The kinematic design of a reconfigurable miniature parallel kinematic machine is dealt with. It shows that the reconfigurability may be realized by packaging a tripod-based parallel mechanism with fixed length struts into a compact and rigid frame with which the different configurations can be formed. Utilizing a dual parameter model, the influences of the geometrical parameters on the dexterous performance and the workspace/machine volume ratio are investigated. A novel global performance index for the dimensional synthesis is proposed and optimized, resulting in a set of dimensionless geometrical parameters.