Intensive Self-Assessment

What is intensive self-assessment?  Why do it? How does an organization get started?  What resources and time does a tough, self-critical review require?

Intensive self-assessment is a planned, structured, and staffed evaluation of system or process performance against accepted criteria.  It takes place concurrently with the working process.  It is not an end-result inspection.  It is not conventional continuous improvement.

You Have to Want It

Successful organizations want an intensive self-assessment.  Top executives and middle managers passionately care about what is going on in critical areas and are ready to act on potentially unflattering information when they find it.

Self-assessments fail when they only search for ways to imitate others, satisfy regulatory agencies, or placate industry oversight groups.

Your self-assessment must reflect your organization’s unique style, while moving it in a positive direction.  If you have total quality, lean manufacturing, or Six Sigma processes already, we'll build on them.  Intensive self-assessment is no program du jour.

Be Tough, Be Realistic

Strong self-assessors choose standards of comparison in advance and write them down.  They waste no time with aimless brainstorming.  They systematically chase down valid performance data, convert troublesome findings into problem statements, and solve those problems with root cause analysis. Benchmarking fits perfectly here.

Just as standards of comparison enable measurement, self-assessments must trigger concrete, measurable actions. 

You must budget, schedule, and execute Intensive self-assessments as valid “work.”  Why?  Because they constitute preventive maintenance on the organization.  Self-assessments are as valuable as equipment cleaning, calibration, and lubrication.  Include them in the annual business planning process, and support them at the highest executive levels. 

Intensive Self-Assessment IS Leadership in Action

Self-assessment leadership is a management skill that contributes to career growth.  Don't depend on idle or plateaued persons for such critical work.

Organizational effectiveness staffs should recognize and support self-assessment as "learning in action."  Avoid agenda-free group exploration sessions.  Instead, develop leadership in real time.  Facilitate - never direct - people engaged in intensive self-assessment.

Make it “safe” for self assessors to identify and discuss any issue they find.  The first adverse finding you squelch will be the last one you ever hear.

Proposed solutions must not create additional investigative or defensive work, especially for the assessors.  They must be free to describe clear paths forward with no second-guessing or debate.

We Can Help

SeaState Group is ready to help you apply Fix-It-Once® principles during your next self-assessment, or we can help you plan an effective cycle of integrated reviews.

Home Page