Some Words on "Competencies" by Don Tosti

One of the reasons I have been so involved with ISPI is people like Don Tosti. Don and I served on the ISPI Board together for two years and I learned so much in just casual conversations...all related to the business of ISPI of course...informal learning just where you might expect it...involvement in a professional society!

Here is his portion of an exchange on Competencies that is in the ISPI discussion groups (http://www.ispi.org/) - ProComm - Motivation, Incentives, and Feedback (MIF): Models of Motivation: Are competencies motivating?

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The term competency originally referred to ones ability. In other words your skill and knowledge. If you look at most sets of competencies virtually everyone is able to perform them. So by the original definition everyone is competent.

The question is really is not can they do it but do they do it with sufficient likelihood, frequency and ease. That is most often how differences are measured and those are measures of fluency not competency. (This is a major source of misunderstanding).

The original term for these behaviors was practices and it was around long before competencies (e.g. Litwin and Stinger 1976).

The search for critical practices gave rise to competency studies to determine what differentiated the high performers from low and moderate ones in a particular organization.

These were done by measuring fluency and using factor analysis to isolate the twenty or thirty such practices. I worked with Litwin in the early 80’s to determine more efficient ways of determine such critical practices. That’s when we came up with the idea of practice sorts. So if it not ability, what does effect existing level of practice fluency?

The big five performance system variables give the answer. The most important variables are the conditions — the physical and most importantly the social environment. We have generally found the company culture to be the most significant factor in determining the fluency level.

Expectation and directions is next: incentives (including pay) are next... and finally the individual performer preferences account for the greatest differences between individuals.

We have found the best way to increase the fluency of the so called competencies is the same as in any activity which requires fluency, like basketball, playing a musical instrument or learning a language it is called practice and feedback.

Unfortunately the feedback is ----poor in most organizations and when it is given it is too little and too often confound with evaluation and pay.

By the way - Hay group latched on to competencies because their old business model was failing. They used to advocate pay scales based on the number of people reporting to you which of course led to empire building. They needed a new gig so they changed the more appropriate term critical practice fluency into competencies by redefining it to justify their scheme of selling pay systems.

Let us not play the game. Let us refer to these behaviors as critical practices not competencies. They are very important part of performance but they have been badly handled by the HR world.

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The big five are the 5 variables of the performance system:
1 the conditions (the physical, social, and organizational environments
2 input/direction (that which directs and/or initiates action)
3 performer (skill, knowledge, preferences)
4 Motivating consequences (e.g. balance of + and -)
5 Formative Feedback (Fit, focus and timing).

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One of the most important element in intrinsic motivation in the work place is not task related but depends on how people are treated. Does management treat the employees in a way that creates many cynics and spectators? Unfortunately competency programs often heighten the atmosphere of disrespect, fear, and failure and therefore may actually be demotivating.

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Again---the above are words from Don Tosti...from the ISPI web site discussion groups---use the Search function to locate this and other writing by Don Tosti!

Participating in the ISPI Discussion Groups does not require a paid membership...only registration on the web site. Hope to see some of you in SF next week at the ISPI and IFTDO Conference!

For more information, go to http://www.ispi.org/


And Don can be reached via email at: Change111@aol.com

Learning While Training - Biography of a Bird Dog

My brother has just published his first book: Biography of a Bird Dog.

I've been reading it out on the boat this week in between professional journals, etc. His book is about the first year of the formal and informal learning that is occurring while training his pup to become a bird dog. The dog is learning and so is he.

I find all of the parallels to my profession intriguing.

Garry is involved in formal learning also...but in an educational setting...in a nursing program. Here is his bio from his new web site at: http://www.birddogbio.com/index.html

Garry Wallace has a Master of Arts in Zoology from the University of Montana and a Master in Fine Arts in Nonfiction Writing and Literature from Bennington College. He has been a member of the Biology Department at Northwest College, Powell, Wyoming, since 1987. After earning the M.F.A. in 2001, Introduction to Composition became a regular part of his teaching load.

He says, “Teaching writing is a lot different than teaching biology. Biology is more didactic and requires a highly technical vocabulary. I see it as a left-brain discipline. English, although didactic in its own right, is less formal and requires more right-brain ways of problem solving.



Author Garry Wallace tells of his experience training VG (Valley Girl) to be a bird dog. VG is an AKC registered female Labrador retriever, born May 10, 2003. For the next eight months, Wallace kept a daily journal he titled “Project VG,” in which he recorded the events that stuck in his mind: stages in the pup’s development; her harassment of the author’s faithful, nine-year-old retriever, Ebenezer; the pup’s successes and failures; the author’s satisfactions and frustrations with VG’s progress; and the sadness of Ebenezer’s slow decline.


A day or two after each journal entry, Wallace hand-wrote the first, rough draft of what became Biography of a Bird Dog (A Labrador Retriever in Wyoming). To help facilitate his recollection of events and have a photo album of VG’s life, Wallace purchased a digital camera that captured still images and short movies of VG and Ebenezer, the author’s two Wyoming dogs.


As time went on and the manuscript grew to almost 1000 pages, Wallace began the mind-boggling process of cutting the story down to size. If he could not find an apt title for the chapter, he eliminated it from the book. As he fine-tuned the writing, the author—a student of philosophy and neuroscience—discovered that the story of VG’s early life was nothing less than a lesson in thought and mind, in both dogs and in people. Not only did Wallace find a way to express his philosophy of life as he told VG’s story, but he also learned why dogs are so important in people’s lives, as he writes in the book, “Dogs are man’s best friends for a reason.”


Biography of a Bird Dog is not a training manual, but it surely would be of interest to anyone preparing to train a dog for upland bird and waterfowl hunting. So, what is Biography of a Bird Dog? It is a nearly seamless story of a man’s attempt to help his pup achieve the potential of her breed, that is, to be an accomplished Labrador Retriever.


That this story takes place in Wyoming is, well, icing on the cake. Wyoming is the kind of place where a dog can be a dog and a man can be a somewhat wild man.


To read more or place an order - go to:

http://www.birddogbio.com/index.html

Project Review- 1987- Product Management Process Training

NS 1251: Product Management Process Training, an eight-day keystone course in an overall curriculum of more than 120 potential T&D Events...a modular design of performance-based instruction AND information...it's the blue box at the end of the column on the left...the 1000 Series.

This project won an International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) Award of Excellence for Best Instructional Product in 1989 for Gerry Kaufhold and me, for both its instructional design and its results achieved.

This Event had a greater than 400 percent ROI for my client. And we added all the costs to the “I” that we could think of, because the “R” figure was so high!

It all began in 1986 at the taxicab stop at the San Francisco airport immediately following the ISPI (then NSPI) conference. We bumped into one of the key training managers of AT&T Network Systems who had a project on which he wanted us to bid. Three other vendors had already made proposals, and he was looking for something else from someone else.

I ended up in New Jersey presenting my ISPI presentation on performance-based Curriculum Architecture Design (CAD) - which I had just delivered for the second of about ten times at ISPI, and which I still have on the original double-wide flip chart easel paper.

They liked the engineering approach of my CAD methodology, and I ended up with the contract to first conduct a CAD project for the 1,100 product managers of AT&T’s Network Systems business units and then build many of the courses within that curriculum design.

NS 1251 finally ended for us in 1993 with our 31st delivery of the eight-day course. Pete Hybert or I, among others at SWI at the time, facilitated in each of the 31 deliveries of this intense, simulation exercise-centered structured learning experience, and it was draining. I did 25 of those deliveries.

Network Systems (NS), later Lucent Technologies and now Lucent-Alcatel, began as Western Electric, the equipment manufacturer for AT&T and all of the subsidiary Bell Operating Companies—Illinois Bell, New Jersey Bell, Southwestern Bell, etc.

NS, with the support of Bell Labs engineers, was the main source for telephone equipment for each of the Bell operating companies and many other non-Bell phone system operating companies.

NS’s need to develop its product managers was a residual result of the 1984 modified final judgment (MFJ), Judge Greene’s plan after the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust action to break up the monopoly of AT&T succeeded. AT&T would no longer own its primary customers.

The product manager role would be much more important in the nonmonopoly days, because the marketplace would not be owned by the manufacturer, who would no longer be in a position to sell whatever they manufactured and sell at whatever price they could justify. The product development and management decisions would no longer be based on an “extend the technology” mindset, as the Bell Labs engineering world had grown accustomed to during the past century.

It was a major sea-change for AT&T Network Systems and Bell Labs. It required marketing insights into what the new customers would buy if the decisions were left up to them (as they now were), and business and financial decision-making preempted all views, versus technology decision-making dominating management’s time and attention.

It was an exciting series of projects.

The NS 1251 project was one of many projects over a seven-year span where my colleagues and I were involved in the development of more than 25 days of group-paced training, plus more than 3,000 pages of self-paced instruction and information.

The eight-day NS 1251: Product Management Process Training course was the keystone course in the entire curriculum architecture for the product managers responsible for decisions with hundred million dollar implications for a giant corporation. The stakes were high for the client. The needs of the diverse target audience were varied—hence, the highly modularized approach of the curriculum design.

NS 1251 taught and provided ample practice opportunities for both seasoned and rookie product managers regarding the basics of business case development, product life cycle management, financial forecasting and monitoring, cross-functional team leadership, and a varied set of interpersonal skills.

The interpersonal skills included time management, active listening, and verbal communication behaviors appropriate to the job of wrangling with the representatives of many different organizations, each with different agendas and opinions on what to do and why, how and when to do it, and who exactly will do it.

All of this was accomplished during the eight days through a series of lectures and participation in five phases of an ever-expanding/increasingly difficult simulation exercise focused on managing a product through its life cycle stages. The NS 1251 simulation exercise taught product management via the fictional but real video products. NS 1251 participants were paired to manage five different video products through the typical issues associated with that phase of the life cycle, and then watched four other product management teams do the same on other products in the product family.

The class held 20 student participants. Ten participants were put into two major teams, Alpha and Omega, who would run through the exercise in parallel. The class could be run for any number of groups of ten, each requiring one facilitator.

The ten individual participants would be assigned in pairs to lead five different product teams, one each for camera, recorder, editing deck, cables and connectors, and tape.

For each of the five phases of the life cycle, the simulation exercise covered the five product rounds. In each product round, the five teams of two people each would be responsible as the product management team leaders (they were role-playing their jobs as product managers).

They were leading a cross-functional team through data review, business strategy development and (high-level) operations planning, implementation plan schedule development, and financial forecasting.

The other teams of two role-players at the table included product development (Bell Labs) engineers, manufacturing, and sales and service groups. The participants would get to learn something from having to sit in the shoes of their real counterpart organizations and voice their real concerns. It was an eye-opener for many.

They would all play their assigned roles for the first product round (camera) and conduct their product team meeting, conclude the meeting, and then address the next product (recorder). Everyone would systematically change roles to be played for each of the rounds. If I started in the first meeting as a member of the sales team for camera, I would then successively play the roles of service for recorder, product manager for edit deck, development engineer for cables and connectors, and manufacturing for the tape product. (remember this was all designed and developed in 1987).

I as a participant would have experienced "it all" in the eight days. I would have co-conducted five meetings as the product manager and honed my agenda development/meeting facilitation/conflict resolution/financial calculating/business case and business plan development skills with five rounds of hands-on practice.

It was drill-and-practice with intense observations of 4 other teams of PMs before one did it again.

I would have had to represent the issues of related/partner organizations as I role-played their parts in the exercise. It would have felt eerily familiar...if I had been in the job for a while...at least that's what many said.

I would have also played the other team roles, observed the other styles, and learned from my participation in the other 20 product team meetings I would have observed. Whew is right!

The role-players would start each product round within each phase of the life cycle by reading four to five pages of data, letters, notes, etc., from an Exercise Datapak and then begin their meeting...after rolling the dice and moving their piece around a game board.

The product management team would roll the dice and pick up breaks cards that would change somebody’s Datapak data, and then everyone would have to respond accordingly.

Each pair of participants was then loaded with information and instructions from back at their ranch (to inject political garbage into the sometimes very real simulation) and the meeting would begin. But before starting, they’d get their voice mail to see if any of the rest of the team’s colleagues back at the ranch had sent any newer instructions or data.

Then the five pairs of leaders for each product would take turns planning and conducting their product team meetings. After all five product team meetings had been held, and everyone rotated through all of the roles and experienced five different sets of situations in a single life cycle phase, the pair of product managers would sit down for two hours and develop their business case or plan, depending on where they were in the life cycle.

Nick Bridges and I developed the first version and began the deliveries with the pilot-test session in October 1987. Eight sessions were delivered in 1988. Pete Hybert, and a former co-worker Dee Kane, joined me in January 1989 and started their first days on the job at Svenson & Wallace Inc. as participants in a delivery in NS 1251 as just another two of the participants...with the intent that both would take over the deliveries from me. They did, although I did the international deliveries with others from the client organization.

The last ten deliveries of NS 1251 included six in The Netherlands. The very last delivery was for the Wireless business unit of NS in January 1993.

NS 1251 was a great learning experience for me. My greatest insights into business in general and financial management specifically were learned in this project. This project led to many more for NS, where even more was learned about business planning, marketing, manufacturing, sales, finance, service, public relations, contracting, operations, various quality tools and techniques, and many, many other learnings!

Our many thanks to Jim Costello, who was our first internal project manager and who participated in all of the original project tasks. Later Maddy Hertzbruggin, Al Madden, Andrea Stone, and Scott Steward were also involved. They were part of the immediate client organization, led by Gerry Kaufhold. O. Wayne Stewart, of the Market Operations organization, was their leader/sponsor. We formed a TAB - Training Advisory Board of key managers from each of the business units to make sure we didn't "leave them out" - inadvertently of course. A couple of minutes thinking about that brought everyone on board for the occasional "gate review meeting."

What an experience! I was very thankful for this and all of the other opportunities I had at Network Systems to develop performance-based training. Of the 60 gaps in the original CAD, I helped them build out over 25 T&D Events, some group-paced but most were Self-paced readings...which today would be e-learning of varied levels of interactivity and non-interactivity.

Other related NS projects for the product managers target audiences include

• The PM Novel...a 60+ page "year in the life" of three Product Managers whose common job titles were in fact very different from one another
• Internal and External Influences on the PM Function...a listing and link back to the AoPs for this job...of all of the Laws/Regulations/Codes and Contracts AND the Policies, Procedures and guidelines that the company had in place
• The PM Curriculum Introduction Video and Planning Guide...an attempt to demystify the Job and tie it to the Curriculum Architecture Design

There were also T&D Events that provided the learner/Performer with "structured interviews" with your boss and your peers and your "product team mates"...all intended to have you "on-board" yourself quickly...and early...when your ignorance is more easily forgiven...but not tolerated for long.

Gerry Kaufhold, my primary interface at AT&T-NS, is now an independent T&D consultant and may be reached at TeamsWork Enterprises

http://twe-hq.com/

Debriefing the PACT Processes Analysis and Design Meetings

Debriefing the Analysis or Design Team after their key meetings is critical to the process. Debriefings are important for the process and for you. They offer reinforcing encouragement or corrective warning shots across your bow.

Debriefing the teams after key meetings in the PACT Processes for T&D is a critical skill for the practitioner that may or may not come easy. It all depends on your natural or learned facilitation techniques and style, but it can be learned by most.

This article will cover my thoughts and typical process steps. I fully appreciate that there are more excellent ways to do this than presented here. These just have worked very well for me over the last 28 years of my real-world applications.

There are five debriefing points. They focus on

1. How complete and accurate of a job did we do regarding everything?
   
2. How complete and accurate of a job did we do regarding critical items?
   
3. How good are our outputs?
   
4. How did you like the process?
   
5. What are the issues going forward?
   
   

Exactly how you do this as a facilitator is somewhat open. PACT debriefings can tolerate some variation. But, as always, it depends. Situational assessment and specific reactions are tough to spell out in detail and are beyond the intent or scope of this article.


PACT Process Meetings Debriefings
As I forewarned the team in the meeting kick-off, I always conclude my analysis and design efforts with a group debrief. It’s always there in the meeting agenda near the end. Very near the end¾just before, “Thanks and have a safe trip home y’all.”

Debriefings bring closure. They are the final process check. I value them because they are my final clue and cue whether or not we collectively did a good job. Otherwise I have no clue. Yes, I read the clues and cues as I facilitated the team through the process appropriate to the meeting charter. So I have incremental feedback about the various piece-parts produced as we did them.

But now, at the end, I’d like the team members to sit back and take a collective breath (it’s a big sigh of relief for those who comprehend that we are really wrapping up with this step) and then take stock of what we’ve done and reflect on that verbally.

And if any of the team members just happen to start this debriefing prematurely before we are really finished with the meeting, I attempt to divert them back to the task at hand. I will then remind the group at that point that we will do a formal debriefing once we are finished and have accomplished our charter mission.

That mission is to produce either

• A Performance Model and Knowledge/Skill Matrix for a job, or job family, or a department/function, or for all of the jobs working one or more particular processes
  
  or
  
  
• A Curriculum Architecture Design, or a Modular Curriculum Design, or the designs and development of a set of Instructional Activities instructions and materials
  
  

The debriefing is focused around five questions.

1. What percent of everything under the “sun and moon” did we capture in terms of our coverage of the outputs, tasks, and enabling knowledge and skills within our project’s scope?
   
2. What percent of everything critical, and not just necessary, did we capture in terms of our coverage of the outputs, tasks, and enabling knowledge and skills within our project’s scope?
   
3. What did you personally think of the product we produced? The content of both the Performance Model charts and the Knowledge/Skill Matrix charts?
   
4. What did you think of the process we employed to produce the Performance Model charts and the Knowledge/Skill Matrix charts?
   
5. What do you see as the key issues going forward for our Project Steering Team to address?
   
   

All good facilitators have their own personal version of the above, and there are many versions and variations on those themes that may be apropos in a particular situation.

You as a facilitator have to always be able to figure that out for yourself, on the fly, live. And you need to know how to recover in case you bark up the wrong tree by using the wrong phrasing for your question and sent a member of the team into a state of agitation. “It’s not just semantics,” an old colleague used to say, “It’s always semantics.”

We’ve all heard that it’s good to start work with a group by

• Telling them what you’re going to tell them
• Telling them
• Telling them what you’ve told them

The PACT Processes’ spin on that is to

• Tell them what I’m going to facilitate them to do
• Then do that
• Then have them tell us how well we did
  

To paraphrase or even perhaps quote Thiagi, “All the learning happens in the debriefing.”

Debriefing brings closure for everyone, regardless of his or her role. If done well, it allows everyone to have his or her final say.

If you had a good team of master performers and real subject matter experts, you most likely had a team of strong egos. They usually have something to say. This is their outlet. And if done correctly, they can still discover more and more about what it is that we did and can discuss the value (or lack of value) that it promises for our intended use in downstream efforts.

Let them know at the beginning that the debriefing is coming at the end of the meeting, and then remind them throughout the meeting that this is one of the final steps in the meeting agenda.

