Organizations and Teams Aligning for Dramatic Results

Team & Organization Assessments:
Customized Focus Groups & Surveys – Organizational Capability Snapshot

Customized Focus Groups and Surveys

Partners in Performance gathers qualitative data obtained from individual interviews, focus groups and online assessments as part of their strategy for client assessments. The best information can often be gathered by using focus groups and/or interviews together with online assessments that produce more objective, quantifiable data.

Through individual interviews and focus groups, we conduct a “Discovery” to learn how employees, management and clients feel about the specific parameters that are important for you to measure and the issues confronting them. We gain insights into their perspectives on the areas that are important for them. The conversations reveal more about what is really going on than what can be obtained from online, objective data alone.

Focus groups are extremely valuable when vivid and rich descriptions are needed. As participants respond to the questions, our facilitators can probe for more information and ask “the question underneath the question” to elicit more in-depth discussion. Through this method, we collect a breadth of information that penetrates more deeply.

Our clients often tell us that our understanding and reporting of their organizational dynamics are extremely insightful and valuable to them.

Organization Capability Snapshot™

  • Do you need a clear and objective assessment of your organization’s strengths and weaknesses?
  • Do you know exactly what to focus on to produce the best results and the most profit for your company?
  • Is it important for you to know how satisfied your clients are with your services?
  • Are the different levels and functions within your company aligned? And what are the consequences if not?

Determine your organizational strengths and weaknesses – as seen by managers, employees, customers and other stakeholders compared to competitors.

Partners in Performance recommends using Capability Snapshot®, an assessment tool from CSI, a Canadian based company, whose tools have been used by a wide range of Fortune 500 companies to create better performing, more agile, learning organizations. The assessment tools, in conjunction with the facilitation expertise of Partners in Performance, will enable you to understand those essential capabilities and practices, which contribute to your ongoing and future success.

The Pay Offs:

  • Identifies an organization’s strengths and weaknesses and highlights specific practices that can be improved
  • Enables the aggregated perceptions of all key stakeholders to be compared to determine the degree of organization alignment
  • Compares the organization to its competitors as seen by its customers
  • Permits the organization to concentrate on improvements that are the most profitable
  • Identifies the organization’s culture and provides benchmark data against which future evaluations can be compared to measure progress

About the Assessment: 360 Multi Rater

The Capability Snapshot is a technology-driven 360° survey methodology used to evaluate and improve any type of organization. Internally, management and employee groups, and externally, customer and other stakeholder groups, provide candid measures of their perception of the organization’s fundamental elements, its essential capabilities.

The assessment is administered using online questions to gather objective, quantifiable data, as well as open-ended questions to gather qualitative feedback from respondents. If required, questions can be tailored to meet the specific needs of the client.

Four different respondent perspectives are gathered and compared:

  • Customers
  • Employees
  • Managers
  • Other stakeholders (i.e. suppliers, distribution channel, etc.)

The comparison of these perceptions among and between groups provides management with information that can help improve any type of organization.

The Capability Snapshot Model

The Capability Snapshot quickly and objectively evaluates five strategic challenges based on 15 essential capabilities, those programs and practices that are crucial to the attainment of the organization’s strategic goals.

Five Strategic Challenges

Improvements in four Strategic Challenges (Operational Effectiveness, Customer Satisfaction, Organization Agility and Innovation) are enabled by a fifth, core Strategic Challenge, the Learning Culture.

For each Strategic Challenge there are 3 essential capabilities as outlined in the table that follows.

The following table defines each of these 15 Essential Capabilities and the 5 Strategic Challenges that make up the model on which the diagnostic is based. These Essential Capabilities and Strategic Challenges are common to all types of organizations.

Operations Effectiveness

Doing the right things in the right way
  • Cost Management: Providing goods and services at the lowest possible cost.
  • Quality Improvement: Continuously improving the quality of goods and services.
  • Time Utilization: Being fast and reliable in providing goods and services.

Organization Agility

Assuring that the organization adapts to change
  • Rethinking Strategy: Reviewing the formulation and implementation of organization strategy.
  • Redesigning Structure: Designing new procedures that yield high performance and quality service.
  • Reengineering Structure: Making significant improvements in work processes.

Customer Satisfaction

Delivering outstanding value to customers
  • Customer Focus: Listening to customers and acting on their behalf.
  • Customized Value: Customizing goods and services to each specific client.
  • Customer Partnering: Forming unique relationships with certain clients to enhance their success.

Innovation Opportunities

Seeking and realizing breakthrough innovations
  • Product / Service Development: Developing new products, features and services that respond to client needs.
  • Market Foresight: Identifying emerging trends, changing values and competitor strategies.
  • Knowledge Leverage: Making optimum use of available knowledge, expertise and technology.

Learning Culture

Creating conditions that support continuous learning
  • Employee Involvement: Encouraging everyone’s participation in achieving organizational purpose.
  • Competence Development: Raising the competence level of all managers and employees.
  • Teamwork Commitment: Inspiring personal dedication to group objectives and values.

If you’re interested in one of these team and organization effectiveness and alignment assessments, please contact us directly at (905) 877-5808 to get all the details.