Title:
Performance: Starting with the End in Mind, for Work, Organizations, Homes, and Relationships
Author(s):
Kenneth Hover
Publication:
Web Session
Volume:
Issue:
Appears on pages(s):
Keywords:
DOI:
Date:
10/25/2020
Abstract:
Performance Specifications, or what the business guru’s call “Management by Objectives,” or what Steven Covey calls “Beginning with the end in mind,” are not new concepts. Anytime we plan, assign, accept or complete a task based on a clear description of the desired outcome, rather than a detailed prescription of how to do the work, we are in “Performance” mode. When “performance” works, the “specifier” gets the desired outcome and the “performer” gets the satisfaction (and reward) for a job well done. (This applies equally to tasks performed under a construction contract or to tasks performed in any human relationship.) But, to achieve this success the specifier has to first define ALL of the required characteristics of a satisfactory solution, accompanied by objective, reliable means to measure those characteristics, and to assure quality beyond the few samples observed or tested. (The performance-specifier can’t make up new rules as the work progresses, unless new rewards accompany the new rules.) This is far more difficult than it sounds. Although prescriptive specifications may not always produce the originally intended outcome, they are far easier to write because the specifier only has to compile a long list of do’s and don’ts that experience and tradition have associated with generally successful outcomes in the past. And, the prescriptive-specifier is relieved of the responsibility of quantitatively defining all of the desired qualities of the final, end-product. Hybrid prescriptive and performance specifications are increasingly the norm. A costly combination, however, is found in those projects (at work or at home) that have a clear set of written, prescriptive specifications with an underlying, unwritten specification for the end-product: “I did not define it, but I’ll know it when I see it, and that’s not it!”