In much of my work I’m asked to help out with situations that appear to be rather complex. For instance, we had a situation that required skills development for hundreds of staff preparing to implement a new nursing care methodology, all to be done in a very short time. An initial analysis, conducted in one week, showed where there could be major cost savings by focusing only on the important areas of performance.
I’ve used performance analysis methods for several projects and have found it to be a good way to separate the important signals from just the noise that surrounds many large organisations, especially those in transition. To learn more on how to conduct a performance and cause analysis, I’ve attached a job aid that I use for myself and to communicate with clients. This is one of the tools that I use to help see patterns in the chaos of daily work.
Download: jarche_analysis_process.pdf
cool! :)
don’t forget to highlight it somewhere in your “Consulting” section as “working paper”, “e-portfolio” or the like ;)
Some years ago, you applied this tool in the analysis of our organisation’s performance and the picture it revealed was so relevant and clear that I still refer to it 5 years later (maybe it’s time for an update, but that’s not for me to decide…).
It’s as if you had handed us a large mirror with sticky post-its saying “You are here”, “This is how you do things now”, “This is where you could be”, “This is how you could get there”, “These are the pros and cons of taking path A or path B”. No judgements, no criticism whatsoever, just the clear picture of ourselves as an organisation and constructive advice for helping us decide what we wanted to become. Merci.
Thanks, Jacques. I may have to quote this as a client testimonial :-)
Harold, great doc, diagrams. Thanks for the pointer. I’d better make me one ;).
Thanks, Clark. It only took me four years to get around to it.