Strategic Analysis

This is a term often used with an assumption that the people hearing it understand its meaning.

Strategic Analysis is said to be:

‘… the process of conducting research on the business environment within which an organisation operates and on the organisation itself, in order to formulate strategy.’

BNET Business Dictionary

What is meant by the term “strategic analysis” differs from academic to academic and business o business, however there are some common factors. These are typically:

1. Identification and evaluation of data relevant to strategy (a plan, method, or series of maneuvers for achieving a specific goal or result: a strategy for gettingahead in the world) formulation

2. Definition of the external and internal environment to be analysed

3. A range of analytical methods that can be employed in the analysis

Examples of analytical methods used in strategic analysis include:

• SWOT analysis
• PESTLE analysis
• PRIMO-F analysis
• Porter’s five forces analysis
• Value chain analysis

 

 

Strategic Organizational Development

OD professionals are the CEOs allies in creating a top performance culture for the organization.

Organizational Development professionals are specialists in Change Management and Culture Development. However many find themselves in positions that make it difficult to get a straight line of communication to the CEO. Mainly because of the Organizational structure and the fact that OD-Organization Development is located under HR. Ideally the OD Head would have a position on the same level as the HR Head according to Dr. William Rothwell from Pennstate University who is an authority in HR. However reality is that most OD professionals still work under the more traditional structure.

Some years ago I held an OD role that reported directly into the CEO – HR did not!! – so to some extent this is down to the CEO and their experience of what an OD professional can and cannot deliver in relation to their needs and vision for the organization.

OD as a discipline is getting is only recently starting to grow an a standalone profession. More so with the pangs of growth that many of the new organizations are now facing. Talent acquisition, retention, organizational culture and people development are now starting to hinge more on the OD professional more than the HR. Recognizing this aspect, many organizations are allocating independent structures for the OD function. However, in cases where the OD has to work under HR, whether he/she can connect to the CEO solely depends on what he/she is capable of taking to the table. If a OD professional can sparkle with out-of-the-box ideas which can directly contribute to the growth of organization, the CEO cannot turn a blind eye.

Back in the 60′s and 70′s OD focused on people, behaviours and their actions and interactions with each other, in those days the majority of organizations did not know how to look after or engage with their people –

Things have now changed, much is different

CEO’s are having their valuable time ever squeezed and as such will only be able to have people reporting directly in that can add directly and measurably to their primary objectives. They have to focus on the big picture or strategic matters.

Unfortunately it is not very often that OD practitioner can demonstrate primary change. If we want to be engaged at this level we need to re-evaluate what we do and what is classed as OD activity. For example, traditionally when undertaking diagnostic processes we seem to focus on people and behaviours, or on the culture, now we need to be more integrated and holistic. This means starting to look at factors which traditionally have not been the domain of OD practitioner. If we are to truly facilitate change then our diagnostic process need to map the PRIMO-F model – that is to cover:

• People,
• Resources,
• Innovation,
• Marketing,
• Operations and
• Finance elements,

For it is how these factors interact that provide the organization with either an advantage or disadvantage in the market place. When undertaking a SWOT analysis for your organization do you cover all of these elements appropriately? Sure we may not be in a position to solve any issues raised here but as OD facilitators our role is to identify any blocks in the organization, then help to facilitate a solution.

So if we really want to get noticed we need to really get strategic and start looking at interactions with people and systems in all elements of our respective organizations.

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

© RapidBI.com 2008

http://www.rapidbi.com

This material may be put on your Blog or website – however please keep this copyright statement

Strategy and Tools in Business

Strategy and tools in business

Over the years a lot of good and bad stuff has been said about SWOT. Sure it is not the most robust of tools but when used in the way it was originally developed – it is a powerful tool.
Some people have argued that it is time to move on from SWOT to other things – in this piece we explore SOAR an appreciative Inquiry tool.

An interesting article on this topic was published in Ai Practitioner magazine ( http://preview.tinyurl.com/2bvobg ) (it is available here http://preview.tinyurl.com/26wk4v )for those that are not subscribers).

Having read the article, the SOAR approach to my mind makes the same mistake that many using the SWOT analysis do – and that is they miss the context. When the (highly researched) SOFT was changed to SWOT the new authors missed the point which is why the tool is often miss-understood. It was never designed to stand on its own, nor was it ever to be part of the direct action phase – it was a diagnosis and data capture tool.

The authors of this article to my mind make 2 fundamental mistakes:
1) they assume that all applications of SWOT are in the way they describe
2) they appear to ignore weaknesses and threads – apparently believing that their solution will soar (pardon the pun) over any difficulties.
Would the shareholders of Enron be in the position they are now in (extinct) if they had faced up to their threats and weaknesses, rather than focus on what they thought were their strengths?

The article clearly states in its summary
“This article has attempted to address the strategy-to-execution gap. In doing so, we have discussed SOAR, a strengths-based framework that builds on the best points of SWOT (strengths and opportunities) in order to move beyond the “as-is” state of the organization’s environment to the “to-be”.“

Yes this as a framework can be used as the authors state to take SWOT data and apply it – but SOAR in itself is not a diagnostic or orientation tool. Anyone using this as a diagnostic tool is going to make the same errors as 1000′s of people have done with inappropriate use of SWOT.
This thread has been started to help CIPD students (and others) complete their studies – and for that they must use SWOT and PESTLE – if they chose to use other tools they will need references – I cannot see any on the article .

Appreciative Enquiry has its place.
Appreciative Inquiry is a particular way of asking questions and envisioning the future that fosters positive relationships and builds on the basic goodness in a person, a situation, or an organization. In so doing, it enhances a system’s capacity for collaboration and change. Appreciative Inquiry utilizes a 4-stage process focusing on:

• DISCOVER: The identification of organizational processes that work well.
• DREAM: The envisioning of processes that would work well in the future.
• DESIGN: Planning and prioritizing processes that would work well.
• DESTINY (or DELIVER): The implementation (execution) of the proposed design.
  
  

The basic idea is to build organizations around what works, rather than trying to fix what doesn’t. It is the opposite of problem solving. AI focuses on how to create more of what’s already working.
This method is more positive in nature than many others, however it is as a strategy naive in that it assumes success breeds success – many organizations are in fact where they are now because they did solve problems and did not just focus on what works.

Would a company that currently makes plastic carrier bags be advised to use SOAR – or look at the external factors which may bring about the end of the need for their product?

Equally any diagnostic process needs to look holistically at the people and the processes – not just one or the other.

Is SWOT redundant?…..

No but it is sure made more reliable with additions of other models in the transition to application.

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

© RapidBI.com 2008

http://www.rapidbi.com

This material may be put on your Blog or website – however please keep this copyright statement

Strategic development: Are we missing the point?

We often talk about strategic programmes and actions, but are we taking the appropriate first steps?

This article looks at the steps we take and explores if we can be more strategic and add more value.

Introduction

Often we know where we want to get to, or at least have a good idea, but often as the old saying goes: “If I was going there, I would not start from here.”

That is a very logical reply, even if it is not advice that is of much immediate practical value to the questioner. If you don’t know where you are going, you are not likely to get there.

It is sound advice to know where you are and where you want to end up before starting the journey. Is this why many of the tourist maps have a ‘you are here’ marker?