Beware: if it seems important and timely to the team to have a side discussion on the process or the content, early or not, they will try. And then you’ll have to decide whether to attempt to intervene or not, and then perhaps how to intervene.

Timing is everything, as it is said. Great facilitators have a great sense of timing. If portions of the debriefing process have to be done early by the group because the team just really needs to talk something out¾let them or help them. But get on with it. Don’t get so bogged down by your process script that you can’t deviate from it upon occasion¾especially when the occasion seems to call for it.

The trouble is, it’s a judgment call, and those are usually problematic because they are so situational.

We’re not saying this is always easy. It isn’t.

The Debriefing Steps
When it’s time to debrief, debrief. Make sure the team has had a recent break. Offer them a five- or ten-minute break before starting the debrief. Let them know that the debriefing may take 20 to 40 minutes.

I go to the flip chart and on a blank page I frame my first two questions so that everyone can read my words rather than try to remember what I said. Remember . . . try to make it visible.

I ask them to write their answers down on a piece of paper in front of them. Too often I have sensed that members who did not write down their answers changed them as we went around the table asking for their numbers.

Ah, group think/peer pressure at work. So now I ask everyone to write down their scores, and then I go around the room systematically and get each set of numbers. I write them as they call them out.

I also tell them in advance that no one will have to explain their numbers to anyone else in the group. In fact I’ll cut off the discussion, because the point of this little exercise is to get the individual feelings of each group member out as to how well we did, not to arrive at consensus percentages.

Once I’ve gone around the room gathering each set of numbers, I thank them for their inputs and feedback and then try to move quickly on to the next three questions.

But often enough, someone will ask someone else to explain himself or herself regarding the numbers they gave. Even if I try to control this I can’t always do so. And sometimes the one individual who is being challenged or questioned wants to tell everyone why they feel the way they do. I usually let them do so and let the dialogue go.

I also know that if I listen real closely to what is being said, I just might learn something germane to my assignment of facilitating the team to produce the proscribed outputs. It’s never too late, even at the debriefing stage.

If this conversation will give me insights to what the team and I have produced, great! If this helps me figure out where the holes or burning issues are within the context of all of my organized data, great. I win for I can now get it fixed sooner rather than later.

The goal of the team debriefing is to get their feelings out on the table so that you, the facilitator, know where they stand on the completeness and accuracy of what you collectively have produced; otherwise, how would you know?

At the end of most of my analysis and design meetings, I almost never have a real good, personal feeling for the total, overall accuracy and completeness of the products of my process facilitation and the team’s content contributions.

After all, I own the process, and they own the content. I need to ask them about the content. They would know. I shouldn’t be expected to know.

Next, to get some words around those percentages, I write the next three questions on a flip chart page and post it for team reference as we conduct this next round.

What did you personally think of the product we produced? The content of both the Performance Model charts and the Knowledge/Skill Matrix charts? Or the content of the design?

What did you think of the process we employed to produce the Performance Model charts and the Knowledge/Skill Matrix charts? Or the content of the design?

What do you see as the key issues going forward for our Project Steering Team to address?

I tell everyone that they can respond to all three questions, two, or one, or they may pass as they wish. I also tell the group that I intend to go around the room systematically to give everyone a chance to have their say, without being cut off or distracted by others’ questions, challenges, agreements, etc.

And I tell them if they’d like to add or rephrase their captured quote, then they may do so after we’ve made the first round.

I’m always willing to take a second or third pass and give everyone a chance to add to their feedback. Usually it is not needed. But I am less willing to let go of process control because I have been burned and therefore learned the hard way that going in a nonsystematic, mixed order can result in

Someone being unhappy because they were not adequately heard and represented by their captured comments

Taking two or three times longer to process this last meeting agenda step than really necessary

Missing the opportunity to gain some additional insights from the feedback from our team due to the time required overrunning the time allotted


In Summary
Debriefing in the PACT Processes is a twist of the old saw, “Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them.”

In a PACT analysis or design meeting, the debriefings are used to help those of us without extensive performance or content knowledge understand where we are in terms of our data or design’s completeness, accuracy, and appropriateness.

Control what you can in the meeting. Learn what you can. And debrief in a flexible, yet structured manner so that you get what you are looking for, and not just what they happen to give you.

And be open for other debriefing means to these targeted ends.

For more: http://www.eppic.biz/

Introduction to: Areas of Performance

Introduction to AoPs
When modeling performance, it is critical to establish good Areas of Performance (AoPs) up-front in the process. The AoPs create a configuration—an organizing scheme for the performance data that will be captured on Performance Model (PM) charts.

There are many means/paths to the ends of AoP creation. You, the analyst, can create them, or you can facilitate an Analysis Team in creating them. It depends on your desire to have your customer really own the AoPs versus you the supplier owning the configuration. As long as I can use it for my downstream needs, I would rather that my customers own the configuration of their performances!

Each AoP is then defined further via the Performance Model charts.













A Performance Model (PM) chart is a device that captures specified data in a specific format about human performance within business processes. The example chart below is one of many pages of PM charts articulating the ideal and gap performance of ABC account representatives.


AoP Definition
AoPs are the segments of the total performance. They create a framework for the performance - or the piece parts of the performance - that when all added up, represent the whole job - whether it’s a job, a role, a process, or a departmental function—whatever scope the PM effort is charged to address.

AoPs are more process oriented than content oriented. They reflect major output and task sets.
AoPs need to provide a logical structure for looking at the work performance. A set of AoPs created by one analyst would certainly vary from AoPs created by another analyst for a similar performance—the variation between the background and experience of the facilitator and the team members pretty much guarantees it. There are probably approximately 88 good ways to segment performance . . . and 88,000 bad ways. It’s not an exact science, and it’s rarely easy, but there are ways to make this work reliably with a group.

Creating the AoP Structure/Framework
Creating the AoP framework for analyzing performance is like dividing an elephant apart to study it further. An elephant is too big to analyze all at once. As the saying goes, “Don’t bite off more than you can chew.”

We could break the elephant down into thirds: front, middle, and rear. Or we could divide it by top, middle, and bottom. Or we might divide it into proper scientific classes of anatomy. Or we could focus in on just its front end, or just its legs and feet, or just its skeleton.

What’s correct depends entirely on your terminal objectives that caused your need to analyze the performance elephant in the first place. Our terminal objective is usually to design, develop, and deploy performance-based T&D within our PACT Processes, lean-ISD methodologies.

It’s also critical that your customers perceive the AoPs as appropriate and complete in representing their performance.

How do you judge the appropriateness and completeness of a set of AoPs? As almost always, it depends. It depends on the scope and terminal objectives of your project.

To challenge your first cut at a set of AoPs, ask yourself the following:

• Does it directly conflict with or contradict any other prevailing/established models of the process or performance? Will this politically sell? (We want it to!)
  
• Do all the tasks and outputs of the process/performer fit within this AoP framework? Are there any missing AoPs? (We don’t want any!)
  
• Does this AoP framework minimize all overlaps and gaps? Will the same outputs or tasks fit into multiple AoPs? (We want it to be very clean and clear, with no overlaps and gaps, if possible.)
  

The approach we take in our Analysis Team meetings is to ask the team numerous front-end questions as we waste a page or two of flip chart paper attempting to create some semblance of order out of the many things performers do in their jobs. That gives us “voice of the customer” (VOC).

But what about “voice of the supplier” (VOS)? Do we get a say in the appropriateness or completeness of the AoPs? Yes, we do!

As the T&D supplier, we have to judge the set of AoPs we are to work with in terms of how well this AoP performance framework will allow us to further analyze the performance targeted by our project.

Will the AoP framework assist us in specifying ideal performance, conducting a gap analysis, and then deriving all of the enabling knowledge and skills?

Or will it hinder us?

And finally, will it help us later in our postanalysis efforts to configure and sequence instructional content, detail the design, develop the instruction, pilot-test and update, and then finally deploy performance-based training and development (T&D) that has process performance impact for the good?

Will we end up with a positive ROI and Value Add when the dust settles?

If the AoP framework will help us, cool. If it will hinder us, then start over, even if the Analysis Team loves the nonuseful AoP configuration! This may be difficult to sell, but if we ISD suppliers can’t use it as a means to our ends, what good is it?

Utility of the Analysis Team
If we want our Performance Models to be good, we need to ensure that the framework we start with will serve us well and not lead us inadvertently into a blind alley or deep ditch. We always take our time at the front end of our Analysis Team meetings to warm up to the group and create this framework with their assistance.

The Analysis Team is there to help us help them, not to impede us. If we can’t do our job with the models that they demand we use, they hinder our ability to serve them. We must often sell them on helping us meet our needs as well as meeting their needs. This may take some time at the front end of your Analysis Team meeting.

Get your Analysis Team master performers and subject matter experts engaged in this PM process! They usually do want to play, even if they are resistant at the start. This is their world we are trying to model, and it usually is really important to them to get it right. They simply don’t often know what we are looking for as we start, and it feels awkward to everyone (including you, the facilitator-in-charge).

Going slow to go fast is our motto.

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The PACT Process Facilitator - Part 3 of 3

7. Write It Down and then Discuss
One of my first rules or guidelines to new facilitators is

“Write down the first thing that someone says!”

Turn words floating in the air into something black and white (depending, of course, on your paper and pen colors). This almost always forces a reaction from the remaining members of the group you are facilitating. If not, ask for their reaction.

I always FOREWARN the group I am facilitating that this is exactly what I’m going to do. If someone will be so brave as to volunteer a response to my question or statement, I’ll write it down to prompt their reaction. Either it stays, or someone takes exception to it and the group dialogue begins. Do we have a consensus or not? Until I write it down, I’m not always sure. It’s the reaction of the group, verbally or nonverbally (those clues and cues again), that tell me.


I tell the group that today they are on the payroll to provide the inputs, per my process. They should all be okay with not being in total agreement, and they must be okay with questioning and challenging each other. We are usually in a hurry and need to accomplish plenty, and time is a wastin’. The best way to keep the process moving is to ask/seek what you’re looking for, write down the first response, and then ask for group confirmation, questions, comments, and concerns.

If the facilitator asks and then does nothing with the response, he/she seems to be waiting for the correct answer. That will tend to inhibit the free flow of inputs/responses that you may be seeking. I always write it down, unless it is so wrong that I don’t want to overly embarrass the individual who volunteered the wrong stuff. Then I rephrase my question so drastically, or shift gears and go into something that I may have forgotten, and then ask again (usually with an example or two of what I’m looking for and hope that the group doesn’t notice the swift move I’ve put on them).

Of course some may know exactly what I’ve done and will usually appreciate it. They bet that if they make a similar faux pas, I’ll help save their face, too. This fear-reduction technique is especially important when the group of people being facilitated are not totally comfortable with each other because they don’t know each other, or they do know each other and they don’t necessarily get along.

Again, this is not passive facilitation, which might be the appropriate route to take for your assignment. This is aggressive, confrontational, proactive facilitation. This is the quickest route to getting the most data out of a group process. You need to decide the situational appropriateness of this method for your needs and for your personality style. Again, it always depends. Sorry.


8. Use of Humor
Humor, done right, sets the stage. The message to be sent by humor (and can be said out loud to be declarative) is that while our goal is serious, let’s not take ourselves too seriously. Let’s loosen up a bit.

Self-deprecating humor is best. It offends no one, because you (the facilitator) are the butt of all/most of it.

Use of yourself as the “bozo on the bus” is effective because you can make points and laugh at yourself. And if you later inadvertently make someone else the butt of your jokes or points, you can recover by turning it back on yourself. For example: “Oh, that was smart . . . I guess you’re joining me in the duh-uh club. Hey, but I’m still president.”

When providing examples and non-examples, use yourself as the non-example and others in the room as the example. “Pete is competent and will get the training, and if he does well, he’ll get the raise. Guy is still screwing up, and if the training doesn’t take hold or he doesn’t use what he learns, he’s outta here!”

Don’t use off-color humor, sexist, racist, age-ist, or any non-PC (politically correct) humor. Make sure the butt of your jokes is most often YOU!!! Who could complain?

Then, after establishing myself as the biggest bozo on the bus, I often include others in my other jokes/wisecracks—but only if I am darn sure that they’ll be okay with it, because they have started picking on me (in fun of course), or they have made fun of themselves in some way. Again, this is tricky and you’ve got to be pretty darn sure of what you’re doing.

If humor doesn’t come naturally to you, try this first at your next family outing before you attempt to foist any humor on the next group or team you are asked to facilitate. See what kind of reaction you get (from people who know you and love you much better than this possible group of strangers who won’t be quite sure where you’re coming from).

9. Controlling the Process and Participants
The facilitator can never let one individual, or a small group within the larger group, dominate the meeting.

The best thing to do if this begins to happen to you is to thank the person for their input and then ask someone else for theirs. Then shift your style to aim specific questions at specific individuals. “Bob what do you think the next set of tasks are for this output?”

Take the offenders aside at the next break and explain that you need a balance of inputs to ensure a consensus is forming. While you appreciate their contributions, you hope they understand what you’re doing. Usually they get the message and back off. Maybe they’ll need another reminder or two. Sometimes none of these tactics work.

I have disinvited participants from my meetings. That means I asked them to leave. I’ve been at the point that their participation was so dysfunctional that I asked them to leave and when they resisted, I suggested that I would call their boss to insist that they be requested to return to the office. That’s when they either drastically changed their behavior, or they left. I had no choice. They were so disruptive that they were wasting the time and productivity of everyone else.

Of course, I was at the last straw on the camel’s back and it was broken. Prior to that I had taken them aside during a specially called break and warned them of my next move (asking them/insisting that they depart the process). Prior to that I had taken them aside during a regular break to discuss their participation style and the effect on the group and our progress. Prior to that I had tried to manage their behavior during the meeting by asking out loud that they let others participate more. Prior to that I had tried to get the group to help me self-manage the problem participant by asking for their opinions in response to the one individual’s points.

I had exhausted all possibilities. I had tried and I was done and so were they.
When push comes to shove, I have to shove back. I am the person that the group looks to control the process and continue our progress. I can’t blame their hesitancy to act. Otherwise, I am allowing someone (or more than one person) to waste all of our collective time and energies. Don’t let this happen to you. Take charge, take action. It isn’t pleasant, but it is the job of the facilitator—at least in my view of the role of the proactive facilitator.


10. Legibility Rules for the Flip Chart Pages
Another of my favorite rules is

“Neatness does not count, legibility does.”

Maybe it just suits my personality best, being somewhat messy. Those that know me usually think differently. I’m a very structured person—I love structure and hate chaos. But once I get on a roll with the group, or more importantly, once they get on a roll, I don’t take a lot of time to write down their inputs/responses so carefully that I slow them down. I try to write fast.

In fact, I write so fast and furiously that I have to make sure I don’t violate the legibility rule that means so much to whomever has to word-process my work afterward. Even when I have word-processed my charts later, I have found that I was not always able to recall what the words were in my attempt to clean up my own mess.

So if you can’t do both, at least be legible if not always neat!


11. Beware of Group Think and Push Back
Group think is a danger. It is usually caused by one or more variables.

• A single dominant participant who intimidates everyone else
• Multiple dominant participants who are aligned
• Sometimes this is a high-level manager to whom most everyone else in the room reports
• A docile, lazy group easily dominated and that doesn’t want to work too hard
• A group of timid participants, unsure of themselves, and afraid of going against the grain of the stronger personalities

The key cause could be poor selection of the group members for the meeting, which sometimes is avoidable and sometimes is not.
More importantly, it’s caused by a facilitator who has let go of their control of the process and has let someone else facilitate from the other side of the U-shaped tables. Bad. Bad. Bad.

When I feel/think that group think is happening, I stop the process and confront the group. I ask them to go over their last inputs and give me their personal rationale for their decisions. I tell them (being declarative of course) of my concern and ask them to speak for themselves. Then I back up and go over the last inputs/responses very slowly, and reconfirm their inputs and their rationale.

If that doesn’t stop it, maybe nothing will, unless we change the entire nature of the group process. It may be avoided initially by making sure that the folks chosen for the group effort are strong enough to not fall into this trap.


12. Assigning Parking Lot Valets
The use of a “parking lot” for issues that arise that may not be timely in a very structured process, is a good idea. Post a flip chart on the wall and write “Issue Parking Lot” or something similar on the top, and then add things that are premature or we don’t ever intend to address in the meeting, so as not to forget them. At the end of the meeting, or sooner as appropriate, address them and close them out. Those that remain open will have to be addressed and resolved some other time and some other way.

I usually have two parking lots, one for open issues and one for closed issues, so everyone can see progress in addressing those that can be addressed in our meeting.

But I hate being the parking valet! It seems that I spend so much time parking everyone’s issues that I run myself ragged from one flip chart to another. So I’ve hit on this device—an improvement if you will. We hand out “stickies” and ask everyone to jot down their own issues and self-park them. Then at every review/preview checkpoint, we review what’s new in the open parking lot, and we take the time to see what can be parked in the other lot.

Try it. It gets your group more involved, makes them articulate their issues/concerns themselves, and gets their butts out of their seats on occasion, which may be the most beneficial aspect of the self-parking lot concept.

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The PACT Process Facilitator - Part 2

The series on PACT Facilitation continues...


2. Be Declarative
The timid shall never inherit the master performer facilitator’s crown. Be strong. If your job is to facilitate a process to a certain set of outcomes, then declare yourself to/for the group. Tell them (assuming you are in charge of the meeting and the process and are responsible for assisting in getting the group outputs/outcomes out) what’s what and who’s who. Describe the process and the products of your process.

Declare your intentions! Tell the group what they will do, how you plan to get them there, which hoops you’ll collectively be jumping through, which ones are on fire, etc. Be declarative! Then, as you start and throughout your process, ask for feedback, because there may indeed be a better way, or what you want may already exist, etc.

Do plenty of process checks. Ask, “So far, so good? Does this make any sense to you because even though it looks good to me, what do I know—I’m just the facilitator here.” Be declarative about wanting and demanding their feedback. After all, that is why they are on the payroll this day: to fully participate in the process. I tell ’em what I want, how I intend for us to go about doing it, and then I ask for their “questions/comments/concerns” in return. Heck, I beg for their feedback! I ask them to “shoot a warning shot across my bow” (residue to my youth). I plead that they don’t let me drive us collectively down a blind alley on a dead-end street! I may have a plan and firmly declare my intentions, but I’m still open to the warnings of others.

Hey, I’ve been burned before, and I have learned from it. Often it was with my own matches. I’ve learned to get their input and feedback. This concept is not new to the world at large. It’s nothing more than lessons learned from project postmortems—where the project managers learned that the people in their projects saw the bad news on the horizon long before it showed up and screwed up their projects. If only they had asked earlier or had known whom to ask!

Your project participants may see the problematic issues long before you see them. The world’s often been there and done that and know that the light at the end of the tunnel is not the opening in this case, but a freight train coming!Be declarative and see what happens. If not much happens, don’t assume that you are cool and okay. Double- and triple-check with the group. And look for those nonverbal clues and cues that something is amiss!

