project mission:
support a $14MM revenue goal.

Step 4: Determine Possible Solutions

Team Top Power leveraged Hale’s Families of Intervention model (Hale, 2012) to brainstorm solutions that aligned with the following families:

• Intervention that Defines: Coordinator and Director Collaboration

  • Clarification of roles, responsibilities, and expectations in collaboration between the coordinators and the program development director. Bring the teams together to discuss what is reasonable to expect from one another, who is responsible for what customer-related tasks, and establish processes for common customer-related challenges. 

• Intervention that Serves: Director Roles and Responsibilities

  • Develop an organizational structure for the development team that allows the director to effectively delegate responsibilities to increase the speed and efficiency of development as the director manages customer needs

• Intervention that Aligns: Reorganization of Departments

  • Realign job roles involved in the development process under a more unified organizational structure to increase communication and collaboration.

 

The cause analysis highlighted that the root cause of the gap sits mostly within the organization and management criteria of the nine-box model. The team selected the intervention families above to address those systemic challenges. Using this as a guide, we offered the following solutions:

1. Standardize file systems so curriculum development knowledge is easy to find. Job aids and project documentation in one location. Retain knowledge if an employee leaves.

2. Create more senior curriculum developer roles where some of the director’s responsibilities can be delegated. This could lead to better capture and sharing of knowledge internally and for customers.

3. Reorganize the mobile training operation coordinators under the DoE to better align the workgroups.

4. Design a process document specifically tailored to each project and passed along between departments.

5. Implement regular communication that reminds coordinators of the location of resources, key employees, etc. For example, publishing a monthly newsletter highlighting worker tasks and resource locations.

6. Develop job aids for coordinators. Create an FAQ or knowledge bank with the most frequently asked questions from coordinators.

7. Bring back kickoff meetings that are supplemented with a video. Highly structured, recording captured and stored in an organized filesystem.

8. Complete a usability assessment where the DoE surveys the coordinator department to find out what works well and what does not with the handoff process. Then, build better processes that work for both departments.

9. Increase collaboration between DoE and coordinators. Possible examples: workers from the DoE and the coordinator department visit each other’s workspace to experience their work environment, see their work, and establish relationships; monthly lunch-n-learns where departments share best practices and lessons learned.

10. Build in pricing for the handoff knowing extra hours will be involved. For example, include four hours in the statement of work quote and then bill per hour if the customer needs more afterward. Alternatively, have a sliding scale depending on the size of the project. Depending on the context, this can be billed directly to customers or to the coordinator department.

11. Define processes that work for different types of projects (e.g., external trainers) and sizes of projects (small, medium, large) that support the rollout of those projects.

12. Create a Customer Success Manager (CSM) role who owns the B2B customer experience. They would alleviate much of the burden on the PD director by handling post-handoff tasks. This role manages customer-facing communication, develops a system for centralizing critical documentation, creates and coordinates a systematic handoff process, addresses customer questions and concerns, tracks the success of the courses, and actively looks for opportunities to expand TPU revenue with existing customers.

13. Scheduling coordinators participate earlier in the project, embedding them as part of the project team to develop their knowledge of the project, processes, and needs for the final product.

14. The DoE, in collaboration with the coordinator department, defines ownership and responsibilities for actions after curriculum handoff. 

 

Step 5: Prioritize Recommendations Based on Findings

The interventions were presented to the customer using an impact and invasiveness scale (Siko, 2013). This model was selected to promote visibility and ease of use for the customer while giving us direct feedback on which interventions might be too invasive with the current level of organizational buy-in. Based on feedback from the initial stages of analysis, we measured impact and invasiveness using the following categories:

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Impact

• How much does this solution have the potential to increase revenue?

• Would this solution lead to a reduction in cost as measured in time?

• Would this solution improve customer satisfaction?

Invasiveness

• Will this solution require significant cost/time investment?

• How much pushback would this solution experience at TPU? By leadership, other departments, etc.

• Does this solution require significant adjustments to the organizational structure?

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The customer was asked to rank each intervention using the six categories above on a scale from 1-5. The total score for each category was used as a plot point on an impact and invasiveness matrix chart (Siko, 2013). 

