StrategyDriven Business Performance Assessment Program Best Practice Article

Business Performance Assessment Program Best Practice 8 – Documented Business Performance Assessment Process

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StrategyDriven Business Performance Assessment Program Best Practice ArticleEffective performance improvement programs promote alignment of business operations with the organization’s vision, mission, values, and goals. Such programs consistently identify opportunities to improve high value-adding operations and to eliminate low value-adding activities. These programs themselves are highly efficient and capable of producing repeatable results. Documenting the business performance assessment process provides the framework necessary to achieve this level of focused execution consistency.[wcm_restrict plans=”47758, 25542, 25653″]

Components of a Well-Documented Business Performance Assessment Process

Well-documented processes are clear, concise, and comprehensive; easily understood and executed by those participating in its performance. Consequently, the business performance assessment process should contain the following documents:

  • Process Procedure containing:
    • Introduction and Overview describing the business performance assessment process, its role in the organization’s overall performance improvement program, and desired outcomes to be achieved
    • Roles and Responsibilities listing the obligations, by role, of those individuals participating in the business performance assessment process
    • Precautions and Limitations listing the risks that may arise during the performance of an assessment and the associated mitigating actions to be taken
    • Procedure providing step-by-step instructions on how to perform a business performance assessment
    • References listing supporting documentation, commitments, etcetera
    • Glossary listing acronyms and terms with associated definitions
    • Exhibits providing forms and checklists to be used when performing assessments
  • Business Performance Assessment Calendar typically updated on an annual basis
  • Business Performance Assessment Program Metrics monitoring overall process execution performance and follow-up improvement activities
  • Business Performance Assessment Program Basis Document providing detailed program implementation information including:
    • Program Overview describing the overarching assessment program, its role in the organization’s overall performance improvement program, and desired outcomes to be achieved
    • Program Maturity Model revealing the performance characteristics of a business performance assessment program across five sequential maturity dimensions
    • Roles & Responsibilities listing the obligations, by role, of those individuals participating in the assessment program
    • Global Principles, Best Practices, and Warning Flags applying across the program as a whole
    • Program Performance Measures including definitions
    • Process Flowchart showing activity-by-activity flow of the business performance assessment process including its interrelationship with other programs
    • Process Flowchart Functional Description providing the underlying performance details associated with each program activity
    • Activity Principles, Best Practices, and Warning Flags applying to an individual program activity or group of activities
    • Forms and Checklists including use instructions
    • Data Synthesis and Analysis Models including use instructions
    • Glossary listing acronyms and terms with associated definitions
  • Business Performance Assessment Training Program for team leaders and members

Final Thought…

In our experience, it is the function of the Business Performance Assessment Program Manager to oversee the development, training, implementation, and maintenance of these documents. Centralizing responsibility for the program in this way further contributes to the consistent performance of individual assessments.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”47758, 25542, 25653″]

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About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

StrategyDriven Evaluation and Control Program Article

Evaluation and Control Program – Essential Organizational Behaviors

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StrategyDriven Evaluation and Control Program Principle ArticleEffective evaluation and control programs rely on a set of underlying behaviors promoting continuous performance improvement. While positionally dependent, these behaviors foster the continuous identification and resolution of performance improvement opportunities and shortfalls.[wcm_restrict plans=”25541, 25542, 25653″]

Individual performance improvement behaviors vary across a spectrum based on organizational position. Executives and senior managers promote a culture of continuous improvement while individual contributors challenge underlying assumptions and practices and resist complacency. The following lists provide illustrative examples of the continuous performance improvement behaviors exhibited by individuals at all organizational levels supporting effective evaluation and control programs.

Executives and Senior Managers (Directors, Vice Presidents, and Above)

  • Challenge managers, supervisors, and staff to continually improve performance relative to the organization’s vision, mission, values, and goals
  • Align evaluation and control programs with the organization’s vision, mission, values, and goals
  • Establish goals, define and reinforce standards, make decisions, and communicate support for ongoing improvement opportunity / problem identification and implementation / resolution
  • Reinforce with managers the need for and value of continuous learning through routine, critical self-assessments and the systematic incorporation of internal and external lessons learned
  • Welcome performance improvement input from all levels of the organization including a demonstration of respect for differing opinions
  • Create an environment within which employees readily identify and report performance issues that are subsequently resolved in a timely manner commensurate with their organizational significance
  • Ensure employees feel free to raise performance improvement opportunities and shortfalls without the fear of retribution
  • Hold themselves and their subordinates accountable for using evaluation and control programs to identify and close performance gaps
  • Emphasize the importance of resolving problems the first time and demonstrate a low tolerance for problem recurrence
  • Coach managers to identify the connectivity of seemingly unrelated performance issues and resolving their underlying common causes

