Business Case

Executive Summary

There are many definitions for performance. Some will define performance as the goods and services provided by an organization, while others define it in terms of profitability, productivity, and efficiency. Stolovitch (2007) provide a clear and concise definition. He defines performance as a “valued accomplishment derived from costly behavior” (p.136). This definition highlights the fact that performance should be linked to desirable organizational goals. From the many definitions, we can think of performance as the tangible, measurable, desired outcomes resulting from the effort of people within an organization.

Technology also has many definitions. Hughes (1996) defines it as technology associated technical and social systems in which a technological tool is used. Scientific and systematic knowledge is required for the effective development and use of any technology.

With these definitions of performance and technology, we can define performance technology as a field of practice that uses various tools, processes, and ideas in a scientific, systematic manner to improve the desired outcomes of individuals and organizations.

Performance technology represents a fundamental shift in thinking about how to improve performance. Traditional views have tended to focus on training as an organization’s primary tool for performance improvement. For example, under the traditional view, if the quality of a product was found to be below acceptable standards at a factory, workers would be given additional training to improve their skill levels and, as a result, improve the quality of the products. There are, however, a number of problems with this traditional view of training. The most compelling and most widely cited argument against the traditional view is that the skills and knowledge acquired during training often have limited transfer to the worksite. In fact, training is now usually seen as a short term solution to a performance problem (Rothwell, Lindholm, & Wallick, 2003) and often the performance improvement strategy of “last resort” (Rothwell, 1996, p. 252).

Performance technology, on the other hand, takes a more holistic view to identify performance problems and develop solutions to those problems. In the above example, performance technologists would look for all of the possible root causes of the factory’s quality problem, including the tools the workers use the organizational culture, motivational issues, supporting processes, and management policies. From a performance technology perspective, training is one of many possible solutions to a performance problem, not the only, and often not the best, solution. The fundamental paradigm shift of performance technology is, therefore, to change from a focus on learning to a focus on performance (Rosenberg, 1995).

Performance technologists use a