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Intervention

Page history last edited by bbraine1@gsu.student.edu 11 years, 11 months ago

The Intervention Step is the third in the ASTD Human Performance Improvement process:

 

 

An intervention in HPI terms is a tool that is used to solve an organizational problem.  An intervention that has been used repeatedly in a number of different industries with success may become known as a “best practice”.  Best practices are often written about in periodicals and books, studied by HPI professionals and experts, and undergo more refinement as organizations and industries change with market forces.  Examples of HPI interventions that became best practices are the ISO 9000 certification and Human Capital Management (HCM) software.

 

An intervention specialist is an HPI professional that has focused on developing the competencies critical in this step.  Data analysis is an important competency for the intervention specialist as it is for the analyst from the prior two steps.  In addition, the intervention specialist must be proficient at working with many different levels of personnel in an organization and be able to establish a rapport with each.   Successful intervention specialists have a knack for being able to sort through a lot of information to get to the essence of issues while remaining unbiased.  Excellent communication and negotiating skills are necessary because the intervention specialist must communicate the results of this step to all stakeholders and personnel that will be affected by the implementation of the intervention.

 

The ultimate goal of the project is to eliminate the symptoms or problems that led to the root cause of the problem, thus resolving the issue that the intervention specialist and additional HPI consultants have been engaged to address.  Once the problem statement has been defined in the cause analysis step, the intervention specialist begins the process of selecting and designing the intervention(s).  This can be challenging because the cost to implement an intervention must be balanced against the cost of doing nothing.

 

For example, a small private school may have the problem of high turnover.  Cause analysis may determine that the root cause of the problem of high turnover is due to low salaries.  An intervention that could solve this problem would be to increase salaries so that they are ten percent higher than local public and private schools.  However, if there is no money in the school’s budget to be able to fund this payroll increase, this intervention will be most costly to implement than the cost to the school of doing nothing.  In this case the intervention specialist must select or design a lower-cost intervention that will address the problem of high turnover.

 

According to Rothwell, there are four primary sub-steps of the intervention step:

 

1.  Establish the selection criteria

Create a list of the critical requirements of the intervention that will address the problem.

 

2.  Consider alternative interventions

Based on the organization’s resources (e.g., time, money), develop a list of possible interventions and note the drawbacks and benefits of each in a tracking system.

 

3.  Evaluate the alternative interventions against the criteria

Consider the success potential of the possible interventions in meeting the selection criteria.  As a result of this sub-step the prior two sub-steps may need to be revisited if new information becomes available that may affect the intervention selection.

 

4.  Select the appropriate intervention(s) and determine its viability

The appropriate intervention(s) may not be the most popular but if analysis finds it potentially viable, it has the best chance of addressing the organization’s problem.  The intervention specialist must effectively communicate the intervention(s) selected in order to get buy-in from all stakeholders in and outside the organization.

 

Once the appropriate intervention(s) has been selected and communicated to all necessary parties, a project work plan must be developed.  This may be created by the intervention specialist or the implementation specialist; otherwise known as the project manager.  The work plan will be the “blueprint” for the next step in the process of resolving the problem statement.

 

The intervention step is a critical part of the overall HPI model, just as the other five steps are.  However, unlike the performance analysis and cause analysis steps, the intervention step is sometimes repeated along with the last three steps, implementation, change management, and evaluation and measurement.

 

 

This can happen when a project is not successful in that it does not adequately address or solve the organization’s problem.  In these instances the project is either terminated, leaving the problem unresolved, or a new HPI consultant is called in to provide a fresh perspective on solving the problem.  Many HPI professionals have both worked on a project early in their career that was not successful, and worked on the second or even third or more attempts by an organization to solve a problem. 

 

After all, this is how many best practices develop… 

 

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