Operations and Functional Area Managers (Second-line managers)

  • Reward self-critical behaviors and the absence of defensiveness to improving performance
  • Support and promote participation in self-assessments and the corrective action program
  • Assign personnel with the knowledge, skills, and experiences to effectively execution the evaluation and control programs under their purview
  • Challenge evaluation and control program / activity participants to identify objective, critical, and insightful improvement opportunities
  • Drive the analysis of performance improvement opportunities / problems to a depth commensurate with the issue’s significance
  • Routinely communicate evaluation and control program findings to subordinates
  • Demonstrate ownership for the timely closure of performance gaps by prioritizing, staffing/funding, and directing activities to effectively improve performance
  • Embed performance improvement identification features within organizational processes, procedures, and technologies

Superintendents and Supervisors (First-line managers)

  • Recognize self-critical behaviors and the absence of defensiveness to improving performance
  • Participate in self-assessment activities to identify performance improvement opportunities and shortfalls
  • Own corrective actions to resolve performance gaps
  • Involve subordinates in performance improvement activities

Individual Contributors (Workforce and Staff)

  • Proactively observe operations, continually challenge underlying assumptions and practices, and resist complacency
  • Readily identify and promptly report performance issues
  • Participate in self-assessment activities to identify performance improvement opportunities and shortfalls
  • Propose actions to improve performance, close gaps, and resolve shortfalls
  • Assist in the implementation of corrective actions to resolve performance gaps

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About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

StrategyDriven Evaluation and Control Best Practice Article

Evaluation and Control Program Best Practice 5 – Don’t Break the Mirror

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Evaluation and Control Program Best Practice - Don't Break the MirrorFeedback mechanisms serve as a reflection of an organization, business unit, department, or individual’s performance. At times, these mirrors reveal exceptional performance; in other cases, good or satisfactory performance; and in some instances poor or unacceptable performance. Too often, the individual or group holding the mirror, whether a performance metric, an internal self-assessment, or a third party audit, is blamed for the performance indicated. Regardless of who provides the performance report, this person or group should not be attacked for identifying instances of success or failure.[wcm_restrict plans=”41286, 25542, 25653″]

Organization leaders who ‘shoot the messenger’ create a chilling workplace environment that communicates to all employees the value of not reporting those performances or issues management may deem to be undesirable. Such behavior drives a wedge between leaders and their employees resulting in executives and managers becoming increasingly uninformed of the organization’s needs and opportunities. The ‘shoot the messenger’ behavior takes its form through several practices, all of which should be avoided:

  • Personal attacks levied against the individual(s) making the report, with or without the person being present (see StrategyDriven article, Warning Flag – ad hominem: Personal, Not Issue Attacks)
  • Open reprisals against the employee(s), including reassignment, demotions, and terminations
  • Documented and undocumented reprisals against the employee during feedback sessions, performance reviews, pay raises, and promotion boards
  • Silent mistreatment of the messenger, including the withholding of feedback, job assistance, and future assignments; particularly those hindering the employee’s development and advancement
  • Silent dismissal and inaction toward resolving the presented findings

Final Thoughts…

The ‘don’t break the mirror’ practice does not exclude providing constructive feedback to the presenter focused on helping this individual better communicate results in the future. Additionally, constructive challenge should be made to the findings themselves when underlying facts are in error.

The underlying premise of the ‘don’t break the mirror’ practice is that leaders own the performance of their organization and need to take responsibility for that performance. They should hold themselves accountable for both the good and bad outcomes achieved and not attempt to avoid accountability by erroneously blaming the individuals(s) identifying credible issues.

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StrategyDriven Evaluation and Control Program Best Practice Article

Evaluation and Control Program Best Practice 3 – Assess the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

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“Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.”

Thomas Murner (1475 – 1537)
German satirist and poet
Author of Appeal to Fools

Many business professionals almost singularly focused on identifying and fixing ‘the ugly’ – shortcomings that result in their organization’s most adverse outcomes. This focus is understandable as extremely poor performance can cause irreparable damage. The approach, however, omits critical examination of a range of organizational performance, ‘the good’ and ‘the bad;’ placing the organization at risk of achieving only suboptimal performance.[wcm_restrict plans=”41273, 25542, 25653″]

What is good, bad, and ugly performance?

The good, the bad, and the ugly represent a range of organizational performance. Performance not included by these three characterizations are those commonly expected behaviors driving neither exceptionally strong nor poor performance such as showing up to work on time.

  • The Good: those deliberate behaviors resulting in highly positive business outcomes
  • The Bad: traditions no longer yielding exceptional or even positive results that go protected because of an organizational unwillingness to change or even challenge these actions
  • The Ugly: intentional and unintentional actions driving undesirable results that must be stopped so to prevent adverse outcome recurrence

Why evaluate positive outcomes?

