Kim McCauley is the former HR manager of Boston Beer Co., brewer of Samuel Adams brand and others. When she performed a needs analysis, she discovered that senior management had a problem understanding the worth of the HR function. However, they did know that there was a problem with retaining sales representatives.

She discovered that it suffered from growing pains that are common to entrepreneurial companies. They were frequently changing goals and directions, confusing the organization. As a result, they were having trouble recruiting good people and turnover was very high.

Based on her needs analysis and a very keen understanding of organizational development she worked with senior management to create a performance appraisal system involving Key Performance Indicators (KPI's).

Below is her three-phase process, from implementation to planning to adoption, of the KPI system:

Phase I. Identifying the CEO's needs.
The CEO and senior management identified the areas of organizational needs. McCauley then helped them to not only identify the top three to five, but to understand how they impacted the organization.

Phase II. Gaining buy in and partnership.
In order for buy in from senior management, their ideas need to prevail. For example, if one makes a suggestion that you feel will not be effective, use it anyway. McCauley feels it is more important to have senior management on board and supportive than to point out the shortcomings of their ideas.

Bringing the "squeaky wheels" on board is very important. McCauly sought out "those managers who had the most to say" about HR. She then had them identify the KPI's which they felt should apply to the Human Resources Department. She then implemented them. She said this worked very well.

Phase III. Improvise and revise - repeatedly.
Along with setting the tool's objectives and soliciting feedback McCauley did one thing that became very powerful. She had the managers read the results out loud. The managers paid more attention and gave better feedback than when she reported them.

McCauley said not to become daunted during the revision process. She admitted to 25 drafts before Boston Beer Co. developed a form that only needed to be tweaked.
Revise the tool on a quarterly or biannual basis. This provides enough time for data to become reliable.