"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones"
John Cage
ISOX — Information System for Organizational eXcellence—is a performance management software system designed to track critical performance measures, to enable rapid problem identification, and to ensure business entities are executing improvement plans targeted to fix critical problems. It is a powerful mechanism to organize, distribute, and display an organization’s performance management data and improvement initiatives. The concept is basic: determine, track, and display a balanced set of performance measures which represent the critical success factors for the organization as a whole, as well as for each individual work entity.
The system gives the organization the capability to collect, analyze and display data which in turn gives leadership a fact-based management system. Rather than reacting to anecdotal information, the system provides each work entity with the ability to make informed decisions and lets leadership know if they are on course in meeting their goals and objectives as outlined in their strategic plan. It will also tell leadership if adjustments are needed in those plans based on environmental or outside changes. Without this systematic approach, there is a tendency to utilize more resources without extensive gains.
The ISOX software system is designed to support all levels of management in assessing their organizational performance, making sure that it is grounded in the strategic plan that sets the course of the organization. The flexibility of the system ensures that it aligns the outcomes, goals, objectives, priorities, projects, measures and improvement initiatives. The system is tailored to reflect this structure so that performance data is reviewed systematically, beginning at the bottom and cascading up to the top. ISOX automates data collection, summarizes the results, and distributes the information through easy to understand dashboards, scorecards, drill downs, queries and reports.
ISOX is a quality management system, developed with and according to CLO’s organizational needs. ISOX will enable CLO’s Quality Management structure to function smoothly and become ingrained into the organization’s structure. This performance management system is neither a stand alone system nor one that needlessly pulls together all information available to the organization. It does, however, focus and unify the organizations leaders, managers and employees. It needs to be part-and-parcel of the structure and overall plan for the organization. This system enables the organization to create a balanced score card that links objectives, initiatives and measures to the organization’s strategic plan.
The scorecard function provides an enterprise view of the organization’s overall performance. It integrates quality measures with other key performance indicators such as customer perspectives, internal business processes, organizational growth, learning, and innovation. The software allows for clear communication of cause-and-effect relationships so that everyone in the organization can execute strategy, monitor progress, and engage in continuous feedback in order to reach their goals.
The ISOX technology solution is an-easy-to-use and powerful web-based solution that requires little or no IT involvement. This is an on-demand hosted solution or local installation. The development and deployment is accomplished through a web browser. ISOX uses the latest J2EE technology and Ajax-style page updates. This technology functions like desktop software using left click to navigate and right click to develop. The data can be entered through the web interface, uploaded from a CSV file, or automated with a database connection. The system allows the user to create a strategy map with drill-down capabilities. Strategy maps start out as a blank canvas onto which you add images, shapes, text, and numbers to create a visual representation of the data. Once a strategy map is created, the colors and numbers automatically update based on the real data in the system. Strategy maps allow users to track key metrics, visualize geographic data, and monitor trends. The system allows for an organization-wide balanced scorecard roll-outs and cascaded scorecards. This system allows the organization to start at the top of the house and roll down into department, group or even home level. The system allows for users to drill-through scorecards or individual measure views. The entire organization can roll-up information from multiple scorecards into higher-level scorecards. Other views include: dashboards (A monthly view of all data entered and organized in stoplights), summary trend charts for stoplights; trend charts for individual measures; Pareto charts for non-compliant measures; discrete ratings and comments and goal lines. The balanced scorecard allows “Aligned Objectives” to be easily created so that scorecards show the performance of their own objectives and measures, or of supporting objectives across various scorecards. ISOX allows for automated scoring and weighting of structured elements. It enables the organization to build the structure, define the weighting, enter the measure values, and watch the scorecard “color-up.”
.The system allows the user to export graphs, reports, plans for improvement and scorecards to desktop applications like Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. ISOX is valuable because it offers a structured approach for measuring outcomes that is also easy-to-use, easy-to-embrace, and routine when it comes to achieving results.
ISOX Information System for Organizational eXcellence is a performance management software system designed to track critical performance measures, to enable rapid problem identification, and to ensure business entities are executing improvement plans targeted to fix critical problems. It is a powerful mechanism to organize, distribute, and display an organizations performance management data and improvement initiatives. The concept is basic: determine, track, and display a balanced set of performance measures which represent the critical success factors for the organization as a whole, as well as for each individual work entity.
