An integral part of the learning organization’s evaluation and control program, the self assessment program provides in-depth evaluations of particular organizational functions or characteristics for the purpose of identifying improvement opportunities.  Self assessments are powerful tools deriving their heightened value from the synthesis of information from multiple sources; creating a rich, integrated picture of organizational performance as compared to established standards and marketplace benchmarks.  This integrated picture of performance also benefits from the progressive infusion of knowledge and experience applied to the initial interpretation of data used to develop the assessment’s source information.

Self assessment programs are comprised of periodically scheduled and event driven assessments.  Because self assessments are not performed on a continual basis, they are inappropriate for the monitoring of rapidly changing conditions.  Circumstances for which periodic and event driven self assessments are performed can be described as:

  • Periodic: often recurring on an annual basis, these evaluations focus on those critical organizational functions and characteristics which present significant risk, must be performed with precision, or require continuous improvement to maintain marketplace competitiveness
  • Event Driven: initiated based on environmental or performance trends, these self assessments are used to enhance limiting or deficient practices to drive performance improvement

As illustrated by the Information Development Model, self assessments belong to the third tier of performance data refinement.  Performance reports at this level benefit from human intelligence added to supporting data during:  initial data synthesis, basic trend identification and analysis, multi-trend synthesis, and basic model application.  It is the infusion of human knowledge and experience at these points that makes self assessments broadly integrated and highly insightful.

An organization’s self assessment program plays a key role in identifying the performance improvement opportunities that will propel an organization to the next level of performance.  Posts in this category are dedicated to discussing the leading practices of companies successfully executing a self assessment program in support of strategic business planning and tactical business execution.

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