The Test

Many technical communicators and instructional designers want to develop performance support systems. But effective performance support isn't a technology, 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 addressing problems matches that needed to design effective performance support.

After responding to the questions, score your responses and read what the score means.

Part 1: Take the Test!

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?
1. Step-by-step instructions on what they need to do on that screen.
2. A description of each field on the screen.
3. a and b.
4. Nothing, unless users are supposed to do something on the screen.

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 master shopping list, including items and quantities. Liz is:
1. anal-retentive

(b) making unnecessary work for herself

2. somewhat creative, if a bit eccentric
3. being extremely efficient

3. Mike is a claims processor for an insurance corporation. Of all the claims processors, Mike has the keenest ability to understand a client problem and provide a fair claim. As part of his job, Mike occasionally sends correspondence. You cringe when this happens because Mike's major weakness is his writing skills. They're atrocious. What do you do (choose one)?
1. Edit everything Mike sends out.
2. Put Mike on a performance improvement plan until his writing skills improve.
3. Send Mike to a writing course and hope his skills improve.
4. Remove writing responsibilities from Mike's job.

4. The customer service department at L. Teem Clothiers recently moved its operations to a new client-server application. Customer service representatives, who process orders and inquiries for the company's hip line of clothing, were uptight about the change. Which of the following additions to the implementation plan for the system was cited as the reason their fears were allayed?
1. Addition of a Windows module to the training program
2. Cutting the 4-day training course to 1/2-day
3. Playing a recording "You may experience some delays as we install a new computer system to ultimately serve you better" before calls were transferred to customer service reps during the first two weeks of operation
4. Paying a $150 bonus to each employee who reaches a certain level of productivity within the first two weeks of the system's introduction.

5. Minnesota Soup Kitchen, an established 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 manufacturer, they require no training. Deb Hartley, the Store Systems Training Manager for the Kitchen has decided to run a 2-hour session for all employees who use the register anyway. This was an effective decision because:
1. The manufacturer is living in dream land; no system is truly intuitive.
2. The I/S manager has a turf battle brewing with Deb and, having had 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.
3. Some aspects of the system are not really intuitive.
4. The company is introducing a change and the sessions gives management a chance to build perceptions about the change

6. What is the primary reason that approximately 90 percent of all training fails to stick?
1. Because it is not taught well.
2. Because it is taught in the classroom, where distractions prevent participants from learning.
3. Because 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 bi-weekly in a classroom for an average of 30 participants. To better reflect recent restructuring in the company, 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 delivered through multimedia. You recommend:
1. Multimedia, because it has proven to more efficiently and consistently provide training than classroom training
2. Classroom, because new employee orientation is intended to present a human face to new employees and a computer will intimidate participants
3. A combination of media: a multimedia introduction to the company that employees take on their first day `and that reviews "facts and figures" and a long introductory luncheon within 2 weeks of starting employment to meet some key people in the company and other employees

8. You work as a course developer at SoftPop, Inc. The manager of marketing asks you to develop a classroom course to teach sales people how to sell a new product that the company is introducing in 10 weeks. After the manager finishes telling you about the request, your first response is:
1. No problem. I have an idea for a video to go with it!
2. Sounds neat. But have you thought about a performance support system?
3. Sounds neat.. Can you please give me a little more background on this situation.

Top

Part 2: Determine Your Score

1. a.-2 b.-1 c.-2 d.-3

2. a-1 b-1 c.-2 d.-3

3. a.-1 b.-1 c-2 d.-3

4. a.-1 b.-1 c.-1 d.-3

5. a.-1 b.-1 c.-2 d.-3

6. a.-1 b.-2 c.-3

7. a.-1 b.-1 c.-3

8. a.-1 b.-1 c.-3

Top

Part 3: Interpret Your Score

20-24

In the performance zone. You take a flexible approach to the situations 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 assumptions to your work. The assumptions probably assist you in developing excellent training, but may hinder your efforts in recommending appropriate performance solutions.

Top

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 performance zone. Gloria Gery, author of Electronic Performance Support Systems, calls the performance zone the place where people "get it." For human performance technologists, "getting it" means:

• Starting 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-based tools, then every problem would require a course or electronic solution. In some instances, those are appropriate solutions, but in others, they are not. So, the more tools in your bag of tricks, the more you have to offer a client.

Similarly, avoid assumptions about situations. Clients will present their projects 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 conclusions. So, when a client approaches you with a project, keep responding "tell me more" until you feel have enough background information on the background before you start suggesting strategies to address the situation.

• Focusing on end results, rather than activities and events. When we feel busy, we often feel that we are producing. But the products of our busy-ness are often more successful at making us feel productive than they are at solving the problems that we are concerned about. For example, when organizations are concerned about poor customer service, they often provide a training course. But a training course will not stop reps from abruptly ending conversations with customers if the organization assesses its reps on the number of phone calls handled.

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. But if the worker has a primary job responsibility other than writing and we can store pre-written letters on the computer, perhaps we can relieve employees of this responsibility and, at the same time, improve the quality of our correspondence.

• Recommending interventions that address the underlying performance problem. Performance problems result from one of the following:
  • Lack of knowledge and skills
  • Lack of resources
  • Lack of motivation.

  Training only addresses the first. If workers lack necessary resources like the information they need to do their job, then you can only solve that problem by providing the missing resources. Similarly, if workers lack motivation, then you can only solve the problem by providing appropriate rewards. In some instances, those rewards will be tied to compensation. In other instances, a thank you or acknowledgment of feelings results in improvement. But a training course cannot compensate for the lack of motivation.

• Providing many interventions. Like most problems, performance problems are usually sufficiently complex that lack a single cause. Therefore, performance problems need more than one intervention to solve them.

Whether you scored in the performance zone, outside of it, or somewhere in between, developing the framework for thinking in terms of performance is a skill that each of us can develop.

Once we have developed the basics of this skill, we must constantly practice it to remain in the performance zone. In addition to the approaches suggested above, the experience reports and case studies in this publication, and the research articles in Performance Improvement Quarterly, also provide an effective means of helping each of us "get it" and "keep it."

Top

Project Management | People Management | Business Management | Information Design Models, Processes, and Techniques | Home

(c) Copyright. 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002. Saul Carliner. All rights reserved.