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CLO/KU Partnership
CLO and faculty from the Department of Applied Behavioral Science at the University of Kansas have been partners in conducting applied research for more than 30 years, developing and implementing innovative service models and best practices. This collaboration has produced many successful programs, including the Family Teaching Model and the family teacher certification program.
The Family Teaching Model:
One five year study compared the Family Teaching Model to other staffing/service models. This research revealed several factors that can improve the consistency and stability of services for people with developmental disabilities:
1. Staff turnover in Family Teaching Model living arrangements was up to 350% less than the turnover rate of staffing models in which employees report to work in shifts.
2. Family Teaching Model homes had 78% fewer staffing vacancies.
3. In Family Teaching Model living arrangements high quality care can be provided with fewer direct care staff members - up to 23% fewer.
4. There are higher daytime staff-to-client ratios in Family Model living arrangements.
For the last three decades, CLO has worked on both the standardized measures and the individualized measures for "the good life." The individualized measures have embedded themselves within each persons individualized program plan and they generally define each persons unique expectations for a better life (Bannerman, Sheldon, Sherman, and Harchik, 1990). CLOs generalized measures of life quality, however, were shaped across time, using consumer satisfaction evaluations to validate these measures (Wolf, 2001).
By 1990, CLO had proposed 12 standard domain measures of "the good life." These quality outcomes were assessed using a 6-point rating scale that ranged from "Completely Satisfied" to "Completely Dissatisfied." They included the following areas:
1.Optimal health and safety
2.Location and physical appearance of the home and day habilitation program must be integrated into the community
3.Engagement in functional activities
4.Normalized routines and schedules
5.Meaningful community integration
a.Preferred lifestyle
b.Teaching/habilitation
c.3rd places: integration/development of friendships with community leaders
Only from this beginning could the kind of lives people truly want to lead be shaped. This thinking was most accurately described by Todd Risley (1996), in his paradigm-shifting chapter called "Get a Life."
For people with challenging intellectual disabilities, this was a paradigm shift advanced by our nations greatest researchers and thinkers and leveraged by important landmark legal decisions such as Wyatt v. Stickney (1972). While the belief in and the desire for a better way existed, there were few examples nationally or in Kansas where these beliefs were backed by the existence of successful community service models supported by empirical data.
CLOs founders, however, were motivated and uniquely prepared to find a better way. CLO was created with a partnership between families of adults and children with significant developmental disabilities and faculty from the University of Kansas, Department of Human Development and Family Life (now the Department of Applied Behavioral Science). Leading these efforts from the University of Kansas were Drs. James A. Sherman and Jan B. Sheldon, both professors within this department. Dr. Don Baer, Dr. Montrose Wolf, and Dr. Todd Risley, and many others from KUs HDFL Department, supported their efforts. These leading researchers understood the importance of applying best practice technology to important social concerns and then creating new service models by a constant process of measurement and revision (Fixsen, Naoom, Blasé, Friedman, & Wallace, 2005). This is also what Dr. Risley (2001) so eloquently suggested in "Do Good, Take Data."
On the backs of pioneers, an empirical culture was embedded in the fabric of CLO. This culture was fueled across three decades by faculty and graduate students working with CLO to improve its services by developing new methods and then testing and revising their efforts through measurement and evaluation. Through this process CLO worked to adapt and implement various programs and services, including adapting and implementing the Teaching Family Model (Wolf, Phillips, Fixsen, Braukmann, Kirigin, Wilner, & Schumaker, 1976) for use for people with significant developmental disabilities (Sherman, Sheldon, Morris, Strouse, & Reese, 1984).
At the center of these efforts was CLO's measurement of the "good life" (or life quality). The measurement of "the good life" for people with developmental disabilities has been a critical focus for many researchers for four decades, yet still there is little agreement on exactly what a good life is for this population.
