5. Analysis at work (Part 3): Examples

Audience Analysis for Buffy™ Franchise Owner/Managers

 Franchise owners and managers are at the heart of the success of the Buffy™ Centers, in the opinion of Buffy and Elron. Their view is supported by the literature, which typically points to the powerful impact that front line managers have on success. We’re interested in them and their posture regarding the Techno-Fitness system.

Franchise owners and managers are a mixture of men and women in nearly equal numbers. The majority would be perceived as middle class, and self-identify as such, and represent a variety of ethnicities including African-American (15%), Asian/Pacific Islander (11%), and Caucasian (69%). Interestingly, 55% of the centers are owned and managed by husband and wife teams. A strong education background, evidenced by college preparation in some type of fitness- or health-related program, is typical for this group. The youngest Buffy™ managers are just under 30 years of age. The typical owner/manager is between 40 and 45 years of age.

For nearly all, this is their first foray into business. Why did they open a fitness center? First and foremost, the owner/managers report that they want to help people get in shape and lead healthier lives. An owner stated, "My grandfather had a heart attack at age 45… I want to help people get in shape so that doesn’t happen to them."

They say that making a profit is important, but few mention it first or even early in their discussions. Most believe the "health craze" today is the ticket to their financial security. One owner put it like this, "It seemed like in the 1980s everyone was heading back to the gym, so it was a natural opportunity to make money." They want to stay in business and keep doing the work. This leads them to be eager to recruit new members. The Techno-Fitness System was only mentioned once as a means to attract new business. Not one person saw it as a means of retaining members, and none recognized the cost of continually finding new people, even though their member base was significantly eroding through failure to retain members.

Finally, familiarity with technology is a significant aspect of business management that the group lacks. In fact, 85% report that they do not own a computer at home, nor use a computer outside their business. When queried, just under 10% expressed curiosity about the Techno-Fitness system.

Front End Analysis of the Buffy™ Situation

Let’s hypothesize data that comes from interviews at 15 sites, with 14 owners, 8 managers who are not owners, and 10 employees. The sites were randomly selected; the sources at the sites were opportunistic. Here’s a table that presents a portion of the FEA findings and their implications for Buffy.

Goal Analysis for the Buffy™ Enterprise

With goal analysis, Buffy can define success so that she can recognize it when it happens. Goal analysis will enable her to prioritize what is most important and feasible, to get clear about what success really looks like.

There were several goals that Buffy and her associates want to accomplish. One fuzzy goal was to create a feeling of community at the various sites. Together with successful owners, Buffy and Elron created a positive list with exemplary behaviors as indicative of such a goal:

• Employ people based on their eagerness to serve customers, rating that characteristic higher than others.
• Venture out into the exercise and planning areas every time they are in the centers, chatting with members when they move through the stations.
• Contribute to the Buffy Times.
• Sponsor at least one special activity each quarter, such as health workshops and happy hours.
• Use the communications module that is a part of Buffy’s™ Techno Fitness System, to make certain that customers get personalized messages .
• Greet customers by name and ask how they’re doing as they enter the gym.
• Distribute "I buffed out at Buffy’s™" T-shirts, bumper stickers and paraphernalia.
• Owners will be visible and friendly, using the Buffy™ handshake.

Additionally, they determined specific characteristics and elements conducive for the creation of the community feeling:

• Bulletin boards for local news and member announcements.
• Serene environment; low to moderate volume on music, work out machines positioned close enough together so that members can talk.
• Friends sweat free Fridays where a member can bring one friend to check out the facility.
  

Buffy and Elron realized that for communicating the importance of community, it might be helpful to also create a negative list. Therefore, they described how the opposite of the community feeling goal would look like:

Unfriendly environment Inattentive employees, failing to greet, no personalization or customization, no first name recognition Members left on their own to figure out how the equipment works Machines far apart Music loud Members unable to access their records Invisible owners Owner too busy to help Not homey, sterile dull environment No one seeks you out No welcome or initiation for new members No social activities outside of the gym Employees paying overmuch attention, not reading when a customer wants to be left alone

At the same time, Buffy also wanted to establish a "Buffy-Identity". She said, "I want members to feel at home no matter which Buff™y site they choose to visit." There must be some common Buffy™ elements that comfort folks if they visit when they are on the road for business or family. With the help of some of their successful owners, Buffy and Elron identified the following elements:

• Brand recognition
• Consistent colors and logos in all sites
• Consistent promotions in all sites
• Display of the history of Buffy’s™
• Access to member records no matter where they work out
• Distribution of Buffy™ Times
• Display of rules and regulations for instructors and employees in break room
• Acknowledgement of employees and sites that are adding to the Buffy-Identity
• Standards of customer service

Again, Buffy and Elron developed a negative list to make clear what in their opinion must be avoided in order to establish a feeling of identiy:

• Different rules and regulations at each Buffy™ site
• Different level of customer service at each site
• No history or sense of cohesion
• No visible leadership
• No standard uniforms or colors

Finally, a catalog of activities was developed which owners have to put into action in order to create a sense of identity:

1. Display monthly promotions material (posters and signs) visibly in the gym within the first 5 days of the month.
2. Use the Buffy™ logo and communications colors and standards for all visible communications with customers and the public
3. Display the Buffy™ story, in pictures and words, within eyeshot of the reception area in each center.
4. Make the Buffy™ Techno Fitness system available at every site and enable visitors to readily access their records, no matter where they are.
5. Provide the Buffy™ Times in the reception and locker rooms.
6. Post rules and regulations in employees and instructors break rooms.
7. Sponsor grass roots meeting quarterly to check in with members to receive their feedback on the Buffy-Identity.
8. Engage in dialogue at each site on the subject of customer service and shared national quality standards.

