Performance

In drama we have been studying TIE, or theatre in Education. We practised pieces for which we chose certain subjects, like drugs or bullying, and performed it in front of a target year eight audience. I am evaluating a piece shown on Tuesday 7th December in the Drama studio in front of two classes and one year eight target audience class. The piece was about bullying and social acceptance, with informational themes and values.

The main character was called Heather, and along with being bullied, she desperately wanted to be part of the “popular” gang. The ring leader of the popular bullies was called Sam. Throughout most of the play, she made fun of Heather and upset her a lot, and the gang copied her, but somewhere along the line, Sam’s friends got a sudden spark of guilt, and turned on Sam to become friends with Heather, who, so drawn with her craving for popularity had attempted to steel an expensive bag, and started trying to become Sam. But all ended well, as Sam apologised to Heather after being dumped by her best friend Katy, and everyone became friends.

They conveyed their characters very well to the audience; their voices were loud and clear, their costume, movement and gestures reflected their characterisation, and the things they said and did fitted their character, like when the bimbo, Sam, was upset, she ran away crying, but not just normally, she had an extra high pitched voice, and held her bag high and ran very femininely. Their facial expressions suited the concept in which they were used, and so were very effective and persuasive to the audience.

They sustained their characters well throughout most of the piece, but at the beginning it seemed some of them were shy and timid, though they did break through into confidence early on. Their characterisation was very successful, especially in the comedy elements, like for example when Hannah played the policeman using the handcuffs and the language that it stereo typical to policemen, sustaining the role with humour. Their characters were believable, firstly because they were very familiar characters, and secondly because they played them very well. On a scale of one to ten, I would say their characterisation was believable at about seven.

They used a lot of effective body language, like hand and face gestures and posture that reflected their character well. Their voice also was effective to the piece. Heather, for example, used a squeaky voice to portray a geek. Their costume was used well, with the angel and devil, and was effective because you knew immediately what they were. The characters also used props, like the clipboard the angel was holding and reading, which gave a sense of organisation. The bag was also useful in the stealing scene, because you knew at once what she was stealing, and when you don’t have to work out things like that, you can concentrate on the piece itself.

The group used a few explorative elements and drama mediums. They used for example, freeze frames these were valuable and effective because you could tell what they were when the happened, and could see things like thought tracing and conscience alley behind the scenes. The conscience alley itself could have been more effective, as it didn’t build up much tension and was sort of cheesy. It was too short, and the only reason you knew what it was, is because of the devil and angel costumes.

The staging and space was set out very well, although was sometimes too far upstage. Mostly however the whole space was used. There was some blocking (even when the blocked person was talking), mostly between the angel and devil. Staging furniture was also used to create a stand for a shop and chairs in a classroom. This was used and worked well because you could visualise the rest of the setting coming into place with just a few features. They didn’t use a set, although this could have been effective if used and set out properly.

The performance itself was successful. It used some information like child line phone numbers and advice. They also used humour, which is useful as it gets the attention of younger and older viewers. Without humour, the piece would have been boring and most of the audience wouldn’t have liked it. I think they did achieve what they set out to do, as they entertained while informing, and formed a good piece of TIE drama, although it would have been better with more information.

The atmosphere created was alright. There wasn’t much tension, or a climax of any kind, but uses of silence and music worked well. Voice projection and accent was also used effectively. The overall strength of the piece in my opinion was the characterisation; the development of voice and costume. The overall weakness was probably the blocking; it did ruin some scenes and therefore affect the entire performance. I think the audience definitely enjoyed the piece, whether or not they saw the meaning of it is another question. But any negative response is mostly due to the lack of understanding the project and goal; TIE.

In conclusion, I think this piece was very good, and I give it 7/10 for effort, 7/10 for characterisation, 7/10 for staging and 4/10 for use of drama mediums. Basically, I give it 28/40, which is a c grade.

Abstract— bettering public presentation of package, sites and services is a holy grail of package industry. A new attack for execution of Poka-Yoke method in package public presentation technology is proposed. Poka-Yoke is a error proofing technique used in merchandise design. The effectivity of Poka-Yoke in package development was evaluated utilizing two instance surveies: merchandise redesign mini-project given to six groups of pupils and a study of online services in the package industry. Both quantitative and qualitative rating was done. Our proposed five-step error proofing technique for package development utilizing Poka-Yoka rating demonstrated the effectivity. The consequences showed that an implementing Poka-Yoke technique improves the package development procedure. Arrested development analysis showed that Poka-Yoke has a greater impact on package quality that uses the current province of the art package development theoretical accounts. Improved UGAM tonss besides showed one-dimensionality and justified Poka-Yoke execution. Our findings recommend use of techniques for error proofing for overall package public presentation. The purpose is to cut down mistakes in package development procedure. We are besides suggesting HQLS: a new attack for high quality in the big graduated table package development in this paper.

Keywords- Poka-Yoke Principles, Performance, UGAM, Security, Quality, Mistake-proofing, Detection.

I. Introduction

In position of Mukesh Jain, across the Earth, end-user public presentation of the bulk of our online services, web sites and package applications is a affair of concern. Global and local rivals in the parts have led to fierce competition for relatively better public presentation than rival services. Slow services impacts on user experience, operational cost, mind-share, market portion and gross. Turning the tide on public presentation can hold existent impacts on any company’s underside line. One of the cardinal messages sent from the markets is that we need to make a better occupation of bettering public presentation of our sites and services globally. The public presentation of most of the sites and services in many instances lag.

For illustration, in the US, on broadband connexion, MSN/Live Search takes 3 seconds to expose the consequences compared to Google’s 1.5 seconds and the Yahoo’s 2.5 seconds. For Search, we have seen that the longer it takes to lade the consequences page, the more people abandon the page ( i.e. Peoples typically begin go forthing a page after waiting 4 seconds, and more than 50 % of users abandon the page after waiting for 6 seconds ) .