Strouse (1995) summarized the literature on life quality as part of CLO's efforts for ensuring its measurement for this population. From this review it became generally clear that it might be possible to agree on several dimensions of life quality that were somewhat "universal" or standardized across people. It was equally clear, though, that some measures of life quality must be individualized to the person's wants or desires. Or, as Curley said in the 1991 movie in City Slickers, "it's that one thing", when Billy Crystal asked him what the meaning of life was. Then, when Crystal asked what that one thing was, Curly simply said, "that's what you have to find out for yourself."
References
Bannerman, D. J., Sheldon, J. B., Sherman, J. A., & Harchik, A. E. (1990). Balancing the right to habilitation with the right to personal liberties: The rights of people with developmental disabilities to eat too many doughnuts and take a nap. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 23, 79-89.
Fixsen, D. L., Naoom, S. F., Blasé, K. A., Friedman, R. M., & Wallace, F. (2005). Implementation Research: A Synthesis of the Literature . Tampa, Florida: University of South Florida.
Risley, T. R. (1996). Get a life! Positive behavioral intervention for challenging behavior through life arrangement and life coaching. In L. K. Keogel, R. L. Keogel, & F. Dunlap (Eds.), Community, school, family, and social inclusion through positive behavioral support. Baltimore, Maryland: Brooks Publishing Co.
Risley, T. R. (2001). Do good, take data. In W. ODonohue, D. Henderson, S. Hayes, J. Fisher, & J. Hayes (Eds.). A history of the behavior therapies, founders personal histories (pp. 223-242). Reno, NV: Context Press.
Sherman, J. A., Sheldon, J. B., Morris, K., Strouse, M. C., & Reese, R. M. (1984). A community-based residential program for mentally retarded adults: An adaptation of the teaching-family model. In S. Paine, G. Bellamy, & B. Wilcox (Eds.), Human services that work: from innovation to standard practice (pp. 105-116). Baltimore, MD: Brooks Publishing.
Wolf, M. M. (1978). Social validity: The case for subjective measurement or how applied behavior analysis is finding its heart. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 11, 203-214.
Strouse, M.C. (1995). In Pursuit of Success. Unpublished Manuscript.
Wolf, M. M., Phillips, E. L., Fixsen, D. L., Braukmann, C. J., Kirigin, K. A., Willner, A. G., & Schumaker, J. (1976). Achievement place: The teaching family model. Child Care Quarterly, 5, 92-103.
Wyatt v. Stickney, No. 3195-N (M.D. Ala. 1972).
6.Relationship development: concern, respect, dignity, and affection
7.High quality teaching interactions
8.Choice, self-determination, and self-government
9.Respect the rights of persons served
a. Teach people their rights
b. Obtain benefactors who watch out for some individuals
10.Consumers need to be identified and satisfied
a.People we serve
b.Parents/guardians
c.Funding and regulating agencies
11.Obtain optimal resources: financial and human
12.Facilitate involvement of the individuals families and other significant persons in their lives
In early 1996, CLO's development team, which included KU faculty mentors and CLO senior administrators, decided to refine these outcomes. After much debate, a consensus was reached on the following "CLO Outcomes":
1.Pleasant and Safe Surroundings
2.Observance of Legal and Personal Rights
3.Positive Relationships with Others
4.Living Healthy Lifestyles
5.Opportunities for Choice and Control
6.Effective Learning Opportunities
7.High Level of Participation in Daily Experiences
8.Community Involvement
9.Effective Communication
10.Pleasant Social Environment
11.Satisfied Consumers
By 2008, CLO's development team specifically defined each of the quality outcomes, creating a task analysis of each outcome. These checklists allowed CLO to be more reliable and accurate in assessing life quality. More importantly, they helped home managers, consultants and teachers better achieve higher measures of "the good life" for persons they served.
As CLO grew, however, the above-described quality evaluation process became too cumbersome and time-consuming. The evaluation process took 20 30 hours, including observations and record reviews. CLO needed a process that was more efficient. As a result, in 2010, CLO's development team, led by Dr. Michael Strouse (CLO's Chief Executive Officer) again carefully reviewed and revised the task analyses of each of the 11 outcomes. The rating scale was also shortened in an attempt to increase inter-rater reliability. The newly revised quality outcome tools appear to be the most valid and reliable Quality Outcome tools in CLOs history.