WARNING! Sometimes you may come on so strong in your “facilitator declarative mode” that members of the group may feel a bit intimidated and unwilling to suggest things or challenge you. You must ensure that the group always feels as if they truly own the content and that we facilitators only own the process. This declarative stuff is a double-edged sword—it cuts both ways. Be careful! A skilled facilitator carefully maneuvers a group through a process using both strong and gentle pushes and pulls while always attempting to be situationally appropriate and focused on the desired outcomes.












3. Write and Post Stuff
Regardless of whether it’s words, diagrams, or charts that can best capture the essence of the team conversation, just don’t stand around while people (including yourself) are talking.

Write or chart it on the flip chart paper and make it visible!

Make it black and white (or color if that will help) so that everyone can see what it is that we’re discussing. Give them something to think about and react to.

If you leave things said as nebulous thoughts floating about in the air in the room, you have not given others a chance to visualize, self-inspect, critique, and fix what it is they are talking about.

Make it visual. Make it visible!

Then post it; don’t bury it by flipping to a new clean page. Keep everything visible. Rip it off and post it!























4. Redundancy by Design
All marketers know that for a message to penetrate the psyche of the receiver and convey the intent of the message, it will need to be repeated . . . and repeated . . . and repeated. Enough said. I don’t think so.

If you’ve said it once, you’ll probably need to repeat it again.That becomes a problem for the people who are quicker on the uptake, rather than those who are slower. Just as group-paced, traditional training is usually held hostage by the slowest in the group, meetings are, too. Those who get it quicker will get irritated with you for thinking that they didn’t get it sooner. This is tricky. Who do you play to—the quick or the slow?

I play to the slow. If I sense a problem with some individuals who are getting annoyed with me, I talk with them on break and enlist them in my efforts to get everyone else on board. They are usually way cool with it, because they’re in on it and know that I know it’s not them! I told you this was tricky! They usually step in during my next bout of “redundantitis,” and help me explain my point. Often they have better command of the group’s language and jargon and can provide better examples, non-examples, and analogies that may actually cause the mental-cognitive breakthrough I was struggling to create.

The whole group breathes that collective sigh of relief when they all get it or know that everyone else has finally gotten it, and Guy will quit beating them over the head with it. I could let my own ego get in the way and not create the tension that redundancy by design causes by saying it once and moving on. But having been burned by that, I have learned from that and will face the short-term wrath of the group in order to ensure that the train is moving ahead with everyone on board.

Also, some of your clients may feel that since they get it (they are often in our same business and naturally want and try to get it ASAP), everyone else must have, too. They may make the mistake that your redundancy is no longer tolerable, because they can actually see the quicker “learners” of the group squirming. But they aren’t often in a position to read the clues and cues in everyone’s eyes as you are from center stage.

This is also tricky—balancing their needs to keep their group happy and see progress—and they get impatient. You’ll need to determine when it’s safest to proceed—when you can leave someone behind conceptually. When will it do little or great damage to your next steps? Will it cause problems in these next steps, will it cause rework, will it cause greater frustration in the rest of the group, will it then destroy any group “teamness” that may be starting to form?

Tricky, eh? We facilitators just need to find mechanisms to help us with all of these issues as they arise. We can’t let our own needs to be perceived as hip and cool by the other hip and cool members of the meeting get in our way of ensuring collective progress. Otherwise, it’ll be rework city, and I hate when that happens!



















5. Key Communications Behavioral Types
The singular most powerful insight I have ever gained in my evolution as a facilitator was due to my exposure to a “communications behavioral model” from both a “Win-Win Negotiating” and a “SPIN®” sales training course from Huthwaite, Inc. that I was most fortunate to be involved with in 1981 while at Motorola Training & Education Center (MTEC—the forerunner of Motorola University).

Neil Rackham and others (John Carlisle and I spent some quality time in a 14th century Priory in England while he delivered a Negotiations workshop as part of my "coming up to speed" for MY PROJECT) had built earlier versions of their training that focused on a dozen plus "behavioral traits" as demonstrated verbally. I was "certified" by Neil in time for the Pilot Test of the 3-day Win-Win Negotiations session for sales people, purchasing agents and some governmental negotiators (where they were selling one or two "sophisticated black boxes" for big bucks).

Without going into their entire model, I gleaned four key verbal communication behavior types. I almost always self-categorize my own verbal expressions into these four, even as I say them. And I typically “see” others’ verbal expressions falling into these categories, even as they speak!

The four types are

1. Giving Information
2. Seeking Information
3. Testing Understanding/Summarizing
4. Defend/Attack

Giving Information
The “Giving Information” (GI) communication behavior is very straightforward, but important. You are giving information, which is not good if you are supposed to be finding things out! You may need to first give some information before you “find things out,” but you should soon be shifting gears into the next type.

Seeking Information
The “Seeking Information” (SI) communication behavior also is simple. It’s typically in question form, either open or closed, depending on what you’re looking to accomplish.

Knowing or feeling your balance in your use of these first two types is important in assessing your successes and failures as a communicator, but nothing beats the next communication behaviors.

Testing Understanding/Summarizing
The “Testing Understanding/Summarizing” (TU/S) behavior is actually a combination of two, but I often combine them to simplify their use. However, they are different.

TU is when you make statements or ask questions for the purpose of testing out what you think you’ve just heard or what you think you know. Most of us know this as “active listening.”

One of the better ways to do a TU is to paraphrase what was said. Putting it into another set of words, rather than simply parroting it back just as you heard it, allows the sender to better check your receipt of their message. If you parrot it back, all we know is that you remember the words. The further your paraphrasing takes the original words away from the words you use, the easier it is to test for understanding.

It is also best to be somewhat declarative of what you’re doing when you TU. I often announce/declare, “I am testing here,” and then make a statement or ask a question. Then listen for the response, and always read the clues and cues of nonverbal facial and body language. You can also say, “Let me see if I’ve got this. You’re saying that x, y, and then z. Is that right?” Work on your own set of TU phrases. Play with it!

S is where you are simply summarizing. Again, it’s best to provide your own clues and cues to your group. Say, “Let me try to summarize this,” and then do it. Again, if your words stray from the original (but not too far), then it’s easier for the group to react.

This S stuff is very much like a TU, just done in a different mode. You are looking for feedback from the group that you are either right on, just off, or way off. Again, don’t let your ego get in the way! I tell groups that as a facilitator, I can’t be afraid to be wrong because it’ll slow us down. In fact, I’m often wrong. So get used to it! Your job here today is also to correct me and keep me on the straight and narrow path!

TU/S is critical to ensure that we understand the meanings behind the words that others are using. As a colleague of mine once remarked,

“It not just semantics, it’s always semantics!”

TU/S helps us receivers get into the intent of the message sender to check it out. It can be a very powerful tool for a facilitator. However, Socrates used this way back when, so be careful! Watch out for hemlock.

Defend/Attack
The “Defend/Attack” (D/A) behavior is also a combo. The D is typically in response to a real or perceived A. No matter how it starts, it usually degenerates into a D/A spiral that won’t end until someone interrupts the spiral. The best interruption is a TU/S behavior—something on the order of, “So you’re saying that this proactive facilitator stuff is just a bunch of hooey, and that the author must be a real jerk to perpetuate this garbage by committing it to paper and then disseminating it to the public?” (This is what, a TU or an S?)

Usually a short string of TU’s and S’s are sufficient to diffuse the situation and end a D/A spiral. All that the irate usually want is to be heard (really understood). Get the conversation back to more civilized ground and reduce the heat.

In my mind, the power of TU/S cannot be underestimated. Try it yourself. Try it on the kids. Try it with your significant other. But stay away from gang fights!

Using GI and SI and TU/S and D/A
Once I learned these, I began to “see” all of my own verbal utterings as falling into one of these categories.

I learned to first GI, maybe a little or a bunch, and then to soon TU. Do they get it? For example, “I want us to list all of the outputs for this Area of Performance and then identify all of the key measures of performance for each. Are we all clear on what I mean by performance outputs?”

Or, “We need to identify the typical performance gaps, if any, for this output.”

Or, in response to the group’s input/response, I use a TU for my benefit. “So the typical gap is that they are almost always late in turning in the monthly report?”

I also TU in response to their utterings. “Let me test this out. You’re saying that there are indeed typical gaps, but they don’t sync up with any of the key measures we have currently listed.”

I learned to SI and then S. “What gap do you think there is, and what key output measure would reflect that gap?” I would respond to their response with, “So we seem to be saying that it would be both a time to complete as well as a timeliness measure.”

I learned that the best way to break a D/A spiral was to first TU/S and then either GI or SI. “So you think that Global T&D dropped the ball and didn’t get the vendor into the effort soon enough, driving up your costs due to all of the overtime that was incurred trying to catch up?”

I learned that the more I TU/S the more it benefited the group, because they are sometimes hesitant to appear stupid (really ignorant or slow, but that’s another story). Again, I can’t afford to let my own ego get in the way of potentially appearing stupid, slow, etc. I’ve learned that the really smart people in the room will quickly figure me out and that I won’t appear stupid at all, no matter how hard I might appear to be trying with all of this TU behavior.

This is great stuff. It made me more comfortable to have these communication behavioral tools at my disposal when I first started, and I believe it has made a big difference in my approach and style. It has made me a much better facilitator.




6. Review and Previews
I start and restart every new day of a multiday meeting, any midmeeting process change, and the return from every meeting break with a “review/preview.” Some might call it a progress check. How are we doing, is everyone comfortable with what we have captured, etc.?

I do that, but always within the context of “where we have been, and where we are going.” I like to think of it as recalibrating the group. They are often simply along for the ride, and they are not that interested in learning the process we are using, so they often forget the process (often to the facilitator’s amazement). But hey, this is often our world—this facilitation stuff—not theirs. So I need a way to remind them continuously of what we are doing and where we are going and how it all fits together, etc.

They may do very well in responding to our prompts, giving us their feedback when asked/cajoled. But do not be fooled that after one, two, or even three days that they remember exactly how and why we did each step of our process.

Our model for capturing and analyzing data is probably somewhat alien to them. It’s often very different from their own mental model of how we facilitators should be doing their job, or what their performance or knowledge and skills are/were. And they often play along with us without completely giving up their mental model. They may still be quite comfortable with theirs and not quite comfortable with the new one just emerging.

Anyway, I find that groups often revert midstream back to something else (I often know not what), and I need to recalibrate the group to the process we are using. In fact, I try to do it before it really becomes apparent that it is needed (by looking for those you-know-whats!).

Reviews/previews give us a chance to recalibrate the group, reestablish the models and terms, and just as importantly, give the group a place to “blow off any steam or frustrations that may exist.”

“Blowing off steam” is critical. If the group needs an outlet, they’ll either do it on your schedule or when, in the immortal words of Popeye, “They can’t stands it no more.” You should have seen it coming, in the clues and cues for which you are constantly looking. I always try to provide a safety valve outlet in my process checks: the reviews and previews.

Please do it now and be less disruptive to the main process, is my thought!
Think of this “review/preview” as a combination of

• Slowing down temporarily, to go fast again
• Being declarative
• Redundancy by design
• A progress/process check

Don’t be afraid to do this several times a day and at the beginning and ending of each day.

The review should cover our project purpose, meeting purpose, outputs/outcomes so far, and feedback and inputs.

The preview covers where we are at, where we are going, how we’re progressing against the clock (are we on schedule or not?), and how the remaining agenda items fit into the overall scheme of things.

The review/previews are the time and place for blowing off steam and airing any and all frustrations. Remember, it’s either done on your schedule or theirs. You can try to stop it, but I bet you often won’t be able to stop it at all. You may only make it worse. You may be able to control this to your advantage, but only if you try. It is often, but not always, yours to control.








...more to follow...

The PACT Process Facilitator - Part 1

Introduction
This posting is the first in a series intended for the new PACT Process practitioners who will facilitate the Project Steering Team meetings, analysis meetings, and design meetings of the PACT Processes for T&D.



Guidelines and Rules for the Facilitation of the PACT Processes
The PACT Processes are a set of lean-ISD methodologies and processes that require a skillful facilitator to drive group processes for analysis and design purposes. They can even be used for the facilitation of all project gate review meetings.

The style of facilitation required is not the more typical laid-back style of “sideline process coaching.” It is more proactive, deliberate, driven, and leading (where and when possible and appropriate). It is intended to accelerate a group of individuals selected for a specific purpose with generating a specific set of data in a specific format.

The PACT Process facilitator knows what the outputs will look like, what kind of data is to be captured, and what process steps (and flexibility) will enable the data to be derived and captured in the quickest manner. The group, or team, is brought together to provide the inputs to the process (the actual data captured). They are also used to ensure that there is a consensus regarding the data captured (or to flag the areas of dispute).

The PACT Process facilitator’s job is to ensure both the quality and quantity of the outputs/outcomes/products produced from the group/team. The group/team should be organized to represent the various constituencies appropriate to the project and to accelerate the collection of the various types of data for that particular point in the process.

Sometimes the processing of the team is to conduct

• Planning activities
• Analysis activities
• Design activities
• Development activities
• Debriefing activities
• Project Steering Team gate review meetings



The PACT Process Facilitator
The key knowledge and skills required by the PACT Process facilitator are many and are similar to the skills required by any facilitator using any facilitation style. They include the following:

• Negotiation/influencing
• Persistence
• Creativity
• Detail orientation
• Conceptual (versus literal)
• Strategic versus tactical thinking
• Ability to suggest ideas
• Ability to create models
• Ability to work “bottom-up”
• Ability to work “top-down”
• Ability to flex process without sacrificing result
• Ability to deal with ambiguity
• Ability to deal with technical/unfamiliar content
• Values diversity of ideas, people, etc.
• Willingness to use/values a common process
• Ability to interpret data
• Organization (“being organized”)
• ISD competency
• Learning process management
• Training logistics and administration


Of course, there are many other knowledge and skills required, but these seem to be key.


The PACT Processes to Facilitate
The specific PACT Processes to be facilitated are not always meetings of groups, although group/team meetings are the most difficult facilitation applications for the PACT practitioner.

The group meetings and small group or one-on-one meetings include the following:

• Initial meeting of the T&D requester and other key stakeholders
• Project Steering Team gate review for Phase 1: Project Planning & Kick-off
• Meetings needed to gather target audience data
• Analysis Team meeting(s)
• Facilitation of the assessment of the existing T&D
• Project Steering Team gate review for Phase 2: Analysis
• Design Team meetings for Phase 3 in CAD, MCD, and IAD projects
• Project Steering Team gate review for Phase 3: Design
• Implementation Planning meeting in Phase 4
• Project Steering Team gate review for Phase 4: Implementation Planning
• Project Steering Team gate review for MCD Phase 5: Pilot Test


Proactive versus Reactive Facilitation
The key difference between the facilitation of the PACT Processes for T&D and most other types of group process facilitation is the amount of involvement and energy put forth by the PACT Process facilitators.

They need to be more proactive rather than more reactive. They must drive the process from the front seat and make things happen, rather than provide reflections to the group from the back seat as the group meanders or drives themselves. They are in control of the process that involves the group; they are not bystanders.

In the PACT Processes for T&D, the facilitators own the process, while the team being facilitated owns the content. That’s why each party is on the payroll and in the room that particular day.


PACT Facilitator Guidelines and Rules Overview
The following are the general guides and rules for facilitation of the PACT Processes and for many others, but not all other types, processes, and methods of facilitation. As with many things in life, one size does not fit all. It almost always “depends.”

The PACT approach to group facilitation is not always the right approach anytime facilitation is required. You must first determine the situational lay of the land and then decide if you should be proactive (even confrontational, if required) or reactive and more laid back in your approach with the group.

There are many judgment calls required by the PACT Process facilitator. Thinking on your feet is just one of the “all-day-long” requirements.

Group dynamics, organizational politics and culture, the specific topics or situations you are dealing with in the group meeting, and the outputs/outcomes you are striving for all have to be taken into account in determining which style to use.

And then there are the meetings where you plan to start off one way and then are forced to switch back and forth in your styles/behaviors. You do what you need to, exactly to the plan you proactively created, or not. Tricky, eh? It’s a jungle out there!

The general guides and rules for facilitating the PACT Processes for T&D include















1. Go Slow to Go Fast
Yikes! Go slow to go fast? We’re almost always in a hurry and time is a wastin’. Patience grasshopper!

Most time eaters/wasters in business meetings are due to the hurry up syndrome to which we typically let ourselves fall prey. “Just do it!” And then redo it. And often enough to make us all dread meetings, redo it again! The iterative nature of rework should cause us to stop and ponder just what the heck is going on and how we can stop it!

We seem to be able to always find the time to redo work in most of those instances where we just couldn’t seem to take the time to “do it right the first time.” (Don’t you just love/hate slogans!)

We forget to front-end load our meetings. We typically do a poor job in presenting, discussing, and rationalizing our ultimate objectives, our desired meeting outcomes, the meeting process and methods we intend to employ, and the roles and responsibilities for each person in the process, etc. We don’t carefully get everyone on board before we take off. And then we pay dearly in costly, inefficient work and the downstream rework.
We seem to feel that because we (or someone else) said it once, and therefore the intent of the message was sufficiently conveyed, that we’re done with that and it’s time to do the deep dive and get on with it! Yikes is right.

Slow down! Sloowww waaaaayyyyy doooowwwwnnnnnnnn.

The slower you go in your meeting start-up mode, the quicker you’ll get to your termination point with the right stuff, better stuff, etc. The more time spent on ensuring that all of the participants—who each brought their own personalized styles and capabilities, thank you very much—get themselves mentally on board with your agenda and concede to it, the sooner your train will get to where it’s going.

When I go slowly, it’s to do an orientation, cover the big picture, etc. In training we sometimes call this the “advanced organizer.” Use it! Get everyone’s mental model closer to yours, or let them push back and then get yours closer to theirs. Once done you can rocket and roll—up to the next transition point that is, which is a new process or a new day. Then it’s slow down, take your time, and when the time is right, rocket and roll!

To kick off a meeting, I like to cover the overall project purpose and objectives first—the terminal objective, if you will. I like to cover the specific meeting purpose and objectives next, and ensure that everyone sees the link between the two. Start looking into the participants’ eyes to look for clues and cues of understanding or confusion.

These are enablers for the terminal objective and should be seen as such. Then if there are other meetings and processes that all fit into the big picture of the project (which almost always depends on its scope, etc.), I cover them also, so everyone sees what we will be doing and how it fits with everything else.

If some other group and/or process is going to tackle other project steps and enablers, this group needs to understand the intent of the project’s plan: who’s on first, on second, and which group is up to bat, etc.

I like everyone to know not only what’s in our box but what’s outside our box. Clarify what is as well as what isn’t, in order for everyone to build up their own mental model.

This takes time. Go slow to go fast. You’ll be surprised at how fast you can actually go if you don’t have to keep slowing down to revisit topics and issues already covered. But don’t go too fast and risk not getting everyone on board.

