Why We Missed Our Applesauce KPI This Year

It’s a tradition to make applesauce from scratch at our home. We started doing this when I was a little girl, and I always treasure the experience of making it with my kids. There is something special about getting applesauce out of the freeze for the next year that we made ourselves.

We have made applesauce so many times we have it down to a science. A bushel and a half of apples will take five pounds of sugar, most of a container of cinnamon, and a little less than three hours when made on my stove. This year it took closer to five hours.

As I did my retrospective, I realized one of the pans for boiling apples was different this year. It was a bigger pan, and it took longer to boil the apples, which I thought slowed down the process. After cooking for a few more days on the stove, I discovered the root cause of our slow applesauce time was not the pan but a burner that was not putting out the proper amount of gas on the stove. Hence, we did not hit our Key Performance Indicator (KPI) of applesauce made in just under three hours.

Often, when we look at why we did not hit our numbers or targets in life, it isn’t the first thing we see. So many times, we treat the problem and not the solution. We have all heard we missed our production or sales numbers today because “they” did not pull their weight. The real question, though, is why did “they” not pull their weight. Was there a piece of equipment that malfunctioned? Did we have a supplier issue with bad parts? Did the team perform work from a misunderstood or unknown requirement? Maybe there a personal situation or office dynamic “they” have not been able to share?

I am a big believer in KPIs. They are how we know if we are meeting expectations and goals. However, we can not set them and forget. I want to encourage you to have check-ins and checkpoints before due dates to ensure there are no surprises. This could be a daily check-in, Gemba walk, or a process that empowers your people to stop work when something is wrong. When problems occur, remember to do your retrospective and always look for the root cause and not just treat the symptom. Most importantly, create an environment where your people or your family feel comfortable bringing you a problem. A team, family, or company with a psychologically safe environment is more likely to hit the goal or KPI every time.