Defining capability
Across the APS, capability development has continued to strengthen in recent years. Learning programs are increasingly engaging, well designed and widely delivered, with strong participation and positive feedback.
Yet a familiar challenge remains – it can be difficult to demonstrate how these efforts are improving performance across agencies. This challenge is not a reflection of learning quality. Rather, it highlights the importance of how capability is designed and supported as part of a broader system. In many cases, capability efforts understandably begin with requests for training, programs or engagement – rather than being anchored from the outset to a clearly defined performance purpose. As a result, evaluation often focuses on measures that are easier to observe and influence, such as participation, engagement and satisfaction. These measures are useful but are sometimes treated as indicators of performance.
While these signals provide valuable insight, they can unintentionally draw attention away from how work is changing as a result.
Designing good systems
A cross-agency capability initiative focused on Good Work Design tested how capability could be more clearly linked to performance outcomes. This starts with designing and managing capability as a system, not an outcome.
More visible elements, such as learning experiences, programs and communications, can be updated relatively frequently. The underlying structures, such as purpose, performance expectations and system alignment, change more slowly, but have a greater influence on how the system functions overall.
Effective capability systems require both structure (architecture) and ongoing alignment (stewardship).
This looks like:
- defining the performance problem capability is intended to address
- designing support for application in real work (not just participation)
- ensuring ongoing alignment between capability efforts and organisational priorities.
Managing this over time requires deliberate design and ongoing stewardship.
If the structure is not clearly defined, capability efforts will tend to optimise for activity rather than outcomes.
Capability is not simply what is delivered. It is what changes in how work is done and whether that change is sustained.
What can you do?
We encourage you to reflect on your current capability initiatives through a systems lens and ask these questions:
- What performance problem is this initiative intended to address?
- Are we primarily measuring activity, or how work is changing as a result?
- Are any measures being used as proxies for performance?
You don’t need to change everything all at once. Small, deliberate steps can help strengthen the connection between capability and performance:
- Define one initiative in terms of a clear performance outcome
- Add one support mechanism that enables application in day-to-day work (e.g. tools, prompts, workflow support)
- Replace one activity-based metric with an indicator of use or application for greater insight.