Site public presentation in states like India makes many merchandises about impossible to utilize. Recent proving showed that it takes around 40 seconds for person in India to login into Hotmail and see their letter boxs, while it takes merely 5 seconds when utilizing rival electronic mail merchandises like yahoo.co.in, rediffmail and Indiatimes. This may take to important loss in electronic mail market portion in India. The heat chart in the Table 2 reflects the comparative public presentation of the online services market. The tabular array shows the PLT [ Page-Load-Time ] in seconds for the user in each of the major states. We show the 75th percentile, intending that 75 % of minutess in the state are better than this figure, and 25 % are worse. The Numberss on the left are MSN. On the right is the “ top ” rival for that service in that market.

Jain proposed a strategy and process to forestall and/or detect public presentation issues in clip for the merchandise technology squad to take action and repair them and forestall them from go oning. Users don’t like to wait for a page to lade. With nothing ( or really low ) exchanging cost, it is disputing for any service to retain the users with slow public presentation ( compared to the major rival in that market ) . If the service is slow one time in a piece – users may non detect and/or will non mind. But if it is systematically slow, it will impact their productiveness and they will look for faster options.

The field of Poka-Yoke has a big sum of literature in merchandise design methods, package proving techniques, and direction ( M.Dudek Burlikowska et Al, 2009 ; Lawrence P Chao et Al, 2003 ; Harry Robinson, 1997, etc ) . These proposals are first-class presentations of how Poka-Yoke design methodological analysis can ensue in improved user-experience design and service public presentation with fewer defects in their several spheres. Unfortunately, major spreads between Poka-Yoke and SE continue to be in faculty members, literature, and industrial pattern.

The following subdivision gives an overview of related work in Poka-Yoke. Sections 3 and 4 describe the proposals for package public presentation, technology and HQLS: a new attack for high quality in big graduated table package development. The Section 3 besides has qualitative ratings of package public presentation technology proposal. Sections 5 describe instance surveies that evaluated the architecture for HQLS and their findings. Section 6 draws decisions from the survey.

II.STATE OF THE ART

In recent old ages, research on using Poka Yoke in package has received much attending [ 7, 8, 9, and 10 ] . Harry Robinson introduced Poka-Yoke ( mistake-proofing ) into the Hewlett Packard’s package procedure and he claims they have been able to forestall literally 100s of package localisation defects from making their clients. As per Gojko Adzic, writer of Impact Mapping “software categories should non let us to continue and blow up when something goes incorrect. Exceptions can be an effectual manner of giving more certification, but the signal should be clean and unambiguous, in order non to misdirect users or client-developers. Software must be designed to forestall a complete clang, even in the face of system failure. Auto-save characteristics are a good illustration. It’s non frequently that the power gets cut, but when it does, our users will certainly appreciate that we saved most of their work” [ 11 ] . Much of the research focal point is for ZOC, quality control, placing defects. However, the restriction that associated research brings is non using Poka- Yoke in entireness.

III.PROPOSAL FOR SOFTWARE PERFORMANCE Technology

Here are the Poka-Yoke based 5 stairss ( theoretical account ) we can accommodate ( in parts or full ) to Prevent and/or Detect public presentation jobs at the right clip and repair it as depicted in the Table 1 [ 18 ] .

A.Focus/Strategy

The first measure for this would be to include public presentation as portion of the scheme and focal point. Sing public presentation as

Key portion of the deliverable is of import. “Like security & A ; handiness, we should see public presentation as built-in portion of any characteristic. Performance can non be an afterthought-

If we do non concentrate public presentation from the get downing – it might be excessively late to repair it and in some instances we might lose the opportunity” .

B.Approach

The attack to plan and development makes a important difference towards the exposure of the procedure for public presentation issues. This is the 1 of a bar type of mistake-proofing solution. The design methodological analysis and the development procedure can forestall many sorts of public presentation jobs.

This is the 1 of a bar type of mistake-proofing solution replacing manual work with an machine-controlled tool can salvage resources and enhances the quality of the merchandise.

C.Testing ( Verification & A ; Validation )

Testing for public presentation will be of import here. Performance should non be considered as a separate characteristic – it should be portion of each and every characteristic and scenario, usage instance. “ TEST PASS IS INCOMPLETE without PERFORMANCE Testing ” . Testing demands to be performed based on the “ End-user ” scenes. The Majority of the people have slower machines than what Jain squad uses in Microsoft.

D.Monitoring/Measurement ( Detection )

For all the sites that are unrecorded in production, we need to hold monitoring/measurements in topographic point to be able to supervise public presentation tendencies and detect/report issues.

This sensing method does nil to forestall the public presentation impact from go oning. Alternatively, it aims to happen the public presentation job at the earliest chance in order to minimise the harm. With this mistake-proofing solution, the right job is detected and reported at the right clip to the right people.

The monitoring system ( webHancer, SQM, WebWatson, etc. ) can mensurate public presentation at the end-user and study it back to Microsoft. An alarming system can be built on top of it that can hold concern rules/criteria for observing public presentation forms ( for cardinal user scenarios ) and study to the appropriate people.

Example: Business Scenario for measuring of Quality of Service can be explained in different types like absolute measuring, comparative measuring and competitory measuring.

This mistake-proofing solution does nil to forestall the public presentation job from go oning. However, agencies are provided to minimise the impact of any public presentation issue.

By this clip the bulk of the people would understand the importance of Performance and how they can lend to better the same.

When Elizabeth became Queen of England in 1558, there were no specially designed theatre buildings. Companies of actors (usually small, made of 5 to 8 members) toured the country and performed in a wide variety of temporary acting spaces, mainly in inn yards, but also in churches, Town Halls, Town Squares, great halls of Royal Palaces or other great houses, or anywhere else that a large crowd could be gathered to view a performance. It is true that they continued to tour throughout Elizabeth’s reign (especially during the Plague in London, when theatres were closed or earned but little money).

Nevertheless, given the laws passed by the Queen to control wandering beggars and vagrants – which implicitly affected the acting companies as well – many actors were encouraged to settle down with permanent bases in London. The first permanent theatres in England were old inns which had been used as temporary acting areas when the companies had been touring. E. g. The Cross Keys, The Bull, The Bel Savage, The Bell – all originally built as inns.

