Since this is the time of year when people commit to resolutions, I’ve decided that in FY ’09 I’ll apply the principles of business performance management not just to my business life, but to my home life as well. I think this makes perfect sense. My personal life could use some discipline, organization, and colorful charts.

When you think about it, most of our home lives are random collections of activities devoid of even a simple mission statement. Children run about, bereft of performance indicators (except third-party report cards) or any performance planning, save an occasional shouted “Don’t set your brother on fire!” Management roles are blurred, with “silos” arguing over whose turn it is to vacuum and whose fault it is that the refrigerator is stocked only with ketchup and beer. We ignore basic concepts such as “What do our customers want?” Many of us haven’t even taken the time to identify our target market. Some families focus their energies on meeting the needs of the children segment of the customer base. That’s one business model, although I think it unfairly shortchanges the dog market.

I’ve also found that when we come up with an agreed-upon mission, such as making sure all family members have enough to eat, we tend to focus too much on tactics — e.g., meals — and not enough on strategy — e.g., nutrition. This year, I’m going to operationalize the nutrition piece with a quantifiable objective of more vegetable inputs, as a first step toward the long-term goal of navigating away from corn dogs. Two key performance indicators of our success on this front will be a reduction in gross overall body weight and at least two viable recipes for beer/ketchup synergies. The hard part of pursuing this strategy will be gaining buy-in from all of the affected stakeholders. Some dinner suppliers have built their reputation on the provision of bacon, so achieving alignment may be tricky.

Another challenge in my family is that supply chain management is a joke. Doesn’t anyone care when we run out of three-way light bulbs? When did dark nights become unanticipated? Does a certain unnamed adult think there is a Tissue Fairy who ensures that the roller in the bathroom is never empty? You’d think no one had ever seen a PowerPoint presentation on bathroom-maintenance benchmarking. How is it that children suddenly enamored with private colleges forget to integrate their plans with the finance function? And for the love of God, who ate the last of the ice cream with nary a word to the folks in procurement?

One thing that’s going to change — and change fast — is our refrigerator. All those photos and children’s drawings that currently adorn its surface are coming down. We cannot afford the luxury of adorning anymore. In our newly high-performance family, even the appliances will have to pull their own weight. For the refrigerator, that means hosting our family performance dashboard. In a space no larger than the freezer door, we will spell out our mission, brand statement, goals, value proposition, and key performance metrics. Traffic lights indicating our success in achieving the household KPIs will be updated weekly by a high-level cross-functional team including at least one person from our children’s division; one person from our responsible adult division; and, of course, me.

One thing that is hard to talk about as you put your household on solid business-performance footing is the very real possibility of layoffs. Although I think our family is right-sized now, there’s no denying that the economy is tough and the need for belt-tightening is growing. I do sense rumblings that some stakeholders would like to see me demoted from father to older child, even though my skill set would argue against that. Also, I would sue.