Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are the critical (key) indicators of progress toward an intended result. KPIs provides a focus for strategic and operational improvement, create an analytical basis for decision making and help focus attention on what matters most.

Managing with the use of KPIs includes setting targets (the desired level of performance) and tracking progress against that target. Managing with KPIs often means working to improve leading indicators that will later drive lagging benefits. Leading indicators are precursors of future success. Lagging indicators show how successful the organization was at achieving results in the past. 

You can use this statement during a written assignment in many ways :

-When you want to provide objective evidence of progress towards achieving a desired result

-When you want to measure what is intended to be measured to help inform better decision making

-If you want to offer a comparison that gauges the degree of performance change over time

-When you want to track efficiency, effectiveness, quality, timeliness, governance, compliance, behaviors, economics, project performance, personnel performance or resource utilization

-If you want to show the balanced between leading and lagging indicators