Where are we now? Where do we want to be?

This is a simple yet basic step in any intervention, at any level within our respective organisations. Yet what is the extent to which we really do it? Where is the ‘you are here’ marker in our organisations? Sure, some of us have tools like customer satisfaction and staff engagement data (as well as the basic business financial measures), but holistic, strategic data?

In the 2007 survey, Develop the Developers (by Morrison & Ritchie), responders to the survey provided the following answers in response to development activities:

• Use of diagnostic approaches:
  Always (8%); usually (33%); sometimes (46%); rarely (10%); never (4%).




• Use of evaluation approaches:
  Always (37%); usually (43%); sometimes (15%); rarely (2%); never (2%).

This highlights why much of what we do in organisational development (OD) and human resource development (HRD) fails, on a regular basis, to make the desired (and recognised) strategic impact.

“How can we ever hope to evaluate any intervention effectively if we do not know where we started from?”

We have read many threads on community forums such as HRZone.co.uk and TrainingZone.co.uk about the difficulties of evaluating activity. How to calculate a return on investment (ROI) or show value for money is a commonly recurring theme.

How can we ever hope to evaluate any intervention effectively if we do not know where we started from? We will only know this by having the same measures at the beginning of an intervention as we want to use for measuring success after the event.

In business we do it – we look at the financial position (profit, turnover etc), we set a plan to achieve it and then we measure after an agreed period of time. In medicine, before a person starts treatment we have some measures – pulse, respiration, blood pressure and so on – we measure before and after (often on going) treatment. Why, in HR and HRD, do we not do the same? Often we do for things like retention, sickness and attendance – but not for the more strategic elements.

What is a diagnostic process?

It is often simpler than it sounds. It is a tool that identifies ‘where you are now’, the dot or arrow on the map if you like. Tools like SWOT and PESTLE are OK to start with, but often these tools are not used as effectively (or broadly) as they were originally intended.

Diagnostic tools that only look at the area of the business you are interested in, for example culture surveys, have their place, but how do you know that culture is the issue – where is the diagnosis to show that a specific tool like a culture survey is the right one? There may be a need with a higher priority.

“A regular, yet effective organisational diagnostic process not only evaluates previous actions but the same data can be used to identify future needs”

It’s like going to your doctor – they will not send you for a special test or scan, until they have undertaken a more general diagnosis. In HR and OD we need to do the same. We need to use holistic diagnostic tools to help us orientate to real needs – often we react to the symptoms. It is easy to treat the cut to the hand from a fall, but if we miss the reason for the person falling – for instance, a minor stroke – sure the hand will get better, but in the mean time the stroke can do more damage.

Making evaluation easier

The more robust the diagnostic process, the easier the evaluation. Some would argue than an evaluation is just a repeat of the diagnostic but with different analysis on the results. The diagnostic is looking for an action plan; an evaluation is looking for change since the last measure. So a regular, yet effective organisational diagnostic process not only evaluates previous actions but the same data can be used (in association with a business plan) to identify future needs. Here is a simple strategic cycle:

• Holistic diagnosis
• Analysis
•  Plan
• Action
• Diagnosis

Insanity in our world?

>As the saying goes, the first sign of madness is doing the same thing as before and expecting different results. It can be a bit like watching a replay of a race and expecting someone else to win. Obvious when we think about it, but why do we do this with our business activity?

Looking back at the results from the Develop the Developer survey, I wonder why many interventions are evaluated, but with little or no formal diagnostic processes undertaken at all; then we wonder why evaluation is so difficult.

Do we, as professionals, not learn? Do we keep doing the same things (evaluation but no initial diagnosis) and wonder why we do not add as much value as we expect? Are we ‘mad’? Maybe we are just reluctant learners?

Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI Ltd, a consultancy specialising in helping individuals and organisations improve their business performance through people and organisation effectiveness.

This version first published: – HR Zone, 1st April 2008
Categories: HR Strategy

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/
 
© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

© RapidBI.com 2008

http://www.rapidbi.com

This material may be put on your Blog or website – however please keep this copyright statement

ICAEW Directors Briefings

Directors Briefings

Resources for busy professionals

Every now and again as a consultant, manager or business adviser we need to put our hands on short, accurate and trusted materials covering a wide range of topics. In a previous blog entry I highlighted some of the fact-sheets available from the CIPD most of which are open to any web site visitor. In the same way that the CIPD fact-sheets provide HR based material the The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales  (ICAWE) provide a range of Directors briefings for their members and web site visitors. These cover a diverse range of materials including strategy, marketing, business planning etc. What is more these topics are covered in just 4 pages, and are kept up to date- so data we can trust.

The RapidBI team have used these materials with our clients and hope that you find them useful too:

Human Resources:

Consultants:
Directors Briefing on: Using a consultant

Managing your Employees:
Directors Briefing on: Employees who work from home
Directors Briefing on: Performance appraisals
Directors Briefing on: Stress management
Directors Briefing on: Managing change
Directors Briefing on: Everyday workplace policies
Directors Briefing on: Managing your time
Directors Briefing on: Motivating employees
Directors Briefing on: Assertiveness
Directors Briefing on: Team-building
Directors Briefing on: Communicating with employees
Directors Briefing on: An Internet policy for your employees
Directors Briefing on: An email policy for your employees

Employment Law: (also see CIPD fact-sheets)
Directors Briefing on: Employment contracts
Directors Briefing on: Dismissing employees
Directors Briefing on: Discipline and grievance issues
Directors Briefing on: Redundancy
Directors Briefing on: Employment tribunals
Directors Briefing on: Rights for working parents and carers
Directors Briefing on: Sickness issues and SSP
Directors Briefing on: Discrimination
Directors Briefing on: Working time regulations
Directors Briefing on: Minimum wage and statutory pay obligations
Directors Briefing on: The law on flexible working

Pensions:
Directors Briefing on: Pensions for business owners
Directors Briefing on: Pensions for employees
Directors Briefing on: Pensions for senior managers

Recruitment: (also see CIPD fact-sheets)
Directors Briefing on: Interviewing
Directors Briefing on: Graduate recruitment
Directors Briefing on: Recruitment

Remuneration: (also see CIPD fact-sheets)
Directors Briefing on: Incentive pay
Directors Briefing on: Remuneration

Training: (also see CIPD fact-sheets  & this site)
Directors Briefing on: Investors in People
Directors Briefing on: NVQs
Directors Briefing on: Using training effectively
Directors Briefing on: Personal development plans

Strategy:

Your business strategy:
Directors Briefing on: Writing a business plan
Directors Briefing on: Increasing profitability
Directors Briefing on: Creating a valuable business
Directors Briefing on: Your money and your business
Directors Briefing on: Key issues in running your business 

Management strategies:
Directors Briefing on: SWOT analysis
Directors Briefing on: Cost control
Directors Briefing on: ISO 9000
Directors Briefing on: Benchmarking
Directors Briefing on: Your business and the environment
Directors Briefing on: Key performance indicators
Directors Briefing on: New product development
Directors Briefing on: Innovation
Directors Briefing on: Filing and records management

Growth strategies:
Directors Briefing on: Strategic acquisitions 

The board of directors:
Directors Briefing on: Effective board meetings
Directors Briefing on: Directors’ responsibilities
Directors Briefing on: Role of the company secretary

