Mega planning Model (Kaufman)

A Societal Value-Added Perspective and Frame of Mind[i]

Adding value to our shared society, using your organization as the primary vehicle is Mega thinking and planning. It is straight-forward, and sensible. From this shared soci­etal value-added frame, everything one uses, does, produces, and deliv­ers is linked to deliver shared and agreed-upon positive organizational as well as societal results.

This societal frame of reference, or paradigm, I call the Mega level of thinking and planning. If you are not adding value to our shared society you have no assurance that you are not subtract­ing value. Starting with Mega as the central focus is strategic think­ing and provides the data based for strategic planning.

 A central question that every organization should ask and answer is:

If Your Organization is the Solution, What’s the Problem?

This fundamental proposition—using a Mega focus—repre­sents a shift from the usual attention only on oneself, individual performance improvement, and one’s organization to making certain you also add value to external clients and society.

An Overview of the Basic Concepts and Tools for Mega Thinking and Planning

There are three basic guides, or templates, that help de­fine and achieve individual and organizational suc­cess. Each is provided in much greater detail in several books (see the refer­ences), but for our entry into Mega Planning and strategic thinking, following is the short introduction to these three guides.

Guide One: The Organizational Elements Model (OEM)

It is important to define and link (align) what any organization uses, does, produces, and delivers to achieve external client and societal value added. A tool for making sure that everything an organization, uses, does, produces, and delivers does add value to external clients and society is called the Organizational Elements Model (OEM) and is shown in Table 1.[1]  For each Element, there is an associated level of planning: strategic planning (and thinking) starts with Mega while tactical planning starts with Macro and operational plan­ning at Micro.

These elements are also useful for defining the basic questions every organization must ask and answer as provided in Figure 3.

Name of the Organizational Element	Name of the Level of Planning and Focus	Brief Description	Type of Planning
Outcomes	Mega	Results and their consequences for external clients and society (shared Ideal Vision)	Strategic[2]
Outputs	Macro	The results an organization can or does deliver outside of itself	Tactical
Products	Micro	The building block results that are produced within the organization	Operational
Processes	Process	The ways, means, activities, procedures, projects, methods used internally
Inputs	Input	The human, physical, financial resources an organization can or does use

Table 1. The five levels of results, the levels of planning, and a brief description.

These elements are also useful for defining the basic questions every organization must ask and answer as provided in Figure 3.

Guide Two: Six Critical Success Factors

Following are what provides an essential framework of this approach and for Mega planning. Unlike conventional “critical success factors,” these are factors for successful planning, not just for the things that an organization must get done to meet its mission. These are for Mega planning, regardless of the organization.

The Six Critical Success Factors for Mega thinking and planning are shown in Figure 1. Unlike many other presentations of critical success factors, these relate to any organization public or private. Most “critical success factors” discussed in the management literature refer to organization-specific factors related to their unique business. These apply to any organization and are “above” any organizational-specific factors.

FIGURE 1. THE SIX CRITICAL FACTORS FOR MEGA THINKING AND PLANNING

Guide Three: A six-step problem solving model,

A process for getting from What Is to What Should Be is shown in Figure 2. These functions include: (1.0) identifying problems based on needs, (2.0) determining detailed solution requirements and identifying (but not yet selecting) solution alternatives, (3.0) selecting solutions from among alternatives, (4.0) implementation, (5.0) evaluation and (6.0) continuous improvement (at each and every step):

FIGURE 2. THE SIX-STEP PROBLEM SOLVING PROCESS: A PROCESS FOR IDENTIFYING AND RESOLVING PROBLEMS AND IDENTIFYING OPPORTUNITIES (Adapted from Kaufman(1992, 1998, 2000, 2006a, b,)

Each time you want to identify opportunities and resolve problems sys­tematically get from current results and consequences to desired ones, use the six-step process. 

This Six-step process In Figure 1 (Based in part on Kaufman, 1992, 1998, 2000, 2006) below allows the identification of opportunities before immediately moving to solve problems. The Mega thinking and planning approach does not assume that improving performance with the existing situation is automatically useful. Often, an organization can improve performance only to later discover that the performance in question does not add measurable value to the organization or to the shared society.

