Diagnosing Performance Factors

This diagnostic focuses on helping a team to analyse how good their service performance is against what the customers require.

Example

The following analysis was carried out by an R&D unit within a government department. They first identified the key services they provided, then the performance factors the customer was interested in, and then worked through to create the matrix below. It highlighted the fact that although they performed to customer requirements on most, there were particular area where they were weak. They then set up teams to work on these areas.

Step 1 Identify the main services that you provide.

The Research and Development unit below identified their main services as

Consultancy,
R&D,
Performance Assessment, and
Training.

Step 2 Identify the key performance factors for all the services - probably up to ten in total.

Some Typical Performance Factors are:

Quality
Location
Choice
Speed of Service
Reliability
Easy to understand services
Convenience
Cooperative staff

Step 3 Customer Requirements

For each of your main services, under "Customer Requirements" estimate the level of performance that you believe the customer requires against performance factor.

Either simply rate each factor as high-medium-low; or better still, rate each factor from 1 to 5.

Step 4 Your Performance

Now, go through the chart again. For each of your main services, rate your own performance for each of the performance factors.

Step 5 The "Hot-Spots"

Now identify the "hot-Spots", those areas where the customer requirement is high, and your performance is low. These are your priority areas for improvement.

It is often best to do this first with a small internal group, then refine it through individual discussion with key customers, and finally (though often not necessary), by a questionnaire survey of all customers. In practice, the first two of these are normally sufficient.

Further Examples

Almelo

The following table shows another performance analysis carried out at a Netherlands transformer factory.

Performance factors analysis for factory

An alternative approach and more visual approach is to use a mapping technique as shown below. The priority areas are those which are important to the customers where our performance is low - those in the top left quadrant.