Indicators vs. Performance Measures

The terms "performance measures" and "indicators" have often been used interchangeably – but this can be misleading. Indicators are a larger group of measurements that help us understand how the system is working. Performance measures are a subset of indicators that can be used to measure the performance of a particular project, program or agency. One difficulty in choosing performance measures, is that an outcome of particular interest (for example, returning salmon populations) may be affected by many different factors: some that may be influenced by management actions, and some that may not (CALFED Science Program, 2006).