  

To be successful—to do and apply Mega Planning—you have to realize that yesterday’s methods and results often are not appropriate for tomorrow. Most planning experts agree that the past is only prologue, and tomorrow must be crafted through new patterns of perspectives, tools, and results. The tools and concepts for meeting the new realities of society, organizations, and people are linked to each of the Six Critical Success Factors.

The details and how-to’s for each of the three guides are also provided in the referenced sources. The three basic “guides” or templates should be considered as forming an integrated set of tools—like a fabric—instead of only each one on their own.

A Mega Planning framework has three phases:

·         Scoping,

·         Planning, and

·         Implementation/Continual Improvement.

During the Scoping phase, one may find opportunities that were not readily apparent from most reactive problem solving approaches to strategic planning. From this framework, specific tools and methods are pro­vided to do Mega Planning. It is not complex, really. If you simply use the three guides you will be able to put it all together.

 

When doing Mega planning, you and your associates will ask and answer the following questions shown in Figure 3. This also identifies the Organizational Elements in terms of the questions you and your organization should (and must) ask and answer:

FIGURE 3. THE BASIC QUESTIONS EVERY ORGANIZATION MUST ASK AND ANSWER (BASED ON KAUFMAN 2006a)

A “yes” to all questions will deliver Mega planning and allow you to prove that you have added value. . . something that is becoming increasingly important. These questions relate to Guide One that defines each organizational element in terms of its label and the question each addresses. If you use and do all of these you will align everything you use, do, produce, and deliver to adding measurable value to yourself, your organization, and to external clients and society.

Mega planning is proactive. Many approaches to organizational improvement wait for problems to happen and then hastily respond. But there is a temptation to react to problems and never take the time to plan so surprises are fewer and success is defined—before problems spring up—and then systematically achieved.

The Six Critical Success Factors in Brief

Examining each of the Six Critical Success Factors –Guide Three --to get a sense for the frame of mind (or paradigm) Mega planning provides.

Critical Success Factor 1. Don’t assume that worked before will work now.

Don’t assume that which worked for you and others in the past will work in the future. There is evidence just about every­where we look that tomorrow is not a linear projection—a straight-line function—of yesterday and today. Examples include car manufacturers that squander their dominant client base by shoving unacceptable vehicles into the market and airlines that focus on shareholder value and ignore cus­tomer value. An increasing number of credible authors have been, and con­tinue to tell us that the past is, at best, prologue and not a harbinger of what the future will be. In fact, old para­digms can be so deceptive that Tom Peters (1997) suggests that “organizational forgetting” must become conventional organizational culture.

Times have changed, and anyone who doesn’t also change appropriate­ly is risking failure. It is vital to use new and wider boundaries for think­ing, planning, doing, and delivering. Doing so will require getting out of current comfort zones. Not doing so will likely deliver failure.

Critical Success Factor 2: Use an Ideal Vision (Mega) as the underlying basis for all strategic think, planning, and doing (Don’t Be Limited to Your Own Organization)

Here is another area that requires some change from the conventional ways of doing planning. This Ideal Vision is identical for all organizations, public and private. One planning for one’s organization, simply identify which of the variables they commit to deliver and move ever-closer toward.

An Ideal Vision, Exhibit 1, identifies the kind of world we want to help create for tomorrow's child. It identifies measurable variables that can be used to (1) identify needs at the Mega/societal level, (2) provide measurable criteria for an organization’s mission, and (3) assure that everything an organization uses, does, produces, and delivers will add measurable value to all stakeholders.

EXHIBIT 1. THE IDEAL VISION (KAUFMAN, 2006)

There will be no loss of life or elimination of the survival of any species required for human survival.  There will be no reductions in levels of self-sufficiency, quality of life livelihood, or loss of property from any source including:

There  is a “gap”  between  what it is and what it should be

ü  war and/or riot and/or terrorism

ü  shelter

ü  unintended human-caused changes to the environment including permanent destruction of  the environment and/or rendering it non-renewable

ü  murder, rape, or crimes of violence, robbery, or destruction to property

ü  substance abuse

ü  disease

ü   pollution

ü  starvation and/or malnutrition  

ü  child abuse

ü  partner/spouse abuse

ü  accidents, including transportation, home, and business/workplace.

