Saul Carliner is an award-winning information architect, instructou,

author, and presenter. He may be reached at Fredrickson

Communications, Inc., 11 9 North Fourth Street, Suite 51 3, Minneapolis,

Minnesota 55401; telephone: (61 2) 339-7970; or fax (612) 339-6516.

How Close Are You to the Performance Zone? by Saul Carliner

e all want to develop perfor- mance support systems. W Effective performance sup-

port isn’t a technology, however, it’s a way of thinking. How well do you “think performance?” The following instrument is a tool to help you assess how closely your approach to address- ing problems matches the approach necessary for designing effective perfor- mance support. After responding to the questions, score your responses and read what the score means.

1. You’re writing a help system and are planning to document each screen in the application. What do users really need in the descriptions?

3. Mike is a claims processor for an insurance corporation. Of all the claims processors, Mike has the keenest abili- ty to understand a client problem and provide a fair claim. As part of his job, Mike occasionally sends correspon- dence. You cringe when this happens because Mike’s major weakness is his writing skills: they’re atrocious. What do you do? (Choose one.)

(a) edit everything Mike sends out (b) put Mike on a performance

improvement plan until his writing skills improve

(c) send Mike to a writing course and hope his skills improve

(d) remove writing responsibilities from Mike’s job

step-by-step instructions on what they need to do on that screen a description of each field on the screen a and b nothing, unless users are supposed to do something on the screen

4. The customer service department at L. Teem Clothiers recently moved its operations to a new client-server appli- cation. Customer service representa- tives, who process orders and inquiries for the company’s hip line of clothing, were uptight about the change. Which

2. Liz is planning her holiday baking. Using her word processor, she puts all of the recipes online. She links her word processing file with a spreadsheet file, which automatically creates a mas- ter shopping list that includes items and quantities. Liz is:

(a) retentive (b) making unnecessary work for her-

self (c) somewhat creative, if a bit eccentric (d) being extremely efficient

of the following additions to the imple- mentation plan for the system was cited as the reason their fears were allayed?

(a) addition of a Windows module to the training program

(b) cutting the four-day training course to half a day

(c) installing a recording that warns cus- tomers that they may experience a delay in obtaining service while the system is being updated

(d) paying a $150 bonus to each

18 performance improvement / may/june 1997

employee who reaches a certain level of productivity within the first two weeks of the system’s introduc- tion

5. Minnesota Soup Kitchen, an estab- lished chain of family restaurants throughout the Midwest, is replacing all of its cash registers with “intuitive” point-of-sale terminals that are so easy to use that, according to the manufac- turer, they require no training. Deb, the store systems training manager for the Kitchen, has decided to run a two-hour session for all employees who use the register. This was an effective decision because:

(a) the manufacturer is living in dream- land; no system is truly intuitive

(b) the I/S manager has a turf battle brewing with Deb and, having failed in his attempt to bring her department under his management, is trying to eliminate the need for the department by saying that all products are intuitive

(c) some aspects of the system are not really intuitive

(d) the company is introducing a change and the sessions give man- agement a chance to build percep- tions about the change

6. What is the primary reason that approximately 90 percent of all train- ing fails to stick?

(a) It is not taught well. (b) It is taught in the classroom, where

distractions prevent participants from learning.

(c) The skills taught are not used.

7. You are recommending the medium to use for a new employee orientation program for a large corporation. The company runs the half-day orientation program biweekly in a classroom for an average of 30 participants. To better reflect recent restructuring in the com- pany, the human resources department is redesigning the orientation program and is looking into a suggestion from one of the employees that the program would be more cost-effectively deliv-

ered through multimedia. You recom- mend:

(a) multimedia, because it has been proved to provide more efficient and consistent training than class- room training

(b) classroom, because new employee orientation is intended to present a human face to new employees and a computer will intimidate partici- pants

(c) a combination of media: a multime- dia introduction to the company that employees take on their first day and that reviews “facts and fig- ures” and a long introductory lun- cheon within two weeks of starting employment to meet some key peo- ple in the company and other employees

8. You work as a course developer at SoftPop, Inc. The manager of market- ing asks you to develop a classroom course to teach salespeople how to sell a new product that the company plans to introduce in 10 weeks. After the manager finishes telling you about the request, your first response is:

(a) No problem. I have an idea for a video to go with it!

