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Performance Needs Analysis

How to identify performance needs and opportunities rapidly and reliably

Who should attend this workshop?

Performance Consultants who want to relate their efforts to business strategies
Managers who want to improve employee performance and productivity
Trainers who want to improve participant learning

Objectives

Benefits for individuals

Recognize performance problems and opportunities with potentially high returns on investment.
Identify ideal and actual states related to critical human performances.
Select the most appropriate level for conducting a performance needs analysis.
Specify alternative performance needs analysis frameworks and strategies and select the most appropriate ones for a specific situation.
Identify and act upon different types of triggers for performance needs analysis.
Apply a 6-step procedure for conducting a rapid and reliable performance needs analysis.
Use a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods for collecting data.
Specify a need as the gap between the ideal and actual states associated with critical performances.
Identify root causes for discrepancies between ideal and actual states associated with a critical performance.
Select the most appropriate intervention (or interventions) for fulfilling a performance need.

Benefits for the organization

Achieve maximum return on investment from performance-improvement efforts.
Select, develop, and implement the most appropriate intervention strategies based on the root causes critical performance needs.
Relate performance-improvement efforts to business goals, objectives, and strategies.

Workshop Content

Performance needs analysis: Basic concept and variables

Definition of performance needs analysis
Role of performance needs analysis in training and other types of interventions
Different levels of performance needs analysis: philosophy, policy, strategy, tactics, and logistics
Polarities in performance needs analysis: continuous vs. discrete, qualitative vs. quantitative, generic vs. intervention-specific, comprehansive vs. limited, and clinical vs. large-scale
Selecting the optimum type of performance needs analysis
A procedural model for performance needs analysis

How to use the 6-step performance needs analysis model

1. Respond to a trigger situation signaling the need for performance needs analysis
2. Collect data
3. Specify ideal state of performance.
4. Specify actual state of performance.
5. Identify root causes for the gap.
6. Select suitable intervention.

How to collect, anslyze, and present data

Selecting appropriate techniques: Rational vs. intuitive. Individual vs. Group
Using the principle of triangulation
Retriving and analyzing data from existing records, reports, and products
Interviewing individuals
Observing individual and group performance
Using focus group and structured sharing techniques
Surveys and questionnaires

How to identify root causes and select appropriate interventions

Types of root causes. Internal causes related to skill, knowledge, atitude, motivation, and capacity. External causes related to selection, teamwork, incentives, facilities, and tools
Analyzing data to detect, confirm, or reject root causes
Identifying and handling multiple root causes
Types of interventions
Matching interventions with root causes
Supporting primary intervention with secondary interventions

How to use tips and short cuts in performance needs analysis

Using high technology to collect and analyze data. E-mail and internet. Audio and videotape recordings
Working with multiple clients and dueling experts
Working under tight deadlines and limited budgets
Infiltering an organzation with informants and continous performance needs analysis strategies

Thiagi's expertise with human performance technology

Thiagi has practiced performance needs analysis for the past three decades around the world in different type of projects. In a 1960's project that involved disseminating birth-control techniques in villages of India, Thiagi demonstrated that the root cause for performance problems was the embarrassment of young volunteers disdussing sex with people old enough to be their grandparents. Appropriate intervention: Desensitizing volunteers by having them drawing explicit pictures and talking "dirty". Later, as a high school teacher, Thiagi successfully increased grades on math tests by providing breakfast to students from the local slums. Most recently, Thiagi has improved game-design skills of hundreds of people by providing them with templates instead of training.

Long before human performance technology became a field, Thiagi has been using performance needs analysis as a powerful tool. For the past 30 years, he has been a pioneer performance technologist, learning from and often working with several though leaders in the filed. The International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), has given Thiagi almost every honor it awards, including the most prestigious Honorary Life Member Award.

5 Things That Make Thiagi's Workshops Unique
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