ü  discrimination based on irrelevant variables including color, race, creed, sex, religion, national origin, age, location

ü  Poverty will not exist, and every woman and man will earn as least as much as it costs them to live unless they are progressing toward being self‑sufficient and self‑reliant

ü  No adult will be under the care, custody or control of another person, agency, or substance: all adult citizens will be self-sufficient and self‑reliant as minimally indicated by their consumption being equal to or less than their production.

Consequences of the Basic Ideal Vision: Any and all organizations--public and private--will contribute to the achievement and maintenance of this Basic Ideal Vision and will be funded and continued to the extent to which it meets its objectives and the Basic Ideal Vision is accomplished and maintained.

People will be responsible for what they use, do, and contribute and thus will not contribute to the reduction of any of the results identified in this basic Ideal Vision.

From this societal-linked Ideal Vision, each organization can identify what part or parts of the Ideal Vision they commit to deliver and move ever-closer toward. If we base all planning and doing anchored on the Ideal Vision of the kind of society we want for future generation, we can achieve “strategic alignment” for what we use, do, produce, deliver, and the external payoffs for our Outputs.

The Ideal/Mega Vision is not the same as design and development but simply provides a “North Star” toward which everyone in the organization can develop their products and steer closer toward. On very simple decision criteria and time a decision to be made is objectively ask and answer will this take us closer or further away from Mega?

Mega thinking and planning is about defining a shared success, achieving it, and being able to prove it. Mega thinking and planning is a focus not on one’s organization alone but upon society now and in the future. It is about adding measurable value to all stakeholders. (Mega thinking and planning is not a tool for the actual design, development, implementation, and evaluation of organizational effectiveness but rather for scoping and setting requirements and for checking on measurable contributions and alignment. The operational analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation/continual improvement is best done by a number of excellent models and approaches, such as Bernardez, 2006a,2006b; Brethower, 2006; Gilbert, 1978; Guerra, 2003; Kaufman, R., Guerra, I., and Platt, W. A. ,2006; Rummler 2004; Watkins, 2007, among others.)

Mega thinking and planning has been offered for many years, perhaps first formally with Kaufman, 1972 and further developed in Kaufman & English, 1979, and continuing through this article. In one form another, using a societal frame for planning and doing has shown up in the works of other respected thinkers, including Senge (1990) and more recently Prahalad (2005) and Davis (2005). And this concept was introduced by Kaufman, Corrigan, & Johnson,1969 .

Appropriately, there seems to be a lessening of resistance to Mega thinking and planning; there continues a migration from individual performance as the preferred unit of analysis for performance improvement to one that includes a first consideration of society and external stakeholders; It is responsible, responsive, and ethical to add value to all.

Critical Success Factor 3. Differentiate between Ends and Means

Focus on “what” (mega/out­comes, macro/outputs, micro/prod­ucts) before “how.” People are “doing-types.” We want to swing right into action and in so doing we usually jump right into solutions (means) before we know the results (ends) we must deliver. Writing and using measurable per­formance objectives is something upon which almost all performance improvement authors agree. Objec­tives correctly focus on ends and not methods, means, or resources.

 Ends—“What”—sensibly should be identified and defined before we se­lect “How” to get from where we are to our destinations. If we don’t select our solutions, methods, resources, and interventions on the basis of what results we are to achieve, what do we have in mind to make the selections of means, resources, or activities?

Focusing on means, processes, and activities is usually more comfort­able as a starting place for conven­tional performance improvement initiatives. Starting with means, for any organization and performance improvement initiative, would be as if you were provided process tools and techniques without a clear map that included a definite destination identified (along with a statement of why you want to get to the destina­tion in the first place). Also, a risk for starting a performance improvement journey with means and processes would be the fact that there would be no way of knowing whether your trip is taking you toward a useful destina­tion or the criteria for telling you if you were making progress.

It is vital that successful planning focuses first on results (and not “how”)—useful perfor­mance in measurable terms—for set­ting its purposes, measuring progress and providing continuous improve­ment toward the important results, and for determining what to keep, what to fix, and what to abandon. This rigorous base sets the stage for another related Critical Success Factor 3 (Use and Link all Three Levels of Results) through application of the Organiza­tional Elements Model (OEM) and for Critical Success Factor 4 (Prepare objectives that have indicators of how you will know when you have arrived). The OEM relies on a results-focus because it defines what every organization uses, does, produces, delivers, and the consequences of that for external clients and society.

