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Back to the Performance Improvement Journal Home PageAugust, 2003 Editor’s Notes |
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Executive Summaries
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| A Process for Aligning Performance Improvement Resources and Strategies by Ryan Watkins and John Wedman Making the crucial decisions that are required at the beginning of any performance improvement project can be a challenge for even the most seasoned professional. Starting with the initial decisions that identify a performance problem and continuing through the selection of appropriate interventions, the performance consultant must assess needs and assets, analyze performance problems and tasks, and answer critical questions. Assessing, analyzing, and answering are three fundamental processes that collectively generate the data required to align performance improvement resources and strategies, thereby optimizing results. Short-circuiting these processes frequently leads to ineffective interventions, wasted resources, and potentially exacerbates performance problems. This article provides a data-driven framework for aligning performance improvement resources and strategies. From a Training Request to Performance Consulting by Mark Munley, CPT Frequently, the need for assistance comes to the trainer or performance technologist in the form of a request for training. Identifying the critical business issue (CBI) is the first step to uncovering breakdowns in performance. Understanding the inter-relationship of individual performers to the processes they support and the organizations they work in is key to uncovering the true causes of gaps in results. This article uses a case study that turns a request for training into a systematic analysis that begins by uncovering the CBI driving the request, which identifies both the gap in results and suggest how to close the identified gaps. This analysis takes a systemic approach by troubleshooting the relevant performance system and illustrates how to promote performance in a request for training. Protocol-Based Instructional Design: A Longitudinal Case Study by Trudy K. Christensen This article describes a protocol-based approach to instructional design and explores the implications of this approach through a longitudinal case study. Using a diplomatic-protocol metaphor to guide instructional thinking provides a comprehensive design framework to help address the needs of the three main audiences for instructional design: the learners, the stakeholders, and the production personnel. The article defines the critical components of instructional protocols, describes the process of designing an instructional protocol, and presents a specific example of a protocol. Finally, it traces the family tree of an instructional protocol over a 10-year period, describing how one or more informational components, the instructional genes, are passed on to benefit subsequent generations of instructional protocols. The Harmonics of Usability: A Trio of Implications for Software Interface Design by Adele Sommers In the world of usability, Thomas Gilbert, human performance engineer, John Bowie, information engineer, and Genichi Taguchi, quality engineer, exemplify different generations and disciplines, but converge philosophically in the domain of software development. The advice from these three experts, when carefully juxtaposed, illustrates how combining behavioral, economic, and quality considerations can profoundly influence the effectiveness of software interface designs. To fully understand the experiences that customers routinely have with commercial software, we ought to explore a number of performance improvement principles that we may have taken for granted or may not have related to software products. Viewing interface design through this unique lens can help the entire software industry--and technical communicators in particular--focus on priorities and goals for improving customer experiences and enhancing business results with software. A series of realistic examples and practical recommendations for transforming this approach to software and information design is included. |
