Performance Readiness Assessment is about forecasting the likelihood of achieving desired results based on diagnosis of current performance conditions – primary drivers, facilitators, and barriers – and identifying actions to close gaps, adapt conditions, and fortify ability to deliver.

This analysis is not about yet another dashboard, more spreadsheets of data, or extraneous information, it’s about insights – critical, immediate, and actionable insights. Insights gained through honest and shrewd evaluation of the team’s or organization’s ability to meet ‘mission demands’ – aka the desired outcomes and required work – and to properly execute the strategy and achieve the aspiration.

Just as creating a compelling Aspiration & Strategy demands truth, trust, and transparency, so does Performance Assessment – and it gets uncomfortable. Honesty can be painful, it can expose wounds, insecurities, and vulnerabilities. Honesty can also be liberating and the catalyst for transformation.

Too many well-intentioned plans fail miserably during the ‘execution phase’ most often due to a lack of awareness, understanding, and resolution of inadequacies in readiness and current conditions. It doesn’t matter if it’s an organization of 10 or 10,000 people, if it’s selling solar panels or preparing US Marines for battle – if the talent or support structure is insufficient, fractured, or inept, failure is in the future, and it will be costly.

Performance Readiness is multifaceted – because people are the backbone of performance, and nothing holistic is simple. With all organizations and teams, there are external and internal factors that affect the ability to perform and deliver results. Some factors can be controlled and shaped, while others can only be anticipated, hypothesized, and mitigated for. External factors come in the form of market/industry landscape, political/economic climate, competitors and trends – organizations are less able to affect these, yet they require awareness and responsiveness. Internal factors come in the form of expectations, talent, culture, structure, process, tools, technology – organizations are fully able to affect these and they demand informed engineering, constant monitoring, and relevant adaptation.

It’s this complex reality that requires the rigor of quantitative and qualitative ‘performance analysis tradecraft’ to inform and create the necessary conditions to perform and the optimal plan to execute. Performance cannot be left to chance, it must be intentionally architected and orchestrated, and assessed and evaluated so it can be adapted and improved at pace. Chance wins if you don’t know:

• If your key leaders understand their role and expected outcomes
• If your team is motivated and inspired by the challenge
• If there is trust in the leaders and team members
• If you have the right talent in the key roles
• If your team has the right level and type of support to be successful
• Which areas of the organization may struggle, and which will excel
• Who needs different support
• What are critical areas of organizational risk
• How hurdles and issues will get surfaced and resolved
• How progress will be reported, and achievement measured

PDG’s ‘Performance Analysis Tradecraft’ integrates analytic best practices and disciplines found in the fields of national security and intelligence, commercial business intelligence, and Human Performance Improvement (HPI) into a comprehensive suite of assessments, diagnostics, and evaluations to examine internal and external performance influences to provide critical and actionable insights to drive results.