Some of the inns that became theatres had substantial alterations made to their structure to allow them to be used as playhouses. The first purpose built theatre building in England was simply called The Theatre, eventually giving its name to all such building erected in the outskirts of London and functioning until the closing of the theatres in 1642 during the Civil War. The Theatre was built in 1576, at Shoreditch in the northern outskirts of London, by the Earl of Leicester’s Men who were led by James Burbage, a carpenter turned actor.

It seems that the design of The Theatre was based on that of bull-baiting and bear-baiting yards (as a matter of fact, bull baiting, bear baiting and fencing shows were very popular by that time, and they were often organized before the plays started. ). The Theatre was followed the next year (1577) by The Curtain, in 1587 by The Rose and in 1595 by The Swan (to mention but the most famous theatres). In 1599, a dispute over the land on which The Theatre stood determined Burbage’s sons to secretly tear down the building and carry away the timber to build a new playhouse on the Bankside which they names The Globe.

By this time, the Burbages had become members of Lord Chamberlain’s Company, along with William Shakespeare, and The Globe is famously remembered as the theatre in which many of Shakespeare’s plays were first performed. (The Globe was destroyed in 1613 in a fire caused by the sparks of a cannon fired during the performance of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII. Rebuilt, it was closed and demolished in 1644 during the Civil War. The modern reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London was completed in 1997. )

Before going into more details regarding the structure of the Elizabethan theatre, distinction should be made, however, between two categories of playhouses: the public (outdoor) theatres and the private (indoor) theatres. The former were amphitheatre buildings open to the air and therefore cheaper – The Globe, for instance, charged two pence for a seat in the galleries or a single penny to stand in the yard. The latter (e. g. Blackfriars; The Cockpit) were built to a hall design in enclosed and usually rectangular buildings more like the theatres we know today.

They had amore exclusive audience since they charged considerably more – the cheapest seat in a private theatre cost sixpence. The adult companies did not start to use the private hall theatres until after Elizabeth’s death, but they were used by the boy companies (made up entirely of child and teenage actors) in Elizabeth’s reign and were used by Shakespeare’s Company – by this time the King’s Men – and other adult companies in the Jacobean period. Structure and Design of Public/ Outdoor Theatres

Public theatres were polygonal – hexagonal outside and round inside (“a wooden O” as Shakespeare puts it in Henry V). An open-air arena – called “pit” or “yard” – had, at one end, a wooden stage supported by large pillars, with trap doors for special effects (to allow ghosts, devils and similar characters to be raised up) and was surrounded by three tiers of roofed galleries (thatched, later on tiled roofs) with balconies, overlooking the back of the stage. The rear stage was covered by a roof – which they called “Heavens” through which, by means of ropes, they ould lower down the actors playing the gods/ angels, etc. , for flying or dramatic entrances – held up by massive pillars and obstructing the view of audience members from various angles. The stage wall behind these pillars was called “Frons Scenae” (taken from the name given by Imperial Rome to the stage walls of their amphitheatres) provided with doors to the left and to the right and a curtained central doorway – referred to as the “discovery space” – which allowed characters to be suddenly revealed or a play within a play to be acted.

The rear wall of this inner stage was covered by tapestry, the only usual “scenery” used on the stage. Immediately above the inner stage, there was the stage gallery which could be used for multiple purposes: – as an acting space: on either sides, there were bow-windows used for the frequent window/ balcony scenes (e. g. Romeo and Juliet). Thus the arrangement of a front stage and two-storeyed back stage permitted three actions to go on simultaneously and a life-like parallelism of events. – another part of the gallery could be used as a music-room.

Music was an extra effect added in the 1600’s. The musicians started playing an hour before the beginning of the play and also played at appropriate moments throughout the performance. – when necessary, some of the boxes of the stage gallery were used for audience seating. They were referred to as the “Lord’s rooms” and considered the best (and hence the most expensive) seats in the ‘house’ despite the poor view of the back of the actors. (Nevertheless, the audience at large would have a good view of the Lords and the Lords were able to hear the actors clearly.

There were also additional balconies on the left and right of the “Lord’s rooms” called the “Gentlemen’s rooms”, also meant for the rich patrons of the theatres. As previously mentioned, the stage wall structure contained two doors (at least) leading to a small structure, back stage, called the “Tiring House” used by actors to dress, prepare and wait offstage. Above the stage gallery, there is a third storey connected with the “Heavens” extending forward from the tiring-house over the rear part of the stage, which was often used to represent the walls of a castle or a city.

Last but not least, on top of this structure, there was also what might be called a fourth storey of the tiring-house, referred to as the “Hut” presumably used as a storage space and housing suspension gear for flying effects, while the third storey stage cover served as a loading room for players preparing to ‘fly’ down to the stage. On top of the “hut”, a flag (a black one, if it was a tragedy, a white one, if it was a comedy, or a red one, if it was a history) was erected to let the world know a play was to be performed that day.

The access to the playhouse was ensured by one main entrance, where playgoers had to put the admission fee – i. e. 1 penny, for those who watched the play from the yard, standing, called the “Groundlings” (shopkeepers, craftsmen, apprentices), or more, up to 4-5 pence for the gentry and the great lords sitting in the galleries. The galleries could be reached by the two sets of stairs in the structure, on either side of the theatre. The first gallery would cost another penny in the box which was held by a collector (“gatherer”) at the front of the stairs.

The second gallery would cost another penny. At the start of the play, after collecting money from the audience, the admission collectors put the boxes in a room backstage, called the “box office. ” The Players There were invariably many more parts than actors. Elizabethan Theatre, therefore, demanded that an actor be able to play numerous roles and make it obvious to the audience by changes in his acting style and costume that he was a new person each time.

When the same character came on disguised (as, for example, many of Shakespeare’s female characters disguise themselves as boys – e. . The Merchant of Venice or Twelfth Night) speeches had to be included making it very clear that this was the same character in a new costume, and not a completely new character. All of the actors in an Elizabethan Theatre company were male (which might explain the scarcity of female roles in Elizabethan drama). There were laws in England against women acting onstage and English travellers abroad were amused and amazed by the strange customs of Continental European countries that allowed women to play female roles.