Critical Success Factor 4: Prepare objectives—including those for the Ideal Vision (Mega) and the mission that have rigorous indicators to tell if you have arrived at your intended destination.

It is vital to state, precisely, measurable, and rigorously, where you are headed and how to tell when you have arrived.[3]

Statements of objectives must be in performance terms so that one can plan how best to get there, how to measure progress toward it. And everything is measurable, in spite of conventional wisdom, so don’t deceive yourself into thinking you can dismiss important results as being “intangible” or “non-measurable.” [4] Increasingly organizations throughout the world are increasingly focusing on Mega-level results.[5]

Objectives, at all levels of plan­ning, activity, and results, are ab­solutely vital. And everything is measurable, so don’t kid yourself into thinking you can dismiss important results as being “intangible” or “non-measurable.” It is only sensible and rational to make a commitment to measurable purposes and destina­tions. Organizations throughout the world are increasingly focusing on Mega-level results

Critical Success Factor 5: Use and Align all three levels of Planning and Results.

As we noted in Critical Success Factor 2, it is vital to prepare all ob­jectives that focus only on ends; never just on means or resources. There are three levels of results, shown in Table 2, that are important to target and link.

There are three levels of planning and results, based on who is to be the primary client and beneficiary of what gets planned, designed, and delivered. For each level of planning there are three associated levels of results (Mega/Outcomes, Macro/Outputs, Micro/Prod­ucts).

PRIMARY CLIENT AND BENEFICIARY	NAME FOR THE LEVEL OF PLANNING	NAME FOR THE LEVEL OF RESULT	TYPE OF PLANNING
Society and External Clients	Mega	Outcomes	Strategic
The Organization Itself	Macro	Outputs	Tactical
Individuals and Small Groups	Micro	Products	Operational

Table 2. The levels of planning and results that should be linked during planning, doing, and evaluation and continuous improvement and there are three levels of planning.

Critical Success Factor 6: Define “need” as a gap between current and desired results (Not as Insufficient Levels of Resources, Means, or Methods).

Conventional English-language usage would have us employ the common world “need” as a verb (or in a verb sense) .to identify means, methods, activities, and actions and/or resources we desire or intend to use.[6] Terms such as “need to,” “need for,” “needing,” and “needed” are common, conventional, and destructive to useful planning. What? [7]

We have already noted this as Critical Success Factor 2. In order to do reasonable and justifiable planning we have to (1) focus on Ends and not Means, and thus (2) use “need” as a noun. Need, for the sake of useful and successful planning is only used as a noun, as a gap between current and desired results.

If we use need as a noun, we will be able to not only justify useful objectives but we will also be able to justify what we do and deliver on the basis of costs-consequences analysis. We will be able to justify everything we use, do, produce, and deliver. It is the only sensible way we can demonstrate value added.[8]

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[1] It should be noted that the OEM is useful for making sure there is inclusion of each factor in organizational success; it does not actually do the alignment.

[2] These definitions of strategic and tactical are different from other conventional usage. I suggest that defining “strategic” as adding value to society and “tactical” as defining the best ways and means to achieve societal results is more pragmatic and encourages planners to justify any organizational mission in terms of Mega.

[3] An important contribution of strategic planning at the Mega level is that objectives can be linked to justifiable purpose. Not only should one have objectives that state “where you are headed and how you will know when you have arrived,” they should also be justified on the basis of “why you want to get to where you are headed.” While it is true that objectives only deal with measurable destinations, useful strategic planning adds the reasons why objectives should be attained.

[4] There are four scales of measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio. If you can’t name it, how do you know it even exists?

[5] Cf. Kaufman, Watkins, Triner, & Stith, 1998:Summer, and Davis, 2005.

[6] Because most dictionaries provide common usage not necessarily correct usage, they note that "need” is used as a noun as well as a verb. This dual conventional usage doesn’t mean that it is useful. Much of this book depends on a shift in paradigms about “need.” The shift is to use it only as a noun . . . never as a verb or in a verb sense.

[7] As hard as it is to change our own behavior (and most of us who want others to change seem to resist it the most ourselves!) it is central to useful planning to distinguish between Ends and Means.