You’ll also need to slow down when you transition from one part of your meeting to the next; for example, going from Performance Modeling to Knowledge/Skill Analysis. Again, explain how this next process fits, follows, whatever. Look for the clues and cues, in their eyes and in their body language. Most importantly, ask the participants. Verbal clues and cues are the most easily read. If you don’t ask, they might not tell.

At the start of a new day I do the same thing, go slow to go fast. I call these transitions “reviews and previews.” More on these later.

That concludes this 1st in a series.

For more on the PACT Processes go to: www.eppic.biz and get the free PDF of my book:

lean-ISD.

Management Areas of Performance and the Baldrige Criteria

Two of my book reviewers, for Management Areas of Performance, are former Baldrige Examiners. Mark Graham Brown and Joe Sener. Joe also wrote the book's Foreword.

Joe suggested a strong parallel between the model of M-AoPs and the Baldrige.

Here is the model (click on it for a larger size).






















What are the Baldrige criteria?
From http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/baldfaqs.htm - 4/26/07 -


The Baldrige performance excellence criteria are a framework that any organization can use to improve overall performance. Seven categories make up the award criteria:

1. Leadership—Examines how senior executives guide the organization and how the organization addresses its responsibilities to the public and practices good citizenship.
   
2. Strategic planning—Examines how the organization sets strategic directions and how it determines key action plans.
   
3. Customer and market focus—Examines how the organization determines requirements and expectations of customers and markets; builds relationships with customers; and acquires, satisfies, and retains customers.
   
4. Measurement, analysis, and knowledge management—Examines the management, effective use, analysis, and improvement of data and information to support key organization processes and the organization’s performance management system.
   
5. Human resource focus—Examines how the organization enables its workforce to develop its full potential and how the workforce is aligned with the organization’s objectives.
   
6. Process management—Examines aspects of how key production/delivery and support processes are designed, managed, and improved.
   
7. Business results—Examines the organization’s performance and improvement in its key business areas: customer satisfaction, financial and marketplace performance, human resources, supplier and partner performance, operational performance, and governance and social responsibility. The category also examines how the organization performs relative to competitors.
   

The criteria are used by thousands of organizations of all kinds for self-assessment and training and as a tool to develop performance and business processes. Several million copies have been distributed since the first edition in 1988, and heavy reproduction and electronic access multiply that number many times.



***********
Joe Sener wrote in the Foreword...

Since 1988 the Department of Commerce has been presenting the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award to the Best-of-the-Best American companies, schools, and now hospitals. These organizations all follow the same business model, a model built on demonstrated best practices from the most successful organizations in the country.

The Baldrige model calls for a detailed understanding of the needs of your customers (Customer Relationship Management), translating them into the language of the organization (Strategic Planning and Management), building organization tactics for deploying the strategy (Operations Planning and Management), developing performance improvement tactics and measures (Results Measurement Planning and Management and Process Improvement Planning and Management).

If this sounds familiar to you, then maybe you have spent some time inside a Baldrige company or maybe you have already read the Table of Contents of Management Areas of Performance. This book clearly lays out an approach to describe the Areas of Performance required to deploy the leadership model and strategies of your organization. To those performance technology specialists in the crowd, you may have been trying to find more effective ways to contribute to the success of your company. Here is a roadmap that clearly ties with one of the most effective business models in use today.

Guy Wallace has assembled a rock solid approach to analyze the core competencies of the leadership team to determine the gap between those skills necessary to deploy the strategies and the current state.

From this position the organization can define clear strategies for closing those gaps and better aligning the leadership team and leadership system with the future of the company. Clearly, the organization that does a better job of understanding the connection between these competencies and aligning its strategies and improvement goals will have a competitive advantage over the less clearly directed organization.

*************

Mark Graham Brown wrote in his review...

Large government and corporate organizations continue to spend money on canned or custom-developed leadership programs that fail to produce effective managers. This book presents a proven methodology for determining the specific management competencies needed for success in your own organization.

By using this approach, based on studies of your most effective managers, you will build the foundation of a program that will allow you to select and train a large cadre of effective managers and leaders.

************

The parallel? See for yourself...

Get your free PDF copy of Management Areas of Performance at http://www.eppic.biz/

Off to the ISPI Spring Conference

Sunday I head out to San Francisco for the 45th annual ISPI Spring Conference. I've missed three since my first in 1980. So this is my 25th.

ISPI, then NSPI- the National Society for Performance & Instruction, is now ISPI- the International Society for Performance Improvement.

What is unique about ISPI from all of the other conferences, conventions and trade shows about T&D/ Learning/ Knowledge Management/ Workforce Development/ Human Capital Systems Development/ Performance Improvement...is the focus on measurable results.

Which means both formative and summative evaluations...terms coined by Don Tosti...an NSPI/ISPI regular. And looking at the "total performance system" a concept, model and tool-set from Dale Brethower...another regular at ISPI. Human Competence...from the late Tom Gilbert, whom I met at ISPI. And the Anatomy of Performance with a process orientation by Geary Rummler.

Years ago I learned all about simple Job Aids from Barry Booth at NSPI. And about the importance of debriefing for learning to occur from Thiagi. And of evaluation from Judy Hale. And of mentoring from Margo Murray. And about criterion-based testing from Sharon Shrock and Bill Coscarelli. And dealing with clients who want training, from Joe Harless.

And what the research says from Dick Clark and dozens and dozens of others who share what the latest research says. To keep us grounded in what works and not what's currently hot.

And I have learned so many other lessons that have slipped into my short term and then working memories in those jam-packed days at conference that I can't always remember who taught me what. But I remember the lessons.

Sorry about my inability to acknowledge those whom I should acknowledged. I'll try to do better in the future.

I hope to see readers of this Blog in SF. If you can't get to the conference, consider getting involved in one or more of the 7 Professional Communities of ISPI. Ask a question or make a comment! Get involved!

For more info...go to: http://www.ispi.org/

The Learning Label is Too Much About Us

In truth I was never a fan of the language change in our profession, in both the public and private sectors, from Training to Learning.


I even poked fun at it in my 2001 book: T&D Systems View...when I suggested that I was going to hold out to see if Sales changed their name to Purchasing - and Purchasing changed its to Selling...because the "Learning Organization" wasn't about the training department at all.


It was about being smart enough to collectively learn from your mistakes and address problems and/or opportunities by being real about what could be and what is - and identifying the "elephants in the room" or the "sacred cows" and any and all political BS (business shenanigans) at the root of the issue - and using systems thinking.


But maybe the name change was necessary to overcome the poor reputation that poor instructional products had given us collectively. I've seen a lot of content that certainly was NOT instructional or informational in terms related to PERFORMANCE COMPETENCE.


Performance Competence is the ability to perform tasks to produce outputs to meet stakeholder requirements.


At the individual learner/Performer level. At the Team level. At the Process level. At the Department level. At the Functional level. At the Enterprise level. Up and down and across the Enterprise.


The Learning label was better, many argued, because it was about them not us. Training, it seems, was more about the Trainer and not the Trainee, or some other set of nonsense. Learning is somehow more about the learner. Or it was about the Result and not the Activity.


I think its just clever marketing, a planned obsolescence, a clearing of the decks. To make room for new stuff.


Here's my issue: I am tired of reading and hearing about all of this "new stuff" that is prefaced/labeled "Learning" such as in the family of new Web 2.0 Learning tools and systems.


If/when we talk like that in front of our customers and stakeholder we sound VERY SELF IMPORTANT. For the focus is on us...us involved in the Learning biz...learners and providers...and unfortunately not enough on the terminal results...ROI for the Enterprise...not the Learning of the Learner. Performance Competence...not a personal quest not related to performance requirements.


Are "Collaborative Tools" learning tools or performance tools? Well, they are both. Or can be both. What should we, who changed our names from Training (the Activity) to Learning (the short-sighted Result), call these tools? The Activity- Learning? Or the Result- Performance?


What Results are you striving for with your Investments in T&D/ Learning/ Knowledge Management?

And when you ask Enterprise Leadership to make these Investments...does it sell better when you refer to them as Learning systems/tools...or Performance systems/tools?

Management Areas of Performance - Book Reviews

Early reviews for
“Management Areas of Performance”

Mark Graham Brown
Large government and corporate organizations continue to spend money on canned or custom-developed leadership programs that fail to produce effective managers. This book presents a proven methodology for determining the specific management competencies needed for success in your own organization. By using this approach, based on studies of your most effective managers, you will build the foundation of a program that will allow you to select and train a large cadre of effective managers and leaders.

John Coné
One of the great strengths of the book is that it is NOT about competencies.
You make an outstanding point that there is more to the job than just
possessing (or even exhibiting) competencies.

I really liked the book. Now, I have to be honest with you - it surprised
me that I did. I have never been a fan of "workbook" type books that
require me to do a lot of introspection and homework. Maybe that's because
I'm lazy, or maybe because they require me to accept the models in the book
as I go along rather than deciding after I have read it all how well they
will apply to my world. Whatever the case, when I saw how your book was
organized, I figured I wouldn't like the format and then I'd have to figure
out how to tell you that.

But it didn't happen that way.

I think it is because of the way the book is organized, and perhaps also because you keep things relatively simple. You don't ask me to buy into a complicated and unusual model; but one that is pretty straightforward and logical. I also think that using the technique of directing people to the chapters that apply to them the most (as you do in Chapters 4 and 18, for example) prevents us from having to slog through work that we are not sure goes to the heart of our concerns. That is a brilliant move, and I wish more authors used the approach.

Thanks for the chapter summaries. They keep the reader on track and tell us
what you as the author think are the key points of each chapter. The intros
also do a great job of keeping us oriented.

The book reads easily and is very clear and concise.

Judy Hale
I do like the way you have grouped the areas of performance. You have developed a useful tool and process to help identify, define, and evaluate managerial competencies.


Margo Murray
How I spent my holiday weekend ....Actually several enjoyable hours of it were spent reading your new book! Congratulations on completing this comprehensive treatment of an essential subject. Here are some general impressions:

► It will be very useful as a handbook and desk reference for managers, especially newer ones
► I like the flexibility to access and use the sections most relevant to a current role or responsibility
► Some chapters will serve as excellent checklists, for example the troubleshooting ones

I found myself many times thinking, "I wish I had written this book when my management experiences were being tested and improved."


Joe Sener
I like the model. It will help organizations on several levels:
► Clarity of what should be the responsibility of each level of management
in the organization.
► The recognition that different individuals will be better at some of
these AoP's than at others -- and that is not only OK but that diversity
adds strength to the organization.
► A detailed description of the skills required of each role at the
individual contributor line as well as an assay of those skills at the
organizational level.
► A recognition of the time required at the Management Support level which
is seldom, if ever budgeted for by the organization but is just assumed
that we will find the time for it. I believe that upwards of 40% of my
time is spent just managing Human Assets.



Darlene Van Tiem
Tremendous performance management tool! Competence is key to inspiring, challenging, and coaching employees. Every leader should require Management Areas of Performance as part of a performance assessment empowering their managers to develop competencies, thus improving competitiveness and organizational effectiveness.

Comprehensive, well organized, and motivational.

Actually, I think that it is a terrific succession planning, career development, and employee development piece. You have presented, in detail fashion, the full set of competencies. You have not glossed over issues and made it a simple book.

Frank Wydra
I like where you are going with Management Areas of Performance and I believe it will prove a useful workbook for many who are trying to move beyond training and development and into the bright, glowing work of human performance technology. You can quote me on that, if you so choose.



The book was downloaded 2223 times in the first 4 days it was available...get your free PDF copy at www.eppic.biz

There are also 4 related Podcasts and a link to a dedicated Blog for readers who wish to share questions, thoughts, and resources!

"Management Areas of Performance" Book Now Available as a Free PDF

My latest book is now available as a free PDF... 274 pages...

Management Areas of Performance...

The book is a workbook with plenty of places for the reader to make notes for reference later. The process that the book takes the reader through is similar to how I approach conducting analysis.

It has the reader define the specifics of the managerial job (for themselves and/or for others) - then has the reader define the enabling competencies and attributes and values needed for peak performance. Next the reader assesses themselves/others and prioritizes development areas and finally plans the development in those targeted areas of performance.

This book IS for YOU if…

• You wish to define the “specific” management performance competencies for your management job and/or other managers’ jobs
  
  
• You wish to determine both the common and the unique “enablers” in terms of the knowledge and skills, the human attributes, and the personal values that are required for achieving and sustaining peak performance
  


• You wish to assess your and/or other managers’ performance competence, and determine which Areas of Performance to target and which enablers need development
  


• You wish to create a common model for your enterprise’s use in defining and analyzing all managerial performance so that you can recognize the potential for common or close-to-common systems, processes, tools and techniques
  

The model, an analysis and design framework for management performance is based on over 20 consulting projects I have conducted since the mid-1980s involving analysis of managerial performance leading to the design of a comprehensive Curriculum Architecture. It is also based on the writings and work of Ray Svenson and Geary A. Rummler.

I've been using the earlier version of this since well before "competencies" became a buzz-word. My take on "competencies" came from Tom Gilbert's book: Human Competence AND from the work of Geary Rummler AND from the consulting work of my business partner for 15 years (1982-1997), Ray Svenson, who had a similar model that I adapted a long time ago for my projects.


I have never liked what I saw coming out of the "competency movement" from a performance-based Instructional Design perspective, although I liked the possibilities. And still do. But the starting point was always a general list of "things" that was wordsmithed (to make it better fit or some reason) and not the business processes that these competencies were to enable.


And while it may make it easier to manage compensation (see Don Tosti's writings on this) it is too non-specific to "inform" anything more than awareness-building and knowledge-building on the general topic. You can't easily take "competencies" and turn them into skills-building instruction that will apply in all of the places where it should enable. They will be too general.


They always have face validity. Duh. And they never acknowledge that "there are" times inside the corporation when someone should play the good cop - and times to be the bad cop. It's always situational. But hardly ever presented in a flexible fashion. Or they are so generic that they have that flexibility!


Here is the Table of Contents
Section A: Introduction to the Management Areas of Performance Model
Chapter 1: Book, Model and Utilities Introduction
Chapter 2: The Management AoP Model
Chapter 3: Overview of the Management AoPs, the Competencies, Attributes and Values, and the Utilities of a Data-based Approach

Section B: The Management Leadership Areas of Performance
Chapter 4: Management Leadership AoPs Overview
Chapter 5: Stakeholder Relationship Management & System Governance
Chapter 6: Strategic Planning & Management
Chapter 7: Operations Planning & Management
Chapter 8: Results Measurement Planning & Management
Chapter 9: Process Improvement Planning & Management
Chapter 10: Communications Planning & Management
Chapter 11: Management Leadership AoPs Assessment

Section C: The Management Core Areas of Performance
Chapter 12: Management Core AoPs Overview
Chapter 13: Work Planning
Chapter 14: Work Assigning
Chapter 15: Work Monitoring
Chapter 16: Work Troubleshooting
Chapter 17: Management Core AoPs Assessment

Section D: The Management Support Areas of Performance
Chapter 18: Management Support AoPs Overview
Chapter 19: Process Design/Re-design
Chapter 20: Human Asset Planning & Management
Chapter 21: Environmental Asset Planning & Management
Chapter 22: Special Assignments
Chapter 23: Management Support AoPs Assessment

Section E: A Management AoPs-based Self-Assessment and Management Developmental Planning
Chapter 24: Self-Assessment
Chapter 25: Management Developmental Planning

...a few of the words written about Management Areas of Performance...

From the Foreword by Joe Sener
…If this sounds familiar to you, then maybe you have spent some time inside a Baldrige company or maybe you have already read the Table of Contents of Management Areas of Performance.


This book clearly lays out an approach to describe the Areas of Performance required to deploy the leadership model and strategies of your organization. To those performance technology specialists in the crowd, you may have been trying to find more effective ways to contribute to the success of your company. Here is a roadmap that clearly ties with one of the most effective business models in use today.


Guy Wallace has assembled a rock solid approach to analyze the core competencies of the leadership team to determine the gap between those skills necessary to deploy the strategies and the current state. From this position the organization can define clear strategies for closing those gaps and better aligning the leadership team and leadership system with the future of the company.


From the Review by Mark Graham Brown
Large government and corporate organizations continue to spend money on canned or custom-developed leadership programs that fail to produce effective managers. This book presents a proven methodology for determining the specific management competencies needed for success in your own organization. By using this approach, based on studies of your most effective managers, you will build the foundation of a program that will allow you to select and train a large cadre of effective managers and leaders.


From the Review by John Coné
One of the great strengths of the book is that it is NOT about competencies. You make an outstanding point that there is more to the job than just possessing (or even exhibiting) competencies. You don't ask me to buy into a complicated and unusual model; but one that is pretty straightforward and logical. The book reads easily and is very clear and concise.


Get the full reviews and more...


How To Get It
The book, a link to a Blog for readers to use to share ideas and identify easy-to-acquire (free or inexpensive) resources - and 4 related Podcasts are available at http://www.eppic.biz/ as well as many other resources and references.


Tell your networks! Pass this on to anyone working with Management Development!

Related to My Sessions at the ISPI Spring Conference in San Francisco in 2 Weeks

While I hope to see you all at the ISPI Spring Conference in San Francisco in a couple of weeks, I know many of this Blogs readers will not be in attendance.

Whether you will be there or not, I’d like to remind you or make you aware of two books that relate to my sessions at conference...that I am offering as free PDFs at my web site: http://www.eppic.biz/

Book 1- lean-ISD – 404 pages – a detailed overview and guide for conducting the PACT Processes for T&D/ Learning/ Knowledge Management…performance-based “Information & Instruction” aligned to the Workflow and the Processes. The PACT Processes address 3 levels of ISD and are based on hundreds of the authors consulting projects beginning in 1982. Intended for ISD/HPT management and analysts, Curriculum Architecture Designers, ADDIE-level Designers, Lead Developers and Project Managers of ISD/HPT efforts.

Book 2- T&D Systems View – 400 pages – an application of the PACT Analysis methods for a T&D/ Learning/ Knowledge Management/ HPT “function/department” for assessment of ROI potential for any/all improvements. Readers might see it also as a template for approaching the process analysis of other departments and functions. Intended for ISD/HPT management and analysts.

Lean-ISD - Reviewer Quotes
Here is what Geary Rummler wrote in 1999 when reviewing this book:

“If you want to ground your fantasy of a ‘corporate university’ with the reality of a sound ‘engineering’ approach to instructional systems that will provide results, you should learn about the PACT Processes. If you are the leader of, or a serious participant in, the design and implementation of a large-scale corporate curriculum, then this book is for you. This system could be the difference between achieving bottom-line results with your training or being just another ‘little red school house.’ ”

Here is what Miki Lane wrote in 1999 of lean-ISD:

“lean-ISD takes all of the theory, books, courses, and pseudo job aids that are currently on the market about Instructional Systems Design and blows them out of the water. Previous ‘systems’ approach books showed a lot of big boxes and diagrams, which were supposed to help the reader become proficient in the design process.

