You have been working for the company for some time, you know there are problems but you can't identify what they are. Or maybe you have some idea but can't put your finger on it. You are being beaten time and again when quoting against competitors, you realise you are falling down somewhere, but where???
Up to now there hasn't really been any method of analysing and measuring your company against best practice and World Class standards. Now there is.

Eric Warner, one of the founding members of PSQ, has been developing and refining a methodology for measuring organisational performance since 1989. It is called COMPETE © which means:

C omprehensive
O perations
M ethods and 
P rocedures
E xamination
T esting and
E valuation

This methodology covers all the main aspects of a company and provides a formal, efficient and comprehensive approach to measuring the "Corporate Health" of your organisation.
It is objective, unaffected by internal politics, self checking and anonymous which guarantees staff the security to open up to the consultant and reveal potentially critical information that may otherwise never come to the fore.

The benefits of the methodology to the organisation are:

• It offers a much more comprehensive understanding of the organisation and how it actually works
• It gives a very clear indication of the attitudes of the staff and their perceptions of how the organisation works. This perception is often very different from reality.
• It is an independent and unbiased assessment of the organisation's rating in terms of World Class performance
• It produces a common baseline of information about the organisation that is objective and that will improve internal communication by giving all participants a common set of terms to work with and use for information interchange.
• It also gives the organisation a common set of goals that are understood by all participants. These goals are based on external analysis and input but, because they are based on internal criteria, they are fully internalised, communicated and accepted by all concerned.
• It produces an action plan that sets out:
  the areas that really need attention
  The resources needed to address the shortcomings.
  The people accountable for achieving each objective
  The success criteria and
  The due dates for each activity

All this helps the organisation to save money by only working on those things that really need attention and not the hobby horses of influential individuals that benefit a tiny minority.
In the final analysis it is the enabler that that releases the ability of the organisation to reach true World Class competitiveness.

Summarised Methodology

What follows is a condensed version of the formal methodology document. That document is available only to those who have signed the copyright/non-disclosure agreement. 

Sequence of Operations.
We assume that the opening discussions have occurred and that the benefits are accepted by the client. After that the following steps take place.

Step 1 - Executive Overview.
Gather all the senior executives of the company - either the directors or general managers of at least the following departments:
    -      Managing Director
    -      Production
    -      Finance/Administration
    -      Logistics
    -      Purchasing
    -      Inventory
    -      Human Resources
    -      Engineering 
Plus any others noted as relevant.

The consultant will present, over about 4 hours, the basic theory of the process and explain the 13 areas examined, noting the inter-relationships of the different areas. The steps in the procedure are presented as they are laid out below. We must stress the confidentiality of the replies. The consultant will assess, with management, any specific environmental factors in the client company and define areas of the review that may need special emphasis or, equally, areas that can be down played or ignored. Thereafter the consultant will identify, with management, the specific individuals who will be part of the interview process. These people together with their job titles and departments are then listed and
Organisation charts and existing procedures manuals to support the list of individuals selected are gathered

Step 2 - Questionnaire allocation.
Obviously, not every participant receives every questionnaire. Many questionnaires are specific to certain functions or departments. There are certain questionnaires that must be given to all participants. These act as a control group that assesses the company's effectiveness and commitment with regard to core functions such as education and communication. The consultant will prepare the sets of questionnaires and list these against each individual selected. There is included an introduction page that gives the rationale for the process (which should be with them already - their managers need to prepare them) as well as the "scoring" system. The relevant documents are part of the main methodology. 
The managers pass out the questionnaires to their subordinates and, at the same time, set up a series of interviews to review the results.
We normally allow one week for respondents to consider their replies and complete the questionnaires.
We gather all questionnaires PERSONALLY on the 5th working day.
The consultant reviews the replies, taking note of extreme responses, wide ranges of answers, items consistently receiving zero etc.

Step 3 - the interviews.
There are two parts to this process:-
¨ Re-asking the questions while putting the information into a "World Class" context.
¨ Asking additional questions to substantiate (or refute) the answers given initially.
The interviewer must also record any and all revised ratings given by respondents during this process - these are important pointers in the reporting process.
We allow, on average, 2 hours per interview.

Step 4 - tabulate results.
The ratings per question (0-4) are entered for each question per participant, both original and revised values.
A set of statistics are then drawn up based on these replies. These include (but are not limited to) range per question, average rating per question- average rating per interviewee etc.
These results form a significant part of the basis for the report.

Step 5 - the report.
There are six sections to the report plus a series of appendices:

¨ Section 1 - Introduction and acknowledgements
¨ Section 2 - Analysis and commentary by check list section
¨ Section 3 - General commentary
¨ Section 4 - Analysis by technical elements
¨ Section 5 - Conclusions
¨ Section 6 - Recommendations
Appendices will include an assessment chart by section - both before and after interviews, range charts, results matrices plus any other information required and previously agreed with management. It will never contain anything that could identify individual respondents so that their confidentiality is guaranteed.

The following sections may need further explanation:

Section 2 - the reviewer will gather responses from the interviewees and report back the overall "mood" of the individuals regarding the status of the company in each of the review areas. It also allows the reporting of individual opinions without needing to identify who made the statements.

Section 3 - A major advantage of this process is the opportunity for the reviewer to observe the operations of the company. This includes many things that are not directly part of the review e.g. plant layout, general staff attitudes, etc. Section 3 allows the chance to report this.

Section 4 - This summarises, in narrative, the information developed in the tabulation exercise.

Step 6 - Present the draft report.
This is given to the project sponsor for that person to distribute as necessary. The idea is to allow 2 days for review and feedback from participants. It is, obviously, possible, even likely that misinterpretations, errors or perhaps untruths may creep in and this is the chance for these to be highlighted.

Step 7 - Evaluate replies.
Each reply is evaluated. Further investigation is carried out if warranted. The report is revised as necessary and a final version sent to the sponsor.

Step 8 - The feedback forum.
This is a half-day "seminar" to allow interactive discussion and feedback. It will revolve mainly around the conclusions drawn and recommendations made by the reviewer. Used correctly, this process will lead to an ongoing process whose goal is to bring the company to Class "A" status.

Conclusion.
The COMPETE© review is a powerful tool in identifying areas of weakness in a company in a way that is non-threatening and positive. Our experience with this Locally developed and refined methodology has shown us that it is extremely successful, cost effective and well received by participants.
Projects based on the outcomes of this review are focused, well measured and produce rapid, profitable results for the organisation investing in the process.

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