Marketing:
Directors Briefing on: Design
Directors Briefing on: Building customer loyalty
Directors Briefing on: Planning your marketing
Directors Briefing on: Marketing with your database
Directors Briefing on: Pricing
Directors Briefing on: Research for your marketing
Directors Briefing on: Creating a brand 

Marketing methods:
Directors Briefing on: Exhibitions
Directors Briefing on: Direct mail
Directors Briefing on: Writing a mail-shot
Directors Briefing on: Advertising strategy
Directors Briefing on: Writing an advertisement
Directors Briefing on: Effective PR
Directors Briefing on: Marketing on the Internet
Directors Briefing on: Managing your sales team
Directors Briefing on: Your sales strategy
Directors Briefing on: Selling technique
Directors Briefing on: Negotiating a sale
Directors Briefing on: Sales presentations
Directors Briefing on: Purchasing
Directors Briefing on: Negotiating a purchase 

Finance:Finance Basics
Directors Briefing on: Finance for non-financial managers
Directors Briefing on: The euro
Directors Briefing on: Budgeting

Corporate Finance:
Directors Briefing on: Valuing a business
Directors Briefing on: Buying a business
Directors Briefing on: Selling a business
Directors Briefing on: Floating your company
Directors Briefing on: Planning your exit from your business 

Sources of finance:
Directors Briefing on: Overdrafts and bank loans
Directors Briefing on: Subsidised and guaranteed loans
Directors Briefing on: Venture capital
Directors Briefing on: Business angels
Directors Briefing on: Factoring and invoice discounting
Directors Briefing on: Car finance
Directors Briefing on: Financing equipment
Directors Briefing on: Getting a grant for your business 

Cash-flow management:
Directors Briefing on: Insolvency
Directors Briefing on: Credit control
Directors Briefing on: Interest on late payments
Directors Briefing on: Managing your cash-flow
Directors Briefing on: Managing your creditors
Directors Briefing on: Debt recovery

Please note that this is not all of the Director’s Briefing fact-sheets available – but a selection of those available. These links are out of our control and may or may not work over time. See the The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales home page for all available Fact-sheets.

For concise, practical advice on core business issues, browse a collection of four-page briefings produced by BHP Information Solutions for the busy practitioner, director and entrepreneur. The Briefings can be downloaded free of charge.

Disclaimer: These publications are for general guidance only, for businesses in the United Kingdom governed by the laws of England. Business Hotline Publications Ltd, expert contributors, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and RapidBI disclaim all liability for any errors or omissions.

Organizational Development a true path to strategic development?

Organizational Development a true path to strategic development? – getting holistic

Traditionally Organizational Development (OD) was mainly concerned with the three S’s of an organisation:

• Structures
• Staff and
• Skills

Specialists and consultants practising in Organizational Development would look at an organization and identify its stage of growth or maturity.  This would form the basis of a ‘diagnosis’ and an initial plan for change and developmental action. 

There are many variants of these models. Many of the growth or maturity models describe the organization in the way humans grow and develop. The assumption being that organizations are like humans.  That there is an organic order and structure to the way they grow, change and in their ‘developmental’ needs.  That is they pass through fixed stages, for example  – infant, toddler, child, teenager, youth, adult, midlife crisis and retirement….

These models (and there are many like it) are fine in simple single product or process organizations, however I have yet to find one that ‘holds water’ in an environment which has products at various stages of development or reflects the way that organizations have access to funding and expertise in the business world today. Change is occurring so fast that if these phases exist they are now fleeting rather than ‘landing stages’ or benchmarks in development. The age industrial age in which these models were developed has long gone. We need to stop looking at organizations in silos and look at them from a holistic position.

Once beyond the initial entrepreneurial or start-up phase, the pace of change in an organization is different and the pressures affecting each function and ‘product line’ vary considerably.  In the current stages of change within our business world we need to look at all of these stages within all organizations… as some die others are born… this is as much as the ‘circle of life’ as it is organizational maturity in the way the concept was initially conceived in the 60′s and 70′s.

Times as they say are a changing

The days of organizations operating with a single product or service for many years have, on the whole, long gone.  We are now in a time where many of the products and services we deliver now did not exist 5 years ago, and the likelihood is that in 5 years time the products and services we will be delivering to our customers would have changed several times.  The concept of the product life cycle while potentially valid, the reality is that by the time you can plot where a product is on a life cycle curve, often the product is out of production or at the end of its life.  We need to look for different ways of developing and managing our organisations.

A change of focus to holistic strategy

Rather than look at single elements of an organization, we need to start being more strategic and holistic.  And we are not just talking about looking at the people aspects.  As organisations become more fluid and adaptable, managers, teams and individuals need to develop stronger skills in developing others.  This means more than empowerment and devolvement.  It means a whole new way of working.  This is particularly true for HRD professionals.

Some organizations have started to explore matrix structures.  To survive in the rapidly changing time ahead we will all need to adapt to matrix structures.  Many organizations have explored matrix management (or multi disciplinary) teams for change processes and project management activities.. The challenge for the future is how to harness these structures and attitudes for front line staff.  One day working on product X, the next providing customer service on service Y.  Some of the organisations in the retail sector have embraced this way of working for some years.  The health-care sector have tinkered around the edges.

For HR and HRD this will mean working differently.  And I am not just talking a change of function name again!  For us to work and deliver strategic advantage, we need to start to look at the way we undertake OD activity in a truly holistic way.  

This means OD teams (not individuals) need to start looking beyond the traditional people and structures, into finance, marketing and operations of a business.  Recognising that there will be core and local cultures, processes and management styles.  Teams will be required, not because of the volume of work, but the sheer diversity of what we need to review.  There are few people that can keep up with current thinking in one area, let alone across the whole gambit of an organisations functions.

For OD to deliver strategic advantage we will need to embrace the following:

• People
• Resources
• Innovation
• Marketing
• Operations
• Finance

…within in context of management style and corporate values. This is known as the PRIMO-F model

In the past we have been strategically involved in the people aspects, and to a limited extent resources.  But to be truly strategic we need to encompass all of these areas and ensure that any change in one area does not have a negative impact on another.  The PRIMO-F model has been used by strategic Business Advisers for a number of years. Perhaps it is time for those of us in OD to start looking at it as a strategic advantage. Traditionally HR and HRD have been isolated from the strategic business advisers, often reporting to different parts of an organisation. Perhaps it is now time to look towards integration?

Holistic organisational reviews like this require different skills and often a small team with diverse experience and competence.  This in itself presents us with a challenge.  Will our directors recognise our contributions in the context of Finance, Marketing and Operations?  How can we build credibility? Is it time to move away from simple relationship building to the development of strategic alliances with our functional colleagues?  For they too will be feeling the pressure as the pace of change speeds up.

The change away from the ‘softer’ and the legal aspects that our managers have learnt to expect in a role that is at the heart of growing and developing our organizations will be an interesting journey.  That is not to say that what we have been doing is wrong.  There is still an ongoing need for this activity.  To be more strategic we need to take a radical approach.  Identifying who does what will be one of the first critical steps each of us makes, recognising that this ‘activity’ that we identify may well be different in the coming months – and so may the role that undertakes that activity.

