?Top Quality?, ?Cost Effective?, ?Excellent?, ?Appropriate?, ?Successful?, are all good examples of a common error in crafting performance measures: improper use of adjectives. ?Conduct an excellent conference? can only be subjectively assessed; reasonable people could disagree about whether or not the conference was ?excellent?.

The technique for clarifying adjectives is the use of the ?FIB? question: a ?fill-in-the-blank? question that will elicit greater clarity about what is meant by the word ?excellent?.

Here?s how it works. Ask: ?Our conference will have been excellent if it _____?? Answer the FIB question in as many ways as possible. Brainstorm freely without editing your responses. Write down all the answers you can think of. Buried within your answers to the FIB question will likely be several quantitative and qualitative measures, and even the downstream objectives. Most importantly though, emerging from this thought process will likely be a completely different goal statement.

This isn?t as easy as it looks; you?ll need some practice. Find a goal you?ve assigned to someone, locate the adjective and use the process above to FIB the adjective.

Purpose of the FIB Question: 

1. To eliminate unclear adjectives
2. To eliminate subjective assessments
3.  To ensure expectations are indisputably explicit
4.  To reveal relevant measures
5. To reveal relevant objectives

Tip: Use of the FIB questions isn?t constrained by hierarchy! If you receive an assignment that isn?t explicit, ask your boss the FIB question. ?I will have met/surpassed your expectations with regard to this assignment if I ________??

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