• Time and resources are almost always limited. By selecting only those projects that offer the highest potential for improved performance, the consultant help clients achieve maximum success from the finite resources they possess.
• By systematically analyzing requests for training and other single-shot interventions, the consultant gathers data and evidence on the worth of a project, thus helping avoid wasted effort on low-priority or inappropriate endeavors.
  

• When carefully conceived and executed, the gap analysis should yield concrete evidence and specific data on the desired and current performance levels, factors affecting the gap and appropriate, economical, feasible and acceptable solutions and performance interventions. This diagnostic and prescriptive set of activities vastly increases the probability of success.
• Performance gap analyses also lay the foundation for designing interventions, and they establish criteria for project success and suitable metrics to measure it.

• Performance solutions frequently are selected and developed without taking into account the characteristics, competencies, values, concerns, issues and constraints of the performers. Accurate assessment of all of these dimensions increases the likelihood that interventions will be tailored to fit the performers.
• The more closely the interventions match performers' characteristics, the more quickly and accurately the performers will achieve desired results.

• Nice-to-know and even irrelevant tasks and content are built unnecessarily into performance improvement interventions. This is called overengineering and is costly and wasteful. Ability to conduct job and task analyses and to analyze content for relevance helps maintain focus on necessary and sufficient development of performance interventions and support without gaps or waste.

• A context analysis (physical, ergonomic, social, management, cultural, administrative) identifying characteristics of the environment that may facilitate or inhibit performance helps ensure appropriate intervention design.
• Analysis and identification of facilitating/ inhibiting factors can result in avoidance of costly errors and wasted time or can leverage existing environmental elements for smoother implementation.
  

• Clear outcome statements inform all stakeholders of what is to be achieved. The more clear the outcome statement, the higher the probability of attaining it.

• Creating timelines and time-and-action calendars with identified intervention outcomes helps team members coordinate their activities and provides a schedule of expectations for managers and performers. This can decrease costly delays or waiting times.
• Each player in the project is always aware of what is happening and when outputs are due. This reduces teamwork inefficiencies and conflicts. The consultant makes planning easier.

• This is the logical output of all prior analyses and preparation. Specifications, based on gathered data and information, guide all future activities.
• A clear set of interventions and strategies facilitates budgetary and project management processes.
  

• The sequence of activities, when well laid out, helps in the planning and management of all development, implementation and evaluation/monitoring activities. A well-developed sequence increases coordination and decreases time loss.
• The sequence prompts smooth ordering and marshalling of resources for the project.
  

• Projects often fail because required resources are not accessible. The ability to specify requirements, obtain support for resource acquisition and make it possible to acquire resources when they are required can contribute enormously to meeting project timelines and attaining project success.

• Evaluation is a weak area in most performance improvement projects. The consultant's design of both a formative and a summative evaluation system offers value in two important ways:
  • continuous monitoring to ensure performance interventions are being appropriately developed.
• data gathering to demonstrate performance intervention success (data that can be leveraged to garner support for future projects).
  

• The key to successful performance improvement projects is in their implementation. If begun early in the project, Implementation planning increases field support, ensures adequate implementation resources and facilities, and decreases last-minute barriers to implementation success.
• A well-designed implementation plan foresees problems and prepares adequately for contingencies. Last-minute glitches vastly increase costs and produce time delays.
  

• Generally, instructional designers and trainers are valued for their technical or presentation capabilities. Performance consultants also must be able to analyze, design and present. However, value add derives from a consultant's ability to make the project happen. By effectively planning, managing and monitoring performance improvement projects, he or she helps maximize the investment in analysis and design/development. This is a benefit that enhances the consultant's credibility and trustworthiness, and helps clients achieve the greatest gains.

• When a project is successful its success must be communicated in the most appropriate ways so that all stakeholders can understand what has been accomplished. This results in both sustained support for the current project and easier acceptance of future projects.
• Clear communication throughout the project life cycle increases coordination, support and commitment.
  

• More projects fail or are hampered by poor leadership and teamwork than by lack of talent and resources. Being able to deal with individuals and groups in an empathetic manner is a high-value asset. Process consulting skills decrease barriers and open doors. The project flows more smoothly with fewer delays.

16. Promote performance-consulting and human performance improvement as a major approach to achieving desired results in organizations

• By demonstrating both performance improvement results and value-added characteristics of performance consulting, the consultant builds credibility as a professional and provides a high-ROI service to the organization.
  
• Promotion of the field rebounds on the promoter. Both gain in the process.
  

1. Is focused on client need:

• never loses sight of the primary mission
• is not swayed by enthusiasms or constraints
• separates wants and whims from real needs
• sticks to valued outcomes despite pressures
  

• This tenacity ensures that the client achieves results she or he desires.
• By separating wants and whims from needs, the end result is of greater value to the client and the organization.
• The performance consultant provides the steady hand on the tiller against the battering waves of enthusiasm and politics that can throw a project off course.

2. Is cause-conscious, not solution-focused:

• is analytical
• investigates systematically
  

• Decision making is based on data, hard evidence and systematic sifting of facts.
• Solutions are based on cause, not opinion.

3. Is able to maintain a system perspective:

• accepts a holistic view
• anticipates how change in one area affects other areas

• Balanced interventions are the result, with all major factors accounted for.
• Simple solutions, while attractive, rarely result in long-term performance improvement. The system view weaves together a tight web of interventions that are mutually supportive.

4. Is capable of involving others (authority figures, knowledgeable individuals) appropriately:

• stresses complementary skills
• draws strength from team diversity
  

• Through appropriate involvement of authority at the top, experts to lend credibility and accuracy, and team workers to develop interventions, the consultant maximizes individual and team efficiency.

5. Is organized, rigorous, prudent:

• lets credible data talk
  

• This characteristic builds trust from champions, clients and other stakeholders, thereby increasing support for the project and smoothing the work.
• This enhances the belief that the performance interventions will deliver as promised because decisions and actions are based on verifiable data.
  

6. Is sensitive to the need to verify perceptions:

• performs reality checks with reliable people
• checks interpretations two or three times
  

• By checking and rechecking understandings, the consultant builds support and ensures that the project is on the right track.
• The investment in "verifying time" is more than compensated for by avoiding misinterpretations of information that lead down the wrong path.
  

7. Is able to sort out priorities:

• focuses on and sticks to business needs
• avoids the seduction of technology
  

• All projects have the potential to slip off course when new, exciting "discoveries" or events are reported to the client. The consultant's ability to absorb the new information and sustain goal focus ensures that priorities are maintained. Dampening distractions, including technology hype, is a major asset the consultant with this characteristic brings to the project.

8. Is diplomatic and credible:

• speaks and acts convincingly
• overcomes resistance without creating animosity
  

• This characteristic takes the edge off of rejection or nonacceptance of nonessential recommendations. It helps maintain direction and support from all sources. It increases smoother implementation of interventions and attainment of performance goals without bitterness.

9. Is generous with giving credit to others:

• highlights others' accomplishments
• shares rewards and recognition of success
  

• This essential characteristic builds loyalty to the project and draws out the best from all players.

10. Is principled but flexible:

• sticks to the bottom-line goal
• bends to pressures and constraints without giving up the goal
• accommodates client wants where and when feasible without losing sight of the desired result
  

• By maintaining a firm, fixed eye on the destination, the consultant can accommodate nondisruptive client desires, thus accomplishing the two main goals:
  • producing valued performance success
  • satisfying and delighting the client.