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Glossary
Part I: Results Management System Terms
Breakthrough: A breakthrough is a step-function improvement in an existing process to a never-before-seen level of performance, or the achievement of a brand new capability or competency. Strategic breakthroughs impact all or nearly all parts of the organization; tactical breakthroughs are more narrow, impacting a function, department, or several teams. By definition, breakthroughs require extraordinary resources to achieve. There are two types of breakthroughs:
- Performance Breakthrough: A step-function improvement in performance of an existing fundamental (or routine) process, which is currently unable to achieve the level of performance that the organization’s goals demand. These types of breakthroughs are typically not derived from small, incremental changes, but from focused and highly organized initiatives.
- Capability Breakthrough: Achievement of a brand new capability or competency that will significantly advance the organization toward its goals through rigorous development and deployment of a brand new process.
Breakthrough Map: A single-page illustration of the key strategic and tactical initiatives that an organization will pursue over a three-year horizon to achieve long range goals. The RESULTS Breakthrough Map® is a proprietary tool of Mass Ingenuity®.
Breakthrough Plan: A single-page plan that summarizes the objective, situation, strategies, target, and sub-targets of a breakthrough initiative.
- Objective: A concise statement of the desired outcome that will be accomplished by the organization if this breakthrough initiative is successful.
- Situation: A description of “what is” – the obstacles that interfere with achieving the Objective and the opportunities that if seized might help achieve it.
- Strategies: Concise statements of what needs to be accomplished in order to achieve the Objective. [Note, a Strategy is not a ‘task,’ rather, it is a desired ‘future state’ that has addressed the obstacles and opportunities in the situation.]
- Target: A specific, quantifiable measure of success that needs to be met in order to achieve the Objective.
- Sub-Target: A specific, quantifiable measure of success that needs to be met in order to achieve the Strategy.
- Cascading: A process of engaging employees in the creation of measures that enable them to connect to the organization’s goals. This process creates a line of sight for employees to see how what they do serves the results the organization seeks to achieve.
- Change Management: The intentional and systematic process of managing the people side of change. It includes engaging and communicating with the people who are impacted by organizational change such that they are aware, willing, and knowledgeable enough to ensure the change is successful.
Core Process: A process is a set of activities that leads to a given output. A core process is a set of routine activities that the organization must do well in order to deliver value to its customers and attain the organization’s desired outcome measures. Two kinds of core processes exists, plus sub-processes:
- Operating Process: The routine work that creates, produces, and delivers the organization’s primary services and/or products to its customers.
- Supporting Process: The routine work that is essential to enabling the operating processes to function in the organization.
- Sub-processes: The primary routine activities within the operating and supporting processes of the organization.
Executive Coaching: A systematic process that focuses on helping executives better organize their thinking and see things from broader, more complete perspectives. Coaching helps executives see concerns more objectively and leads to exercising creative powers in problem solving; understanding the executive’s relative position and significance in a given situation and developing the capabilities and capacities to lead in a results-driven management system.
Fundamentals: The collective routine work (or core processes) of the organization that consume the vast majority of its resources.
Fundamentals Map: A single-page illustration that shows the routine work (or core processes) that must be managed for the organization to achieve its mission, vision, and key goals. The map also captures the outcome measures and process measures used by the organization to know how well the fundamentals are being managed and how capable the core processes are to meet the strategic desires of the organization. The RESULTS Fundamentals Map® is a proprietary tool of Mass Ingenuity®.
Key Goals: Statements of macro-level, long term organizational objectives that the enterprise is striving toward in order to achieve its mission and vision. Key goals answer the question: What accomplishments will define our success?
Leadership Development: Development of a common set of leadership principles, skills, competencies and tools that enable the maximum effectiveness of leaders (executives as well as top and mid-level managers) in supporting the acceptance and success of a results-driven management system.
Lean: A management philosophy and systematic set of methodologies focused on creating more value for customers with much less waste. The ultimate goal is to provide perfect value to the customer through a perfect value creation process.
- Small “l” lean is the application of process improvement methods intended to remove waste from a process.