Exceptions : One woman – Mary Frith, better known as Moll Cutpurse – was arrested in the Jacobean period for singing and playing instruments onstage during a performance of a play about her life (Middleton and Dekker’s The Roaring Girl) and some suggest that she may actually have been illegally playing herself in the performance, and women sometimes took part in Court Masques (a very stylised and spectacular sort of performance for the Court, usually dominated by singing and dancing), but otherwise English women had no part in the performance of Elizabethan plays.

The male actors who played female parts have traditionally been described as “Boy Actors” – they were actually boys whose voices had not changed. The rehearsal and performance schedule that Elizabethan Players followed was intense and demanding. Unlike modern theatres, where a successful play can run for years at a time, Elizabethan theatres normally performed six different plays in their six day week, and a particularly successful play might only be repeated once a month or so. For example, in a typical season, a theatrical company could perform thirty-eight different plays.

The Elizabethan actor did not have much time, therefore, to prepare for each new play, and must have had to learn lines and prepare his blocking largely on his own and in his spare time – probably helped by the tendency of writers to have particular actors in mind for each part, and to write roles which were suited to the particular strengths and habits of individual actors. There were few formal rehearsals for each play and no equivalent of the modern Director (although presumably the writer, theatre managers, and the most important actors – who owned shares in the theatre company – would have given some direction to other actors).

Instead of being given full scripts, each actor had a written “part”, a long scroll with nothing more than his own lines and minimal cue lines (the lines spoken by another actor just before his own) to tell him when to speak – this saved on the laborious task of copying out the full play repeatedly by hand. There was a bookholder or prompter who held a complete script and who helped actors who had forgotten their lines. Costumes, Scenery and Effects

Elizabethan costuming seems to have been a strange combination of what was (for the Elizabethans) modern dress, and costumes which – while not being genuinely historically or culturally accurate – had a historical or foreign flavour. Strict laws were in force about what materials and types of clothes could be worn by members of each social class – laws which the actors were allowed to break onstage – so it would be immediately obvious to the Elizabethan audience that actors wearing particular types of clothes were laying people of particular backgrounds and types.

The colours were also carefully chosen so as to suggest: red – blood; black – gloom, evil; yellow – sun; white – purity; scarlet – doctor; gray – friar; blue – serving men. Extensive make-up was almost certainly used, particularly for the boys playing female parts and with dark make-up on the face and hands for actors playing “blackamoors” or “Turks”. There were also conventions for playing a number of roles – some of which we know from printed play scripts.

Mad women, like Ophelia, wore their hair loose and mad people of both sexes had disordered clothing. Night scenes were often signalled by characters wearing nightdresses (even the Ghost of Hamlet’s father appears in his nightgown, when Hamlet is talking with his Mother in her chamber). The Elizabethans did not use fixed scenery or painted backdrops of the sort that became popular in the Victorian period – hence the playwrights had to provide the actors with spoken descriptions of landscape which with Shakespeare represent memorable poetry.

That does not mean, however, that the Elizabethans performed on a completely bare stage. A wide variety of furniture and props were brought onstage to set the scene as necessary – ranging from simple beds, tables, chairs and thrones to whole trees, grassy banks, prop dragons, an unpleasant looking cave to represent the mouth of hell, and so forth. Death brought out a particular ingenuity in Elizabethan actors and they apparently used copious quantities of animal blood, fake heads and tables with holes in to stage decapitations.

Heads, hands, eyes, tongues and limbs were dramatically cut off onstage, and probably involved some sort of blood-drenched stage trick. A number of other simple special effects were used. Real cannons and pistols (loaded with powder but no bullet) were fired off when ceremonial salutes or battles were required. Thunder was imitated by rolling large metal cannon balls backstage or by drumming, while lightning was imitated by fireworks set off in the “heavens” above the stage. One thing that Elizabethan theatres almost completely lacked was lighting effects.

In the outdoor theatres, like the Globe, plays were performed from two o’clock until about four or four thirty in the afternoon (these were the times fixed by law, but plays may sometimes have run for longer) in order to take advantage of the best daylight (earlier or later performances would have cast distracting shadows onto the stage). Evening performances, without daylight, were impossible. In the hall theatres, on the other hand, the stages were lit by candlelight – which forced them to hold occasional, probably musical, breaks while the candles were trimmed and tended or replaced as they burned down.

Elizabethan actors carried flaming torches to indicate that a scene was taking place at night, but this would have made little difference to the actual lighting of the stage, and spectators simply had to use their imagination. The nearest that the Elizabethans came to lighting effects were fireworks, used to imitate lightening or magical effects. Performance Techniques We know very little, unfortunately, about how Elizabethan actors actually played their roles. Performances probably ran continuously without any sort of interval or Act Breaks.

Occasionally music may have been played between Acts or certain scenes, but scholars think this was quite unusual except in the hall playhouses, where candles had to be trimmed and replaced between Acts. We do not even know how long Elizabethan plays usually ran. The law (mentioned above) expected plays to last between two and two and a half hours, but some plays – such as Hamlet, which in modern times runs for more than four hours – seem much too long to have been performed in such a short time.

What props and scenery there were in the Elizabethan Theatre were probably carried on and off while the scenes continued, while actors were continually moving forward and backward into the midst of the surrounding audience. All entrances and exits were through the doors at the rear of the stage proper: one actor left through one door while a second actor would appear through the second door to swing into the next scene. That means that there would have been no need to wait for scene changes.

The actors were kept in constant motion and, given the design of the stage, they had to face in as many different directions as possible during a scene. Another aspect of Elizabethan performance that we know a little about was the use of clowns or fools. Shakespeare complains in Hamlet about the fact that the fool often spoke a great deal that was not included in his script, and in the early Elizabethan period especially it seems to have been normal for the fool to include a great deal of improvised repartee and jokes in his performance, especially responding to hecklers in the audience.

At the end of the play the Elizabethan actors often danced, and sometimes the fool and other comic actors would perform a jig – which could be anything from a simple ballad to a quite complicated musical play, normally a farce involving adultery and other bawdy topics. Some time was apparently put aside for the fool to respond to challenges from the audience – with spectators inventing rhymes and challenging the fool to complete them, asking riddles and questions and demanding witty answers, or simply arguing and criticising the fool so that he could respond.

