity.

Strategic Initiative

In ERGOMETRICS, a strategic initiative is a goal to improve or stabilise an area of management performance, which can be measured by a strategic measure. For example, a strategic initiative could be to improve budget control, which could be measured by the strategic measure of on target income / expenditure.

Strategic Measure