Evaluation and Control Program Introduction
An organization’s evaluation and control program is a data gathering and action initiation mechanism. This program monitors the external business environments, the internal performance of business units, processes, and individuals, and the output products and services of the organization. Once collected, data is processed to present a picture of the company’s overall performance and to trigger actions in response to conditions representing opportunities or threats.
The evaluation and control program is comprised of several component processes that monitor performance on a continuous, periodic, and event driven basis; driving action when necessary. Component processes include:
- organizational performance measurement system (continuous and periodic)
- external environmental monitoring program (continuous and periodic)
- condition reporting/corrective action program (event driven)
- self-assessments program (periodic and event driven)
- benchmarking (periodic)
Outputs from the various monitoring processes are often combined to create a richer understanding of organizational performance relative to both internal performance standards and external benchmarks. Synthesized data drives actions on a day-to-day operational basis and serves as input to the strategic planning process. When predefined thresholds are reached or exceeded, action is prompted to take advantage of opportunities or mitigate threats representing a risk to the business or its operations.
Evaluation and control program components play a key role in an organization’s learning and growth efforts. They not only identify improvement opportunities, they also identify internal and external best practices that can be used to better existing processes. This continuous growth mechanism is critical to an organization seeking to maintain and advance its position in the marketplace.
Posts in this category are dedicated to discussing the leading practices of companies successfully executing an evaluation and control program in support of strategic business planning and tactical business execution.
Organizational Performance Measures Best Practice 9 – Predefined and Reinforced Data Standards
You’ve heard it a million times, “garbage in, garbage out.” But this axiom couldn’t be more true than in the case of organizational performance measures where in so many instances even a minute change in the data entered results in a profoundly different indicated performance. So how can an organization’s leaders be confident in the accuracy of their performance measurement data and the resulting measures? By defining and reinforcing a comprehensive set of organizational performance measure data standards.
Management Observation Program Best Practice 8 – Cross Organizational Trending
Management observation programs generate a wealth of individual and workgroup performance data. All too often, workgroup managers view their employees job functions as being singularly unique and so don’t consider pooling their observation results with peers. Doing so, however, creates the possibility of identifying broader organizational trends that may be culturally driven and more economical to resolve with a single integrated initiative.
Management Observation Program Best Practice 7 – Documented and Signed Observations
Robustly implemented management observation programs offer many benefits to the organization and its managers. At their core, each of these benefits is derived from aggregation and analysis of the performance data gathered during the observations. Enabling required data synthesis necessitates the documentation of observed occurrences and conclusions. Desired behavior reinforcement and performance improvement, not to mention manager and observation program credibility, necessitate the employee be briefed on the observations made and conclusions drawn. As with all formally documented performance appraisal instruments, the documented observation should be signed by both the manager and employee.
Self Assessment Program Best Practice 7 – Be Prepared from the Start
Self 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.
How to Prepare for a Self Assessment
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