With no modern stage lighting to enhance the actors and put the audience into darkness, Globe audience members could see each other exactly as well as they could see the performers and the Groundlings in particular were near enough to the stage to be able to touch the actors if they wanted to and the front row of the Groundlings routinely leaned their arms and heads onto the front of the stage itself. The Groundlings were also forced to stand for two or three hours without much movement, which encouraged short attention ps and a desire to take action rather than remain completely immobile.

This means that the Groundlings frequently shouted up at the actors or hissed the villains and cheered the goodies. Elizabethan audiences seem to have been very responsive in this way – as their interactions with the Fool suggests – and were particularly well known for hurling nut shells and fruit when they disliked an actor or a performance. The Elizabethan audience was still more distracted, however, since beer and food were being sold and consumed throughout the performance, prostitutes were actively soliciting for trade, and pickpockets were busy stealing goods as the play progressed.

Elizabethan audiences may have “viewed” plays very differently, hence the origin of the word “audience” itself. The Elizabethans did not speak of going to see a play, they went to hear one – and it is possible that in the densely crowded theatre – obstructed by the pillars and the extravagant headgear that richer members of the audience were wearing – the Elizabethan audience was more concerned to hear the words spoken than to be able to see the action.

This idea is given extra weight by the fact that in the public outdoor theatres, like the Globe, the most expensive seats were not the ones with the best views (in fact the best view is to be had by the Groundlings, standing directly in front of the stage), but those which were most easily seen by other audience members. The most expensive seating was in the Lord’s box or balcony behind the stage – looking at the action from behind – and therwise the higher the seats the more an audience member had to pay. (Some Elizabethan documents suggest that the reason for this range of prices was the richer patron’s desire to be as far from the stink of the Groundlings as possible. )

Specific aspects of Elizabethan performances: bear-baiting: three bears in ascending size are set upon by an English hound in a fight to the death! fencing: less gruesome, this civilized sport also took place before plays. umb-shows/processions: parades or spectacles, these formal groups used all the most ornate costumes they owned, including crowns and sceptres, torches and swords. Dumbshows appeared at the end of each act to summarize the events of the following act. By the turn of the century, dumb-shows were considered old-fahsioned and corny. Processions were more solemn as actors moved mannequin-like across the stage. jigs: at the conclusion of a play, the actors would dance around the stage.

Separate from the plays, these were bawdy, knockabout song-and-dance farces. Frequently resembling popular ballads, jigs were often commentaries on politics or religion. masques: masques were plays put on strictly by the royals. These were celebrations, i. e. royal weddings or winning a battle. Designed as banquets of the senses, these celebrations pned several days during which each member of the party played a part in the allegorical theme of the banquet. Masques were always held in private playhouses.

Improving the performance of key people is often as simple—and as profound—as changing the resources they control and the results for which they are accountable. by Robert Simons You have a compelling product, an exciting vision, and a clear strategy for your new business. You’ve hired good people and forged relationships with critical suppliers and distributors. You’ve launched a marketing campaign targeting high-value customers. All that remains is to build an organization that can deliver on the promise. But implementation goes badly.

Managers in the regional offices don’t show enough entrepreneurial spirit. They are too complacent and far too slow in responding to customers. Moreover, it’s proving very difficult to coordinate activities across units to serve large, multisite customers. Decision making is fragmented, and time to market is much longer than expected. Excessive costs are eating away at profit margins. You begin to wonder: “Have I put the wrong people in critical jobs? ” But the problems are more widespread than that—in fact, they’re systemic across the organization.

This tale of a great strategy derailed by poor execution is all too common. Of course, there are many possible reasons for such a failure and many people who might be to blame. But if this story reminds you of your own experience, have you considered the possibility that your organization is designed to fail? Specifically, are key jobs structured to achieve the business’s performance potential? If not, unhappy consequences are all but inevitable. In this article, I present an action-oriented framework that will show you how to design jobs for high performance.

My basic point is straightforward: For your business to achieve its potential, each employee’s supply of organizational resources should equal his or her demand for them, and the same supply-and-demand balance must apply to every function, every business unit, and the entire company. Sounds simple, and it is. But only if you understand what determines this balance and how you can influence it. The Four Spans of Job Design To understand what determines whether a job is designed for high performance, you must put yourself in the shoes of your organization’s managers.

To carry out his or her job, each employee has to know the answer to four basic questions: • “What resources do I control to accomplish my tasks? ” • “What measures will be used to evaluate my performance? ” • “Who do I need to interact with and influence to achieve my goals? ” • “How much support can I expect when I reach out to others for help? ” The questions correspond to what I call the four basic ps of a job: control, accountability, influence, and support. Each p can be adjusted so that it is narrow or wide or somewhere in between. I think of the adjustments as being made on sliders, like those found on music amplifiers.

If you get the settings right, you can design a job in which a talented individual can successfully execute your company’s strategy. But if you get the settings wrong, it will be difficult for any employee to be effective. I’ll look at each p in detail and discuss how managers can adjust the settings. (The exhibit “The Four Spans” provides a summary. ) The Span of Control. The first p defines the range of resources—not only people but also assets and infrastructure—for which a manager is given decision rights. These are also the resources whose performance the manager is held accountable for.

Executives must adjust the p of control for each key position and unit on the basis of how the company delivers value to customers. Consider Wal-Mart, which has configured its entire organization to deliver low prices. Wal-Mart’s strategy depends on standardization of store operations coupled with economies of scale in merchandising, marketing, and distribution. To ensure standardization, Wal-Mart sets the p of control for store managers at the “narrow” end of the scale. Although they nominally control their stores, Wal-Mart site managers have limited decision rights regarding hours of operation, merchandising displays, and pricing.

