Navigating the Cube

Purpose of this Chapter

This chapter explores how to practically use the SPARA Performance Cube as a dynamic thinking tool. While the Cube provides a structural model, its true value is realised when practitioners use it to navigate complex performance challenges in real-world contexts. This chapter moves beyond theory to show how the Cube guides performance journeys, enables coordinated interventions, and delivers measurable improvements.

Whether you are starting with a strategic directive, an operational problem, or a measurement failure, the SPARA Performance Cube offers a repeatable, flexible path toward insight and action.

Understanding the Entry Points

The SPARA Cube supports three points of entry, each corresponding to a dimension:

Themes (What needs to perform) – The starting point for most operational challenges.
Levers (How we influence performance) – The starting point for change or improvement initiatives.
Measurement Chain (How performance is evidenced) – The starting point for strategic alignment or reporting concerns.

SPARA’s eight Themes are:

Performance Metrics Management
Service Reporting
Ownership and Accountability
Governance
Risk and Assurance
Capability and Competence
Change and Transition
AI Integration & Automation

When navigating the Cube, you enter through the dimension that represents your most immediate challenge and travel across the other axes to build alignment and action.

Building a Performance Journey

A SPARA Performance Journey is a guided path through the Cube. It helps teams move from a starting condition (e.g. a problem, objective, or new requirement) to a coordinated set of interventions supported by meaningful evidence.

Each journey follows this logic:

Start with the dominant dimension: Theme, Lever, or Measurement concern.
Explore intersecting elements across the other two dimensions.
Apply SPARA tools and templates to design the improvement initiative.
Use the Measurement Chain to establish success indicators.
Implement, monitor, and iterate.

Performance journeys are designed to be lightweight, structured, and tied to real-world service goals.

Lever-first Journey: Enabling Through Tools

Imagine a CIO recognises that despite heavy investment, the organisation’s tools are underutilised and fragmented.

The journey begins with the Lever: Tools.
The CIO uses the Cube to assess how this lever interacts with key Themes: Service Operations, Dashboards, and AI Integration.
Within each Theme, the question becomes: Are our tools enabling this domain, or creating friction?
Using the Measurement Chain, the organisation defines:
- Objective: Reduce tool sprawl and improve usability.
- CSF: Staff consistently operate within approved systems.
- KPI: % of transactions completed in the primary tool.
- Metric: Average number of tools touched per workflow.

This journey ensures that tooling is not improved in isolation, but aligned to service outcomes.

Example 1: Theme-first Journey – Service Reporting

Context: A performance manager identifies that executives are overwhelmed with inconsistent reporting formats and data sets.

Cube Starting Point:

Theme: Service Reporting
Levers: Governance and Alignment, Performance Intelligence
Measurement Chain Focus:
- Objective: Establish a single version of truth in reporting
- CSF: Reports reflect agreed definitions and data lineage
- KPI: % of reports delivered from a centralised source
- Metric: Number of unapproved or conflicting reports circulated

The journey begins with the problem of reporting overload. The practitioner explores which Levers are driving fragmentation (e.g. lack of reporting standards) and uses SPARA tools like the Reporting Governance Template and KPI Advisor to coordinate improvements.

Example 2: Lever-first Journey – People and Empowerment

Context: A service improvement lead wants to increase front-line autonomy and reduce dependency on management escalations.

Cube Starting Point:

Lever: People and Empowerment
Themes impacted: Ownership and Accountability, Change and Transition
Measurement Chain Focus:
- Objective: Improve proactive problem solving at the point of need
- CSF: Teams demonstrate confidence and capability to act
- KPI: % of decisions resolved without escalation
- XLA: “I feel trusted to resolve issues directly”

The journey identifies the key performance domains affected by empowerment gaps and applies tools such as the Empowerment Maturity Model and SPARA Skills Assessment Framework.

Example 3: Measurement-first Journey – Risk and Assurance

Context: A governance board needs to gain visibility into where risks are not being effectively mitigated.

Cube Starting Point:

Measurement Chain: KPI and XLA levels
Theme: Risk and Assurance
Levers: Governance and Alignment, Performance Intelligence

The journey begins by clarifying what successful risk mitigation looks like. From there, the practitioner identifies who is accountable and whether oversight and intelligence functions are supporting risk detection and resolution. SPARA Risk Assurance Playbooks and Maturity Diagnostics are used to formalise improvement planning.

Navigation Principles

Every journey touches all three dimensions. One starting point, but all three must be addressed.
Don’t over-engineer the Cube. Use it as a framing tool to guide structured thinking.
Use narrative logic. The Cube works best when your journey has a clear before and after.
Support thinking with tools. SPARA artifacts exist to make Cube navigation repeatable.

Tools to Support Navigation

SPARA Performance Journey Template
Theme-specific Toolkits (e.g. for Reporting, Risk, Transition)
Lever Playbooks (e.g. Governance, Empowerment, Culture)
KPI Advisor and XLA Definition Guide
Measurement Chain Canvas

Each tool helps translate Cube thinking into guided, evidenced action.