Probe Qualitative Tool

Introduction

PROBE is a proven methodology that will demonstrate how business practices are driving company performance across a demanding scorecard of performance measures. It provides positive business returns through identifying actions that directly link internal activities to customer satisfaction and retention and ultimately to profitability.

The PROBE benchmarking tool is universally applicable, able to be used by any business or organisation that wishes to submit the way it operates and the results it achieves to scrutiny and challenge.

It is a powerful best practice benchmarking and assessment tool, powered by data from over 8,500 business users in 60 countries.

A first stage for a company on its journey to excellence is to assess its current position. How well does it measure up against its peers and how is it perceived in the eyes of its customers and employees?

Undertaking a PROBE benchmark and acting on its findings can achieve:

A rapid identification of strengths & weaknesses for practical improvements
Improved Customer Service and Employee Morale
Greater Customer Satisfaction and Retention
Reduction in staff absenteeism and an increase in productivity
A competitive advantage and greater profitability

How PROBE works

The PROBE methodology combines several key components

A skilled and knowledgeable organisational development adviser, trained as a PROBE facilitator
A PROBE questionnaire. Each question addresses a particular aspect of organisational practice or performance, inviting you to rate your organisation against descriptors of best practice
A team of colleagues who work within the client organisation, representing a range of roles and perspectives so that collectively they have a wealth of experience and insights into how the organisation works and what it achieves.
The PROBE facilitator works with this team, leading an in-depth discussion of each question in the context of the team’s organisation.
The PROBE Analytical Tool, enables the facilitator to analyse the data (the output of the team’s discussion), producing graphics and reports to shape action plans to address the shortcomings identified.
After an appropriate time period during which the improved performance is expected to be realised (12, 18 or 24 months), the process can be repeated as part of a continuous improvement cycle of activities.

More Information

Download Probe Network “PROBE Explained” [pdf 994KB]

Probe Tools

The PROBE system exists at different levels, representing three different stages of maturity on the journey to sustainable excellence, and/or three different stages of readiness / preference for the depth of PROBE analysis.

Lite: The ‘Lite’ version as the name suggests is a light-touch introduction to the PROBE methodology. It is designed for any organisation that will benefit from a quick, simple assessment providing an overview of its strengths and improvement opportunities. The questionnaire is short, typically 24 questions. The engagement is flexible to suit the context, the business adviser may work one-to-one with an individual representing the business, or perhaps with a very small group. The analysis is less in depth than at the ‘Standard’ and ‘Advanced’ levels.
Standard: The ‘Standard’ version is designed for any organisation that will benefit from a quick and straightforward yet thorough assessment providing an overview of its strengths and improvement opportunities. The questionnaire contains typically 36 questions, it requires the full team approach and produces a thorough benchmarking analysis.
Advanced: The ‘Advanced’ version is designed for any organisation that has made substantial advances on its journey to excellence and will benefit from a challenging, assessment of its strengths and opportunities for further improvement. It is the most stretching and contains 48 team questions and requires more input from the organisation’s PROBE team.

Probe System Questionnaires

We use two variants of the Probe System

The Probe Questionnaire
The Probe for Manufacturing Excellence Questionnaire

1.The Probe Questionnaire, this is applicable to any business, any organisation of any size and type in any sector. It is available at three different levels, Lite, Standard and Advanced.

Probe Questionnaire Advanced Version – Sections & Question Titles

The ‘Standard’ & ‘Lite’ Versions are composed of a subset of this listing.

