First Things Fast: A Handbook for Performance Analysis - Hardcover

Rossett, Allison

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0787944386 ISBN 13: 9780787944384

Publisher: Pfeiffer & Co, 1998

Synopsis

This hands-on book tells you how to quickly determine performance needs before investing precious time and resources. When trainers, consultants, and problem-solvers need to figure out what's wrong with an organization--and they need a solution fast--they need this book. Needs assessment is about doing things right; performance analysis guarantees doing the right thing.

Rossett offers extensive guidance on:
* Accelerating a performance analysis
* Overcoming organizational obstacles
* Using technology in analysis
* Presenting the results of an analysis . . . and much more!

You'll get job aids, templates, and implementation examples that direct you through the basics of performance analysis. Carefully selected case studies further illustrate the text.

Visit the First Things Fast online coaching and information system and get information about how to encourage analysis in the organization and what strategies are best for doing it. This online information and coaching tool, designed by award-winning author Allison Rossett, offers planning tips and tools to get things done . . . fast!

About this title

About the Author

ALLISON ROSSETT, professor of Educational Technology at San Diego State University, is a consultant in the design, development, and evaluation of performance and training systems. A native New Yorker, ping pong champion in her youth, and yo-yoer in training, Allison has offered keynote speeches in this country and abroad. She teaches classes and consults on instructional design, learning technologies, performance analysis and needs assessment, and indepAndent learning.Rossett was the recipient of an Association for Educational Technology Book of the Year Award for her Training Needs Assessment. Her book, A Handbook of Job Aids, published by Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, won the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) top book award and an Association for Educational Technology Tool of the Year Award. She has also published dozens of articles, edited journals, offered seminars, coached and advised business and government leaders, evaluated programs, and managed corporate contracts and federal and state grants.

From the Back Cover

Look before you leap start smart with this engaging field guide!

Foreword by Marc J. Rosenberg, district manager, strategic learning technologies, AT&T

How do you figure out what to do?

This book offers you strategies to answer that question. It's a hands-on guide to planning and consultation, with an emphasis on tools, tales, templates, speed, sources, and systems. First Things Fast is the quick start you need to surmount resistance to investigating performance.

Allison Rossett offers you priceless tips on:

• Accelerating analysis
  
• Using technology
  
• Overcoming organizational obstacles
  
• Communicating with experts, customers, and colleagues
  
• Presenting results . . . and much more!

"Rossett's book is a practical, down-to-earth set of guidelines from an accomplished professional who's obviously 'been there.'" Joe Harless, author of Peak Performance System and The Eden Conspiracy

"Rossett has produced an eminently readable, practical handbook that helps human resource professionals apply performance analysis methods fast. A friendly, comforting, useful volume that we will definitely recommend to our clients." Harold D. Stolovitch, professor, Universit? de Montr?al; president, Harold D. Stolovitch & Associates; and Erica J. Keeps, executive vice-president, Harold D. Stolovitch & Associates

"This book is a must-have for anyone who is responsible for identifying performance and training needs. It's chock full of proven tips, techniques, practices, tools, and examples. And with Rossett's wonderful humor evident throughout, it's fun to read!" Dana Gaines Robinson, president, Partners in Change; coauthor, Performance Consulting

You'll get job aids, design templates, and implementation examples that direct you through the basics of performance analysis. A frequently updated, internet-based coaching and information system will complement and supplement the book (www.jbp.com/rossett.html). Start smart with Rossett's guide!

From the Inside Flap

Look before you leap start smart with this engaging field guide!Foreword by Marc J. Rosenberg, district manager, strategic learning technologies, AT&THow do you figure out what to do? This book offers you strategies to answer that question. It's a hands-on guide to planning and consultation, with an emphasis on tools, tales, templates, speed, sources, and systems. First Things Fast is the quick start you need to surmount resistance to investigating performance. Allison Rossett offers you priceless tips on:

• Accelerating analysis
• Using technology
• Overcoming organizational obstacles
• Communicating with experts, customers, and colleagues
• Presenting results . . . and much more!

"Rossett's book is a practical, down-to-earth set of guidelines from an accomplished professional who's obviously 'been there.'" Joe Harless, author of Peak Performance System and The Eden Conspiracy"Rossett has produced an eminently readable, practical handbook that helps human resource professionals apply performance analysis methods fast. A friAndly, comforting, useful volume that we will definitely recommAnd to our clients." Harold D. Stolovitch, professor, Universite de Montreal; president, Harold D. Stolovitch & Associates; and Erica J. Keeps, executive vice-president, Harold D. Stolovitch & Associates "This book is a must-have for anyone who is responsible for identifying performance and training needs. It's chock full of proven tips, techniques, practices, tools, and examples. And with Rossett's wonderful humor evident throughout, it's fun to read!" Dana Gaines Robinson, president, Partners in Change; coauthor, Performance ConsultingYou'll get job aids, design templates, and implementation examples that direct you through the basics of performance analysis. A frequently updated, internet-based coaching and information system will complement and supplement the book (www.jbp.com/rossett.html). Start smart with Rossett's guide!