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Plotting the interventions on the I² chart revealed that “designing a process document that is specifically tailored to each project and passed along between departments,” option D, would offer the most impact with the least invasiveness. Upon further review of the findings with the customer, the team found that two of the top interventions aligned with current organizational initiatives (C and L). Due to the systemic nature of the problem TPU seeks to solve, many high-impact interventions would also be highly invasive across departments. Because of this, the customer felt that some combination of interventions in the Low Impact/Low Invasiveness quadrant would be the most appropriate way forward, barring more organizational buy-in. Specifically, a combination principally involving interventions G, M, and F:

• Bring back kickoff meetings that are supplemented with a video. Highly structured, recording captured and stored in an organized filesystem.

• Scheduling coordinators participate earlier in the project, embedding them as part of the project team to develop their knowledge of the project, processes, and needs for the final product.

• Develop job aids for coordinators. Create an FAQ or knowledge bank with the most frequently asked questions from coordinators.

To evaluate the effectiveness of the approach, we recommended that the sponsor work with organizational partners to prioritize the interventions and implement them in a phased approach while monitoring progress towards the desired performance.

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In conclusion…

Team Top Power sincerely enjoyed the time spent working on this project for Top Power University. We appreciated the transparency and commitment offered by the sponsor and stakeholders throughout the process. The exhaustive analysis of data collected through interviews, task analysis, extant documents, etc., revealed the root causes of the performance gap. Although unforeseen limits in access to data required a need for flexibility, the following sponsor feedback suggests that ultimately the team was able to produce solutions to meet the systemic nature of the challenge this needs assessment addressed.

I'll reiterate from our last conversation how impressed I am with how detailed you all were able to dig into this issue without experiencing it firsthand and how closely your solutions align with some high-level conversations we're having internally already. 

I'm confident that your proposed solutions will help us see positive change over time. 

 

(Client email after viewing the needs assessment executive presentation.)

 

With this in mind, TTP closed the report with key considerations:

• Combine Solutions -  combine all or some of the process-driven interventions in the low-impact, low-invasiveness quadrant to increase the impact of the individual intervention. For example, conduct a usability assessment that drives the development of a process document. This process document may then include the coordinators being involved earlier in the process. Approaching the individual solutions as a combined intervention would drive its placement higher on the impact scale, but it would not climb any higher on the invasiveness scale.

 

• Align with Strategic Imperatives - the DoE should work with leadership to assess the feasibility of creating a CSM role or moving the coordinators under the Department of Education. To justify the effort from the invasiveness perspective, refer to the measured performance gap in terms of dollars in order to make a correlation between the solution and the strategic organizational goals of increased revenue and cost savings.

 

• Low Risk - in the very near future, TPU should definitely move forward with the one “magic” solution that falls in the quadrant with low invasiveness and high impact. Creating a process document tailored to each project poses minimal risk and yet serves as a fast and easy win for the team to improve the handoff process.

 

• Measure and Assess - no matter which solution(s) TPU chooses to implement, the DoE should assess the progress and impact of the solutions. Begin systematically documenting the time spent on the handoffs. Each quarter, assess if the solution has made progress toward closing the performance gap. After a year, determine if the solution(s) had the desired impact and if the Department needs to revisit the original list of interventions for alternative options.

 

With the thoughtful implementation of the proposed solutions, the DoE has the potential to close the $47,800 performance gap in order to bolster TPU’s strategic imperative to achieve 10% profitability and substantially contribute toward the targeted revenue increase of $14 million in 2023. Team Top Power looks forward to learning more about the status of the project in the future and we thank TPU for their time and effort in completing this needs assessment.

 

References

Hale, J. (2012). The performance consultant’s fieldbook: Tools and techniques for improving organizations and people. John Wiley & Sons.

 

Ishikawa, K. (1988). What is total quality control? (D. J. Lu, Trans.). Prentice-Hall.

 

Rothwell, W. J., Hohne, C. K., & King, S. B. (2018). Human performance improvement: building practitioner performance (Third). Routledge.

 

Siko, J. P. (2013). Using the I² intervention matrix to select the best course of action. Performance Improvement, 52(10), 23–26. https://doi-org.libproxy.boisestate.edu/10.1002/pfi.21378

 

TPU Needs Assessment Frameworks and Models

Includes: 

• Harless Front End Analysis - FEA

• Rummler and Brache’s Nine-Box Model

• Performance Improvement/HPT Model

• Hale’s Environmental Scan

• Behavior Engineering Model (BEM)

• Five Why’s

• Ishikawa fishbone diagram

• Judith Hale’s Families of Interventions

• Siko’s Intervention Selection Framework