By contrast, the p of control for managers at corporate headquarters who oversee merchandising and other core operations is set at “wide. ” They are responsible for implementing best practices and consolidating operations to capture economies of scale. In addition to controlling purchasing, merchandising, and distribution, these managers even control the lighting and temperature at Wal-Mart’s 3,500 stores by remote computer. (The settings for the two jobs are compared in the exhibit “Spans of Control at Wal-Mart. ”) Spans of Control at Wal-Mart (Located at the end of this rticle) Of course, the ps of control will be set very differently in companies that follow different strategies. Consider Nestle, a food company that reformulates its products in response to regional tastes for spices and sweets. In this “local value creation” configuration, the p of control for regional business managers is set very wide so that they have all the resources they need to customize products and respond to customers. Regional managers take responsibility for sales, product development, distribution, and manufacturing.

As a consequence, the ps of control for managers back at the head office are relatively narrow, covering only logistics, the supply chain, global contracts, and accounting and finance. The Span of Accountability. The second p refers to the range of trade-offs affecting the measures used to evaluate a manager’s achievements. For example, a person who is accountable for head count or specific expenses in an operating budget can make few trade-offs in trying to improve the measured dimensions of performance and so has a narrow p of accountability.

By contrast, a manager responsible for market share or business profit can make many trade-offs and thus has a relatively wide p of accountability. Your setting for this p is determined by the kind of behavior you want to see. To ensure compliance with detailed directives, hold managers to narrow measures. To encourage creative thinking, make them responsible for broad metrics such as market share, customer satisfaction, and return on capital employed, which allow them greater freedom. The p of control and the p of accountability are not independent. They must be considered together.

The first defines the resources available to a manager; the second defines the goals the manager is expected to achieve. You might conclude, therefore, that the two ps should be equally wide or narrow. As the adage goes, authority should match responsibility. But in high-performing organizations, many people are held to broad performance measures such as brand profit and customer satisfaction, even though they do not control all the resources—manufacturing and service, for example—needed to achieve the desired results. There is a good reason for this discrepancy.

By explicitly setting the p of accountability wider than the p of control, executives can force their managerial subordinates to become entrepreneurs. In fact, entrepreneurship has been defined (by Howard H. Stevenson and J. Carlos Jarillo) as “the process by which individuals—either on their own or inside organizations—pursue opportunities without regard to the resources they currently control. ” What happens when employees are faced with this entrepreneurial gap? They must use their energy and creativity to figure out how to succeed without direct control of the resources they need. See the exhibit “Creating the Entrepreneurial Gap. ”) Thus, managers can adjust these two ps to stimulate creativity and entrepreneurial behavior. Creating the Entrepreneurial Gap (Located at the end of this article) Of course, ps of accountability vary by level in most organizations—in general, they are wider at the top of a company and narrower at the bottom. The CEO of McDonald’s has a wide p of accountability that encompasses stock price, earnings per share, and competitive market position.

A McDonald’s store manager has a much narrower p. She must focus on compliance with standard operating procedures, and she is monitored through detailed input and process measures. The Span of Influence. The third p corresponds to the width of the net that an individual needs to cast in collecting data, probing for new information, and attempting to influence the work of others. An employee with a narrow p of influence does not need to pay much attention to people outside his small area to do his job effectively.

An individual with a wide p must interact extensively with, and influence, people in other units. As is the case with the other ps, senior managers can adjust the p of influence to promote desired behaviors. They can widen the p when they want to stimulate people to think outside the box to develop new ways of serving customers, increasing internal efficiencies, or adapting to changes in external markets. In many companies, widening the p of influence counteracts the rigidity of organizational structures based on boxes and silos.

For example, although global companies like Procter & Gamble need to be responsive to local customers’ needs, they must also create pressure for people in different operations to look beyond their silos to consolidate operations and share best practices to lower costs. Similarly, firms such as big-box retailers that centralize merchandising and distribution to deliver low prices must ensure that they continue to monitor changing competitive dynamics. Operations managers who are insulated from the marketplace must be forced to interact with people in units that are closest to customers.

In all of these cases, it’s up to senior managers to ensure that individuals work across organizational boundaries to test new ideas, share information, and learn. Executives can widen a manager’s p of influence by redesigning her job—placing her on a cross-functional team, for example, or giving her an assignment that requires her to report to two bosses. They can also adjust a job’s p of influence through the level of goals they set. Although the nature of a manager’s goals drives her p of accountability (by determining the trade-offs she can make), the level, or difficulty, drives her sphere of influence.

Someone given a stretch goal will often be forced to seek out and interact with more people than someone whose goal is set at a much lower level. Finally, executives can use accounting and control systems to adjust the p of influence. For example, the p will be wider for managers who are forced to bear the burden of indirect cost allocations generated by other units, because they will attempt to influence the decisions of the units responsible for the costs. The more complex and interdependent the job, the more important a wide p of influence becomes.

In fact, a wide influence p is often an indication of both the power and effectiveness of an executive. In describing eBay’s Meg Whitman, for example, A. G. Lafley, the CEO of Procter & Gamble, said, “The measure of a powerful person is that their circle of influence is greater than their circle of control. ” The Span of Support. This final p refers to the amount of help an individual can expect from people in other organizational units. Again, the slider can be set anywhere from narrow to wide depending on how much commitment from others the person needs in order to implement strategy.

Jobs in some organizations—particularly positions such as commission-based sales in efficient and liquid markets—do not need wide ps of support. In fact, such organizations generally operate more efficiently with narrow ps, since each job is independent and individual contributions can be calculated easily at day’s end. Traders in financial institutions, for example, need little support from their fellow traders, and their colleagues can and should stay focused on their own work (and should be compensated solely for their success in generating profit).

But wide ps of support become critically important when customer loyalty is vital to strategy implementation (for example, at exclusive hotel chains) or when the organizational design is highly complex because of sophisticated technologies and a complex value chain (in aerospace or computers, for instance). In these cases, individuals throughout the company must move beyond their job descriptions to respond to requests for help from others who are attempting to satisfy customers or navigate organizational processes. Managers cannot adjust a job’s p of support in isolation.

That’s because the p is largely determined by people’s sense of shared responsibilities, which in turn stems from a company’s culture and values. In many cases, therefore, all or most of a company’s jobs will have a wide p of support, or none will. But even within a given company culture, there are often circumstances in which managers need to widen the p of support separately for key business units (for example, to support a new division created to bundle and cross sell products from other units) or for key positions (for example, to facilitate the work of cross-functional task forces).