- Big “L” Lean is the systematic application of Lean thinking to all aspects of running the enterprise. In this application Lean is applied to all work including how the enterprise is managed. The RESULTS Management System is the application of Lean to the management of the enterprise. Its design is intended to eliminate the waste caused by shortfalls in traditional management systems.
Management Development: Development of skills, competencies and tools that enable the effectiveness in the day-to-day management of a results-driven organization.
Management System: The system an organization uses to manage the enterprise. Most organizations rely almost exclusively on budgets to manage a business. An effective management system links each individual’s performance to the organization’s outcomes and processes through measurement. Effective management systems conduct routine reviews to ensure transparency of how well both the fundamentals and breakthroughs are being managed. The RESULTS Management System® is a proprietary tool of Mass Ingenuity®
Mission: A statement of the purpose of an organization or an enterprise, succinctly answering the question: What business are we in?
Performance Measures: A qualitative or quantitative indicator of an outcome or process that assesses progress toward desired results.
- Outcome Measures: Quantifiable indicators of an organization’s overall performance that answer the question: What will gauge progress toward our key goals? These are lagging indicators of success.
- Process Measures: Quantifiable indicators of how effectively a given work process is functioning, especially from the point of view of the customer of that process, e.g., in the areas of cost, quality and time. Process measures answer the question: What will show us that we are doing the routine work well? These are leading indicators of success.
Problem Solving: Taking action to improve a part of the organization’s routine work because it is not meeting its targeted performance level. Mass Ingenuity® recommends using a standard approach across the organization to address problems, such as the “7-Step Problem Solving Method.”
Process Owner: The individual assigned by the organization to be the primary advocate for a given cross-functional process.
Project Management: The disciplined and systematic approach to initiating, planning, organizing, executing, controlling and closing out initiatives (example: Breakthroughs) intended to achieve a specific result.
Quarterly Target Review (QTR): Peer group meetings up and down the organization for reviewing and discussing current performance of both Fundamentals and Breakthroughs, and of the action being taken if performance is in the “red” or “yellow” range vis a vis the targeted level of performance. QTRs are a very important aspect of an effective Management System. They require preparation both in terms of data gathering and analysis, as well as behavioral changes to ensure safety, transparency and strong decision making with regards to action for both Fundamentals and Breakthroughs that are demonstrating less than desired results.
Results-Driven Government: Government that is organized around and drives toward the achievement of specific goals and measurable outcomes.
RESULTS Management System: An enterprise operating system focused on achieving an organization’s desired results through a systematic process of prioritizing, connecting, enabling, and driving the execution of all work, ensuring every resource is focused on the goals and that every employee has the maximum authority to act.
RESULTS Software: RESULTS software is a SaaS enterprise application specifically designed for performance management systems. It runs on the Microsoft® Azure® Cloud Computing Platform and takes full advantage of the cloud computing services, security, performance provided by the Microsoft Azure Platform. As a cloud-based SaaS application, there is no need to create a new IT project and the applications can be easily onboarded in approximately five business days. As a single source of all performance data, RESULTS software will be visible 24×7 from any device. In addition, RESULTS software data is the centerpiece for regular business reviews, team meetings, and one-on-one’s. RESULTS software also enables project plans and documents related to strategies to be set up with owners and dues dates enabling complete transparency between senior leadership, appropriate staff, and citizens.
Having performance data in RESULTS Software provides an organization with extensive business intelligence (BI) tools, as well as visual analytics to be able to analyze, assess, and share an understanding of what the data is saying about the business.
Note: See Part II below for Results Software specific terms.
Risk Management/Enterprise Risk Management (ERM): A systematic approach for identifying shortfalls in organizational performance that could result in the failure to achieve targeted results. ERM protocols developed by COSO offer a comprehensive approach to assessing, monitoring, managing, and mitigating an organization’s primary risks (surprises) which can jeopardize an organization’s reputation.
Scorecard: The display of process and outcome measures using “red, yellow, and green” ranges of performance to indicate the level of current results with regards to an established target level of performance.
Scorecard Owner: The individual who creates and maintains a given scorecard.
Sponsor: The individual expected to define and guide the scope of work and the intended outcomes, to assemble the resources for success, and to remove obstacles to the success of the initiative along the way. The sponsor is responsible for establishing, building, and nurturing organizational support for the initiative, including being directly responsible for ensuring management and peer support.
