p.3 Critical success factors are the few key areas of activity in which favorable results are absolutely
necessary for a particular manager to reach his goals. Because these areas of activity are critical, the
manager should have the appropriate information to allow him to determine whether events are proceeding sufficiently well
in each area.
p.3 the reader should be thoroughly familiar with the original Harvard Business Review article. This
primer assumes such a familiarity. [JLJ - Rockart, "Chief Executives Define Their Own Data Needs," Harvard Business Review
March-April 1979, p.81]
p.4 The interview procedure section contains those techniques which we have found, in three years of using
the method, to be most successful in drawing out CSFs... The interviewer must be thoroughly prepared. He must have as deep
as possible an understanding of the industry, the specific company, and the job being performed by the manager being interviewed...
the interviewer must have all the attributes and preparation of a good consultant.
p.5 Managers think in the terms used in the CSF interview. As a result, the CSF method
allows the interviewer to comfortably extract the manager's view of the world. Most important, it enables the manager
to easily identify those few matters which demand continuing scrutiny by him. The process, therefore, ultimately
provides the interviewer with an understanding of what information will really be perceived as useful (and actually
used) by each manager.
p.5 The CSF method is also of direct and immediate use to the interviewed manager. It assists her to explicitly
focus attention on what is really important. All good managers have implicit CSFs which they have been using, most
often subconsciously, to help them to manage throughout their careers. The interview method helps make these critical factors
explicit.
p.11 What is or is not a critical success factor for any particular manager is a subjective judgement arrived
at only after some thought. There is no clear algorithm which will aid an interviewer to assist a manager to find his CSFs...
For those [managers] who have some difficulty in isolating their CSFs, a well-prepared, knowledgeable interviewer can assist
greatly in the CSF-determination process.
p.12 Critical success factors are the relatively small number of truly important matters on which
a manager should focus her attention.
p.13 Critical success factors are of sufficient importance that these key areas of activities should
receive constant and careful attention from management. The current status of performance in each area should
be continually measured and status information should be made accessible for management's use.
p.37-38 Many consulting firms who specialize in strategic planning use either the CSF concept directly or
a concept similar to it. They tend to preach that, for an organization to be successful, its strategy must be developed
to allow it to excel in those areas where high performance is critical -- or the organization must move into an industry
niche in which, in effect, different CSFs exist.
p.44 Sequence of CSFs used in individual planning: Goals -> CSFs -> Resource allocation to key programs
and activities
p.51 CSFs answer the basic question of 'Where should you place managerial attention?'.
p.55 "Will you please tell me, in whatever order they come to mind, those things that you see as
critical success factors in your job at this time?" ..."Let me ask the same question concerning critical success
factors in another way. In what one, two or three areas would failure to perform well hurt you the most?
In short, where would you most hate to see something go wrong?" ..."Assume you are placed in a dark room with no access to
the outside world, except for food and water, today. What would you most want to know about the business when you came
out three months later?"
p.59 After the CSFs have been determined and prioritized, the interviews should proceed
to discuss possible ways of measuring each. This is an area for great creativity.
