Business Performance Assessment Program – The Horizontal Cut Approach
An organization’s limited personnel resources necessitates that its business performance assessments be performed in the most efficient manner possible. While at times there may be the need for an in-depth end-to-end process review, at other times it will be appropriate to examine performance of a specific task or activities by numerous performers from across the organization. On these occasions, the horizontal cut assessment approach is most appropriate.[wcm_restrict plans=”47719, 25542, 25653″]
Selecting Activities for Horizontal Cut Assessment
Rather than focusing on a few occurrences of a sequence of activities as does the vertical slice, the horizontal cut focuses on the numerous performances of a single activity. Subsequently, those high value activities on which to focus the horizontal cut assessment should be determined by:
- task or activity presenting a significant personnel, equipment, or other business risk
- task or activity within a high value process (as determined by the vertical slice assessment method) that takes a relatively long time to perform
- task or activity within a high value process having a relatively high error rate
- task or activity within a high value process that is performed manually, particularly those for which there is no additional error prevention measure applied
- task or activity within a low value process for which errors have resulted in a significant cost to correct
- task or activity having an extremely high performance rate
- task or activity having a modestly high performance rate and a relatively high number of users performing the task or activity
Performing a Cross-Organizational Activity Evaluation
The horizontal cut assessment approach examines one or a few tasks/activities performed by a multitude of people from across the organization. This assessment approach is particularly appropriate when a given activity is performed by a large number of individuals within the organization or when the activity is performed a relatively high frequency. Key activities performed during this type of assessment include:
- evaluate of the task time performance data to identify above average, average, and below average performance; enabling ready identification of performance best practices and opportunities for improvement
- examine task related data; often in spreadsheet format to allow for rapid review for consistency/outliers and errors
- perform direct observation of a cross-organizational sample of activity performers to identify physical; environmental; tool; oversight; and program, process, and standards barriers to efficient successful performance
- review past changes to the activity’s performance (methods, procedures, tools, applications) to identify alterations that unintentionally hinder contemporary performance or were improperly implemented when declining performance is noted
Data gathered and examined should be further segmented by department or other work group to identify the differences in performance within the overall organization. Consideration should be given to the frequency of activity performance by department/work group members when comparing productivity and error rates.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”47719, 25542, 25653″]
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All company functions are constrained by limited resources. As such, it is impossible for an organization to self assess every activity it performs. Therefore, business performance assessments need to be executed in a way that identifies the significant improvement opportunities at the lowest possible cost. One such approach is to do a thorough end-to-end review of a few occurrences of high value process.[wcm_restrict plans=”47715, 25542, 25653″]
Business performance assessments can be a powerful tool for determining the unknown drivers of performance; their effectiveness derived from the diverse knowledge and experience of the multidiscipline team and the vast amounts of information from causal evaluations, work performance observations, executive, manager, employee, and customer interviews, financial reports, independent analyst reports, performance measures, and condition reports leveraged to perform these assessments. So rich and robust are these assessments that their credibility often goes unchallenged, yet a single flaw in the business performance assessment’s initial execution can make this power tool for continuous improvement an instrument of disaster.[wcm_restrict plans=”47810, 25542, 25653″]
“The road to ruin is paved with good intentions.”
Business performance assessments aggregate huge amounts of data in order to provide a very few high value insights. (See Figure 1: Data Refinement and Consolidation Model below) As an assessment progresses, evaluators often feel increasingly overwhelmed by the volume of data they must sift through, organize, and analyze. Time seems to slip away and pressure to find the key insights mounts; making the objective appear to be that of finding a needle in a haystack with only a moment’s notice. To be successful requires thoughtful, deliberate preparation.[wcm_restrict plans=”47754, 25542, 25653″]