Conclusions

For HR and HRD to become truly strategic we need to change our focus from people – to how people interact with systems and processes.  This is true Organisational Development, and I suspect the way forward for the (HRD) profession.  This means as professionals we need to move towards understanding business, finance and operations, in order that we can add real value.

What is a business blog? A marketing tool?

What is a Blog?

Lets look at the background behind this technology, so we can understand where it is coming from.

Research into the history behind blogs suggests that it was Pyra Labs is the company that adopted the word Blogger, and made the service a big success (now known as Google blogger/ blogspot).

The people that were the co-founders of Pyra Labs were Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan. “Pyra” was also the name of the company’s first product. It was a web based application which combined a simple project manager, contact manager, and to-do list.

In 1999 the product, while still in beta, were re-engineered (changed) to become an in-house tool which eventually became known as Blogger. The service was launched to the public in August of 1999.

It is believed that the term is actually weblogs was originally coined by Jorn Barger in 1997.

The rapid adoption of weblogs started in 1999 when several companies & developers made easy to use blogging software and tools. Since that time, the number of blogs on the Internet has exploded.

Blogs or weblogs are usually one of two forms:.

Personal Blogs: a mixture of a personal diary, opinion posts and research links.

Business Blogs: a corporate tool for communicating with customers, potential customers or employees to share knowledge and expertise. Blogs that are internally available are increasingly being used as knowledge management ‘pots’.

For a blog to be an effective tool to small businesses we need to understand the nature of weblogs, a definition if you like. Here are almost as many definitions as there are commentators on social media. For a weblog or blog is a social media – it is used by people for people. An effective blog article encourages interactions and collaboration, even if at a basic level.

There are many features which make one blog distinctive from another (apart from the basic design)

• Personality – people write blogs – formal, informal, facts or opinion biased?– not the corporate engine
• Voice – each contributor will have their own style
• Links – what are the nature of the links – internal, external mixed?
• Conversations – are the contributions tell or engaging, do the authors encourage discussion?
• Frequency – how often there is new content, is it from the ‘personality or owner’ or is it a collection of personality-less rss feed provide data

The only real difference between an individual and business based blog is the goal. The purpose of the business blog is to support the goals , aspirations and business plan of the host organisation.

Blog at your web domain or not?
It’s a difficult one – the new and varied content is valuable to your visitors and to the search engines, but it will limit what you can say as you will need to protect the ‘brand image’.

Some business have several blogs – the main one on the site is more about “giving value”, off site blogs may be the personal views of key insiders, views on the industry. This can then link to your site. One advantage of this is that because it is not seen as “your site” you reduce the risk of people perceptions if they dislike or disagree with the content of an individual post. – It is also valuable for search engines if you point your blog at the company site every now and again!

Summary

So a blog is a less formal vehicle for communicating information – facts and opinions to your current and potential customer base, as well as being a key part in your marketing strategy and a vehicle for increasing web traffic.

This is part of a mini-series on Blogs for small business, trainers and freelancers

PRIMO-F model for business development

PRIMO-F the Business Growth Model

Often in organizations we use a SWOT analysis as a way of identifying priorities and areas for improvement. While the SWOT is a wonderfully flexible tool, it is too easy to miss out key elements. We tend to use a SWOT based on our experiences, rather than the actual situational needs.

As SWOT analysis is made up of two internal elements (SW) and two external elements (OT) it is helpful to use a structure to give us a guide for what should be included.

• PRIMO-F model provides the structure for SWot
• PESTLE analysis model provides the structure for swOT

 

The PRIMO-F model was developed by the RapidBI team as part of a SWOT analysis of an organization. It helps to provide a consistent framework for comparison and benchmarking either from within the organization or to benchmark against a previous analysis or benchmark against other organizations.

The PRIMO-F model was derived out of some work from Durham University Business School (DUBS), and research into what makes an organization and its management effective. This research demonstrated that an effective organization needed to fulfil the following equation:

 

Organizational Growth Effectiveness = Performance to date * Potential for the future.

 

Where Performance to date (FiMO) included:

• Finance
• Marketing
• Operations

and Potential for the future (RECoIL) included:

• Resources,
• Controls and Systems
• Innovation and
• Leadership

This was sometimes called FiMO/ RECoIL.

One of the problems with this method was the lack of consistent application, as a tool or framework it is fine, however many managers, consultants and business advisor’s have their own priorities. For example a person who has a financial background will major on finance, a person with marketing will focus on marketing etc. After all we are all human. One of the problems with the model in the ‘field’ is that often key issues were missed. The BIR was developed to take these factors and review them consistently.

In many situations it is difficult for managers to differentiate between performance to date and potential for the future, as several areas overlapped, for example resources, operational leadership and management. In addition FiMO RECoIL was seen as too complex for many managers to use on a day to day basis. To solve this problem we developed the PRIMO-F. A simplified way of showing strengths and weaknesses in the relevant areas.

The PRIMO-F Model:

PRIMO-F

• People
• Resources
• Innovation & Ideas
• Marketing
• Operations
• Finance

Mapping PRIMO-F to FiMO RECoIL

Performance of the business:

How good is it in terms of its Finance, Marketing & its Operations?

Potential for Growth

People in terms of their experience, their leadership and the controls in place in the organization.

Experience: Age of the business, Management experience of:

• borrowing
• product development
• different types of market
• use of external agents
• moving sites
• managing growth

Leadership:

• Involving a senior management
• age of owner manager
• occupational base of owner manager
• personal objectives and ambition in line vision of the future
• education and training

Operations – Control: Adequacy of information and control systems

• Ability to use information
• Degree of professionalism and Responsibilities of management
• Adequacy of planning and monitoring
• Level of delegation
• How performance is assessed

Resources: Availability, utilization and appropriateness (fit for purpose)

• Liquidity and availability of finance
• Technology level and capability
• Physical assets: age and state
• Product range and life
• Use of and access to appropriate external agents

Innovation & Ideas:

• Number and source of ideas innovation is being considered
• How they are assessed
• Level of development or market testing of these ideas
• Level of market planning of these ideas
• How creative they are.

The PRIMO-F model is not in itself a solution – but a tool to enable that powerful too the SWOT to work more effectively.

PRIMO-F is © Mike Morrison & RapidBI 1998 - you may quote the model - but please include a link back to this site.

Twitter as a marketing tool for training courses & events

Using Twitter to market your training event

As the training market changes, increasingly more and more trainers are looking to promote their on-line and open courses events, But how do you get people to attend and how do you keep costs down?

If you are a member of TrainerBase or Training journal (TJonline), both have the ability to promote your events, however it is doubtful if either can fill a course. Some use paid for services, where a high percentage of the revenue goes to attracting participants. But how can you do this and retain the majority of the income for little cost? The real power to fill a course has traditionally been the email list – be that list self developed or a purchased list from many of the (reputable) list providers. But now times have changed. Twitter is the new key channel.

Twitter is a great way of engaging referrals from people you do not know – and we all know the power of referrals.

So  “How, exactly, can I use Twitter to promote my event?”

Some approaches to twitter just will not be appropriate for all events, you approach will also vary depending on the twitter following you have currently.