[8] Sloppy word usage is comfortable but deceptive. How can one justify a statement “we ‘need’ to do a needs assessment” when the only practical needs assessment is about gaps in results, not gaps in means or resources. Words have meaning and using the same word as a noun and as a verb doesn’t model what a true needs assessment is.

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[i] This approach is valid in both bad and good economic times, although crises often allows one the opportunity to change planning and thinking paradigms.

Front-End Analysis (Harless)

The term “front-end analysis” was coined by Joe Harless in 1970. Harless believed that in many of the projects he had worked on, analysis would have been more effective at the front rather than at the end. In other words, Harless thought it would be helpful to fully understand the problem before developing the solution.

As its name suggests, front-end analysis takes place at the beginning of the design process and helps to determine and identify the main problem.

Harless created a list of 13 questions that should be asked before determining interventions for organizational problems.

AN OUNCE OF (GOOD) ASSESSMENT IS WORTH A POUND OF ANALYSIS AND A TON OF CURE

Roger Kaufman

          A number of years ago, Joe Harless in his brilliant An Ounce of Analysis is Worth a Pound of Cure [i] set the stage for encouraging serious people not pick a solution, or cure, before knowing the problem.  

            While it is usual to address presenting symptoms with a “fix” before documenting—assessing the validity, importance, value and worth of the overall problem---this turns out to be both ineffective and inefficient.  

       Not only should you know where you are going and how to tell when you have arrived (measurable objectives),  it is critical to first make sure that where you are going is where you should go.  

      Validating where you are headed and justifying why is the major role of a valid needs assessment.  A lot of time and money has been wasted on fixing the wrong problem and that can be avoided.

          And some of the tools, such as problem analysis, or ADDIE[ii], that are in our conventional arsenal might encourage us to assume that the problem at hand is what the we should resolve…and not just a symptom of an underlying problem.

In our ASTD book Needs Assessment for Organizational Success[iii] we take the insight even further.  Analysis—the process of breaking something down into its parts and showing the relationships among the parts== is important and useful ONLY if you know you are dealing with the actual problem…not just a symptom or even what people think is the real problem.  

In the cold war, President Reagan said “trust but verify” and that is useful in today’s professional performance improvement world. We best justify our problem before moving forward to the pound of analysis and a ton of cure.  Of course, the ‘heavy lifting’ in any organization is in the analysis and cure but before expending our time and talent, let’s do the assessment first.

In their writings, both Deming and Juran noted that 80-90% of all performance problems are not about individual performance but breakdowns at higher levels: the organization itself and in our shared society,  No matter how efficiently and effectively the crew of the Titanic re-arranged the deck chairs, what was require was not steam into an iceberg.  

No matter how well trained the crew and how well they worked together to meet passenger expectations the direction in which the ship was headed was the most important factor,

One could analyze the performance of individual and groups of crew members, they could analyze team behavior and they could have set up massive training and human resource development programs and all would have been futile.  So even a ton of analysis and then a pound of cure ,would not make the mission successful. And there is where assessment comes in.

Ingrid Guerra-Lopez and I make the argument, and supply the concepts and tools for that vital—even critical—ounce of assessment. Good assessment.  By defining a “need” as a gap in results, and by assessing those gaps in results at three aligned levels:  (1) societal/external clients, (2) organizational, and then (3) individual and small groups we can determine if the organization is heading in the correct and most practical direction. And if they are not, valid information can be provided to change direction. That is the most useful type of needs assessment.

The justification for determining if the problem to be assessed and then cured is based on prioritizing the needs at each of the three levels on the basis of the costs to meet the needs (close the gaps in results) and compared to the costs of ignoring them.  By doing this ‘ounce of assessment’ before doing the pound of analysis and a ton of cure we can better assure that all we do in analysis and cure/development will be successful.

Doing so is practical, ethical, and will lead to measurable success.

Roger Kaufman

rkaufman@nettally.com

END NOTES

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[i]  Harless, J. An Ounce of Analysis is Worth a Pound of Cure. Newnan, GA: Harless Performance Guild, 1975)

[ii] Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, evaluation (ADDIE)

[iii] Kaufman, R, & Guerra-Lopez, I. (2013)  Needs Assessment for Organizational Success, Alexandria, Va. ASTD Press