Approach

The Prelude Performance & Capability Cycle

Five stages that connect capability consulting, business analysis and workforce development. The point is not the method. It is making sure the solution matches the problem.

01
Understand
What are we trying to achieve?
Agree the outcome, the context and what good performance looks like before anyone discusses solutions.
02
Diagnose
Why isn’t it happening now?
Gather evidence, separate symptoms from causes and test whether the problem is knowledge, skill, process, system, structure or something else.
03
Define
What needs to be different?
Turn the diagnosis into clear requirements: the performance, behaviours, capabilities and conditions the solution must deliver.
04
Intervene
What is the smallest effective combination of changes?
Choose the interventions that close the gap. Sometimes that is training. Often it is a process, a tool, a role, a decision or a combination.
05
Prove
Did performance actually improve?
Measure against the baseline agreed at the start, so the organisation knows what worked and what to do next.

In practice

Scaled to the decision being made.

Not every request needs a full analysis. The depth of work matches the risk and cost of getting the decision wrong, from a one-hour triage to a full study.

Each stage produces something you can use: a shared statement of the outcome, an evidence-based diagnosis, a set of requirements, a recommended combination of changes and a plan for measuring them. Findings are labelled as evidence, inference or assumption, so you can see what each conclusion rests on.

The cycle is set out in full in Training Isn’t Always the Answer, alongside the tools used at each stage. For what working together looks like week by week, see how an engagement runs.

Where it applies