Here is a book that actually includes all of the information that fell through the cracks of other ISD training materials and shows you the way to actually get from one step to another. Guy adds all of the caveats and tips he has learned in more than 20 years of ISD practice and sprinkles them as job aids and stories throughout the book.

However, the most critical part of the book for me was that Guy included the project and people management elements of ISD in the book. Too often, ISD models and materials forget that we are working with real people in getting the work done.

This book helps explain and illustrate best practices in ensuring success in ISD projects.”

lean-ISD Notes
This book’s cover was designed by Geary, and was a recipient of an ISPI Award of Excellence in 2003. Additional resources, tools, templates, articles and presentations are also available on the web site.

And I have three Sessions and one Bagel Barrel at the conference that will address aspects of the PACT Processes…lean-ISD!

T&D Systems View – Reviewer Quotes

Here is what Miki Lane wrote in 2001 when reviewing the book:

“Guy Wallace has done it again! After demystifying the ISD process in his lean-ISD book, he tackles the corporate training and development system and puts it in a business-focused perspective. Whether you are in-house or serving as an external consultant, you will find Guy’s model an invaluable tool for enterprise training and development.

This analytic and design process ensures that you dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s when moving your company or client to Learning by Design, not Learning by Chance. The elegant clockface model helps you develop a clear picture of any organization and clearly helps you map out how best to effectively manage all the elements of the enterprise. Once the elements are mapped out, the model, through enclosed assessment and prioritizing tools, helps determine where and when to put corporate assets to maximize corporate return on investment.

This is a must-have book for any consultant or organization that is concerned about improving the performance of their organization through improving processes and competencies.”

Here is what Dale Brethower wrote when reviewing the book in 2001:

“[T&D] Systems View explains why the T&D function must be managed as a total system: to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing marketplace. The book shows, in detail, what must be managed competently for a T&D manager to ensure that learning happens by design rather than by chance. The best T&D managers manage the system components described in the book, though probably not as well as they will after studying and thinking through how to fill in the weak or missing components.”

T&D Systems View Notes

T&D Systems View provides an example of the application of the PACT Analysis methods for a function or department - in this case applied to a T&D/ Learning/ Knowledge Management/ HPT “function/department.” The book is organized as a detailed assessment tool...of 47 Processes, in 12 sub-systems...for the ROI potential for any/all improvements in getting processes in alignment with stakeholder requirements.

Again, I hope to see you at the ISPI conference!

Again, I have 3 Sessions and 1 Bagel Barrel on topics related to PACT...lean-ISD. I hope to see you in one or more of them!

And catch me in-between sessions if you'd like to chat about the PACT Processes...and lean-ISD! Or the IS ProComm! Or tell me about Your approaches to ISD in this new age of Web 2.0!

That's why I am going! To share and to learn with others of a performance-orientation!

Cheers!

Guy W. Wallace, CPT
EPPIC Inc.

http://www.eppic.biz/

http://www.ispi.org/

Process – Human Assets – Environmental Assets

In my view the Process itself and the enabling HAMS and EAMS are the three key variable-sets to focus on when looking to improve and sustain enterprise performance in a process, or a set of processes, or in addressing them all.


This is a component of my EPPI methodology-set - Enterprise Process Performance Improvement...of which the PACT Processes are a sub-set.



















In EPPI...one must always first begin with the process itself. Is it designed to meet stakeholder requirements? If not, fix that. Then enable.


In looking at the process in a collaborative manner, with a handpicked team of Master Performers and SMEs...I use both Process Maps and other MACRO-mapping tools/techniques, but eventually all of those lead to the PERFORMANCE MODEL.

With that shared understanding...one can then look more closely at the Human Assets required by that process…and the HAMS that provision the processes with such assets and maintains/improves them…and look at the Environmental Assets required of the process more closely, and the EAMS in place to provision those assets to the needs of the process…or processes.

The Performance Model data gives us a realistic view, a detailed, specific view of performance competencies. It does not capture generic competencies when it comes to process performance.

The EM data then provides us a performance-based view of the enabling competencies, and the physical/intellectual/psychological attributes and personal values necessary for peak performance.


An Aside
This is where the generic competencies show up…in the Enabler Matrices. The EMs always include generic and specific enabler items such as the partial list below for a critical job in the back-office sales organization for an enterprise trying desperately to improve its poor customer satisfaction survey results and marketplace reputation:

• Product knowledge and trends
• Competitive product knowledge and trends/reputations by product
• Industry knowledge and trends
• Regulatory requirements and trends (for 50 States/U.S. Federal and the 22 other countries)
• Customer orientation/attitude
• Safety first attitude
• Friendly demeanor
• Good phone skills, articulate and poised
• Good with foreign callers
• Not easily ruffled or unnecessarily rushed
• Stamina
• Attention to detail
• Organized thinking in activities and work products in evidence
• Thinks quickly on their feet in sticky situations
• Knowledgeable about company returns policies/procedures and how to get replacement items to our customers anywhere on the planet ASAP!!!

This list, when compared to the Oil Rig Fire Fighting Global Supply company’s current list of competencies that everyone is to rally around and work towards in recruiting, development, compensation, and improving retention for critical job positions in a growing industry rife with hiring away the talent, shows the differences in the two approaches.

• Working Safely for Everyone’s Safety
• Taking a Strategic/Long-Term View in All Our Plans and Actions
• Inspiring the People Around You
• Working as a Team
• Planning and Managing Risks/Rewards and Driving for Intended Results
• Being Functionally Knowledgeable
• Using Technology Wisely
• Continually Developing Yourself and Others for the Continuous Changes Ahead

Which list will be a better “feed” to your enterprise’s systems that are intended to get the right people, with the right competencies, to the right processes, at the right time, and at reason cost?

Compare the first list to whatever you are using to drive the human requirements systems in your enterprise? It might be a better driver of enterprise management systems.

The PM The Performance Model charts capture both the ideal performance in the current state and the current state gaps in terms of the following data sets:

• Area of Performance
• Key Outputs produced and their key Measures
• Key Tasks per Output
• Roles/Responsibilities
• Gap Analysis of the non-ideal performers/performance environment of the current state

The Performance Model captures the Human Performance Competency requirements for the targeted job and/or processes of an enterprise that are to be improved for sufficient ROI.

The Enabler Matrices...including K/S Matrices...capture the enabling human and environmental requirements.

Those enabling human asset requirements, and everything else non-human, and all of the environmental asset requirements are needed to support ideal, peak performance – peak performance that has already been achieved, demonstrated by some subset of the performer population…the Master Performers.

It is not theoretical. It has been done. But what enabled it?

The EPPI method for deriving the enablers with a group of Master Performers and other Subject Matter Experts uses the following enabler categories:

• Knowledge/Skill Competencies
• Physical Attributes
• Psychological Attributes
• Intellectual Attributes
• Personal Values

The Enabler Matrices capture the enabling competencies in terms of awareness/knowledge/skill, plus the attributes and values that the Master Performers and Subject Matter Experts agree are needed to perform at a mastery level.


And, of course, that does not always make them right. But who else would you have determine them – especially in complex jobs/processes where there is more cognitive/covert behavior going on than the physical/overt behavior that a trained observer could see?



A Note About PM and EM Scalability OK, but how to get your arms around an entire enterprise, with all of its complexity and layers and units?

My answer has been to embrace the functional orientation of the existing enterprise organization structure and take a process view of it that requires establishing/identifying functional “ownership” and functional/job “participation” roles for each and every process of importance (lets still be reasonable here while seemingly boiling the ocean).

Here’s a graphic of the data-sets and their relationships.


















And to add further structure to help identify opportunities for process common-ization both across and up & down the organization, I use the EPPI model for Management Areas of Performance.

It distinguishes between 4 types of processes and bundles 3 of those into 14 common sets of processes for Management.

























The fourth category of processes will be unique to every last department, unless the enterprise has redundancy by design or just inadvertently.



Those are the Individual/Team AoPs (Areas of Performance- the chunking/segmentation device of EPPI). Those unique processes are the reasons-for-being for that unit/function/department.



Think of it as a Work-Breakdown-Structure.


That data drives the requirements for "Information and Instruction" within the WORKFLOW.

Training/ Learning/ Knowledge Management System
This system/systems takes the individual and back-fills them with the missing key knowledge and skills not acquired during the recruiting and selection processes.

This system uses an appropriate blend of media, deployment platforms and timing strategies – when performance-based “Information and Instruction” is PUSHED to key target audiences…and we care if they finished their modules or not. It teaches them the basics of the tools and information set available AND how to use them in the pursuit of performance.

For other target audiences, who are PULL targets, they access the Enterprise Content Architecture for their process-related needs, as/if they need it. The fourth time they do something may be the first time they don’t use any performance support on that performance. And we don’t really care IF they finished the modules or not.

For more: http://www.eppic.biz/

First Focus on Performance and Then Enable That

My bias to the Performance-orientation for Instructional Systems Design began in 1979. Fueled by an early exposure to Rummler and Mager and a balance of a process-orientation with a systems/big-picture bent.

Maybe it helped that my first job out of college was developing training for the job that I had and had observed out in the field. I was a part-time sales person inside a Do-It-Yourself Lumber Center for 2.5 years prior to graduating and heading to HQ.

I had had plenty of non-performance based Instruction. I had plenty of certificates that we took off the wall in the Lawrence Kansas "Store" Employee Room...that ended up on the walls of my cubical in Saginaw Michigan. Most were informational or educational and none were training in the sense of drill-and-practice against some learning objectives driven by real-world performance objectives. I tried to address that in the instructional products I was helping to produce for the key customer-facing and key enabler jobs at the store level.


Then after a few years I was at the forerunner of Motorola University, the Motorola Training & Education Center where I learned to better appreciate Education alongside Training. We had to Educate, not train, leaders about "future things" that were coming down the pike AT them.

Robotics. Regulations. Requirements shifts in the marketplace. Things that just might catch their interest (or fear) and spark some Informal Learning pursuit. Self-directed...but business driven. And few with minor consequences...minor Risks/Rewards.

Can you use my methods...as embodied within the PACT Processes...written up in my book: lean-ISD...to generate a performance-based approach to both Formal and Informal Learning? Can it help determine "when and where" collaborative tools and ALL ELSE that is coming AT you in terms of Web 2.0 might be applicable?

Let's see. Here in my "example-set" from TMC...The Most Convenient Stores...is a Set of Areas of Performance for a manager's job. This is adapted from a real project back in the late 1980s. My client did not want to start with the 3-level Management AoP model of my new book coming out in a month or so...so we started with a blank flip chart page.

I facilitated an Analysis Team and starting with a Task that was identified by someone on the team...someone that I had directed my first question to...and then was confirmed by the others as a "real task" that was part of the job in response to my query...we then explored performance cycles and went upstream and then downstream from that first identified task...grouping things into a reasonable, but arbitrary, set of AoPs - Areas of Performance.
















After my "acid tests" were passed...because I am VERY hesitant to move on to the next step without getting strong confirmation that we did this first part right. Because if we didn't then everything to follow would be incomplete despite it being accurate.

And that would cause REWORK. RELOOP. Something a lean process would avoid. Unless by design. And there are plenty of times when "relooping by design" is appropriate. And many times not.

Then we generated a stack of Performance Model charts just as the next example.












Then with those on the wall, I facilitated that same team to systematically derive the enabling Knowledge/Skills and put them into the K/S Matrices. We used all of the standard 17 categories. And generated over 800 enabling K/S Items.













800 enabling K/S to perform the 200-ish Tasks (some macro, some mid, non micro) to produce the 40 Outputs that the analysis team had produced earlier, within this frame of 7 AoPs.

Later in the Design, and this was a CAD effort...not an MCD/ADDIE effort...we built the T&D Path for Assistant Managers (to become Managers) using all of that analysis data, plus an assessment of the existing T&D for reuse potential.

The gap analysis (right side) of the Performance Model charts led to some post-CAD critical action team efforts to address improvement opportunities. Some had to do with what I label in my models as the HAMS and some with the EAMS...the Human Asset Management Systems and the Environmental Asset Management Systems.

The HAMS and EAMS of the EPPI are the non-core functions of the enterprise.

They are non-core; but critical to the core operations and core processes. They provision and maintain all of the “enabling stuff” that brings a paper process design to reality. Some, not all, but perhaps many missing or inadequate enabler pieces may prove the process design robustness inadequate. Then either the process is redesigned to fit the human and environmental assets available, or those need to be changed. Or both.

HAMS – Human Asset Management Systems are those enterprise systems and processes that attend to provisioning the right people with the right competencies and the right time and right place, regarding the peoples’

• Awareness, knowledge, skill
• Physical attributes
• Psychological attributes
• Intellectual attributes
• Values

The various processes where the performers work in a complex enterprise require specific versus generic approaches when it comes to putting the right people with the right stuff in the right place at the right time and growing them as continuous change might require.

EAMS – Environmental Asset Management Systems are those enterprise systems and processes that attend to provisioning the right environmental supports at the right time and right place, regarding the environmental support item assets of the following types

• Information/data
• Tools/equipment
• Materials/supplies
• Facilities/grounds
• Budget/headcount
• Culture/Consequences (+/-)
  

These enterprise systems and processes providing the process with “all things non-human.”

Addressing the K/S's of the learners/Performers is one of many variables that create Performance Competence.

In my view, and the views of my many clients over the years, the Learning systems and content must be targeted on enabling and sustaining Performance Competence.






















Is there a place within an Enterprise where some Target Audiences need MORE Informal Learning than Formal Learning? Yes. Is it hard to measure and establish ROI? Yes. Should it be done? Yes. But in a targeted approach, not a blanketing approach.
















For more on this approach see the many resources at http://www.eppic.biz/ including a free PDF of my 404-page book: lean-ISD.

Cover design by Geary A. Rummler!

CAD - Curriculum Architecture Design

The Purpose of Curriculum Architecture Design
The Curriculum Architecture Design (CAD) process generates the overall design for an entire T&D "product line" for a job, job family, team, process, department, function, or enterprise.

I’ve done at least one of each of those “scope of effort” sized-CADs since my first CAD project in 1982. I've completed 74 to date.


The CAD effort organizes content in an Enterprise Content Architecture...for Formal Learning purposes for the priority PUSH Target Audiences...all of the "performance-relevant "Information & Instruction" needed by the learner/Performer in the workflow of the process and/or processes.


To achieve Performance Competence.


The CAD design is high-level (macro-level), systems-oriented, and modular. The design identifies:

• Where (within the scope of the design) training needs exist
• Currently existing T&D that addresses the training needs
• Gaps where no existing training addresses the training needs
• Which gaps are high-priority and should be filled by new or updated training

The Curriculum Architecture Design process identifies all of the T&D that could be and then prioritizes efforts to build all of the gap T&D that should be.

And by “T&D” and/or “training” I mean the performance-relevant “Information & Instruction” needed by the learner/Performers within the scope of the CAD project. Everything and anything that training, learning, knowledge management, electronic performance support systems, job aids, etc., etc.

The purpose of “macro-designing” the entire T&D product line is so that business decisions can be made regarding which of the current gap T&D products (those where no existing training product addresses a training need) should be developed or acquired. By developing or acquiring such products, the T&D organization brings them “to market,” making them available for T&D customers.

The macro-level design of the T&D product line also helps identify which of the existing T&D products require maintenance.

Once you have this performance-based blueprint for CONTENT you can build templates and tools to gather the content and then present it in the best manner to accomplish PERFORMANCE COMPETENCE.

Then SMEs/Master Performer-types can create the CONTENT themselves - where the end product is similar to Knowledge Management type products...plan/report/presentation examples and templates, best practices, lessons learned, etc. Especially where it can later be read or listened to - to guide/instruct performers performing in-the-moment.

And the ISDers can focus on trickier performance competence...such as inter-personal skills...and complex enabling skills such as "large-scale program and project management" that you'd find at a shipyard or in Engineering, or in Marketing and their New Product Development area. Things that should be learned and maybe even "mastered" prior to the moment of performance. Driving the transport trucks to deliver the company products. Performing security background checks for business-critical, sensitive job categories. Selling products in a call center with complex regulatory requirements and stiff penalties.

Curriculum Architecture Design Outputs
A Curriculum Architecture Design process leads to a number of analysis and design outputs.

Analysis outputs include target audience data, Performance Models, Knowledge/Skill Matrices, and assessments of existing T&D.

These outputs are explained in more detail in Chapter 2- Overview of the PACT Process for Analysis, and in Chapters 21–27, in my book lean-ISD…which are devoted to PACT Performance Analysis.

The CAD design outputs include specifications for training and development components, called T&D Modules. The outputs also include specifications for T&D Events, which are simply packages or groupings of modules for use by T&D customers.


In addition to producing specifications, a CAD also produces design outputs that help T&D customers plan and participate in the T&D Events. One such output is called a T&D Path. It shows the suggested sequence of T&D to be taken by a particular target audience. Sometimes they are more menu-like than path-like and most often they are a blend.

But I’ve also done quite a few where it was a linear learning path. That happens when the learner/Performer has to know the total job on the day they start performing the job…airline pilots, call center sales staff…and other jobs where the Risks/Rewards were too great to leave to chance.

Curriculum Architecture Design Teams
Success of the Curriculum Architecture Design process depends on teams with specific responsibilities. The teams involved in a CAD process include

• A Project Steering Team of T&D customers and stakeholders to oversee the project
• An Analysis Team of PST-handpicked Master Performers and Subject-Matter-Experts...along with an instructional design professional to perform the analysis work
• A Design Team of a sub-set of the Analysis Team...along with an ISD professional to develop the actual Curriculum Architecture Design
• An Implementation Planning Team of project stakeholders to assign priorities to the prospective T&D to be acquired or developed

Again, involved with all of these teams is the PACT Project Manager along with ISD professionals from the ISD Team performing as generalists or specialists in the roles of Performance Analyst and CAD Designer.

Curriculum Architecture Design Phases and Gates
The Curriculum Architecture Design process has four phases and four key gates.

The stoplights in the graphics represent Project Steering Team “gate review meetings” or process that quickly establish a consensus on the data at hand and the next steps of the next phase.

In each phase, different teams create different work products. The work products and the details of each phase in the Curriculum Architecture Design process are described in more detail in my book.

CAD Phase 1
In Phase 1: Project Planning & Kick-off, the project manager and the Project Steering Team plan the Curriculum Architecture Design project. Interviews are conducted, a Project Plan is drafted, and a Project Steering Team is assembled.

The Project Steering Team conducts its first gate review meeting. Gate review meetings involve customers and key stakeholders and are held to review project progress, check work products, and provide approvals for further action. The first gate review meeting is to
• Review and sanction the project.
• Modify the Project Plan or put the project on “temporary hold.”
• Cancel the project if it doesn’t meet a priority business need.

In this phase, the Project Steering Team handpicks members of the Analysis Team.

CAD Phase 2
In Curriculum Architecture Design Phase 2: Analysis, target audience data is gathered and preparations and logistics for the Analysis Team meeting are coordinated.

