Mission Success Bingo: Do Not Forget the “O” in Bingo!

Please join us for a little game of Organizational Success Bingo! Successful mission execution requires organizational effectiveness, which always includes efficiency. While efficiency may not be a sufficient condition for effectiveness, effectiveness is not fully realized without paying attention to efficiency. And without both of these, you cannot get to successful execution. So, simply put, Efficiency and Effectiveness get you to successful Execution, but that still is not enough to get you bingo.

So, while execution, efficiency, and effectiveness are long-standing measures of organizational performance, a new word has entered the board – optimization. Lately, we are hearing a lot about optimization – as in the optimization of people, systems, processes, technology, resources, and structures. Optimization adds a different nuance to the conversation; frequently understood to mean that you are getting more (or achieving more) out of the same, different, or less (but enhanced) resources. In that manner, it sits alongside efficiency and effectiveness and, in the resource-constrained environments that our clients experience, optimization has always been part of the game. Or maybe we should say – Optimization, Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Execution gets us Bingo! So, get your playing card ready and read along for a handful of ways FMP approaches optimization for our clients.

Business Process Improvement (BPI)

FMP understands business processes need to be streamlined and precise to ensure delays to workflow are removed- this is efficiency. Our experts in BPI guide our clients through a rigorous approach to cataloguing existing business processes and then prioritizing and targeting those processes that are mission essential. Once those mission essential processes have been identified, we help our clients identify the necessary sequencing of events, business activities, approvals, and practices needed while eliminating bottlenecks and reducing redundancies. In doing so, we ensure we are optimizing each of these components to achieve the greatest impact through minimal use of resources (usually time and people). That process ensures that we have outlined effective processes. Our services help our clients cut operational costs, reduce time to action, achieve enhanced productivity, and enhance operational performance- leading to successful mission execution.

Talent Management

FMP knows the best and brightest performers are the most expensive and difficult to replace and yet often the most likely to leave an organization due to an abundance of job opportunities. Thus, we work with our clients to avoid common talent pitfalls (and inefficient hiring processes) by clearly defining the job requirements across core functions and developing competency models that capture the capabilities needed to execute those job requirements effectively (and efficiently, I might add!). We leverage key people analytics data to determine whether the current talent pool is capable of performing those job requirements effectively. The culmination of the insights and data points we capture, we then help our clients build out and implement strategies to effectively attract, develop, and retain those high-performance staff. This approach, in turn, optimizes the organizations resources decisions and positions our clients maximize their focus on organizational performance and mission success!

Performance Management

FMP takes the concept of sound performance management very seriously. Without clear performance criteria, staff struggle to effectively anchor themselves to the organization’s mission. Inefficiency is often the result of weak or nonexistent performance management practices. FMP helps our clients create performance management systems and practices that define what is expected in terms of staff performance (i.e., the criteria), and how staff are measuring against those criteria. This we know to be true- fully optimized organizations are comprised of high performing staff and teams.

Organization and Programmatic Management (includes Evaluation)

FMP sees evaluation as a major key to answering what drives or hinders organizational, its programs, and ultimately mission success. In fact, evaluation is one of the clearest ways to determine efficiency and effectiveness of a program. We work with our clients to define relevant performance metrics, to quantify the impact of outcomes, and provide tangible evidence to the business case for sustaining or revamping a program. By aggregating our analysis across programs, offices, and/or divisions allows us to provide a clear picture to our clients of their organizational performance- both now and in the future. FMP also understands some organizations shy away from program evaluation because of the suspected resource investments and time program evaluations may take. However, FMP has tools and techniques that help to expedite an evaluation and still provide important insights that result in clients making informed business decisions. Our experts have developed checklists, metric scorecards, and other simple-to-interpret tools to enhance our clients’ knowledge of how their programs are performing. We have also mapped out methods for conducting evaluability assessments (EAs) which are a popular precursor to a full process, formative, summative, impact, and/or outcome evaluation. The EA is a way to prepare programs for a full evaluation- it can make the formal evaluation process more efficient by ensuring the programs have all available documentation, data, and answers at their fingertips as soon as the evaluation kicks off.

FMP is proud to be front runners in these capability areas, among many other offerings. We acknowledge the pace at which these services must be delivered (efficiency) is nearly as important as the depth of expertise and quality with which we serve our clients (effectiveness). Thus, we staff our client projects in a such a way to optimize our own approach to business. FMP encourages existing and new clients to share your strategic objectives with us and allow our team to ensure you are on the path to mission success. Or, put another way ‘We will get you Bingo!

Candace Blair Cronin has her master’s and Ph.D. from Penn State University in Industrial-Organizational Psychology. Dr. Blair Cronin is proud to have worked for more than 24 years with private and public sector client at Federal, state, and local levels to help them achieve tangible, cost-effective results. When Dr. Blair Cronin is not partnering with her clients on important initiatives, she is working hard to keep pace with the active social lives of her four teenagers and her small zoo of household pets. In addition to her family, a big passion of Dr. Blair Cronin’s is advocating for children in foster care and informally mentoring foster and adoptive parents.