(b) Sounds neat. But have you thought about a performance support system?

(c) Sounds neat. Can you please give me a little more background on this situation?

Scoring 1. a.-2 2. a-1 3 . a.-1 4. a.-1 5. a.-1 6. a.-1 7. a.-1 8. a.-1

b.-1 c.-2 d.-3 b- 1 ~ . - 2 d.-3 b.-1 C-2 d.-3 b.-1 ~ . - 1 d.-3 b.-1 c.-2 d.-3 b.-2 ~ . - 3 b.-1 ~ . - 3 b.-1 c.-3

If you scored:

20-24 In the performance zone. You take a flexible approach to the situa- tions presented to you and suggest solutions appropriate to the situation. 15-19 Near the performance zone.

You have a somewhat flexible approach to situations, but still apply some assumptions to each.

Below 15 Outside of the performance zone. You likely apply many assump- tions to your work. The assumptions probably assist you in developing excel- lent training, but may hinder your efforts in recommending appropriate performance solutions.

Tips for Moving into the Performance Zone Note that the questions you just answered are a tool to help assess how closely your solutions fit into the per- formance zone. Gloria Gery, author of Electronic Performance Suppor t Systems, calls the performance zone the place where people “get it.” For perfor- mance technologists, there are several steps for “getting it.”

Start each new project with as many views and as few assumptions as possible. As the old saying suggests, if the only tool you have is a hammer, then every solution requires a nail. Similarly, if the only solutions you have to offer are training and computer tools, then every problem would require a course or electronic solution. In some instances, those are appropriate solutions, but in others, they are not. The more tools you have in your bag of tricks, the more you have to offer a client.

Similarly, avoid assumptions about sit- uations. Clients will present their pro- jects as clear and straightforward-and they may be-but ask the client to step you back through the situation so that you can draw your own conclusions. You do not necessarily need to repeat the client’s needs analysis, but you also don’t have to draw the same conclu- sions. When a client approaches you with a project, keep asking him or her to tell you more until you feel have enough background information to start suggesting strategies for address- ing the situation.

Focus on results rather than on activi- ties and events. When we feel busy, we

performance improvement / vol36, #5 19

often feel that we are producing. Often, however, the products of our being busy are more successful at making us feel productive than they are at solving our problems. For example, when motivation.

ten letters on the computer, perhaps we can relieve employees of this responsi- bility and simultaneously improve the quality of our correspondence.

instances, those rewards will be tied to compensation, in others, a thank you or acknowledgment. A training course cannot compensate for the lack of

organizations are concerned about poor customer service, they often pro- vide a training course, but a training course will not stop service representa- tives from abruptly ending conversa- tions with customers if the organization assesses its the representatives based on the number of phone calls they handle.

Similarly, we often believe that certain activities must be performed to achieve a goal, but perhaps we can bypass these activities. For example, we might assume that all workers must write their own correspondence. If the worker has a primary job responsibility other than writing and we can store pre-writ-

Recommend interventions that address the underlying performance problem. Performance problems result from one of the following:

lack of knowledge and skills, lack of resources, or lack of motivation.

Provide many interventions. Like most problems, performance problems usual- ly lack a single cause. Therefore, they require more than one intervention.

Whether you scored inside or outside the performance zone, or somewhere in

Training addresses only the first. If between, developing the framework for workers lack necessary resources like thinking in terms of performance is a the information they need to do their necessary skill. Once we have devel- job, you can solve that problem only by oped the basics of this skill, we must providing the missing resources. constantly practice it to remain in the Similarly, if workers lack motivation, performance zone. you can solve the problem only by pro- viding appropriate rewards. In some

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20 performance improvement / may/june 1997