During the Analysis Team meeting, the team generates the Performance Model and the Knowledge/Skill Matrix data. After the Analysis Team meeting, existing T&D is assessed to see how that training addresses needs identified in the Performance Model and Knowledge/Skill Matrix.

All of the analysis activities are documented in an Analysis Report. The project manager and analyst present the report to the Project Steering Team during the Phase 2 gate review meeting. During the gate review meeting, the Project Steering Team verifies and approves the findings, or changes them as necessary.

CAD Phase 3
In Curriculum Architecture Design Phase 3: Design, the project manager and designer begin by preparing for the CAD design efforts. Then a Design Team meeting is conducted.

In the Design Team meeting, all of the potential modules of the architecture are identified, classified, and numbered. The team combines these modules into T&D Events and constructs T&D Paths for learners―sequences of events appropriate for target audiences.

The results are compiled in a Design Document and formally presented to the Project Steering Team, which reviews these at the gate review meeting.

CAD Phase 4
In Curriculum Architecture Design Phase 4: Implementation Planning, an Implementation Planning Team is formed.

This team prioritizes the gap T&D Events and Modules. Modules of highest priority will be developed using the Modular Curriculum Development PACT Process or some other ISD process.

In parallel, development cost heuristics are developed and applied to forecast the cost implications of implementing the CAD’s top priorities.

The final priorities and cost implications are then presented to the Project Steering Team for review and reaction.

In some projects, the Project Steering Team performs the Implementation Planning Team’s “prioritization of gaps” function during the Phase 3 gate review and during Phase 4 is asked to “macro-plan” their development/acquisition.


Business Implications of the Curriculum Architecture Design Process
The purpose of the Curriculum Architecture Design process is never to bring to market all of the "gap" T&D Events and Modules specified in the design―only those T&D products that truly make business and economic sense. Corporate resources are always too limited to allow unfettered T&D development within the enterprise.

The Curriculum Architecture Design process systematically creates a blue sky, ideal, performance-based CAD. Based on the design, key management representatives on the Project Steering Team decide where to place their strategic training “bets.” Only when the projected return on investment on the proposed training meets with the approval of customers and stakeholders is that training slated for development or acquisition.

The role of ISD professionals is to facilitate the process of customers and stakeholders making critical T&D decisions. The decisions about which training products to bring to market and which products to maintain are primarily business decisions. Customers and stakeholders―more than ISD professionals―are the ones who live with the consequences of poorly targeted resources that develop the wrong T&D. And when ISD professionals develop T&D with limited customer involvement, they are often the objects of blame for T&D that is costly or that doesn’t produce results.

Address All Needs? No! No! No!
Just because ISD professionals are adept at uncovering knowledge and skill requirements does not automatically warrant addressing them all.

No one in the ISD community ever has the insight necessary to select the T&D with the most significant returns for customer/stakeholder organizations. Furthermore, when ISD tries to put together an often overly complicated ROI algorithm to prove where strategic bets should be placed, ISD is too often seen as not working with and for the customer. We seem to be arrogantly telling them what’s best for them.

Usually the customer can rationally decide what’s best, if confronted in the right manner with the right data, as the Curriculum Architecture Design approach dictates.

That’s why we need to engage customers and stakeholders systematically in this CAD process for business decision-making. We can handle the ISD decision-making. Let customers and stakeholders handle the business decision-making. We need to be cognizant that it’s their money being invested in T&D, not ours.

Summary

Developing a Curriculum Architecture Design and prioritizing the prospective T&D to be implemented has one big advantage: It allows the organization to select the T&D with the biggest impact.

Other advantages to completing a Curriculum Architecture Design include lower development and maintenance costs and shorter development cycles using other PACT Processes such as Modular Curriculum Development and Instructional Activity Development.

With a CAD done, now Rapid Development is possible...in a controlled, business-like manner. With Performance Competence as the learning objective...ability to perform tasks to produce outputs to stakeholder requirements.

Haste doesn't have to lead to waste. It just might take a little up front "going slow to go fast" to really go fast and produce content that is worthwhile as an Investment for a Return - ROI.

Get a free PDF copy of my 404-page book: lean-ISD at http://www.eppic.biz/









There are also 12 Podcasts on The PACT Processes and related-PACT topics such as building capability and capacity in your ISD staff.









Cover design by Geary A. Rummler!

Case Study: The Cost of Informal Learning versus Formal Learning

Back in 1990 I was working for a DoD Contractor where they built military aircraft...warships of the skies. Where the sky jockey test pilots were often reminded that the thing between their legs was built by the lowest bidder. Ha ha.


Just to set the performance context.


BTW- this was the topic of an article I wrote and published with ASTD's Technical & Skills Training journal/magazine back in the May/June 1991 issue.


The editors changed my title of "Cost of Nonconformance and ROI Calculations for Training Projects" ...to a bit of a misnomer..."Costing Out A Training Project" - which was the kind of editorial thing that happened somewhat on my first book - where I was one of three co-authors along with a professional ghost book writer who we gave cover credit to...editors changing titles and language in an area they don't understand. Also a reason why my last 3 books were self-published. But I digress.
















My CASE STUDY target here is the CAD-CAM operators...the draftsmen/people with this new fangled tool of Computer Aided Design - Computer Aided Manufacturing in the design and development of fighter jets.


They'd had the vendor's "training" - those in the 100 plus sized target audience. The potential savings to the Enterprise for adoption of one of these "early promises of IT" tool-sets was

• use of standard parts inventories for reuse and material cost control
  
• quicker integration reviews with other components/systems


• version control


• quality control


• reduced cycle time


• reduced scrap from bad parts the first-time-or-twelve around in the new product development cycle

Their situation has a lot in common with our ISD situation of the ever evolving revolution and adoption/adaptation of all sorts of Learning Systems tools...from the early authoring systems to the LMS...to the LCMS...to Talent Management Systems. And also why we are not seeing real significant re-use of Learning/KMS content yet.

But I digress. Again.


The Critical Business Issue?
The upper management had determined that their CAD-CAM operators' proficiencies were the cause of THEM not getting the promise of this expensive system. Their Informal Learning approach after the vendor's quick and insufficient "training" was not sustainable.


Downstream from these operators/draftspeople were the folks who took these designs...fed them into Computer Numeric Controlled machines to create expensive tooling so that parts could then be made. And then assembled and finally tested.


A bad design set off a big costly effort that too often ended up "back at the drawing board" for rework. An expensive non-LEAN process. The CAD-CAM system was complex and the client's early investigation suggested that hardly anyone was using half of the capabilities of the system because they just did not know how. (Keep Mager from the room with his "loaded" question!)


So I was brought in to do another CAD - the third or fourth for this firm in the past 12 months. My CAD - Curriculum Architecture Design - which had much in common with their new approach and tool-set for CAD-CAM. Design using data and a team effort to accelerate and reduce rework/reloops.


After the first Project Steering Team meeting in Phase 1 I facilitated an Analysis Team meeting in Phase 2 used to generate the Performance Model data and the enabling K/S data. Then we reviewed the existing training and content...the existing Information & Instruction. For reuse potential. But there was not a typical Phase 2 "gate review meeting" with the PST after that analysis effort.


A Design Team then met in Phase 3 to create a performance-based Curriculum Architecture Design. Again, no Phase 3 gate review meeting.

My immediate contact and I then conducted the Phase 4 activities by ourselves. To prioritize and price all of the gaps of the CAD. Right now, all but one "module" of the CAD was U-OJT. Unstructured OJT. The only value added so far was the articulation of the U-OJT modules titles...with links back to the Performance Models and K/S Matrices data.


So when we sat down in the Phase 4 gate review meeting with the Client and his handpicked Project Steering Team members, many who hadn't been involved at step 1...only to then have skipped the other critical check point reviews of the data - and to make directive decisions in response to my questions regarding "which way do you want to go from here...and here are your options" - many were on a learning curve regarding why we were doing this in the first place.

A reason I have all of that "info" in the front end of every phases' gate review meeting presentations...just in case there are new folks in attendance. Plus I know that I need to remind all of these busy people who have probably been involved in hundreds of other issues since we last met.

The controversy? The price tag for taking all of those U-OJT modules, as they currently existed, and upping them ALL to Formal Learning of classroom/lab - we had to have both the computer tool and a facilitator/coach - someone who could provide the learner/Performers with guidance and feedback and help in the many application exercises we had spread out through the dozens and dozens of Modules of the CAD. The price tag was $2M for initial development and pilot-testing. Then deployment cost estimates were another number.

It was a flexible CAD. One could take the first dozen Modules and hold a T&D Event for deployment...or dole them out in smaller or larger chunks to address the current situation. This Enterprise had big ups and downs with Government contracts. Lay-offs were a reality. And large up sizing happened occasionally too.

The CoC and CoNC This group understood many quality principles and tools/techniques. So in the "debate becoming an argument" in this meeting I wrestled control back from my client at the front of the room by dragging a flip chart up to the front of the room and barking out a question...

• How many operators do we have right now...approximately? Over 100.
• I wrote down 100. How much do they make...fully loaded...approximately? Over $60k.
• How proficient are they they right now? 100%? 75%? 50%? 25%? 5%? Under 50%.

So...I said...the cost-of-non-conformance RIGHT NOW based on just salary dollars is...100 x $60,000 x 50%. Or $3 million dollars.


You are paying $6 million for their total performance in compensation BUT only getting $3 million back because they are less than 50% proficient on this new tool.


That's what you're leaving on the Performance Table every year...so to speak. And that doesn't even address the downstream scrap and rework caused by their lack of proficiency. Right? Which makes these salary dollar wastes look silly. Right? Darn silly! RIGHT?


Heads nodded around the room.


So what is it worth to resolve THIS and get everyone on average up to...say...75%? From 50%?


Isn't it worth about $1.5 million the first year alone to do that? And more if we bothered to think more about scrap and rework...and contract penalties for missed deadlines....


Then everyone wanted to start talking about "we could get them to 90%" and other topics that told me we had moved off of our sticker shock..of the Cost-of-Conformance.

Because the Cost-of-Non-Conformance was so big that the focus shifted from cost to quality of response. Now we were ready to look at this Design of Formal Learning with less skepticism about the need. Or more correctly...the "value" of the need.

I guess that many in the room, like me, were wondering how BIG a number the real CoNC was.


But it was time to move on to our next step.
















The cost of Informal Learning in this Case Study was much more than $1.5M/year. Much more. But that lack of precision was still sufficient to make the business case for a Formal Learning approach.


For more on this approach to Performance Competence, see the many free book/article/presentation resources at:


http://www.eppic.biz/

The Enterprise Enabling Asset Systems

The Human Asset Management Systems (HAMS) and Environmental Asset Management Systems (EAMS) of the Enterprise Process Performance Improvement model/methodology-set...are the non-core functions of the enterprise. They enable the core functions' processes.


They bring paper process designs to life.

They are non-core; but critical to the core operations and core processes. They provision and maintain all of the “enabling stuff” that brings a paper process design to reality.

Some, not all, but perhaps many missing or inadequate enabler pieces may prove the process design robustness inadequate. Then either the process is redesigned to fit the human and environmental assets available, or those need to be changed. Or both.

HAMS – Human Asset Management Systems are those enterprise systems and processes that attend to provisioning the right people with the right competencies and the right time and right place, regarding the peoples’

• Awareness, knowledge, skills
• Physical attributes
• Psychological attributes
• Intellectual attributes
• Values
  

The various processes where the performers work across a complex enterprise require specific versus generic approaches when it comes to putting the right people with the right stuff in the right place at the right time and growing them as continuous change might require.

And do not treat all jobs as if they have the same risk/reward potential. They don’t.

EAMS – Environmental Asset Management Systems are those enterprise systems and processes that attend to provisioning the right environmental supports at the right time and right place, regarding the environmental support item assets of the following types

• Information/data
• Tools/equipment
• Materials/supplies
• Facilities/grounds
• Budget/headcount
• Culture/Consequences (+/-)

These EAM systems and processes provide the core and other processes with “all things non-human.”

HAMS & EAMS

Both the HAMS and EAMS must operate their systems to provision the proper assets to the processes of the enterprise in a balance that ensures peak performance.

And in most cases there is more than one way to achieve the balance.

And of course the right balance or mix of assets probably changes over time due to changes in the process.


The HAMS - Human Asset Management Systems
The HAMS in my EPPI model are the:

• Organization & Job Design Systems
• Staffing & Succession Systems
• Recruiting & Selection Systems
• Training & Development Systems
• Performance Appraisal & Management Systems
• Compensation & Benefits Systems
• Rewards & Recognition Systems

The HAMS’s Organization & Job (Re-)Design Systems provide a set of job designs and an organization design conducive to the needs of the process, it’s volume, and configured for the likely abilities and capabilities of the human performers who will be selected into those jobs in the locations where the performers will perform.

The job designs then roll up into the organization design. It is a “bottoms-up” approach driven by the visible top down “end goals” of the process performance.

The HAMS’s Staffing & Succession Systems provide the strategies, plans and mechanisms for staffing plan development and succession planning, including the strategies, plans and mechanisms necessary to populate the organization’s jobs with people in an efficient manner, providing career and growth opportunities where possible/feasible.

Staffing & Succession Planning Systems takes the job designs, their process performance requirements, and the enabler requirements, and determines who to recruit, how many, from where, when and how.

The HAMS’s Recruiting & Selection Systems provide the strategies, plans and mechanisms for first recruiting and then selecting the best candidates in the right quantities, consistent with the Staffing & Succession plans, and populating the organization’s jobs.

This system must bring humans into the enterprise jobs that have "as much" of the human attributes needed as possible.

The HAMS’s Training & Development Systems provide the strategies, plans and mechanisms to train and develop the new hires and incumbents consistent with their process performance requirements in the organization’s jobs, as they have been designed.

This system takes the individual and back-fills them with the missing key knowledge and skills not acquired during the recruiting and selection processes.

The HAMS’s Performance Appraisal & Management Systems provide the strategies, plans and mechanisms for appraising the job task performance and managing all issues (problems/opportunities) as appropriate, and consistent with laws/regulations/codes and enterprise policies/procedures.

Where performance is falling short of the requirements, performance management, including “development planning (back to the T&D System) as well as last resort efforts such as “progressive discipline” and possible “termination” may be required to resolve the issue and meet the process needs.

The HAMS’s Compensation & Benefits Systems provide the strategies, plans and mechanisms to ensure that the total pay and benefits attract and retain competent staff, appropriate for the various labor markets for the various locations of enterprise operations, and are consistent with laws/regulations/codes, any labor contracts (if applicable), and enterprise policies/procedures.

Pay for performance, or knowledge, or skills, is fairly easy to structure, build and maintain when you understand clearly the process performance requirements and the human enablers. And it is ultimately more equitable.

The HAMS’s Reward & Recognition Systems provide the strategies, plans and mechanisms for providing non-monetary and small-monetary rewards and recognition to appeal to the ego needs of staff, and are consistent with laws/regulations/codes, any labor contracts (if applicable), and enterprise policies/procedures.

Recognizing a job well done requires understanding what a well done job looks like.

Those are the Human Asset Management Systems in the EPPI methodology-set.

Leveraging Human Performance
How your improvement efforts approach the human variable can be key to your improvement success, regardless of the primary focus of the change.

Many tools exist today to help you manage this with data. But all of the ERP/HRIS/LS/Talent Management/Etc. database systems for managing the enterprise won’t do you much good if they are filled with questionable data.

Beware generic data sets. On the surface they always have face validity. But if they would work just as well for your competitors as for you, they really won’t get you were you need to be…enabling your specific process performance requirements!

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The Big Question - ILT and Off-the-Shelf Vendors – What Should They Do?

Guy W. Wallace’s Responses

At the Learning Circuits Blog - this month "The Big Question Is" -

ILT and Off-the-Shelf Vendors – What Should They Do?


BQ: On Demand: Customers want to have both up-front training and on-demand materials. However, on-demand materials are perceived to be similar in form to what’s freely available through search.


GW: Provide performance-based IL training but also help them organize an overall Enterprise Content Architecture for all existing content and future content.


Create templates for performance-based “Information & Instruction” for Master Performers/SMEs to populate and own and keep evergreen, and develop Information & Instruction in direct alignment with the Enterprise Process Architecture (check with IT) and the Workflow within.

And let them then collect existing materials and create new materials and except for “compliance/high risk” performance/topics – let them DIY (Do-It-Yourself).
















BQ: Smaller Increments: Customers want to purchase training in smaller increments to minimize time away for learning. This causes several problems for ILT and Content Vendors. Scheduling courses in smaller sessions distributed over days or weeks often interferes with a vendors' ability to delivery ILT on-site because the trainer is booked for consecutive days in class. It’s also not clear what pricing models work for these kinds of approaches.

GW: Build "most" ILT as modular Structured OJT with appropriately blended media (as ROI worthy) that is flexible enough for deployment 1:1 as well as 1: many.

Don’t fit or expand everything into 2-hour blocks! Find the natural breaks. The S-OJT Coach and learner/Performers can decide what to address and when.

BQ: Rates: Rates for people continue to go up, while price points do not. Vendor prices are not likely to increase as additional training options continue to increase ways in which people can learn.

GW: Use a valid, performance-based, lean and linear approach to ISD that engages the customers/stakeholders collectively, quickly “up front” - and at key milestones in a meaningful way, to make the business decisions inherent in ISD projects.

BQ: Courseware Quality: Higher quality courseware (simulations, interactive, referenceable, etc.) is more expensive to produce and it is hard to get that expense back from customers unless there’s significant volume. Further, it is often more out of sync with customer demand because of time-to-market issues. This environment makes it easier to justify PowerPoint plus audio type courseware, but customers are never satisfied with the quality.

GW: Use “application exercise templates” and collaborative, rapid development approaches with the client’s handpicked Master Performers for quickly developing new simulations, interactive exercises, role plays, etc.

Use drill and practice and feedback - as a mantra. And “up the ante” in each practice round with real-world performance issues.

BQ: New Competitors: If you're in IT - Microsoft and other vendors like to give away training, or bundle it with their software sales. If you are in productivity training, there are excellent resources available for free online around systems like “Getting Things Done” (GTD).The bottom line is that many vendors are struggling to determine their direction moving forward. And likely, this is not that far away from some of the same struggles faced by services groups inside organizations.

GW: Each Enterprise has its own set of unique processes for most of its internal systems/processes. Focus on those – and not on general/generic “enabling K/S” – or Competencies.

And then find/make the free/cheap stuff…the enablers…and figure out how to incorporate/blend them into new, performance-based content either “as is” or “after modification.”

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The Sooner You Address The Right Situations Formally - the Better the ROI!

Know any Golfers? Do you know any that informally learned Golf...and then took lessons? Or the same for Tennis? Bowling?

The Coach often is trying to get your game results into control, by changing your cognitive and behavioral processes.