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Foreword

Marc J. Rosenberg Senior Consultant OmniTech Consulting Group

"If you don't know where you're going, any place will do." From Alice in Wonderland

We've all been there. Trying to solve problems we haven't defined. Grabbing at solutions because they seem right or they worked once before. Delivering a product to the field in spite of that nagging sense that you just aren't quite sure why the product was developed in the first place. And then, of course, suffering the consequences when things don't work the way we'd hoped.

It's no wonder training has traditionally gotten a bad rap. We focus on outputs not solutions, they tell us. We embrace glitzy multimedia, sometimes at the expense of learning. We're more concerned with student days than student performance.

In many ways, training became like the U. S. automobile industry of the 1970s and 1980s, pushing lots of product out the back door that ignored the needs of consumers and generally didn't work well or last very long. But the auto industry recently came roaring back by spending more time understanding the requirements of customers and building products that didn't just look good but worked extremely well and provided lasting satisfaction.

In our business, we've also changed. We're putting more emphasis on performance analysis. Why? Because like the car manufacturers of twenty years ago, we want not only to survive, but to grow and prosper. We need to better understand the underlying problems and requirements of those who will use our products. What are their concerns and their reality? What results are they looking for? What do we need to know to assure that what we do will work?

Performance analysis tools and methodologies have proliferated in recent years. Indeed, one of Allison Rossett's previous books, Training Needs Assessment, provides a strong foundation for this new direction. Performance analysis, part of an emerging human performance technology, has also given us a wider field of vision, to see beyond training solutions to a host of other interventions that provide valid and cost-effective ways to improve workplace performance. Performance analysis has been embraced by professional training and human resource societies. It's being taught at most universities. But most important, it's being recognized as an important business tool.

There's just one problem. It takes too long. Or, it's perceived to take too long. In an era of ever-decreasing cycle times and shorter product lifecycles, the ability to make quick decisions regarding performance improvement, including training, becomes paramount. Although performance analysis helps us overcome the Alice in Wonderland effect of not knowing where we are going, it's still regarded as too slow, and, quite frankly, often a pain. There's a great deal of evidence that this is the primary reason why performance analysis is not done.

In First Things Fast: A Handbook for Performance Analysis, Allison Rossett tackles cycle time head-on. Although Rossett maintains her healthy reliance on data-based decision-making, she presents some interesting ways to get there. For me, the book provides a number of keen insights:

First, act like a detective rather than a scientist. Find the big nuggets of information. Deduce possible outcomes. Look for clues and trends in behavior. Accumulate evidence rather than proof, estimates rather than exactness. This will speed things up without significant loss of data integrity.

Second, rely on others. Rossett makes a big case for partnering. Not only does this enable the client to feel part of the effort, and thus take more ownership of the results, but it recognizes a key element of increasing the efficiency of the work: the client knows a lot of stuff. Find information that already exists. Talk to people who are in a position to know what's going on. If you pick the right people and you get consistent responses, you're likely on the right track. Third, use tools and technology. Improving the productivity of performance analysis is the essence of this book. Don't re-invent the wheel each time you go out. If the tools and technology you have at your disposal aren't perfect, refine them over time. The point here is to build a process and a capability that can be replicated in many situations. This saves time.

Finally, refine as you go. Things change, and they change often. A performance analysis "set in stone," with all the details anyone could possibly want, may be of little value a week from now when the business situation is turned on its head by a new competitor or the budget for the solution you had planned is cut in half. Perfection is costly and may not be all it is cracked up to be. Better to analyze just enough to be comfortable making the next set of decisions and keep revisiting your assumptions and findings throughout the project.

As George Stalk and Thomas Hout note in their 1990 book, Competing Against Time, businesses are driven by three major criteria: cost, quality, and responsiveness, or speed. In the automotive industry in recent years, Chrysler's mantra has been substantially shortened development cycle times and time to market, both responsiveness measures. The result is a resurgent, highly competitive company and a leader in a more competitive industry. Likewise, the performance improvement industry must also look at responsiveness as a critical success factor.

Performance analysis has always sought to help organizations drive down cost and increase quality by assuring that the solutions recommended are, in fact, what is truly needed. The beauty of this book is that it recognizes the critical nature of speed in doing performance analysis work, without sacrificing the other measures. Performance analysis is at the center of a training industry driving toward a fundamental transformation. First Things Fast: A Handbook for Performance Analysis is your road map.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pfeiffer & Co
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0787944386
• ISBN 13: 9780787944384
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 241