Section	Question#	PROBE Advanced	Practice or Performance
Develop Vision & Strategy	1	Leadership for sustainable excellence	Practice
	2	Customer and process focus	Practice
	3	Developing vision and strategy	Practice
Develop & Manage Markets, Products & Services	4	Market and sell products and services	Practice
	5	Listening to the customer	Practice
	6	Develop and manage products and services	Practice
Financial Perspective	7	Key results for financial stakeholders	Performance
	8	Cash flow	Performance
	9	Market penetration and share	Performance
	10	Customer retention and loyalty	Performance
Deliver products & Services	11	Design for deliverability and whole life value	Practice
	12	Delivering outstanding quality	Practice
	13	Lean processes	Practice
	14	Visible, challenging standards	Practice
	15	Service recovery	Practice
	16	Effective procurement	Practice
	17	Housekeeping	Practice
	18	Workplace layout	Practice
	19	Managing the work flow	Practice
	20	Managing material quantities	Practice
Manage Customer Services	21	Managing customer interactions	Practice
	22	e-communications with customers & markets	Practice
	23	Measuring customer satisfaction	Practice
	24	Developing customer relationships	Practice
Customer & Stakeholder Perspective	25	Level of customer satisfaction	Performance
	26	On-time completion	Performance
	27	Our impact on the environment, & on society	Performance
	28	Service & product reliability	Performance
Develop & Manage People	29	Culture for excellence	Practice
	30	Employee contracts, conditions & wellbeing	Practice
	31	Development of people	Practice
Manage Assets & Finance	32	Financial management	Practice
	33	Investment in systems and physical assets	Practice
	34	Information systems	Practice
Internal Process Perspective	35	Process capability	Performance
	36	Smooth work flow	Performance
	37	Productivity	Performance
	38	Accessibility, responsiveness & speed	Performance
Develop Sustainability of the Business and Society	39	Understanding sustainability and its benefits	Practice
	40	The business in its community	Practice
	41	Energy management and carbon footprint	Practice
	42	Managing water usage	Practice
	43	Managing material reuse recycling & waste	Practice
Manage Knowledge, improvement and Change	44	Performance measurement for improvement	Practice
	45	Managing knowledge & intellectual property	Practice
	46	Leading change and development	Practice
	47	Systematic benchmarking	Practice
	48	Measuring employee satisfaction	Practice
Learning and Growth Perspective	49	Sense of purpose direction and confidence	Performance
	50	Employee satisfaction	Performance
	51	Innovativeness	Performance
	52	Distinctiveness of service	Performance

2. The Probe for Manufacturing Excellence Questionnaire, this variant includes a focus on aspects that are specific to manufacturers and other businesses that process physical materials as part of their work. It is available at three different levels, Lite, Standard and Advanced.

Probe for Manufacturing Excellence Advanced Version – Sections & Question Titles

The ‘Standard’ & ‘Lite’ Versions are composed of a subset of this listing.

Section	Question #	PROBE for Manufacturing Excellence Advanced	Practice or Performance
Develop Vision & Strategy	1	Leadership for sustainable excellence	Practice
	2	Customer and process focus	Practice
	3	Developing vision and strategy	Practice
	4	Manufacturing strategy	Practice
Develop & Manage Markets, Products & Services	5	Market and sell products and services	Practice
	6	Listening to the customer	Practice
	7	Develop & manage products & services	Practice
Financial Perspective	8	Key results for financial stakeholders	Performance
	9	Cash flow	Performance
	10	Market penetration and share	Performance
	11	Customer retention and loyalty	Performance
	12	Inventory turns	Performance
Deliver Products & Services	13	Design for Deliverability and whole life value	Practice
	14	Delivering outstanding quality	Practice
	15	Lean processes	Practice
	16	Visible, challenging standards	Practice
	17	Service Recovery	Practice
	18	Effective Procurement	Practice
	19	Housekeeping	Practice
	20	Workplace layout	Practice
	21	Managing the work flow	Practice
	22	Managing material quantities	Practice
Manage Customer Service	23	Managing customer interactions	Practice
	24	e-communications with customers and markets	Practice
	25	Measuring customer satisfaction	Practice
	26	Developing customer relationships	Practice
Customer & Stakeholder Perspective	27	Level of customer satisfaction	Performance
	28	On-time completion	Performance
	29	Our impact on the environment, and on society	Performance
	30	Service & product reliability	Performance
Develop & Manage People	31	Culture for excellence	Practice
	32	Employee Contracts, Conditions and Wellbeing	Practice
	33	Development of people	Practice
Manage Assets & Finance	34	Financial management	Practice
	35	Investment in systems and physical assets	Practice
	36	Information systems	Practice
	37	Maintenance	Practice
Internal Process Perspective	38	Process capability	Performance
	39	Smooth work flow	Performance
	40	Productivity	Performance
	41	Accessibility, responsiveness & speed	Performance
	42	Material processing cycle time	Performance
	43	Manufacturing agility	Performance
	44	Defects (internal)	Performance
Develop Sustainability of the Business & Society	45	Understanding sustainability & its business benefits	Practice
	46	The business in its community	Practice
	47	Energy management and carbon footprint	Practice
	48	Managing water usage	Practice
	49	Managing material reuse, recycling and waste	Practice
Manage Knowledge Improvement & Change	50	Performance measurement for improvement	Practice
	51	Managing knowledge and intellectual property	Practice
	52	Leading change and development	Practice
	53	Systematic benchmarking	Practice
	54	Measuring employee satisfaction	Practice
	55	Sense of purpose, direction and confidence	Performance
	56	Employee satisfaction	Performance
	57	Innovativeness	Performance
	58	Distinctiveness of service	Performance
	59	Time to market	Performance

