If your organization isn't going to have one, now will be the perfect time for you to introduce a Program Evaluation system.

Why is this the opportune time for your organization to apply an outcomes management, (Program Evaluation) System?

Performance evaluation systems can be classified along a number of dimensions that capture variations within their structure, content, and process characteristics. Among-the most significant dimensions will be the following:

Who/what is evaluated? Do we evaluate the individual, the workgroup, the division?

Who performs (and it has input into) the evaluation? Is it produced by each individual's immediate supervisor? Peers, subordinates, or customers? How much input does the individual being evaluated has into the company evaluation software and in appealing the end result?

Time period: short to long. What is the time-frame over which data are collected (either formally and objectively or informally) before evaluations are rendered?

Objective/formulaic versus subjective/impressionistic evaluations. In certain cases, performance is measured very objectively, using unambiguous measures of distinct facets of performance. For instance, a salesperson might be scored on Euros sales, new customers developed, and increases in orders by old customers, and these being put on some standard scale (e.g., standard deviations from the mean performance of salesmen within the organization) and then weighted 40%, 40%, and 20%, respectively. Nevertheless, employees in a facility may be evaluated and rated based on the subjective overall impressions of their immediate superiors.

When objective or formulaic evaluations are used, there will be the further issue of how closely tailored the formula must be to the situation of each individual. At one extreme, every similarly situated individual in the firm (say, every salesperson) is evaluated using the exact same rigid formula. The middle ground includes cases through which people are evaluated against their own previous performance; improvements are noted, but the same categories are utilized for each individual. At another extreme are systems in which each individual in each period has a specially tailored group of goals and objectives. A prime example of this is management by objectives schemes, in which each individual takes part in designing his or her group of objectives.

Relative versus absolute performance. In some instances, employees are evaluated on an absolute scale-for example, sales volume, units produced a week, touchdowns scored, or dollar value of hours billed to clients. In other instances, performance is evaluated on some sort of relative basis, or performance is measured on a mix of absolute and relative performance. Commonly, the benchmark which is used will be the performance of other individuals, either within the organization or outside, who are presumed to face the exact same productive environment and constraints as well as to possess similar capability levels. In other cases, performance is measured relative to the individual's own previous performance.

Forced distribution versus unspecified percentages. When summary categories are used, a forced distribution (a lot of percent in category 1, a lot of in category 2, etc.) may be employed, or perhaps the percentages may go unspecified. Remember that where forced distributions are used, there has to be some sort of relative performance evaluation going on, even when only implicitly.

Multi-source versus single-source evaluation. In some systems, data are gathered entirely or largely from just one source, such as the person's supervisor. Other evaluation systems gather performance appraisals from many sources-customers, peers, supervisors, and so on-where each source is asked to appraise those aspects of performance that the source can reasonably be expected to learn about.

Multi-criterion versus single summary statistic. In perhaps the majority of performance evaluation systems, all the data are ultimately massaged into a single summary rating statistic of overall performance. Many dimensions of performance may enter into this statistic, but the final outcome is one-dimensional. In some other systems, there is absolutely no try to formulate an individual statistic. In the middle are systems where there's a summary statistic that's very coarse (almost everyone is within the same category), grading many dimensions.