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Business Performance Assessment Program – The Vertical Slice Assessment Approach
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.
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Additional Information
An illustration of how data is effective merged from various sources to identify performance issues is presented within the StrategyDriven Information Development Model.
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.
Fact or fiction, anything formally documented assumes an air of legitimacy. Combine this implied legitimacy with the stark black and white of the printed words and any identified improvement opportunity can appear overly harsh and critical, especially to those responsible for the performance. Apparent aggressiveness within a self assessment can result in resistance to the evaluation findings; often by those who stand to benefit the most and who must own the corrective actions.
It’s perfectly natural and expected that individuals want to do a good job and be recognized for it or at a minimum want to do a good enough job to avoid what are to them undesired consequences. Subsequently, people look to what their superiors communicate as required job performance to gag the level and timing of their efforts.
Evaluators performing business performance assessments often find themselves awash in data suggesting their company’s performance significant lags that of competitors and top industry performers. Evidence suggesting the need to improve may be so plentiful that the self assessors come to believe immediate reforms must be made if to only ensure the continued viability of their organization.
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