One approach that is successful for many does not require you to have an established following. That is to create a twitter account specifically for an event or course for example:

@assertivnessinlondon

@salesingrantham

@leadershipinhealthcare

@publicsectorchangemanagement

This can act to attract people to the event based on specific needs. This then enables the course to have its own life and journey.

The more specific the name and the event the more success you are likely to get. Having a name like @leadershipworkshop means very little to people.

When you set your twitter account up – remember the bio and link to your dedicated event page. Also create a background for your twitter home page which provides additional information.

What to tweet? – or gain the attention of your intended audience

Well if your name is @salesingrantham not every message you send needs to say “Attend [xxxx course] in London” as what you are is in your name so you can start to be a little more creative. On twitter people appreciate value. Give value and they will follow you and re-tweet you, then if they do not attend the programme that are at least part of your marketing ‘team’!

For example a plan of you tweets could be:

1. First write a list of 4 key words that people would search for if looking for the event
2. Write a series of top 20 tips relevant to the topic
3. Find 10 quotes relevant to the course content
4. Have a page on a website which clearly says what the course is, who for, where, when and how much – AND a way of booking

Then run all of these as tweets, using the keywords as # (hash) tags – different tags on different posts.

Give information, useful stuff, if all you do is say “come sign-up to my event” you will disengage more people than you engage. Sure you can announce the event, IF you are going to do that, have one promotion every 15-20 posts or so – content first! Otherwise people will treat it as spam and not read what you have to say.

Next build your twitter following

Start sending the messages developed above – and retweet using your own account – remember to add the “please RT” at the end to encourage people to send your message to their followers.

As your name is the event name, each time you follow people, that name alone is a promotion of the event – if they are interested they will look you up. Its like sending each person a targeted email!

Next using the twitter search facility http://search.twitter.com find others that are interested in your keywords – follow them. Engage with people that have similar interests – talk is good. DON’T DIRECTLY PROMOTE YOUR EVENT TO THEM – let you name do that for you.

For example, if your event is about gaining sales, you could find other people who are Twittering on the subject of sales, gain their attention, and by engaging with them via direct responses and getting them to follow you, you also gain the attention of all the people following them.  It works.

If you subscribe to tools like hootsuit, tweetspinner or socialoomph, you can use there follower building tools too, again use your keywords.

You need to gain momentum, so make sure that this twitter account is linked to your LinkedIn profile – so that others in your network see. If you can encourage people to tweet about that fact that they are attending (or in the case of on-line events participating) this also build momentum

Twitter is a great way to aggregate the attention of like-minded individuals.  This lends itself well to cultivating an audience towards which you can promote your events over time. 

Twitter and other ‘update’ or micro-blogging services is more effective than e-mail, timely Twittering can keep your audience connected to your messages.  In the persona of your next event, post links, share resources and call attention to any of the ideas you consider important.  Then, when you’re ready to promote your next event, you’ll have a ready audience of potential attendees right at your fingertips.

TOP TIP – offer people that retweet you a discount to attend the event!  say 5% for one RT, 10% for 10 RTs….

TOP TIP – keep the account live after the first event – use the momentum to deliver maore particimants to future events

For more information on using Twitter see our other Twitter marketing posts

SWOT analysis for schools and education

SWOT analysis for teachers, schools and education

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threads in an educational environment.

A SWOT analysis is a tool that can provide prompts to the governors, management teachers and staff involved in the analysis of what is effective and less effective in the schools systems and procedures, in preparation for a plan of some form ( that could be an audit, assessments, quality checks etc.). In fact a SWOT can be used for any planning or analysis activity which could impact future finance, planning and management decisions. It can enable you (the governors and management) to carry out a more comprehensive analysis.

Definitions

• Strengths – Factors that are likely to have a positive effect on (or be an enabler to) achieving the school’s objectives
• Weaknesses – Factors that are likely to have a negative effect on (or be a barrier to) achieving the school’s objectives
• Opportunities – External Factors that are likely to have a positive effect on achieving or exceeding the school’s objectives, or goals not previously considered
• Threats – External Factors and conditions that are likely to have a negative effect on achieving the school’s objectives, or making the the objective redundant or un-achievable.

Before starting any planning or analysis process you need to have a clear and SMART goal or objective. What is it that you need to achieve or solve? Ensure that all key stakeholders (relevant to the issue being explored) buy into this objective or goal.

Then undertake a PESTLE analysis (or PESTLE in Schools), this will provide you with the external factors (OT).

Use the PRIMO-F model to ensure all internal factors are considered

Conducting a SWOT analysis in a school

One of the most effective ways to conduct a SWOT analysis is not in isolation, but with a team effort. When the goal is shared, then a brainstorming session can be run.

Ensure than when running such a session it is facilitated by a person not involved with the content – this is best with an independent person. If budgets do not allow this – then talk to another establishments head, and arrange a contra deal.

Do this activity in a number of phases:

1) Share the goal

2) Data collection (no filtering or comments – record verbatim) consider all areas of PRIMO-F

3) Take a break of at least 1 hr

4) Filter, sort and analyse into the 4 areas – SWOT – be critical and SMART avoid ambiguous statements or ideas at this stage

5) Prioritise the elements

Have a second session where the planning phase takes this data and puts it into a realistic plan.

IMPORTANT TIP,do not hide or underestimate threats or weaknesses – if you ignore them or underplay them now they will come back to haunt you at some stage – probably when they can do most damage!

The goal of any session like this is not necessarily to neutralise any weakness or threat – that is impossible – but to have it on your radar – and where possible take avoiding action. To some extent it is all about risk.

What sort of tasks and issues can this be used for?

At its most complex and comprehensive, it can be used for business planning, however it is also of value to solving localised issues and challenges.

An Example

We will use an example of a teacher working within a first school who want to improve the relationships with parents of his pupils.

TASK Define the goal and measurable outcomes – i.e. to have more than 50% of parents spending one day in class per term Consider the current activities you have in place to encourage parent-partnerships within your class/ school. Complete a SWOT analysis, identifying your current strengths and realistically appraising your current weaknesses. This can only be done involving other teachers, pupils and parents. From the current analysis identify factors which could be improved Identify opportunities that could be created Put a plan and set of measures in place.

The school identified the following objective:

• To improve parent-partnership by encouraging parents to visit the school and become active members of the community.
• Outcome – to have more than 50% of parents spending one day in class per term

Currently, the school holds an open day once each year. It uses this as a way to encourage parents to visit the school and engage with school staff. The following is the initial SWOT Analysis.