Assessing positive outcomes often appears to be a waste of precious time… or is it? A lot can be learned from the study of positive outcomes including:

  • Was the outcome the result of luck or deliberate action? We’ll take luck but it cannot be counted upon. Deliberate actions can be repeated. These should be recognized, documented, and trained on so they can be repeated.
  • Were the positive results achieved driven by your actions or the failed attempts of others? Sometimes it’s not a matter of winning, it’s that the other team loses.
  • Can the good actions drive positive outcomes in other areas? If so, they should be broadly communicated and practiced.
  • Who or what group contributed to the desired results? These individuals should be recognized and rewarded to promote continuation of the exhibited behaviors.

It is important to look for the good even when assessing the bad and the ugly so as to not eliminate the performance of desired behaviors when correcting the performance resulting in adverse outcomes.

What’s wrong with the bad?

The bad can be deadly for an organization. When these ‘900 pound guerillas’ go unchallenged, they stifle a business’s growth; providing innovative competitors an opportunity to seize market share. Examples of such destruction include Compaq, Kmart, and Zenith.

StrategyDriven has long advocated the use of a ‘Devil’s Advocate.’ (See StrategyDriven article, advocatus diaboli, The Devil’s Advocate) We also recommend the employment of these principles when evaluating overall organizational performance. It is the expressed role of this individual to challenge the organization’s sacred cows.

Long-term practices and commonly held beliefs to be challenged are characterized by:

  • Activities receiving whispered decent but not open challenge
  • Undocumented but measurable practices
  • Approaches uncommon elsewhere within the organization’s industry or general marketplace
  • Drivers of outcomes that are seemingly incongruent with societal norms

Some sacred cows drive the organization’s success. This good should be acknowledged. However, portions of these practices may be outdated so even the best practices might need adjustment.

Evaluating the ugly goes without saying…

Of course an evaluation program must assess adverse outcomes and underperformances. Recurrence of negative outcomes needs to be prevented and lagging performance improved if the organization is to achieve long-term success. High-risk programs, those that could result in ugly outcomes, should also be evaluated to minimize the chance of realizing undesirable events. (See StrategyDriven article, Integrated Risk Assurance Oversight Matrix)[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”41273, 25542, 25653″]

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StrategyDriven Evaluation and Control Program Best Practice Article

Evaluation and Control Program Best Practice 2 – Measure Against Excellence

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In this hyper-competitive business world there are no points for second place. Companies not achieving excellence in key performance areas as defined by their chosen market often find themselves driven to irrelevancy by competitors and in danger of going out of business. Subsequently, organization leaders must know how their company performs against standards of excellence in the key areas to be able to make the investment decisions necessary to remain competitive.[wcm_restrict plans=”41266, 25542, 25653″]

Measuring performance against standards of excellence provides a clearly defined, uniformly applied reference point and does not mean the company should seek to achieve excellence in all areas. Achieving performance excellence in the several critical competitive areas as defined by the organization’s industry and market positioning is necessary. For all other performance areas, a measurement against excellence provides executives and managers with a reference to what is achievable; enabling them to more fully understand the possibilities for improvement and more likely to assess the merit of these opportunities as a way to advance the business.

Defining Performance Excellence

Identifying quantitative measures of performance excellence can be a difficult process. The following principles and sources are recommended to ensure appropriate performance references are defined.

Principles

  • Identify the key areas for which performance references will be sought based on the company’s industry and market strategy
  • Seek performance references from companies within multiple industries; identifying the organization’s industry performance reference separately
  • Use multiple companies to determine the excellent performance standard; leveraging the performance citations of reputable evaluators to focus the assessment process
  • Avoid using averages; instead identifying truly excellent performance
  • Refresh each performance reference periodically; based on the area’s criticality to the business’s success

Sources

  • Trade associations and industry organizations (including their publications), such as the Nuclear Energy Institute and the Electric Power Research Institute
  • Functional area membership organizations and professional organizations (including their publications), such as the Project Management Institute and Society for Human Resource Management
  • Publically available data, such as company statements and government reports
  • Management consultants
  • Onsite benchmarking of other companies

Presenting the Performance Excellence Reference

Organizational performance in key areas should be broadly and routinely communicated. These communications will take several forms including performance metrics and reports, as well as self-assessment and benchmarking reports. And while the leadership’s established performance criteria should always be prominently displayed, reference to the standard of excellence should also be included.

Presenting organizational performance against the single marketplace standard of excellence provides only a partial picture of performance. As performance data is collected from multiple benchmark organizations, an attempt should be made to show performance in a quartile framework. The performance of the company’s various business units and direct competitors can also be plotted in this quartile framework to present a complete overview of the competitive landscape.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”41266, 25542, 25653″]

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