There are various policies that managers can employ to widen ps of support. For example, a focus on a customer based mission typically creates a sense of shared purpose. In addition, broad-based stock ownership plans and team- and group-centered incentive programs often foster a sense of equity and belonging and encourage people to help others achieve shared goals. Firms that are characterized by wide ps of support also frown on letting top executives flaunt the trappings of privilege and generally follow a policy of promoting people internally to senior positions.

The slider settings for the four ps in any job or business unit are a function of the business’s strategy and the role of that job or unit in implementing it. When you are adjusting job or unit design, the first step is to set the p of control to reflect the resources allocated to each position and unit that plays an important role in delivering customer value. This setting, like the others, is determined by how the business creates value for customers and differentiates its products and services from competitors’.

Next, you can dial in different levels of entrepreneurial behavior and creative tension for specific jobs and units by widening or narrowing ps of accountability and influence. Finally, you must adjust the p of support to ensure that the job or unit will get the informal help it needs. The exhibit “Four Spans at a Software Company” displays the settings of the ps for a marketing and sales manager at a well-known company that develops and sells complex software for large corporate clients. The p of control for this job is quite narrow.

As the manager stated, “To do my day-to-day job, I depend on sales, sales consulting, competency groups, alliances, technical support, corporate marketing, field marketing, and integrated marketing communications. None of these functions reports to me, and most do not even report to my group. ” The p of accountability, by contrast, is wide. The manager is accountable, along with others throughout the business, for revenue growth, profit, and customer satisfaction—measures that require responsiveness and a willingness to make many trade-offs.

Four Spans at a Software Company (Located at the end of this article) Note that the p of influence is set somewhat wider than the p of control. To get things done, the manager has to cross boundaries and convince people in other units (whom he cannot command) to help him. So that the manager receives the help he needs, the CEO works hard to ensure that the job’s p of support is wide. An ethos of mutual responsibilities has been created through shared goals, strong group identification, trust, and an equity component in compensation.

As the manager noted, “Coordination happens because we all have customer satisfaction as our first priority. We are in constant communication, and we all are given consistent customer-satisfaction objectives. ” Achieving Equilibrium At this point, you’re probably wondering how to determine whether specific jobs or business units in your organization are properly designed. Jobs vary within any business, and firms operate in different markets with unique strategies. How exactly should the ps be set in these many circumstances?

After the ps have been adjusted to implement your strategy, there’s an easy way to find out whether a specific job is designed for high performance. It’s a test that can (and should) be applied to every key job, function, and unit in your business. I’ll get to the details shortly, but first, it’s important to recognize the underlying nature of the four ps. Two of the ps measure the supply of organizational resources the company provides to individuals. The p of control relates to the level of direct ontrol a person has over people, assets, and information. The p of support is its “softer” counterpart, reflecting the supply of resources in the form of help from people in the organization. The other two ps—the p of accountability (hard) and the p of influence (soft)—determine the individual’s demand for organizational resources. The level of an employee’s accountability, as defined by the company, directly affects the level of pressure on him to make trade-offs; that pressure in turn drives his need for organizational resources.

His level of influence, as determined by the structure of his job and the broader system in which his job is embedded, also reflects the extent to which he needs resources. As I pointed out earlier, when an employee joins a multidisciplinary initiative, or works for two bosses, or gets a stretch goal, he begins reaching out across units more frequently. For any organization to operate at maximum efficiency and effectiveness, the supply of resources for each job and each unit must equal the demand. In other words, p of control plus p of support must equal p of accountability plus p of influence.

You can determine whether any job in your organization is poised for sustained high performance—or is designed to fail—by applying this simple test: Using “Four Spans at a Software Company” as an example, draw two lines, one connecting p of control and p of support (the supply of resources) and the other connecting p of accountability and p of influence (the demand for resources). If these two lines intersect, forming an X, as they do in the exhibit, then demand equals supply (at least roughly) and the job is properly designed for sustained performance.

If the lines do not cross, then the ps are misaligned—with predictable consequences. If resources (p of control plus p of support) are insufficient for the task at hand, strategy implementation will fail; if resources are excessive, underutilization of assets and poor economic performance can be predicted. Depending on the desired unit of analysis, this test can be applied to an individual job, a function, a business unit, and even an entire company. When Spans Are Misaligned Consider the case of a struggling high-tech company that makes medical devices.

One division was rapidly losing revenue and market share to new competitors because of insufficient sales-force coverage and a lack of new-product development. In another division, created to bundle and cross sell products, managers were unable to get the collaboration they needed to provide a unified solution for a large potential customer. In a third, local managers were making decisions that did not support or build on the company’s overall direction and strategy. These situations arose because senior managers had failed to align the four ps for key jobs and for the divisions overall.

In particular, the problems this company encountered reflect three common situations that can limit performance potential. The Crisis of Resources. In some cases, the supply of resources is simply inadequate for the job at hand, leading to a failure of strategy implementation. In the medical devices company, the sales staff had neither enough people to cover the competition (a narrow p of control) nor support from R&D to bring new products to market rapidly (a narrow p of support).

A crisis of resources is most likely to occur when executives spend too much time thinking about control, influence, and accountability and not enough time thinking about support. They may, for instance, set the p of accountability wider than the p of control to encourage entrepreneurial behavior. And they may set the p of influence wider than the p of control to stimulate people to interact and work across units. But if the p of support is not widened to compensate for the relatively narrow p of control, people in other units will be unwilling to help when asked.

Consider the local subsidiary of a regional investment bank. The managers had few direct resources (a narrow p of control) and relied on specialists from corporate headquarters to fly in to manage deals. Yet their p of accountability was relatively wide, with performance measures focusing on successful deals and revenue generation. Evaluations of the local managers failed to recognize or reward people’s commitment to help others in the organization. As a result, the p of support was too low to support the strategy of the business, which eventually failed. The Crisis of Control.

Sometimes the supply of resources exceeds demand, leading to suboptimal economic performance. In highly decentralized organizations where separate business units are created to be close to customers, a crisis of control can occur when the supply of resources (the p of control plus the p of support) exceeds corporate management’s ability to effectively monitor trade-offs (the p of accountability) and to ensure coordination of knowledge sharing with other units (the p of influence). The result is uncoordinated activities across units, missed opportunities, and wasted resources.