Strengths Highly-skilled teachers. History of successful Open day events School has a strong ethos of openness, sharing and commitment to increasing parental confidence Parents wanting to get involved PTA willing to participate	Weaknesses Teachers not available to meet parents often enough Current open days events not increasing voluntary activity Not enough staff time to plan more events Staff not clear of their role in the parent relationship Narrow focus on open events not partnership activities Curriculum too stretched for additional activity
Opportunities Active volunteer committee willing to plan and organise events Pupils active in the school’s Pupil Participation Project can be asked for their opinions and suggestions. Head Teacher is willing flex curriculum to free up teacher time Use parents to contribute to curriculum delivery	Threats Confidentiality is at risk Pupil coercion to do things they do not wish to do

The next step is to develop a plan with interested stakeholders

SWOT Analysis templates for schools & education

SWOT Analysis Template/ Worksheet – use these templates to start your SWOT process

	SWOT Analysis on ____________________ (organisation name or product/ service/ project) School/ establishment/ organisation Background/ situation ____________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ (usual business partners, relationships, channels to market, assumptions etc…) Date PESTLE completed ____________________ Date of SWOT Analysis ____________________ ____________________v
		INTERNAL
	Under each of the PRIMO-F factors list the relevant strengths and weaknesses. List the Opportunities and threats from your PESTLE analysis below. Then considering the combination of these factors generate some options or alternative strategies for action.	Strengths (PRIMO-F) People (teachers, parents, PTA etc) ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ Resources ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ Innovation & Ideas ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ Marketing (communications) ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ Operations (day to day running) ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ Finance ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________	Weaknesses (PRIMO-F) People (teachers, parents, PTA etc) ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ Resources ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ Innovation & Ideas ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ Marketing(communications) ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ Operations(day to day running) ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ Finance ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________
E X T E R N A L	Opportunities ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________	SO Alternatives / Strategies ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________	WO Alternatives / Strategies ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________
	Threats ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________	ST Alternatives / Strategies ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________	WT Alternatives / Strategies ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________

Try our business SWOT analysis tool for free NOW – Or return to our main SWOT analysis page

SWOT Analysis Template / Worksheet 2

	SWOT Analysis on ____________________ (School/ establishment organisation name or product/ service/ project) Background/ situation________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________                   __________________________________________________________________________________________   (usual operational partners, relationships, channels to market, assumptions etc…) Date PESTLE completed ____________________ Date of SWOT Analysis ____________________v
		INTERNAL
	Under each of the PRIMO-F factors list the relevant strengths and weaknesses. List the Opportunities and threats from your PESTLE analysis below. Then considering the combination of these factors generate some options or alternative strategies for action.	Strengths	Weaknesses
E X T E R N A L	Opportunities	SO Alternatives / Strategies	WO Alternatives / Strategies
	Threats	ST Alternatives / Strategies	WT Alternatives / Strategies

Try our business SWOT analysis tool for free NOW - Or return to our main SWOT analysis page

SWOT Analysis Template / Worksheet 3

SWOT analysis – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and threats
Date
Company/ Department name
Internal Factors
Our Strengths	Ways to exploit	Our Weaknesses	Ways to reduce
External factors
Our Opportunities	Ways to exploit	Our Threats	Ways to reduce

Try our business SWOT analysis tool for free NOW – Or return to our main SWOT analysis page

A SWOT analysis in a school, college or other educational establishment can be a simple and yet effective tool for ensuring that all appropriate factors are considered. In this environment it is particularly important to use the PRIMO-F template to ensure that all elements have been considered. Indeed ensure that under People – teachers, support staff, parents and children are considered along with third party people (police, local health etc that can form a part of your community.

Teachers, Tutors, PTA (Parent Teacher associations) management committees etc all have a valuable contribution to make

Under Resources, remember to include IT, and consumables that can be used as part of the process

DEEPLIST Analysis – marketing acronym

DEEPLIST analysis – an alternative to the PESTLE analysis

Is DEEPLIST better than PEST or PESTLE? or more of the same?

DEEPLIST – Demographic, Economic, Ecologic/ Environmental, Political, Legal, Informational, Social and Technology

In 2000  Paul N Finlay had a book published called “Strategic management: an introduction to business and corporate strategy”. In this book Finlay used the Acronym DEEPLIST as a way of prompting readers of the key areas that needed to be explored when looking at the “remote environment for the business” or the environment in which the business operates, which it cannot control or influence. Constraints if you like.

Traditionally marketing and business strategists have used PEST or PESTLE analysis.

In DEEPLIST the factors to be explored are:

• Demographics
• Economic
• Environmental/ Ecological
• Political
• Legal
• Informational
• Social
• Technological

 Where all but Informational are directly included in PESTLE. Demographics is an important element, but can it really be separated from social? many supporters of the ‘original’ PEST say that differentiating between Legal and Political is also difficult in some situations. Having more is not always better. Knowing how to use a model, theory or tool is far more important. I suspect that if increasingly long acronyms are created this will only lead to increased confusion by students trying to understand how to apply it in the first place.

 I wonder if many courses are starting to use this model as it is ‘new & sexy’ compared to PEST or PESTLE, or is it that people need handholding more in terms of the areas that they need to research and explore as part of the strategic planning process.

 In summary:

Deeplist – Demographics:

• Where people live
• Who they are – Age, sex, race etc..
• Social circumstances – Education, income and lifestyle

dEeplist – Economic:

• The extent to which the markets in which you operate is prosperous (or not) and the competitive environment
• Factors such as taxation, monetary and competition policies of your target markets.

deEplist – Environmental/ Ecological:

• What is the perception of the environment in your sector? What are customers attitudes to environmental or green issues. What about availability of materials? Sustainability

deePlist – Political

• In the political landscape in which you operate (both source materials & deliver product) – what will help/ hinder operations and products

deepList – Legal

• What are the limits or constraints on what you do. What may change?

deeplIst – Informational

• What data do you have?
• How do you use it?
• How is it protected?
• As the connected world changes with ever increasing use of the internet and social media what is being said about you, your market and your competitors?
• It is about access a to information and what you can and cannot control.

deepliSt – Social

• The needs and wants of both target markets, social attitudes to the types of products and services you offer.
• How your organisation is seen by the outside world
• CSR – Corperate Social Responsibility

deeplisT – Technology

• What is changing in the world of technology which will impact your products or services.?
• New innovations, adaptations and adoption rates of new technologies. What is changing and how fast?

Personally I prefer PESTLE, we know and understand the model. Maybe we need to change PESTLE to iPESTLE (or iPEST) where I is Information.

iPESTLE or DEEPLIST can be used to best effect when the results of this analysis are used in a SWOT analysis.

 

Footnote

One of the reasons why DEEPLIST is becoming popular in the UK is its adoption by CIMA in its course content.

One disadvantage of DEEPLIST over PESTLE is that DEEPLIST is © Finlay and this may cause organisations that promote it difficulties in the future, this is in addition to increasing the separation of some element’s that may well create difficulties in application (Political/ Legal, Demographics/ Social etc).

Fad surfing – the worst form of change management

Chasing the shiny new things

Last week in a tweet I mentioned fad-surfing and some of my followers were not aware of this and requested an article – so here it is! Fad surfers are the management or  leadership equivalent of the magpie, they love collecting shiny new things from other people. A management or leadership style where there is a lot of sizzle but little substance

What is “fad surfing”?

In simple terms

Adopting one fashionable management style or strategy after another.

The term was first brought into print in 1993 in an article by T. George Harris called “Fad-Surfers, Risk-Dodgers, and Beloved Companies,”  in the Harvard Business Review. Harris quoted Eileen C. Shapiro as saying “Too many consultants and clients end up fad-surfing together rather than working on the real problems…”. Subsequently Shapiro went on to publish the book “Fad surfing in the board room” in 1995.