Six Sigma is about getting a process in "statistical process control" to some target's key measures within tolerances. Some narrow. Six Sigma. Some wider. Three Sigma.

On each and every process? No. Only where it is important. Some processes you leave to Informal Control.
















In thinking about Formal Learning and Informal Learning I think about it the same way.


In critical Enterprise processes there are critical performers. And there are less-critical performers just as there are less critical processes. And inside those critical processes where those more critical performers perform...are "outputs & tasks" that are more critical. Those are the TARGETS...those with more Risks and Rewards, each to be estimated and factored into an ROI calculation along with the costs of conformance to the requirements - the CoC.


Because without knowing the relative ROI for one opportunity to get a process into enough control versus another, a good decision cannot be made reliably.


The "I" part should be easy to forecast, within reason. Try ball-parking numbers to start.


Then if it looks like it might be significant ROI, go for more accuracy and completeness in your "Investment cost numbers" AS WELL AS FOR THE "return value numbers" - unless it is a real "no-brainer."


A no-brainer is where the RETURN's Risk and Rewards are so "obviously significant" that you need to worry less about the Investment COSTS - as to the Investment QUALITY...as in effectiveness. Sometimes where "efficiency be damned!" That's where FORMAL LEARNING IS A MUST.


Where the Cost-of-Non-Conformance - CoNC - is too high a price to pay. Risks and Rewards.


Think of the CoNC as the costs for doing nothing at all. And then...so what?























The CoNC answers: "so what?"


And depending on how long the target audiences has been living in the Informal Learning world, the job of Formal Learning may be made just that much harder by the varied, less-than-best practices that have evolved and become a personal standard for many performers. Who now believe themselves to be consciously competent. When they are really unconsciously incompetent. The CoC is higher. So, what is the CoNC for the situation?

CoC is the Investment cost.

CoNC is the value of the Risks and/or Rewards.

So if it is appropriate to address certain Target Audiences for ROI purposes, how do we approach that? By Competencies? That enable Performance. Or by Performance? Performance Competence? With its "specificity" regarding Stakeholder Requirements for Outputs and Tasks?



When you go to practice a COMPETENCY it's important for most learners that the context of the practice be of high fidelity to them, to their job performance. It would be better to see COMPETENCIES as simply the enablers of Performance Competence...along with other human and environmental enablers. And see the importance of being clear about the Performance and its context.



It's very difficult to create Learning Objectives with high fidelity - to start the whole DESIGN process - without an understanding of the learner/PERFORMER's performance context.



What would the "application exercises" be, to provide for appropriate practice with feedback?


How would you then "up the ante" on the next practice round (as in: drill-and-practice) with real examples of difficulties that the learner/PERFORMER will face in order to develop real capability to perform in their real world?
















What INFORMS your current design process? Or processes? Is it informal? Learning Objectives developed by any means? With tremendous variability at the start of the content design process? Is that sustainable?


Shouldn't your Learning Objectives be Performance-based? With the actual performance context in mind leading to the design of informational and instructional products and systems?


















Where is a Competency-based approach going to lead? How effective is that informational and instructional content going to be without the "context" in mind?


What kind of RETURNS will be achieved with those varied approaches to instructional design?
















What's it worth to not sink the ship of Enterprise? Critical Process by Critical Process?



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Am I Being Unreasonable Here?

I would like to be unreasonable...and adapt the world to my needs and not conform myself to it.



















This morning I read about new "analysis" (Blog date: Friday, March 02, 2007) that suggests that non-productive time on the Internet while at work should be encouraged.


It seems that having Internet access at work and the ability to do non-work makes some people more happy.


Duh. It isn't "all about employee happiness" now is it?


I bet it doesn't make too many of the other stakeholders for their Enterprises very happy. And it probably makes the competition extremely happy! Let me digress...


Why didn't they study beer drinking? Don't graduating college kids still like beer too?

__________________________________________________________________

From: The New Scientist:


A new analysis suggests that much of what might be called "wasting time on the internet" is not such a bad thing. And that it should even be accepted as a normal part of working.

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2007/03/internet-at-work-distraction-or.html

It goes on:

The recent study in the journal CyberPsychology & Behaviour involved questioning 329 people on their use of computers at work. A statistical analysis of the results suggests non-work computer use fell into two categories, which the psychologists call "counter-productive" and "non-productive". The first category includes things able to damage a firm legally (breaking the law) or financially (giving away proprietry information). The second includes behaviours that are not directly destructive, but aren't directly productive either. Think sending emails or banking online. But the team - from companies Genesee Survey Services and Kenexa, and Eastern Connecticut State University - also found a strong link between internet access and job satisfaction.

They argue that companies should be more tolerant of non-productive computer use: "As definitions of work activities evolve with changing technology, perhaps strict adherance to these work activities is outdated, unobtainable or even unwarranted."


They reckon that we should embrace a future in which workers maintain their happiness and productivity through judicious non-work browsing, email and chat throughout the working day.


Truly-counterproductive behaviour on the other hand shouldn't be tolerated, they say. But they predict it will become less common as more people become familiar with the web. Tom Simonite, online technology reporter.

_______________________________________________________________


Let's look at some of this again:


They argue that companies should be more tolerant of non-productive computer use: "As definitions of work activities evolve with changing technology, perhaps strict adherance to these work activities is outdated, unobtainable or even unwarranted."

They reckon that we should embrace a future in which workers maintain their happiness and productivity through judicious non-work browsing, email and chat throughout the working day.


Where is it exactly that "definitions of work activities evolve with changing technology" - because work is still work and goofing off is still goofing off.



Or did they mean "expectations" are evolving...or devo'ing?



De-evolving? Devolution?










Work is still about producing and selling something at a total cost for total revenues - that nets out to either a profit or a loss.


So where is this really happening? Is it in highly competitive industries?


Where is this "on-line goofing off" OK because it is not adding unnecessarily to "total costs" and detracting from profitability?


And where is that OK for the Owners, the Leaders and the Managers?


And where is that OK for the Customers - for this approach should surely add to their prices and/or eventually "wipe out" their supplier...and then where does that really leave them? Maybe the supplier was a commodity and not a strategic partner. Oh well.


Aren't those promoting such nonsense paying attention to what "the flattening of the world" has in store for some of us - soon?


Workers in fast developing nations, we know who you are - and you know who you are, may be willing to work for 20% of what others in the "slowed, but still developed nations" are currently earning.


Well, maybe they aren't really earning it, but it is their compensation.


Which given all of those types of future/flattening/forecasts and the coming of two new business superpowers into the arena, it's not difficult to see why business leaders with fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders may be forced to go elsewhere. Where people are hungry for work. Hungry for your compensation.


Perhaps this will actually accelerate the outsourcing of jobs...to wherever. Wherever they can be more productive. And if many in the developing global village are willing to work for 20% of what those in the "already there and are taking a well-deserved break" are making...those folks better be 5 times more productive than those who are hungry.


Back in 1989 a client shared a book that their management team was all reading..."The Age of Unreason" by Charles Handy. Here's a nice review quote about the book from "Top Thinkers 50"

__________________________________________________________________


http://www.thinkers50.com/?page=biography&ranking=10


In The Age of Unreason (1989) he proposed the Shamrock organisation as a business model. Many have tied the symbol to his Irish background. The shamrock has long been powerful in the Anglican Church of Ireland because of its apocryphal use by St Patrick as a symbol of the Holy Trinity.


For Handy the first of the three leaves represented the professional managers and administrators – the organisational core. This leaf is shrinking in size.


The second leaf contained the contractual fringe. Its contributors to the organisation were vital, but they were outsiders.


In the third leaf were those including the portfolio workers, as well as temporary workers and part-timers. They contributed much, but they could never be considered part of the organisation. Many didn’t want to be. They wanted jobs but not careers. They frequently worked for a number of disparate organisations. In Handy’s language they were like fleas feeding off elephants. The latter were the large organisations.


_________________________________________________________________


Another part of Handy's book was the now familiar story about boiling frogs.


Are managers who see this slow erosion of productivity due to the distractions of Collaborative Tools and Internet access...being misused on non-productive activities...and NOT addressing this performance issue...just like the frogs...who were not dropped into boiling water - but put into water that was THEN brought to a boil?


They didn't notice the slow changes of the water getting warmer to hot. They didn't jump out. They boiled.


As more and more "demands" by the younger workforce are put onto employers to provide collaborative tools and access and time-on-the-job for non-work browsing...and managers don't manage the situation...and costs rise (or don't lower)...and the Enterprise future is hurt...will managers jump or boil?




















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How Do You Define and Measure Performance? Just As Your Stakeholders Do?

Being process-centric in a functionally organized world isn't difficult IF the others in the processes were similarly-centric. Aye. There's the rub.


So if we can agree that there is more to "satisfaction" than just the customer requirements and perspective, that there are even stakeholders of a higher order, with more clout, greater consequences...


...then perhaps we can agree that Performance Competence is the ability to "perform tasks" to "produce outputs" to "stakeholder requirements" AND that those stakeholders and their requirements can be quite complex for some processes...and is not necessarily easy to figure out.


















But whether it is the performance of an individual, a team, or of an entire organization...it's all about Performance Competence.


















The stakes? The Risks and Rewards?

• Compliance
• Profitability
• Revenues
• Costs
• Satisfaction of any of the people at any level or chain in the value stream
• And "the viewpoint and attitude of the entire world" in our flattened, global village...as to our Performance Competence as an Enterprise...be that enterprise from Government...Private sector...for profit...non-profit...religious...community....

There are both routine and non-routine processes to be performed by EVERY DEPARTMENT/FUNCTION within the Enterprise, in enough control to meet those stakeholder requirements. And they must be aligned, resourced, monitored and managed. Up and Down and Across the Enterprise.




















Here is my model for analyzing the Performance Competence of Management alongside the context of "processes" composed of AoPs - Areas of Performance."






















Most Competencies are really enablers to other terminal, actual task performance objectives...directed at some performance competence ends...some goals that will be measured.


I think it very important to realign most Enterprise's "Competency Models" to the Business Processes that they are supposed to be enabling.


I do it in every CAD - Curriculum Architecture Design project. They always get listed (in perhaps different wording...easily addressed later) in the Enabling Knowledge/Skills Matrices in the analysis efforts that are done AFTER generating the Performance Model.

We always start these efforts at the terminal objectives...at the Performance Competence of the real processes of our PUSH TARGET AUDIENCES...chosen by the stakeholders in a FORMAL PROCESS to align constrained resources with critical needs.

There will never be enough resources to do it all...or to keep it evergreen...unless done wisely.

With an eye to stakeholder requirements.

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Managing "Performance Competence" Requires Specific Data Integrity

I've been writing lately that...

• It's not about Competencies
• It's not about Learning
• It's not about Collaborative and Social Tools
• It's about Performance Competence

It's about that Performance Competence in the WORKFLOW.

Which requires an understanding of the WORKFLOW in Process, the Process within a larger context of Processes, the Processes in a larger systems-context that includes all internal and external factors.











As you work toward bring as much of the RIGHT STUFF to the WORKFLOW, you'll be involved in a lot of data gathering. To gather a lot of data.


The quality of that data is critical. If it isn't "of sufficient quality" it would probably be better to not have spent the resources to have gathered it in the first place. For someone might just use it. To a lagged negative affect.


If your data gathered is opinion data - that has been validated via it's "face validity" - and then not tested as to its UTILITY...what CAN you do with it exactly? What should you do with it?


An Example
Is the competency of "KNOW THE BUSINESS" with all of its FACE VALIDITY really usable? In a Talent Management context? In a recruiting/selection context? In a Formal Learning Context? In a Performance Management context? In a Compensation context?


Isn't "KNOW THE BUSINESS" somewhat different up and down and across the Enterprise to the varied learners/Performers? How and when is THAT teased out and put to use? Or is it left to Informal Learning? And ignored by all those component systems of the Talent Management suite?


What I've seen after the blessing of the Competencies from executives is a lot of scrambling to back into some logic for it all when put to an application such as Formal Learning or Pay-for-Performance systems. Then the detail gets added in. But still not typically "informed" by the specifics of the processes that the learners/Performers/payees "perform in."

No- what happens is all kinds of machinations are gone through to articulate behavioral anchors for various levels of a Competency. When it could have been all driven in the first place BY THE PROCESSES/WORKFLOW that they are now expected to enable.


Hmmmmm.

















The Enterprise Content...performance-based "Information and Instructions" can and should be organized first...by the Process/WORKFLOW...and then ALL Enablers linked to those. That means starting with the Enterprise Processes and not some bought list of reasonable sounding Competencies to be word-smithed by the executives.


How will that ever be a part of creating the creative tension necessary for the Systems Thinking necessary of a Learning Organization?


Getting Organized
The Enterprise Content...should not be organized first...by topics, Competency or not. It's not specific enough to be useful. It will eventually need to get back to the specifics of the process somehow. Most get close to something akin to the process...but not quite the process.


Where in the on-boarding and on-going development should one address "Know the Business" and then how would you universally measure that to make sure "that they got it?" Could you? Or is this where "informed-subjectivity" enters the system? Random Variation. By Design. Unfortunately. But now unavoidable.


For some thoughts on getting aligned with your Enterprise leadership and stakeholders see my book: T&D Systems View and the Systems at 12 O'Clock...Governance & Advisory.

















For some thoughts, examples and details on my approach to performance-based T&D/ Learning/ Knowledge Management, see my book: lean-ISD.
















Both books are available on my web site as free PDFs. Both are 400+ pages.


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INNOVATION may be RISKY within the Execution of the Process

Innovation. Why innovate? To improve.


Continuous Improvement - CI. A worthy pursuit IF the overall ROI makes it worthy. Total ROI requires having the total investment costs and total returns achieved known. Or rational forecasts for them. CI is sometimes accomplished via large, complex projects...and sometimes through INNOVATION within the Execution of the Process...each time there is a "performance cycle."


But that is RISKY - INNOVATION within the Execution of the Process.


Because Improvement in one process may have a negative impact elsewhere for a total net loss for the Enterprise. Improvement, continuous or discontinuous, must be looked at both systemically and systematically. And assessed for its stakeholders' requirements. And impact to those requirements IF we improve a targeted process.


To review a process within its larger "processes-context" ideally requires an understanding what all of the other component processes are, and what their relationships/interconnectivity is. And knowing what the "other stakeholders' require" on those other processes that you may be affecting with your improvement. If you push on one, what happens and where...and when...and how much later if there is any lag?


That's why innovation within execution is only a good thing some of the time. The quality movement of the late 70s and early 80s had, as one of many competing "themes," one theme of VARIABILITY REDUCTION. Reduce process variation to reduce product variation.




















But that works well in a standard process...as in making a Product, a widget. Where there are long production runs. But what about short production runs? Runs of one or two? Where the next time it has to vary?


And what about Services? Services that may need to vary situationally? Not Dry Cleaning services or Fast Food services. But a service such as ISD - Instructional Systems Design...whose "new product development process" as represented by the ADDIE model needfully varies depending on the situation...its context? Or IT custom program development? Or New Product Development?


Here's where the process should vary (within limits) and too often doesn't...or at least it doesn't vary appropriately.


Or how about Continuous Improvement where there is no process...but many processes...with tremendous variation. Where everybody does it their way. Making it hard to predict quality, quantity, costs and schedules. Making it more difficult to monitor and manage. While often this is inappropriate, there are times when this is exactly appropriate. And yes, hard to predict quality, quantity, costs and schedules. But sometimes that's the way IT IS and SHOULD BE. However rare.


So, is INNOVATION a good thing? As always, it depends.



Is it difficult to take processes, one at a time, and assess them for their INNOVATION potential and appropriateness? Yes, most of the time. The "systems view" is most likely missing. And the ability to think through impacts elsewhere from an improvement, an innovation, is impaired.










As organizations deal with the many shifts coming our collective way...and you are tempted by the promise of the new Learning Systems...LMS/ LCMS/ Talent Management Systems, etc., etc....talk to your IT folks about where they are going with BPM - Business Process Management.


As these tools hold great promise to bring to the WORKFLOW the "Information and Instructions" for Process and Practice clarity. As they attempt to automate the process sans humans, or minimally enable the humans. And track activities and results for many reasons, including compliance, performance monitoring and management.


But whatever tool-set you use, it's critical that the data you load into them is complete, accurate, and APPROPRIATE.


Appropriate because of its ability to leverage PERFORMANCE. Where inappropriate data will do more averaging than leveraging.


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Your Enterprise Content Architecture of performance-based Information and Instruction

Have YOU asked "WHY 5 TIMES" regarding the statistic that "80% or more of how people learn their jobs was via Informal Learning" ???


Was it in some part due to the lack of Formal Learning provided by the Enterprise to cover EVERY TASK in the first place? Was that Formal Learning potential limited due to a lack of clarity regarding Process and Practice?


Is that REASON to give up on Formal Learning - or not take it as seriously? I don't think so. And embrace more Informal Learning practices and enabling technologies? Or guided-Informal Learning practices and enabling technologies? Or more of an appropriate BLEND of it all?


There are jobs where clarity is achieved to as great an extent as possible...astronauts, control room operators, airline pilots, etc. Not always perfectly. But closer to Six Sigma. Due to the Risks and Rewards for their Performance Competence.


Have you thought about the coming clarity of enterprise processes from the BPM movement?

And its POTENTIAL IMPACT to LEARNING/ KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT/ TRAINING/ CERTIFICATION?


Workflow from a PROCESS standpoint will eventually be clear. Or clearer...depending on the nature of the process itself and the extent to which it is documented/proscribed. Some processes shouldn't vary and don't vary. Some shouldn't and do. Some should and don't. And everything else.


















When the WOKFLOW becomes clearer, will your approach to the "organization of content" be robust to continuous change?


Will your Enterprise Content Architecture facilitate content development/acquisition AND minimize or eliminate content overlaps and gaps?


Or will policy instructional content overlap with procedural guidelines and other types of Instruction/Information?


Will it work as a "system of Information and Instruction?" Or as your own internal Data-Glut? With inadvertent, unnecessary costs lowering current potential ROI.


















Build and acquire CONTENT for PUSH Target Audiences and share as appropriate with PULL Target Audiences. Not all needs are equal.






















And then regarding this term: Blending. Overall...for an entire curriculum...BLEND.

For critical PERFORMANCE COMPETENCE......BLEND not only media/mode as well as target audiences...are the learner/performer's management and/or peers involved? Should they be?

Couldn't both mentoring and coaching methods be a means to both deploy knowledge and insights and strategies/tactics for approaching varied situations AND capture the content in templates by the learners/Performers?






















There are more resources and references available at:



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Are You Competing for Talent Formally or Informally?

Is your "competition" for recruiting and retaining TALENT being approached FORMALLY...or Informally?












How do you know who to retain?






















How you ensuring that you are addressing the needs? Are you using technology and the personal touch? In on-boarding new people? In on-going people development and management?

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Human Asset Management Systems - That are Performance-based

Back in the early 1990s my business partners and I started writing about Human Asset Management Systems, also known as Human Capital Systems and later, now, Talent Management Systems.


