The Harless model was created by Joe Harless who was a student of Thomas Gilbert. Harless model is a front-end analysis model which determines the factors that effect the performance gap by applying a performance and cause analysis. The performance gap is the difference of where an organization should be and where it currently stands. The model is used to help find the performance gap and find the appropriate solution to close the gap.
Harless created a set of smart questions that were meant to be used to start the front-end analysis. The questions were divided into three categories the first being question for performance analysis, the second were questions for cause analysis, and the third set were for intervention selection, design, and development.
Performance Analysis
1. Do we have a problem?
2. Do we have a performance problem?
3. How will we know when the problem is solved?
4. What is the perfromance problem?
5. Should we allocate the resources to solve it?
Cause Analysis
6. What are the possible causes of the problem?
7. What evidence bears on each possibility?
8. What is the probable cause?
Intervention Selection, Design, and Development
9. What general solution type is indicated?
10. What are the alternate subclasses of solution?
11. What are the costs, effects, and development times of each solution?
12. What are the constraints?
13. What are the overall goals?
Harless also provided an example of a Front-end analysis process that could be used by practitioners.
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