The purpose of this activity is to aid in the decision making process by defining all the elements, issues, facts, and features taking place in the client 's system or process. The information gathered in this step provides a basic background for training developers, consultants, contractors, etc. Training programs have failed in the past and will continue to fail because the training activity did not understand the needs or wants of its clients.
While the first step in the Analysis Phase, Business Outcome, determined the desired objectives or results to improve the organization (positive impact), this step, Performance Analysis, determines the exact cause of the performance deficiency that is preventing the business unit from reaching its objectives and then identifies the performance required to reach the objective. This is shown in the backwards planning model:
The Performance Analysis Quadrant
Customer or clients will often present all performance problems as training problems, thus the need to fully analyze the problem in order to determine its root cause. This tool is used to help narrow the root cause of a performance problem. By asking two questions, “Does the employee have adequate job knowledge?” and “does the employee have the proper attitude (desire) to perform the job?” and assigning a numerical rating between 1 and 10 for each answer, will place the employee in one of the four performance quadrants (see note below):
* Quadrant A (Motivation): If the employee has sufficient job knowledge, but has an improper attitude, this may be classed as motivational problem. The consequences (rewards) of the person 's behavior will have to be adjusted. This is not always bad as the employee just might not realize the consequence of his or her actions. * Quadrant B (Resource/Process/Environment): If the employee has both job knowledge and a favorable attitude, but performance is unsatisfactory, then the problem may be out of
References: Bowsher, J. (1998). Revolutionizing Workforce Performance: A System Approach to Mastery. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Jones, B. (1993). The four domains affecting job performance. Internal Document, Delta Air Lines. Atlanta, GA. As found in, Mancuso, V. (1995). Moving from Theory to Practice: Integrating Human Factors into an Organization. Seattle WA: Annual Flight Safety Foundation Conference. Retrieved Aug 17, 2011 from http://www.crm-devel.org/ftp/mancuso.pdf Rittel, H. (1972). On the planning crisis: systems analysis of the “first and second generation.” Bedriftsokonomen. No. 8, pp.390-396. Trolley, E. (2006). Lies About Learning. Larry Israelite, ed. Baltimore, Maryland: ASTD. Wick, C., Pollock, R., Jefferson, A., Flanagan, R., (2006). Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning: How to Turn Training and Development Into Business Results. San Francisco: Pfeiffer