Miriam Boudreaux will be the keynote speaker at the monthly ASQ Greater Houston section 1405 on January 20th, 2011. Register for this great dinner and learning event to secure your seat at the ASQ section site. The abstract of the presentation follows.

Dinner Presentation: What’s the difference?: Goals vs. Targets vs. Objectives vs. KPI’s vs. Metrics

Abstract: Most organizations nowadays have some kind of gauges to measure an area they want to improve or achieve. Having gauges is a fundamental and basic step to measure improvement, whether those gauges are related to sales only or have been established for several functions of the organization. The old premise “if you don’t measure it, how do you know you are improving”, holds very true for any organization. However when it comes to actual implementation, you may be confused as to whether your organization needs to use metrics, goals, objectives, targets or KPIs? There is a difference between them and learning what that is will help you better prepare and align your improvement efforts in order to know how good you are doing. After all, without those gauges you may not know if you are going in the right direction or have arrived there already.