Consider a large telecommunications company in which regions were organized as independent business units. Because of rapid growth, division managers were able to create fiefdoms in which resources were plentiful. And because of the company’s success, commitment to the business mission was strong. But before long, the lack of effective performance monitoring by corporate superiors caught up with the business. The strategies of the divisions often worked at cross-purposes; there was waste and redundancy. Competitors that were more focused began overtaking the units.

The Crisis of Red Tape. This can occur in any organization where powerful staff groups, overseeing key internal processes such as strategic planning and resource allocation, design performance management systems that are too complex for the organization. In such circumstances, ps of accountability and influence are very high, but resources are insufficient and misdirected. Endless time spent in staff meetings wastes resources, slows decision making, and makes the organization unable to respond rapidly to changing customer needs and competitive actions.

The demand for resources exceeds supply, and strategy execution fails as more nimble competitors move in. Adjusting the Spans over Time Of course, organizations and job designs must change with shifting circumstances and strategies. To see how this plays out in practice, let’s look at how the job ps for a typical market-facing sales unit at IBM evolved as a result of the strategic choices made by successive CEOs. We pick up the story in 1981, when John Opel became IBM’s chief executive.

IBM had been organized into stand-alone product groups that were run as profit centers. Reacting to threats from Japanese companies, Opel wanted to reposition the business as a low-cost competitor. For purposes of increasing cost efficiency, the business was reorganized on a functional basis. The p of control for operating-core units such as manufacturing was widened dramatically, and there was a corresponding reduction in the ps of control and accountability for market-facing sales units (illustrated in the top panel of the exhibit “Three Eras at IBM”).

The company also enlarged its definition of “customer. ” Rather than focus narrowly on professional IT managers in governments and large companies, IBM began marketing to small companies, resellers, and distributors. It created experimental independent business units and gave resources for experimentation without imposing any accountability for performance. By the end of Opel’s tenure, IBM was criticized for confusion about strategy and priorities. As one writer noted, “IBM settled into a feeling that it could be all things to all customers. However, the effects of these problems were masked by the dramatic and unrelenting growth of the computer industry during this period. In 1985, John Akers took over as CEO. The organization he inherited was configured to develop, manufacture, and market computing hardware in independent silos. Not only were products incompatible across categories, they failed to meet customer needs in a world that was moving quickly from hardware to software and customer solutions. To get closer to customers, Akers created a unified marketing and services group, organized by region.

The mission of this new market-facing unit was to translate customer needs into integrated product solutions and coordinate internal resources to deliver the right products to customers. Business units and divisions were consolidated into six lines of business. The p of control for the market-facing sales units widened dramatically. The new marketing and services group was made accountable for profit, and, as a result, many new profit centers were created. Unfortunately, the existing accounting system was not capable of calculating profit at the branch level or for individual customers and product lines.

Instead, a top-down planning system run by centralized staff groups set sales quotas for individual product categories. Customer sales representatives thus had few choices or trade-offs; their p of accountability was not wide enough to support the company’s new strategy. To make matters worse, the new profit centers made the company extremely complex and fragmented, a situation reflected in the unit’s relatively narrow ps of influence and support. As the strategy’s failure became evident and losses mounted, Akers considered breaking the corporation into separate entities.

Lou Gerstner took charge in 1993. He restructured the business around specific industry groups, narrowing the ps of control and widening the ps of accountability for marketing and sales units. At the same time, he widened the ps of influence by formally pairing product specialists with global industry teams, which worked closely with customers. To widen the ps of support, the company reconfigured bonuses to give more weight to corporate results than to business-unit performance.

Sam Palmisano took over as CEO in 2002 and reinforced the positive changes wrought by Gerstner. The new CEO’s strategy emphasized “on-demand” computing solutions delivered through seamless integration of hardware, software, and services. This involved adopting a team-based, “dedicated service relationship” configuration at the sales units. To ensure that all employees in such a complex organization would be willing to work across units to build customer loyalty, Palmisano worked to widen ps of support further.

In a well-publicized initiative, he returned the company to its roots by reemphasizing the importance of IBM values such as dedication to client success, innovation, and trust and personal responsibility in all relationships. To increase trust within the company and heighten the perception of fairness—necessary actions before people will assume responsibility for helping others—Palmisano asked the board to allocate half of his 2003 bonus to other IBM executives who would be critical leaders of the new team-based strategy. A Precarious Balance

As IBM illustrates, complex strategies for large firms usually require that all the ps of key jobs widen, indicating high levels of both demand for, and supply of, organizational resources. But the potential for problems is great in any organization where all four ps are wide and tightly aligned. A relatively small change in any one of them will disrupt the balance of supply and demand and tip the organization toward disequilibrium. In the short run, of course, the dedication and hard work of good people can often compensate for a misalignment.

But the more dynamic your markets and the more demanding your customers, the more critical and difficult it becomes to ensure that all four ps of organization design are aligned to allow your business to reach its performance potential. Spans of Control at Wal-Mart The ps of control for a store manager and a merchandising manager at Wal-Mart are quite different. To ensure standardization in operations, Wal-Mart gives the store manager relatively little control. To promote the implementation of best practices, the company gives the merchandising manager a “wide” setting.

Creating the Entrepreneurial Gap By holding managers accountable for more than they control, a company can encourage entrepreneurial behavior. Four Spans at a Software Company The settings for a marketing and sales manager show a relatively narrow p of control and a relatively wide p of accountability. The discrepancy indicates that the company wants the manager to be entrepreneurial. A reasonable p of influence ensures that he has a respectable level of collaboration with colleagues outside his unit to compensate for his low p of control.

Company policies designed to provide a wide p of support ensure that his entrepreneurial initiatives will get a favorable response. The dotted line connecting the two ps that describe the resources available to the job (p of control and p of support) intersects with the line connecting the two ps that describe the job’s demand for resources (p of accountability and p of influence). This shows that the supply of, and demand for, resources that apply to this job are in rough balance; the job has been designed to enable the manager to succeed.