Myths and Truths of Diagnostics

Diagnostics like many other business activities have been included in a phrase and reduced to a three letter acronym IDB which stands for Information, Diagnostics and Brokerage, but what are they really about?

In their simplistic context it means provision of information and it is carried out before brokering in specialist services, however, when you dig deep it is a far richer subject with many applications and possibilities than we would originally envisage.

Business Advisors and Consultants have used diagnostic tools for years, and have done so through a mix of experience and direct questioning to ascertain and diagnose business problems.

Enterprise agencies and business support organisations are generally subscribing to on-line diagnostic tools to help new businesses understand their strengths and weaknesses and provide an action plan for their learning. This process has to fit with the time constraints on the owner manager and the business advisor and the results have to be meaningful and relevant to each individual that signs up to the experience.

There are banks who use Entrepreneurial Assessments to ascertain whether or not a new business person has the right personal skills to run a business.

But what makes a good diagnostic tool? Is it the questions and the way they are asked, benchmarking so that there is a guide for what is good and bad, the reporting process leading to action or the people intervention that has to take place to effect change.

Simply put it is all these things. A good diagnostic will be written so that it captures the information that is relevant to move a business forward, it will provide time savings which result in monetary savings and lead to a positive action.

Business Advisors and Consultants that use diagnostic tools as a substitute to personal contact should be viewed with caution. While a diagnostic process is extremely worthwhile it will only be truly successful with ongoing evaluation and personal intervention. This could be carried out by a consultant or in-house specialist in a particular field of expertise.

For a diagnostic process to be highly effective there needs to be a vision in place ensuring the buy-in of all involved. The framework, questions and process of the diagnostic should provide a practical approach to gathering information in order to move towards the vision with the stakeholders owning their personal involvement.

When diagnostics are used in this way and people work together for an end goal they are highly effective and an extremely cost effective way of gathering information to highlight strengths and weaknesses to move a business forward.

Businesses use diagnostic processes for many reasons, training needs analysis, benchmarking, SWOT, customer care, to mention a few. We at Taylored Assessments specialise in designing, developing and delivering diagnostic processes for many different types of businesses. We also provide software for our clients to use in their brranding, enabling them to develop their own questionnaires, deploy on-line and analyse results linked into reports that are generated through Word. For more information visit our website www.taylored-assessments.net or give us a call on 00 44 (0) 191 284 9273