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Organisations constantly seek improvement of organisational practices or market positions by implementing improvement programs and quality initiatives such as ISO certification. An improvement project is any project that aims to make a business process more efficient, flexible, reliable or responsive; or raise the quality of working life. Notes that few organisations make the effort to evaluate the effectiveness of such improvement programs, explores why this might be so, and describes some of the benefits of undertaking evaluation activities. Presents a methodology for selecting Key Performance Indicators most appropriate to selected business processes and assessing an improvement program, and describes the methodology’s implementation in a small Australian software company. Stresses that measurement of performance before and after ostensible improvements is needed for objective assessment of change processes.

While many companies continually seek to improve their organizational practices or market positions through improvement programs and quality initiatives, very few actually make the effort to evaluate the effectiveness of such measures. Despite the obvious benefits, not many organizations actively measure performance both before and after process improvements are implemented. This applies particularly to small companies, where managerial time is scarce and financial constraints limit spending on activities that do not contribute directly to profit.

The following is an introductory profile of the fastest growing firms over the three-year period of the study listed by corporate reputation ranking order. The business activities in which the firms are engaged are outlined to provide background information for the reader.