5. Analysis and Gap Identification 

Once you have completed your interviews and the other parts of the information gathering effort, it is time to conduct the analysis and identify the gaps. If you performed Step #1, identifying the client vision, you should have a good idea of what the client wants to accomplish. At this point, you also have a clear idea of where the organization stands related to the vision. In some cases, the gap between vision and the current reality may be small and, in other cases, it may be large. It is unlikely that your services would have been retained if the former was the case. 

Your task at this juncture is to take all of the information you have gathered, identify the gaps, and make recommendations for gap closure by the client. 

There are many ways to do this analysis. However, the key thing to remember is that it is your job in this phase to develop a clear picture of the current state along with factual information to support your conclusions. If you have interviewed alone, then this task falls solely to you. If you have interviewed with a team, then be prepared for long team meetings as you sort through the information and try to gain a common understanding of the site’s current situation. 

There are three aspects of the analysis phase that need to be considered: the hard skills, the soft skills, and the organizations culture. Each of these will play a role in what is actually going on at the site. Hard skills are the actual tasks that are being performed. Soft skills are the elements that support successful performance of the hard skills. These include leadership, work process, structure, group learning, technology, communication, interrelationships, and rewards. The organizational culture—which includes organizational values, rites and rituals, role models, and the cultural infrastructure—consists of the essential controlling factors for all current tasks as well as those which you may wish to implement or alter. For this reason, they need to be taken into account as you develop your recommendations. There is further detail about soft skills and the organizational culture in Chapter 5 and even greater detail in my book Improving Maintenance and Reliability Through Cultural Change. If you wish further clarity on these very critical elements of change, I suggest you read this material. 

In the analysis phase, you need to understand clearly what is happening currently in the site as it relates to your task, which is to develop recommendations to close the gap between the current (as is) state and the vision (to be) state. The question is: How can you effectively and efficiently handle this task? I have a format I have followed that ties in the hard skills, the soft skills, and the elements of culture in a way that will let you put all that you have learned in the information gathering phase into perspective. 

Take a blank piece of paper. Across the top of the page, write the vision statement for the effort so that you will keep it in focus. Draw three vertical lines to provide you with three columns. Label them Hard Skills, Soft Skills, and Organizational Culture. In the columns for soft skills and culture, list the individual elements that are the component parts of each. This is shown in Table 8-2.  

Table 8-2 The Analysis Form

Now ask yourself, “In my interviews and other information gathering efforts, what did I learn or discover about the current (as is) state at the site and their effort to achieve the vision?” List the information in the proper place on the page by associating it with the various sub-elements. On a separate piece of paper with the same format, list those things you learned that you believe would block the change. This is good reference material. 

In our example, the client wanted to move away from reactive maintenance and institute a planning and scheduling process. Table 8-3 summarizes some of the information gathered during the interview phase of the effort. It is shown in the same format described in Table 8-2, which you should use for this effort. You will also notice that this information provides you with insight into conditions that will serve to block the change.

Table 8-3 The Planning and Scheduling Analysis Example

You may notice that some of the information may fall into more than one category. This is all right because even though a piece of information is identified more than once, the different categories will provide you with different perspectives. 

Once you have completed sorting out your information using the process described, you should have a very clear idea of the problem areas that need to be addressed in Step #6.  

6. Preparation of the Recommendations

Although you and your client may have a good idea of what needs to be done to achieve the vision, how recommendations from your analysis are prepared and presented is critical.

I have found that there is a good way to develop your recommendations for presentation to management. PowerPoint is a very good tool for this purpose. It allows you to present the ideas and, if set up correctly, leaves a great deal of room for discussion. There is one thing of great importance to a successful presentation. You should not use any slide with words smaller than 24 font. First, you don’t want to present the full report on your slides—just the key ideas. Second, words displayed in fonts smaller that 24 are difficult, if not impossible, to read. PowerPoint presentations that the audience can’t read will cause a loss of attention as they try to read the material. Needless to say, as they are doing this, they are not listening to what you have to offer.

A good format for these presentations, one that eases people into the recommendations for change, is structured as follows: 

a. The cover page. 

b. Vision statement from the client so that it is not perceived as yours. 

c. Methodology employed in gathering the information. 

d. Major findings from the information gathering effort. List each finding separately and provide supporting bullet points. 

e. Minor findings which include items of interest and things that are not a major impact. 

f. A high-level list of next steps for the effort. 

g. Suggested detailed next steps to keep the effort moving. Remember the presentation is the end of the beginning of the effort, not the effort itself.   h. Question and answers to enable you to take questions from the audience and clarify any points you still want to make.

The slides are the heart of your presentation. You should also prepare a formal written report describing the same material as you had in your presentation. Don’t make it too long or it will never be read. On the other hand, making it too short will not provide sufficient detail to make the material valid in the view of the reader. I have found that a good solution to making the report a proper length is to provide the details for each slide in the slide’s notes section. In this way, you can print the slides with the notes as your formal report. It helps to keep your audience focused because they can relate the slides they saw in the presentation with the report. 

Another important point is to keep the presentation and the report generic. Avoid any reference to any person or group. Using the third person in reference to the site helps to keep the presentation at a factual level at all times. It also serves to remove defensiveness and encourages discussion. 

Suppose you want to state a finding and make a recommendation about reactive maintenance.

How not to say it 

This information, although valid, attacks the client and their organization. 

Finding 1: Those interviewed conduct maintenance in a poor and highly-reactive manner. Planning does not exist and the planners are used to support field execution. Recommendation: Management needs to implement a planning and scheduling process; it must stop performing maintenance activities in the current inefficient manner. Planners must be used for planning purposes.

A better way to present the finding and recommendation

Finding 1: The work process at the site appears to be highly reactive. Although there are identified planners within the organization, they do not appear to be effectively utilized.

Recommendation: In line with the vision, work processes that effectively utilize the planners and deliver an efficient planning and scheduling process should be implemented.

If you carefully examine both statements you will recognize the generic nature of the second way to present the information. In a generic format, you are not attacking anyone. People will be more willing to listen and hopefully support the steps to implement it.