Diagnosis

System Diagnosis

Diagnose the Existing Design

Diagnosis consists of thee related activities: identify of the “technical” strengths and opportunities for improvement, determine the maturity levels, and identify the most important user perceptions of the usability and effectiveness of the current system. Understand the quality or maturity of the existing system and the convenience of the current design.

Note: If an explicit description of the current system doesn’t exist, the team may need to document the current system prior to continuing with the diagnosis.

Step one: Answer the following questions:

To identify the strengths and opportunities for improvement, the design team addresses seven questions:

1. How well does the current system fulfill the purposes and requirements identified in step1?

2. How consistent is the current design with the nature of the system identified in step 2?

3. How consistent is the current design with the relevant theories and concepts - step 3?

4. How does the design compare to the inspiring examples identified in step 4?

5. How well does the current design "fit" and "support" the unique context of the organization identified in step 5?

6. How does the current design reflect the design principles identified in step 6?

7. How well is the current design integrated with the other related management systems identified in step 7?

Step two: Identify the Strengths and Opportunities for Improvement - Identify strengths and opportunities for improvement. For those organizations that participate in a CPE-based assessment program the feedback report should provide a good start on this step. If you do not have a feedback report then simply assess the strengths and opportunities for improvement and list these in enough detail to ensure a common understanding among the design team.

Click on diagram for larger PDF view.

Step three: Maturity Levels - Once the qualitative comments are developed identify the maturity level of the system or process on four maturity dimensions - approach, deployment, learning, and integration (ADLI). For more on the four dimensions (ADLI) and the associated maturity levels refer to the chapter titled – Maturity Models. The new design should increase the maturity levels.

Step four: User Perceptions - Identify process participant (user) perceptions. What is it like to experience or execute this process? Is it convenient? Too often design teams are so focused on meeting the “hard” requirements that they forget to make the system convenient to the users. Accounting processes are a good example. In many cases accounting processes are designed to be accurate and effective – this is a great starting point. However, many accounting processes are not very convenient. Convenience is important for three reasons. First, inconvenient processes waste valuable employee time reducing productivity and increasing costs. Second, inconvenient processes send the message to the employees that their time isn’t valuable to the organization. Third, a process that is convenient for the new users to execute is easier to implement and increases the likelihood that the deployment will be successful and sustainable.

Click on diagram for larger PDF view.