So many important projects and ideas can compete for your attention as a Phi Theta Kappa Officer that there will be days you don’t know where to direct your focus.  If you aren’t focused, it can be extremely difficult to engage in strategic thinking that is essential for effective goal setting and to get everyone on the team pulling in the same direction.   Results and impact suffer.

Identifying Critical Success Factors (CSFs) can help. CSFs are the foundational activities and essentials that must be performed well if you are to achieve the mission and the ultimate vision or objectives of your organization.  It is more nuanced than just focusing on the mission – the purpose of the organization and what it does – because thinking about CSFs helps prioritize activities and direct resources where there is a critical need.   Identifying and then communicating CSFs creates a common starting point to create a strong foundation for the success of your organization.   D. Ronald Daniel first presented the idea of CSFs in the 1960s and then John F. Rockart, of MIT’s Sloan School of Management, built out the idea and popularized it a decade later. Rockart defined CSFs as:  “The limited number of areas in which results, if they are satisfactory, will ensure successful competitive performance for the organization. They are the few key areas where things must go right for the business to flourish. If results in these areas are not adequate, the organization’s efforts for the period will be less than desired.”  He also concluded that CSFs are “areas of activity that should receive constant and careful attention.”

Putting the Idea Into Practice

In Phi Theta Kappa, the Five Star Chapter Development Program uses the CSF philosophy to help chapters implement the broad mission of the Society and to develop as a chapter.  The mission of Phi Theta Kappa begins with “recognizing scholarship” – high academic achievement – so the One Star level for a chapter includes the critical, foundational activities such as identifying the high academic achievers and holding an Induction Ceremony, the key method of recognizing scholars. Activities at the One Star level are critical and must be executed well or there will be less participation, success, and impact for the chapter in the other levels which have activities that relate to the additional parts of the mission.  However, the Five Star Chapter Development Program establishes CSFs in very broad terms.  You can “drill down” deeper to get specific CSFs for your chapter by considering such questions as “is our membership acceptance rate among qualified high academic achievers as high as it could be in order for us to have a great induction ceremony?”  “Is our induction ceremony conducted in such a way that new members feel recognized and honored?”  The answers to these kinds of questions can then help you set specific goals because you may discover that the membership acceptance rate is quite low and that you could create a stronger foundation for your chapter with greater visibility and awareness of the benefits of Phi Theta Kappa membership and decide to set a target goal related to this CSF.    If you determine that your chapter performs the One Star essentials very well and has nailed the CSFs, move on to looking at the Two Star level essentials and drill down to determine the specific CSFs for the activities at another level of the Five Star Chapter Development Program.

The CSF concept can help you focus your efforts whatever the activity.  As a common point of reference, CSFs help everyone in the team to know exactly what’s most important. And this helps people perform their own work in the right context and so pull together towards the same overall aims.

Critical Success Factors are strongly related to the mission and strategic goals. Whereas the mission and goals focus on the general aims and what the organization is trying to achieve, Critical Success Factors focus on the most important areas at the present time where you need to focus attention and is a concept that helps you get to the very heart of what you need to do to create success and the strategy you need to achieve it.

[Monika Byrd, August 2008]

Questions or comments about items appearing in the Officers’ Leadership Resource Center may be directed to Monika Byrd, Dean of Leadership Development for Phi Theta Kappa’s Honors Program Department.