To me fad-surfing is one of the worst traits of a leader, manager or consultant. It is one where management jumps on to the latest bandwagon of ideas, thoughts and concepts to initiate change. It has become commonplace, although the term “fad-surfing” has been conveniently forgotten. Fad-surfing is going from idea to idea because the previous concept has not delivered what was expected, as fast as was expected. Much like this change model:

Where there is pressure for change >>> Implement initiative >>> Results fall below expectations >>> A new “fad” is sort to resolve the under-performance >>> leads to more work…. and the cycle continues.

Some of the historical management fads have included:

• Visioning
• Flat organizational cultures
• Matrix management
• Empowerment
• Open environments
• Open door policies
• Customer focus
• Upside-down pyramid
• Just-in-time
• Lean
• Six sigma
• One minute manager
• Situational leadership
• Re-engineering
• FISH
• Benchmarking
• Helicopter view
• Blue-sky thinking
• Competencies
• Excellence
• Learning organizations
• Paradigm
• Participative management
• Reality check
• Retreats
• 360 feedback
• Value proposition

Well you get the idea! And its not just business that we have fad surfers – Bottled water, food/ cooking, TV producers, fashion, automotive, building design, software, social networking… etc.

Shapiro defines fad-surfing (n) as: the practice of riding the crest of the latest management panacea and then paddling out again just in time to ride the next one; always absorbing for managers and lucrative for consultants and frequently disastrous for organizations.

Leaders which have their own goals and vision may well seek out a model, theory of approach to support the implementation of their idea, however they do not attempt to implement a strategy because they read about it in their preferred journal or heard an idea at a conference. Riding an idea is not in itself a bad thing – it is what we do next that counts. Implementing a culture change or management style can take many months or years to embed properly. As the saying goes practice makes permanent – so practice right!

We know from cognitive studies that habits take time to learn and unlearn. the same is true when implementing a new idea or concept. It is not just a simple logical change. We want people to change and adapt their behaviours, often physical and mental habits. For that we need to give people the tools and the time.

To change a habit

To change habits at an individual level according to Professor Ian Newby-Clark there are five things that we each need to individually do:

1. Work on One Habit at a Time. If you work on changing more than one habit at a time you run a serious risk of overwhelming yourself and changing no habits at all.
2. Create a Plan and Write it Down.
3. Refine Your Plan. Now you need to refine your plan.
4. Make SMART Mini-Plans.
5. Repeat! Repeat! Repeat!

This of course is on the assumption that we want to change – this is not always the case when the organization insists on a change!

Change your habit in 21 days…

Well maybe not… There is an often repeated statistic that you can change your habits in 21 days, Oliver Burkeman wrote recently about: How long does it really take to change a habit? In addition according to a recent study, a daily action like eating healthily or running for regularly took an average of 66 days to become as much of a habit as it would ever become.

Just how long it takes to change a habit has so many variables that it is difficult to say with any precision, we are after all human and there are 3 important things to remember about employees and managers:

1. People are different
2. People are different
3. People are different

What we do know is that for people to change, they need to understand and buy-in at an emotional level to the changes being imposed.

Back to fad-surfing – as a habit is is not productive, but does buy a few years for a leader before they are eventually “found out”.

Much better to have a vision, communicate it, stick with it (providing the evidence keeps saying its the right thing to do), repeat, repeat, repeat, and practice, practice, practice. It is consistency that always rules the day.

The only panacea for effective leadership is consistant hard work and a clear vision…

Strategic development: Are we missing the point?

As developers, consultants and change agents, we often talk about strategic programmes and actions, but are we taking the appropriate first steps?

This article looks at the steps we take and explores if we can be more strategic and add more value.

 

Introduction

Often we know where we want to get to, or at least have a good idea, but often as the old saying goes: “If I was going there, I would not start from here.”

That is a very logical reply, even if it is not advice that is of much immediate practical value to the questioner. If you don’t know where you are going, you are not likely to get there.

It is sound advice to know where you are and where you want to end up before starting the journey. Is this why many of the tourist maps have a “you are here” marker?

Where are we now? Where do we want to be?

This is a simple yet basic step in any intervention, at any level within our respective organisations. Yet what is the extent to which we really do it? Where is the ‘you are here’ marker in our organisations? Sure, some of us have tools like customer satisfaction and staff engagement data (as well as the basic business financial measures), but holistic, strategic data?

In the 2007 survey, Develop the Developers (by Morrison & Ritchie), responders to the survey provided the following answers in response to development activities:

Use of diagnostic approaches:

Always (8%); usually (33%); sometimes (46%); rarely (10%); never (4%)

Use of evaluation approaches:

Always (37%); usually (43%); sometimes (15%); rarely (2%); never (2%).

This highlights why much of what we do in organisational development (OD) and human resource development (HRD) fails, on a regular basis, to make the desired (and recognised) strategic impact.

“How can we ever hope to evaluate any intervention effectively if we do not know where we started from?”

We have read many threads on community forums such as HRZone.co.uk and TrainingZone.co.uk about the difficulties of evaluating activity. How to calculate a return on investment (ROI) or show value for money is a commonly recurring theme.

How can we ever hope to evaluate any intervention effectively if we do not know where we started from? We will only know this by having the same measures at the beginning of an intervention as we want to use for measuring success after the event.

In business we do it – we look at the financial position (profit, turnover etc), we set a plan to achieve it and then we measure after an agreed period of time. In medicine, before a person starts treatment we have some measures – pulse, respiration, blood pressure and so on – we measure before and after (often on going) treatment. Why, in HR and HRD, do we not do the same? Often we do for things like retention, sickness and attendance – but not for the more strategic elements.

What is a diagnostic process?

It is often simpler than it sounds. It is a tool that identifies ‘where you are now’, the dot or arrow on the map if you like. Tools like SWOT and PESTLE are OK to start with, but often these tools are not used as effectively (or broadly) as they were originally intended.

Diagnostic tools that only look at the area of the business you are interested in, for example culture surveys, have their place, but how do you know that culture is the issue – where is the diagnosis to show that a specific tool like a culture survey is the right one? There may be a need with a higher priority.

“A regular, yet effective organisational diagnostic process not only evaluates previous actions but the same data can be used to identify future needs”

It’s like going to your doctor – they will not send you for a special test or scan, until they have undertaken a more general diagnosis. In HR and OD we need to do the same. We need to use holistic diagnostic tools to help us orientate to real needs – often we react to the symptoms. It is easy to treat the cut to the hand from a fall, but if we miss the reason for the person falling – for instance, a minor stroke – sure the hand will get better, but in the mean time the stroke can do more damage.

Making evaluation easier

The more robust the diagnostic process, the easier the evaluation. Some would argue than an evaluation is just a repeat of the diagnostic but with different analysis on the results. The diagnostic is looking for an action plan; an evaluation is looking for change since the last measure. So a regular, yet effective organisational diagnostic process not only evaluates previous actions but the same data can be used (in association with a business plan) to identify future needs. Here is a simple strategic cycle:

• Holistic diagnosis
• Analysis
• Plan
• Action
• Diagnosis

Insanity in our world?

As the saying goes, the first sign of madness is doing the same thing as before and expecting different results. It can be a bit like watching a replay of a race and expecting someone else to win. Obvious when we think about it, but why do we do this with our business activity?