These statements now serve as the basis for objectives associated with each of the abstract and important goals that concern Buffy.

Subject Matter and Task Analysis for Buffy™ Training Initiatives

A subject matter analysis focuses on what performers must know to do their job optimally. It leads us to articulation and representation of an invisible body of the knowledge. Task analysis, on the other hand, evokes and represents tangible, visible performance.

a) Context

Buffy’s original performance analysis identified, among others, that most owners/managers aren’t using the computer support that comes with the franchise. Another big concern of hers was the introduction of the new nutrition program. Let’s look at each of these broad targets:

• The new nutrition program can be seen as a rollout opportunity for both Buffy™ employees and Buffy™ customers. Likely, they don’t know ‘it,’ don’t know how to do it, couldn’t roll it out if you put a gun to their heads. What do managers need to know about the new nutrition program? What constitutes proper and effective explanation/use of it?
• Using the computer equipment, however, is an existing problem. What should managers know and do with the Techno-Fit program? How is it currently used to help and retain customers? Why does Buffy have these problems with it, when the company has tried to help owner/managers use the hardware and software? What’s driving this problem?

For both topics, the description of the optimal performance is the foremost goal of the analysis. The approaches to gather this information, however, are different as can be seen below.

b) Subject matter/Content analysis: The New Nutrition Program

Sources of Expertise. The first step in the subject matter analysis is to identify the sources of expertise. To whom can we go and where can we look for the information?

Because the nutrition program was newly developed, interviewing so-called expert performers is impossible&endash;there are none! No Buffy manager has yet to use this program. It’s an original. In this case, the most promising source are the people, who developed this program. These are the Harvard expert, Prof. N. Shape, and Buffy herself. An additional source could be the literature about adult nutrition, in general.

Content Analysis. The next step in the subject matter analysis is to clarify and analyze the content. We asked the two experts to provide us with an overview of the nutrition program and if there are any organizing principles or rules associated with this subject matter. We were also interested in the different parts and elements of the content and what’s unique or important about it. Based on their answers we tried to structure the subject matter so it made sense to ourselves.

According to Prof. N. Shape and Buffy, the main goal of the new nutrition program is to teach the customers some basics about nutrition in general. Customers should not be overwhelmed with detailed knowledge because this wouldn’t address their needs. The underlying philosophy, which should be communicated, is that a healthy nutrition is one of the pillars of a healthy life, and that it is a series of mundane and daily decisions on which it is based. Since working out in a Buffy™ Center is another pillar, nutrition and exercise, Buffy™ services, are complementing each other.

Additionally, the two experts told us that there are two major categories of information, which we identified as conceptual knowledge and procedural skills. The first and conceptual category includes parts and elements such as types of foods or measurement units such as calories.. The procedural category comprises the necessary steps and tasks such as weight measuring, etc. Some elements are related to both categories. For example, there are concepts associated with food choices melded to the challenges of typical adult days (e.g., healthy and unhealthy) as well as procedures (e.g., determine optimal food combination). The graph below shows the elements of the program and their relationship to each other.

c) Task analysis: Using the computer equipment

Sources of Expertise. The first step in a task analysis is also to identify expert performers. Because the computer equipment is already in use in some Buffy™ Centers and the idea for doing so was actually developed by Buffy herself, it was possible to find sources to observe as they model optimal performance with Techno-Fitness.

We first observed Bill Ellison. Bill is a friend of Buffy and Elron and was one of the first franchise owners. He also helped to develop the second version of the computer program, which Buffy originally used when she started out with this business. The current version of the software was developed by a commercial vendor to add the required networking capabilities.

Although the vendor had supplemented the software with a manual, it was not helpful for the purposes of this task analysis. As it turned out later in the analysis process, the manual was written by the person who wrote the software code and lacked the necessary information novices require when they first use the software. Instead, it started out with a theoretical discussion of client-server architectures and their characteristics.

Task Analysis. Bill came up with the idea to focus first on the single most important operation franchise owners or their employees have to perform: creating a new record file for new customers in the computer database. How would an employee use the computer to perform this task?

The task can be broken down in performing the task itself and in prerequisite steps. A prerequisite step might be to turn on the computer in case this hasn’t been done already. Another prerequisite would be to make a picture of the customer with the digital camera. The flow chart below shows the sequence of steps one has to go through in order to accomplish the task of setting up a new customer record.