March 10, 2010

Human Performance Improvement (HPI)

What is Human Performance Improvement?

The Human Performance Improvement process is very similar to Human Performance Technology. HPI provides you with a systematic process to follow on what can often be a not-so-systematic path. In addition to identifying human performance gaps and their possible solutions, this standardized approach offers the ability to measure the success of your efforts and eliminate the guesswork that follows when a performance gap must be evaluated.

HPI is results-based and systematic. Rather than focusing on a ‘wants-based’ or ‘needs-based’ approach, HPI follows a ‘results-based’ approach to improving performance, distinguishing it from many HRD (human resource development) activities. The process is driven by a business need and a performance need, justified by the results of a cause analysis.

HPI for Your Business

The HPI process helps you to articulate your business goals, link these goals to human performance, diagnose the current state of performance in the organization, find the root causes for performance deficiencies, implement solutions, and evaluate the results of the interventions.

Being business focused means having a clear understanding what your organization’s strategic priorities are and using those priorities to guide your management decisions.

The process of analyzing performance begins with a analyzing your business, which allows you to focus on the goals for your business.

While you may believe that your business goals are clear and understood by everyone within your business, this assumption is often wrong. If your business is typical, most of your employees will have difficulty stating what your business goals are and identifying how their work assignments affect those goals.

HPI Begins With Your Goals

A business-focused approach to applying HPI to your bottom line begins by identifying what the key business goals are for the client or organization. You business goals could include:

  • Goals for the entire organization,
  • Goals for a department within your organization,
  • Goals for a specific team or unit, or
  • Goals for a function.

In a large and complex organization, there are usually a variety of business goals at different levels of the organization.

Individual Performance and Business Goals

Performance by individual’s results in output for your business or organization, but HPI begins at the end of the process, considering the business output or goals of the business, and then applying those goals backwards to the departments, teams, and individuals who will work towards satisfying those goals. The process of identifying your business goals is critical to applying HPI to your business.

Once you have identified your goals, it’s important to verify that you have set a realistic target. Your business goals should be:

  • Quantitative, meaning you should have a definite understanding of when the goals have been met, and

  • Time limited, meaning that you have a definite schedule when you can ascertain whether the goal has been achieved.

Systems Thinking

One of the cornerstones of HPI is the concept of systems thinking. Organizations are complex systems! Taking a holistic view of the entire system is critical if performance improvement is to be achieved. Merely tweaking various parts of the system will yield only marginal or unsustainable results.

Geary Rummler and Alan Brache have defined the three levels of performance, along with the three factors that determine effectiveness at each level.

  Goals Design Management
Organization Level Organization
Goals
 Organization
Design
 Organization
Management
Process
Level		 Process
Goals
 Process
Design
 Process
Management
Job/Performer
Level 		Job
Goals
 Job
Design
 Job
Management