KNOWLEDGE
Guiding Principles
Improvement is self-driven. Everyone takes control of their own work performance and makes their own improvement choices.
Improvement is enhanced by data. Measuring your performance will give you a deeper understanding of it, and that will give you more control over it.
Improvement is a continuous process. The more often you try to improve, the more often you will improve, and the easier it will be.
We’re all in that process together. We are all equal partners and participants in each other’s success. Provide help when asked and expect the same in return.
Results
To get a sense of the quantitative results, let’s examine two KPIs from four teams who recently underwent this transformation.
The Challenge
In Health Information Technology & Services (HITS), part of our Vision is “to make ourselves better and more effective”, which means helping our staff improve their performance. It sounds like a simple aim, but what’s the most effective way to achieve it?
The Research
Human performance and motivation have been the subjects of peer-reviewed academic research for decades. The bottom right of this poster links to a handout with a bibliography outlining some of the works we have found most compelling, but for the sake of brevity, we offer this summary of the key findings that underpin our performance improvement approach:
Want to know more? gcarper@umich.edu
Handout with more info: https://goo.gl/L284kk
H O W W E W O R K
Picture/�image of �creator or team
SUPPORT
EMPOWERMENT
Track your work in a system (like ServiceNow). You can’t measure what isn’t tracked.
Measure Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) based on your definitions of success.
Ask yourself, and your customers, how to define success for your work.
Set (or reset) KPI targets that incrementally improve upon past performance.
When reviewing, investigate target misses and troubling trends. Explain with data.
Review your KPI performance on a rhythm. We suggest weekly.
Discuss your KPIs, and your investigation, with your supervisor.
If you regularly meet your targets, discuss changing them with your supervisor.
If action is needed, brainstorm together, but you make the final choices.
The images used in this poster were created by gilbert bages, Rabee Balakrishnan, Jack Morgan, Alex De Stasio, Adrien Coquet, vectoriconset10, Anwer Hossain, Ralf Schmizer, Humantech, anbileru adaleru, Fraser Ferguson, Vectors Market, Pixel Lab, Markus, and Maxim Kulikov via Noun Project under a Creative Commons Attribution (CCBY) license.
Your performance is largely determined by your own intrinsic motivation.1 Others cannot motivate you, just as you cannot motivate anyone else.2 Some may try with rewards or punishments, but those methods are not only useless in the long run, they're harmful.3 They certainly won’t make you want to do a task or want to do it well.4 That only comes from within you, so all an organization can do is cultivate an environment that creates conditions for your self-motivation.4 We can do that by giving you work that is meaningful to you5, letting you choose how you do that work6, making sure you have what you need to do a good job, surrounding you with people who are committed to helping you excel7, and giving you opportunities to collaborate8, learn, overcome challenges, and demonstrate your competence9.
1 Munyua, 2017, p. 73. | 4 Kohn, 1999, p. 181. | 7 Kohn, 1999, p. 186. |
2 McGregor, 1966, p. 208. | 5 Hackman / Oldham, 1980, p. 71. | 8 Tjosvold, 1986. |
3 Kohn, 1999, pp. 41-42. | 6 Miller / Monge, 1986. | 9 Herzberg, 1987, p. 87. |
Most teams clearly improve, though the degree can vary, and there’s an instance of a team struggling. Other simultaneous changes can influence these numbers, like staff turnover or workflow adjustments, but participating teams verify that this method has been a significant contributor to their success. It can help your team too.
Predicted Weeks to Solve Open Tickets
Average Days to Ticket Resolution