Looking back at the results from the Develop the Developer survey, I wonder why many interventions are evaluated, but with little or no formal diagnostic processes undertaken at all; then we wonder why evaluation is so difficult.

Do we, as professionals, not learn? Do we keep doing the same things (evaluation but no initial diagnosis) and wonder why we do not add as much value as we expect? Are we ‘mad’? Maybe we are just reluctant learners?

Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI Ltd, a consultancy specialising in helping individuals and organisations improve their business performance through people and organisation effectiveness.

This version first published: – HR Zone, 1st April 2008
Categories: HR Strategy

10 tips for engaging people

Managers engage, so do we as ‘community’ champions

Having a community or network (intranet or social network) is one thing, growing it and building trust is quite another.  Engagement of users, be they employees or customers is vital for the strategy to be sustainable and successful. Remember the 90:9:1 rule, our goal must be to beat this.

As organizations become more geographically diverse, having the ability to share knowledge, communicate and network is a competitive advantage. Using networks, forums and channels effectively as communication strategies can support both internal and external people. Interestingly the same principles apply, however we seem to focus better on customers than we do employees in this matter.

Below are some ideas and tips that I like to follow, to ensure that I have a healthy and growing community. These can be used for networks for customers and employees.

1. Listen – you have to listen to your users and potential users. Don’t ignore the important things your members have to say to you
2. Respond – Ignore users of your service at you peril, especially when they care enough to take the time and energy to tell you what they think
3. Follow up – When an employee asks you a question or leaves a fantastic comment, don’t just leave them hanging. Tell them that you’ll get back to them shortly – and then do. If your members get no response from you or the rest of the community, then why would they come back?
4. Update content – There is nothing worse that your content looking months old and out of date, it makes the community feel abandoned
5. Nurture your champions, advocates and top contributors – An important factor in creating an engaged community is to ensure that you nurture and reward the top contributors on your site or space.
6. Demonstrate action – You should be regularly reporting back to the community with updates on what’s happening, which of their suggestions have been acted on, which ideas are the most popular etc.
7. Be personable – The managers and communicators of any community should be a person first, not a corporate front.
8. Re-engage – It’s very common for members to become busy, forget to visit your community, and become disengaged. Send out a regular newsletter or other appropriate communication (Twitter/ yammer?), you can let people know what’s happening and is a great way to gently remind people that you’re still there
9. Engage other social networking sites & channels – Depending on your member base, it’s likely that they regularly visit sites such as these, and shouldn’t be ignored or expected that people will always remember to come to you
10. Be open and authentic – people understand when they’ve made an unreasonable request, and by openly explaining why you are unable to act on some ideas builds respect and loyalty among your user base.
11. Remember – you are all one community, help people to ‘own’ the platform. If they feel the platform is ‘theirs’ they will commit more time and energy

Ok so I started out by saying there would be 10.. you have an 11th – justa little added value…

SWOT or SOAR? – Strategy and tools in business

Strategy and tools in business – To SWOT or SOAR?

Strategy and tools in business - Over the years a lot of good and bad stuff has been said about SWOT. Sure it is not the most robust of tools but when used in the way it was originally developed – it is a powerful tool. Some people have argued that it is time to move on from SWOT to other things – in this piece we explore SOAR an Appreciative Inquiry tool.

An interesting article on this topic was published in Ai Practitioner magazine ( http://preview.tinyurl.com/2bvobg ) (it is available here http://preview.tinyurl.com/26wk4v – or here) for those that are not subscribers). SOAR stands for Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations and Results.

The authors propose it as:

Indeed many proponents of the SOAR method talk of it as being a “positively re-framed SWOT analysis”.

Having read the article (and several others), the SOAR approach to my mind makes the same mistake (in the context of strategic planning) that many using the SWOT analysis do – and that is they miss the context. When the (highly researched) SOFT was changed to SWOT the new authors missed the point which is why the tool is often miss-understood. It (SWOT/ SOFT) was never designed to stand on its own, nor was it ever to be part of the direct action phase – it was a diagnosis and data capture tool.

The authors of this article article on SOAR to my mind make two fundamental mistakes:

1) They assume that all applications of SWOT are in the way they describe
2) They appear to ignore weaknesses and threats – apparently believing that their solution will soar (pardon the pun) over any difficulties.

Evidence of the authors assumptions can be seen in the way they describe SWOT:

It is biased towards what they can do rather than consider what areas they should avoid. The completely miss the point about opportunities being created by the omission of others or changes in customer patterns. Weaknesses are supposed to be internal weaknesses, things that may inhibit the organization form delivering its promise – not a look externally at “who might out perform us”.

Would the shareholders of Enron be in the position they are now in (extinct) if they had faced up to their threats and weaknesses, rather than focus on what they thought were their strengths?

The SOAR article clearly states in its summary

“This article has attempted to address the strategy-to-execution gap. In doing so, we have discussed SOAR, a strengths-based framework that builds on the best points of SwOt (strengths and opportunities) in order to move beyond the “as-is” state of the organization’s environment to the “to-be”.“

Yes this as a framework can be used as the authors state to take SWOT data and apply it – but SOAR in itself is not a diagnostic or orientation tool. Anyone using this as a diagnostic tool is going to make the same errors as 1000’s of people have done with inappropriate use of SWOT.

Rear view mirror?

Some proponents of SOAR go as far as to say

“The reason is that 50% of the SWOT process keeps organizations looking in the rear view mirror focusing on trying to fix weaknesses and swat away real or imagined threats. Unfortunately, it keeps most organizations stuck in the status quo and saps the energy and enthusiasm necessary to move forward.”

Is this true?  Is a SWOT really just looking in the mirror? or is it about using the forward view, taking account of the rear view and side mirrors before making  a maneuver.. there is no point “changing lanes” if there is a semi-truck right next to you – its all about context and timing. Sure SWOT for personal development is not the best tool, and maybe SOAR is a better fit – but for true strategic planning its not one OR the other but BOTH….?

Appreciative Inquiry has its place

Appreciative Inquiry is a particular way of asking questions and envisioning the future that fosters positive relationships and builds on the basic goodness in a person, a situation, or an organization proponents. In so doing, it enhances a system’s capacity for collaboration and change.

Appreciative Inquiry utilizes a 4-stage process focusing on:

• DISCOVER: The identification of organizational processes that work well.
• DREAM: The envisioning of processes that would work well in the future.
• DESIGN: Planning and prioritizing processes that would work well.
• DESTINY (or DELIVER): The implementation (execution) of the proposed design.

The basic idea is to build organizations around what works, rather than trying to fix what doesn’t. It is the opposite of problem solving. AI focuses on how to create more of what’s already working.

This method is more positive in nature than many others, however it is as a strategy naive in that it assumes success breeds success – many organizations are in fact where they now because by prioritising they did solve problems and did not just focus on what works.

Would a company that currently makes plastic carrier bags be advised to use SOAR exclusively – or look at the external factors which MAY bring about a reduction or indeed the end of the need for their product? Customer pressure, Environmental impact, Cost of provision etc…

Equally any diagnostic process needs to look holistically at the people and the processes, from an internal and external perspective – not just one or the other.

 

Is SWOT redundant?…..

No but it is sure made to be a more reliable process with additions of other models in the transition to application.