Strategic Plan: A plan that, based on a scan of the forces surrounding an organization,lays out goals, targets and plans the leadership believes will advance the organization in alignment with its mission, vision and values.
Values: Shared beliefs among the stakeholders of an organization that shape its culture. Values answer the question: What beliefs will guide the actions we take to achieve our mission, key goals and outcomes?
Vision: The long-term view of what an organization wants to accomplish, sometimes describing how the organization would like the world to be in which it operates. A vision answers the questions: What do we want our business to be known for?
Part II: Results Software Terms
Chart Type: Defines how to elevate the value against a static target or a performance path of improvement.
Data Steward: Person who can retrieve the data for the measure owner.
Groups: Represents a grouping of measures. Measure groups can be created across the entire organization, independent of the measure’s parent Fundamentals Map.
Map (aka Fundamentals Map): A collection of organizational processes. Processes can be organized in any manner that is appropriate for an organization.
Measure: Qualitative or quantitative indicator of an outcome or process that assesses progress toward desired results.
- Outcome Measures: Quantifiable indicators of an organization’s overall performance that answer the question: What will gauge progress toward our key goals?
- Process Measures: Quantifiable indicators of how effectively a given work process is functioning, especially from the point of view of the customer of that process, e.g., in the areas of cost, quality and time. Process measures answer the question: What will show us that we are doing the routine work well?
Measure Related Terms
- Measure Code: System identifier assigned by administrator. This helps establish organization and structure to the measure management as well as Results search functions.
- Measure Name: High-level short name that allows viewers to understand the focus of the measure.
- Measure Impact: Short statement that explains why this metric is important to understand for the organization/process. Statement that explains why this measure is important.
- Measure Calculation: Detailed description that defines how this measure is calculated. Typically includes key definitions to explain what is and is not in scope.
- Measure Data Source: List describing where the data is located or accessed. The source may be another system, manual log, specific person, etc.
- Measure Frequency: Defines how often the measure will be reported on. “Outcome measures” are lagging indicators of success and do not change frequently so these are often reported on quarterly or annually. “Process measures” are leading indicators of success and have a greater quantity of associated data so they are reported on more frequently, ideally monthly.
- Measure Owner: Individual who tracks the performance of a specific measure and is on point to understand what is or is not happening according to the data. Advocates for intervention and additional resources as needed to achieve improvement to the measure.
- Measure Data Steward: Individual who is able to retrieve data for the measure owner.
- Measure Status: Defines whether a measure is “active” or “inactive.” Active means it is currently on a scorecard. Inactive means the organization has retired the measure off the scorecard.
- Measure Comments: Location to document a measure’s general history and any change history.
- Measure Aggregate: The “aggregate” option allows a measure owner to create a single roll up measure and its associated calculation.
Performance Path: Chart type that evaluates the data value against a performance path of improvement. Measure can be defined as satisfactory as long as it is within a certain percentage of improvements towards the end value.
Performance Path Related Terms
- Name: Often tied to a process improvement project or a fiscal year period.
- Jump Off Point (JOP): Original value for the first reporting of the measure.
- Threshold: Percentage of the path that sets “yellow” and “red.”
- Start Date: Date the performance path is launched.
- Finish Date: Date the performance path is completed.
- Initial Value: Starting value of the performance path.
- FY Target: Desired end value of the performance path.
Projects: Place to set up projects. These are often process improvement projects and strategic initiatives associated with a specific measure or they can be any important initiative requiring visibility within a team, division, or enterprise.
Scorecard: Chart type that evaluates the data value against a set target over a specified period.
- Target: Specific value the measure needs to optimally achieve. Is usually above the lowest acceptable level.
- Effective Date: Date you want to set for the starting point of the target.
- Threshold: Values that define “red/yellow/green.” “Green” is acceptable performance. “Yellow” is adequate performance yet indicates some concern. “Red” is clearly unacceptable performance
- Effective Date: Date you want to set for each threshold defined.
Threshold Template: Used to set the measure as “good high”, “good low”, etc.