How to Answer and Score the PROBE Questions

Each question displays three statements portraying ‘best practice’ (in the right column) and something not as good as ‘best practice’ (in the middle and left columns). Choose the statement that is the closest equivalent to the current situation in your business. This gives you a score – the number in the coloured band above that statement. If your business is between two statements, choose a score of 2, 3 or 4, or 6, 7 or 8. In the example below, the team member feels statement two is appropriate, so they are suggesting a score of 5. The score must be a whole number – no ‘half-scores’! As a team, you’ll be asked to discuss strengths and weaker aspects relevant to each question, then to agree a score.

If the statement in the left column is better than the current situation in your business, it may be appropriate to score 0 (zero). If current practice is better than described in the right column, you could score 10. Both situations are unusual, and team scores of 0 or 10 can only be accepted at the discretion of the PROBE Facilitator, who will challenge the team to justify these exceptional scores. The Facilitator will also challenge any suggestion that a particular question is not applicable for your business – some lateral thinking will sometimes enable you to apply the spirit of the question even when it initially seems irrelevant. If you think it is genuinely not applicable, make a note, leave the score blank and move on.

If you see differences across the business, with some areas more advanced than others, you need to choose a score that best represents the overall position – ask yourself ‘where is our centre of gravity on this question?’ Bear in mind the relevant proportions of activities/customers/employees – for example, if sophisticated processes are in place to develop employees’ knowledge and skills, but they only cover 25% of employees, take this into account in deciding the score for that question.

There is no ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ – the intention is to help your business to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement, not to provide it with a badge or a certificate. PROBE seeks to assess the true position of your business today, not where it will be when current plans and projects deliver the results you expect. Please be honest and realistic – PROBE will only deliver its full value to you if your assessments are true reflections of your business as it is now.

PROBE Output

The PROBE compares the company result against a chosen comparison group and against the spectrum of companies in the PROBE database through,

Probes World Class Grid
Probes Analytical Framework

Probes World Class Grid

The shaded area on the chart indicates the zone in which standards of practice and performance are beyond the upper limits described in the standard version of PROBE for Manufacturing Excellence. Businesses whose practices and performance might place them in or near the shaded zone can benefit from the more stretching assessments provided by the Advanced version of PROBE.

Bearing in mind that the organisations in PROBE’s database are a self-selecting sample, their average may well be higher than the true average of the business community as a whole. By definition, organisations that use PROBE have a somewhat positive attitude towards techniques such as benchmarking that can help drive continuous improvement. They represent a tough standard of comparison.

Probes Analytical Framework

PROBE’s Analytical Framework supports a 360^o assessment of organisational performance and practice.

Achieving and sustaining world-class status is based on the proposition that adoption of best practice leads to strong operational performance, and in turn to superior business performance.

‘Practice’ refers to the processes that organisations have in place to design, manufacture, deliver and measure their products and services.

‘Performance’ refers to what is achieved as a result.

The analytical framework illustrates cause-and-effect relationships between:

the processes at the heart of how the business functions, and the extent to which they support and embody excellence.
performance across a range of perspectives, and the contributions to excellence that are apparent within that performance

PROBE More Information

PROBE testimonials – View Probe Network Testimonials