What is KPI ? Who should set the KPI's ?

Key Performance indicator (KPI) is a type of perfomance measurement, an organization may use KPIs to evaluate its success, or to evaluate the success of a particular activity in which it is engaged. Sometimes success is defined in terms of making progress toward strategic goals,but often success is simply the repeated, periodic achievement of some level of operational goal (e.g. zero defects,10/10 customer satisfaction, etc.). Accordingly, choosing the right KPIs relies upon a good understanding of what is important to the organization. 'What is important' often depends on the department measuring the performance - e.g. the KPIs useful to finance will be quite different from the KPIs assigned to sales. Since there is a need to understand well what is important (to an organization), various techniques to assess the present state of the business, and its key activities, are associated with the selection of performance indicators. These assessments often lead to the identification of potential improvements, so performance indicators are routinely associated with 'performance improvement' initiatives.