Whatever the label the concept is the "care and feeding" of the employees for their benefit AND the benefit of the Enterprise. Cradle to grave so-to-speak. Because PEOPLE are one of the only real differentiators to the Enterprise.


Their competitors can buy everything in today's marketplace that they have...except for the PEOPLE in the Enterprise.
















How you approach this, with or without some of the new technology systems, is critical. Because anybody can buy those Talent Management Systems as well.

It's what you put into those systems. The data. And it's validity and utility.

And it then how you use that data. If you clearly understand the Enterprise Processes and Practices, you will see clearly where Formal Learning needs to be augmented by directed-Informal Learning. Via non-technology. Facilitated by technology. But more personal.






















Such as in the Formal Use of Mentoring and/or Coaching deployment platforms for your T&D/ Learning/ Knowledge Management System. To augment online and traditional and EPSS deployment of "information and instruction" to support the WORKFLOW.


















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Learning Is JUST One Part of the Process Puzzle

VR - one of those acronyms from the TQM - Total Quality Management movement of the early 1980s.

One part of the puzzle.

Variability Reduction.

The goal of SPC - Statistical Process Control back in the 80's. The goal of today's Six Sigma version of: SPC plus.

Find the best way to do something/anything, and standardize on that. And get it into statistical control. Or enough control...

Want to try to get the scriptwriting process into statistical control "within" the "Develop Script for Weekly Comedy Program" process at many TV shows? For 8 writers and then the temperamental cast? Box that on the process map and move on. All you can do is set a deadline, and set an audience target, and....

Hope they get creative. Encourage all sort of Informal Learning. And some directed-Informal Learning. And darn little Formal Learning...formally/otherwise known as Training...to create SKILL...or Education...to create KNOWLEDGE...or Communications...to create AWARENESS. Or whatever labels you use for these distinctions/differences-of-intent. And give them access to the Data-Glut and collaborative tools.

But mainly they gotta hit a deadline and it better be good. Otherwise leave them alone!

But the folks in the Finance Department? Who sign employees up and cut paychecks or program direct-electronic-deposits? And report to the IRS? And get you that W-2 on time every year so that you can enter a process owned by the IRS (or your countries equivalent? Sorry. I am a gringo from the suburbs of Chicago and then KC.) Don't give them access to the Data-Glut and collaborative tools. Not as part of their job. Not with a communicated expectation of using these tools to figure out how to do

Innovating while Executing

Let their supervisor do that and find best practices to "pilot-test" as part of her/his job. Don't distract them from PERFORMANCE and their role in it. Yeah, they want to. But let them wait until they walk out the door. You know they can't wait to get home to reconnect. To their Social Network.

I'm a child of the sixties. I get it. Jesse Colin Young and Get Together. With IT support. Thanks IT guys and gals!

This child of the sixties would like everything to be much clearer...

• what the stakeholders demand and want and the consequences for meeting those, or not, and how we are measuring our compliance to those and predicting our future success or failure ?


• what processes are best practices and when to situationally vary and WHEN TO NOT VARY...and what best practices and lessons learned are applicable in this portion of the WORKFLOW ?


• and what is my role in team efforts and individual contributor efforts and how will my performance be measured ?


• and what awareness, knowledge and/or skills are needed by the learner/PERFORMERS? And where can I get Procedural Guidelines - Job Aids/Performance Aids...via EPSS (ala Glory Gery) - or laminated job aids taped to the equipment/machinery (ala Barry Booth) ?


• and where to go to get anything more than INFORMAL LEARNING

And...address situations where there is a lack of process and practice clarity...because...

Where is there is no goal, there is no ultimate PERFORMANCE COMPETENCE target.

And to quote author Lewis Carroll from his "Alice in Wonderland" - "If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there."

IT and ISD and IPDs and many other acronyms have the promise to get us there. The enablers are there. It's now up to us to use them to create Performance Competence for ROI. For the sake of the Stakeholders. Figure out your puzzle.

http://www.eppic.biz/

When I Develop a Blog Posting - I Often "Interrupt Myself By Design" to Create Graphics and Think Deeper

Why invest?








But your measurement may either be loose or tight and either appropriate or inappropriate.


















If you are not focused on PERFORMANCE then don't get too serious.

















Many years ago the worldwide-Quality- Movement focused on SPC...

...and the people-side of process...

BOTTOM-LINE : What does the Process Require?

Anything else is simply a distraction.

Guy W. Wallace

CPT

President, EPPIC Inc.

guy.wallace@eppic.biz

What's the point? Why invest? In LEARNING?
















It's only one of the variables for PEAK PERFORMANCE.
















Learning? Or Performing?






















If you owned the ENTERPRISE - which would you focus on?

www.eppic.biz

Metrics for Learning

Aren't they the same?
























Whether your analysis of your analysis data
indicated a need
for only one approach,
which is as silly as only one blend...

















Formal Learning should actually include directed-Informal Learning.

If it is Performance-based.


http://www.eppic.biz/

Innovation within Execution might be a good thing, or not.

Innovation is one thing. Execution is another.

Innovation within Execution might be a good thing, or not.

As always, it depends.

Will your next Innovation be a One-Off?

Or will it be a Continuous Improvement for others to replicate?

Are these kinds of Innovations just Process Variance? Something to Avoid?

Get your Enterprise Processes and Practices clearer. Use it to organize your Content.

And then link all your workflow "information and instruction" to those Processes.

And conduct your Change Management routines using the Communities of Process & Practice who "own" the content that you hold for them.


http://www.eppic.biz/

80% Is Informal Learning - Because the Enterprise Didn't Fund More!

From Wikipedia - on 4-4-07...because this could change....

At least eighty percent of how people learn their jobs is informal. (The Institute for Research on Learning, 2000, Menlo Park). Workers learn much more from watching others, trial and error, asking colleagues, calling the help desk, and happenstance than from formal training.

______________________________________________________

This stat is being kicked around quite a bit as the rational for spending more on Informal Learning. But doesn't it make sense that over 80% had to be learned Informally because the Enterprise simply didn't make more Instruction available?

And so, necessity being the mother of invention...

...learners/Performers would do whatever is necessary to learn as best they could...as a default. What else could they do? Complain that management hadn't trained them and so they should be excused for not performing?

Not the smart ones. They figured it out by hook or crook or by the feedback of errors caught soon or later. These are how Master Performers develop themselves "sans" Formal Learning/Training/Etc. I deal with these folks all the time.

They are the members of my Analysis Teams and Design Teams and Implementation Planning Teams in Curriculum Architecture Design efforts that I conduct. I've done 74 CAD projects since 1982 and my staff and business partners have conducted many more.

But when management has deemed the Informal Learning approach inappropriate, I am brought in to conduct a performance-based Training Needs Analysis effort (a CAD project) that will rationalize any existing T&D prior to designing the new Curriculum.

It's in my CAD project Phase 2 - Analysis activities that we uncover any and all T&D/Content/Information sources that meet the needs specified in the Performance Model and K/S Matrices. We do the same thing in Phase 2 of Modular Curriculum Development (my ADDIE-level of ISD in the PACT Processes). Avoid redundancy by design.

So I know the number is well below 80%...in my experience. But I also know that that is because no one paid to have the Instructional Content developed or acquired.

And worse. Much of the existing T&D was inadequate. The Master Performers knew about it first or second hand. And often existing content is tagged as "Use AM" (use after modification). Or- THEY INSIST WE PRETEND THAT IT DOESN'T EXIST AND JUST START CLEAN.

That happens a lot. Which reflects poorly on existing T&D. Which adds to that 80% number despite resources having been invested. For a poor return.

Equating Content, instructional or otherwise, with good content, is too much of an assumption, again, based on my experiences over the years. It's just not true.

Sadly, in my experience, most Instructional Content produced over the years was poorly done. And many only started "blending" their instruction after the term took on an ISD meaning.

It didn't teach the learners/Performers how to grow with the job and give them information and contacts. A typical feature of many of MY CAD T&D Paths...one of the key outputs of the Phase 3 - Design of a CAD effort.

And too often wasn't performance-based...therefore wasn't seen as relevant because it wasn't.

Often it was on some deep, deep enabler topic, where the applicability wasn't easily seen and/or was highly questioned. And the time was spent on explanations rather than drill-and-practice.

But that should not be the cause to abandon Formal Learning. To leave it to the learners to figure it out with the help of collaborators and data sources, over and over again. What if they are not learning Best Practices...just Average Practices?

I think Formal Learning is ideally the rule and Informal Learning the exception. But not always! As always, it depends.

What out for how this 80% statistic is being used...and who is using it. So what if that's how most people are forced to learn? Perhaps it was a conscious business decision to leave their learning to chance...from a cost and risk/reward perspective.

Risks and Rewards of Performance Competence (or not) are the part of an ROI - Return on Investment calculation for RETURNS. Is there an adequate ROI for addressing Learning more formally than not?

And then, what about the clarity of Process and Practice? If it's not ever been clear...because performance is made up as they go along...then Formal Learning should follow a process improvement effort, employing Lean and Six Sigma type efforts, prior to, or just-ahead-of-the ISD effort.

For a formal approach to performance-based ISD, addressing both Formal, directed Informal, and Informal Learning, see my book: lean-ISD.

It is available on my web site as a free, 404-page PDF.

Go to: http://www.eppic.biz/

The PACT Processes and Workflow

I've been doing analysis of processes and peoples' performance within those processes since 1979. It's how I was taught to do it, or rather it led to my current practice.


We started with a Gilbert-like "Accomplishments" approach to WBS - Work Breakdown Structures as they are called in engineering circles. But I was always thinking more linear. Which is now referred to as Workflow.

I thought Accomplishments such as:

• Plans Developed
• Reports Prepared
• Reports Reviewed
• Staff Recruited
• Staff Oriented

...too often approached the whole aspect of "performance" by grouping "like" things. And then determining the enablers.

I preferred looking at processes. And finding the redundant enablers within them in a second step also...so I didn't lump all planning together or all reports reviewing. I wanted to tease them apart.


So I really liked the process approach of Geary Rummler and the TQM - Total Quality Management movement, especially when they both kind of merged, back in the early and mid-1980s at Motorola. (Another story from the past to be told.)


I always wanted to know if the planner was developing plans (or otherwise participating in planning) in multiple settings...and I wanted to understand "planning" (or "whatever") within the processes contexts, not in isolation - or pulled-out-and-grouped.


So I couldn't call it Accomplishments although it's a similar concept in that they are both segmentation schemes. And I couldn't use Major Duties...another popular label.


All other labels carried their own baggage of specific-or-general/non-specific meanings - so that I was compelled to create a new one: Areas of Performance - AoPs.

(And- yes I know it should be "A'soP.")


AoPs are used to further break-down large, complex Processes. Even less-complex processes.
For example - if ISD is a process then A-D-D-I-E could be the AoPs. ADDIE is the workflow, especially if like me your process is linear because you are going to get it through it in a linear fashion without all the re-do-loops of REWORK. At least most-of-the-time.


And within each are "clusters of Outputs-Tasks" data - and other related/attached data. Of course ADDIE is missing an upfront planning phase - although some tell me they see that as part of Analysis.


Whatever...so long as it is a set of tasks leading to the Output (the ISD plan) that meets stakeholder requirements.


The "Output-Task Clusters" for the AoP of Analysis could include, by "Output" -

• Stakeholder Interview Guides
• Target Audience data
• Performance data
• Enabling K/S data
• Existing T&D Assessments for Reuse data
• Analysis Report
• Project Steering Team Gate Review Presentation
• Analysis data Updates
• Next Steps Updates

Of course if your rapid ISD methods are "sans" Analysis tasks or outputs...or are extremely abbreviated...then you would be accelerating right past any of this straight into Design/Development.

I just hope your short-cut's "rework cycling" doesn't extend your actual time lines and costs well past what they could have been with a less "haste-makes-waste" approach.













And I hope you don't anchor everything on a general Competency model that has been validated via "face-validity" means.


Because Reports Reviewed is valid.


But where exactly can you go with that from here?























It's not about Learning. It's about Performance Competence.















For more on my approach, using the PACT Analysis methods, see my book: lean-ISD - available for free as a 404 page PDF at www.eppic.biz

And see the resource tab for many other related references and resources.

What "Informs/Drives" Your T&D-Learning-Knowledge Management-Performance Support Systems?

If you brought together the right group, and in the right circumstances "using distance-collaborative tools" - IF they already know each other and there is some level of trust established for their group task assignment - they can define Performance Competence and all of the enablers.


That leads to establishing "performance-based" Learning Objectives, and identifying other tools needed in the Performance tool shed. All "performance-based."
















Enablers including performance enabling "collaborative tools" that make business sense...to the Master Performers and other SMEs who would know where it makes sense and where it does not. They know where they can use tools when those tools are described.


















There are some jobs/roles/tasks where it would make sense to start or expand the use of collaborative tools and other Performance Support Systems.





















And other jobs/roles/tasks where it does not.















There are needs for collaborative tools and techniques beyond "directed-Informal Learning" and "Formal Learning." Just so it's there as a "communications-type" Performance Support tool. Not for Learning. But for Performing.


It's not about Learning. It's about Performance Competence.









Improvements to the Enterprise Systems that enable Performance Competence should be always be based on ROI and involve the Enterprise Leadership. Where the RETURNS come from Risks (avoided) and Rewards (achieved).




It's all about Enterprise Process Performance Competence.




For more see my web site for resources: http://www.eppic.biz/

My Global Network Expands

We've exchanged dozens of emails discussing business opportunities and partnering.

But we've yet to come across the right opportunity.

Does anyone out there know the leadership and people of PeakPoint in Russia?

Organizing Your Enterprise Content Architecture for the Users

Enabling Content = data, information, instruction related to task performance leading to the production of outputs that meets, or not, stakeholder requirements.



Raw data.



Culled information with some "insight" related to its use.



Performance-based instruction including:

• Best Practices
• Lessons Learned
• Templates and Examples for Plans, Reports/Documents, and Presentations
• EPSS- Electronic Performance Support Systems content
• Job Aids
• Desk Procedures
• Policy/Procedural Guides
• Etc.

Aren't all Knowledge Management type products really intended to "instruct" the learner/Performers?

Wasn't all training intended to do that as well?

Training that isn't/wasn't "performance-based" - where the learning objectives driving the evaluation of success AND THEN the content - isn't informed by real data...and not just made up at the front end of design - most likely leads to negative ROI.

Of course the right people, Master Performers, could articulate correct Instructional Objectives.

But would they be appropriate?

Could they inadvertently overlap with Instructional Objectives elsewhere that already drove the definition of content elsewhere?

Could this approach lead to redundancy in the content offerings? Leading to increased life cycle ownership costs?

Is your performance support content organization scheme user friendly? Does it include all information and instructions needed to support the workflow? Is it organized by the workflow? Is it organized to be robust to future changes?

Is it accessible for both the "PULL target audiences" AND the "PUSH target audiences" in-a-directed-or-not-Informal-Learning" mode? Can you "lock-out-tag-out" content for maintenance as Risks/Rewards dictate?

Does it facilitate reuse?

Does it have a place for "orientations" and "advanced organizers" and "enablers" and "how-to-do-it-in-our-process" type content? Does it reflect the Enterprise organization structure AND the process architecture?

Does it provide ready access for desktop users and mobile users?

Is it organized for easy assignment to the content developers - be they "ISDers" and/or "Master Performers" and/or "Everyone" for authoring and maintenance? To keep it evergreen?

Does it focus on supporting and enabling specific "Performance Competence" or general "Competencies" or some other "topics vs. task" orientation?

For more on this see my e-newsletter Pursuing Performance on my web site at: http://www.eppic.biz/

When to "lean" Learning Toward Formal and/or Informal

As always, it depends.


When is Informal Learning the best approach?


When is directed-Informal Learning the best approach?


When is Formal Learning the best approach?




Risks/Rewards and Clarity of Process and Practice
I think it has more to do with Risks and Rewards for ensuring Performance Competence than anything else.


But then there are times when the Risk/Rewards are high - but the Process and Practices are unclear. Then is Formal Learning really possible?


What are the "learning objectives" when the Process and Practices are unspecified? Are too situational with too many situations? Are soft? Are being made up each time the performers perform?

Perhaps it doesn't matter. Perhaps it is the most appropriate response...to be so flexible. Management hasn't or won't clarify their expectations.

"How are we going to do this project differently than the last one?" asks one of the troops before the next big undertaking at the project kick-off meeting. "What day of the week is it?" another answers with a question. "Or what time of day?" continues another.

They are merely frustrated with their management's inability or unwillingness to stick their necks out with some preliminary definitions of Process and Practice - to be grist for sure for the Continuous Improvement Mill later - and more complaints about it not being absolutely right the first time. Deming taught us where to look. But I digress.

So it comes back to the Risks and Rewards as the key driver in determining whether or not to move anything up the scale from Informal Learning to something a little or a lot more formal, more directed, more Pushy.

PUSH-PULL
When I started to write and present about PUSH-PULL in terms of Target Audiences back in the Fall of 2000 in the "lean-ISD" quarterly newsletter of one of my prior consulting firms (CADDI Inc.) - it's available on my web site still - it was due to reading too many articles about learners not finishing their modules. Which I thought ridiculous. As if every situation for each learner was the same. But it messed with the update to butts in seats metrics (butts on site).

And I wrote about PUSH-PULL for KMS - Knowledge Management Systems. It was also a topic of an ISPI presentation I did for the Spring 2001 ISPI conference (that presentation is available on my web site too).


PUSH-PULL, as I see it, is applicable to T&D/ Learning/ Knowledge Management/ Collaborative Tools, etc.

The concept is for the benefit of all Enterprise owners and/or shareholders for the protection and growth of their equity. And for all other stakeholders who wish to see the Enterprise as a financially sound, viable entity.

The underlying concept is: BUILD/BUY ONLY FOR PUSH TARGET AUDIENCES.

And once you have it share it with others as appropriate. Not necessarily with everyone else. But maybe with everyone for some things. As always, it depends.

If the ROI is there for meeting the PUSH target audiences' needs, then that justifies an Investment for Returns. If not, don't invest. For anyone. Not even if all of the masses could use it.

Build/Buy for PUSH and make accessible for PULL.

If you bought collaborative tools for one or many target audiences, it might make sense to "turn it on" for EVERYONE else. Or maybe for almost everyone else. Or perhaps for just a few audiences beyond the primary targets who's situational needs and Risks/Rewards "made the case." But, as always....



















What holds you back even when the RISK/REWARDS understanding would drive you to formal learning? Is there something that can hold you back?


Clarity of Process and Practice.


If the clarity "is not there" it adds more to the front-end analysis of your ADDIE-like "new product development" processes for content, instruction, learning, training, etc.

You just may have to create the clarity of Processes and Practices. And it's best to do so collaboratively with those in the ranks and elsewhere who can help you formalize the informal, the unclear, the mysteries of Process and Practice. And those are the Master Performers in my approach to ISD.

I've been there many times...when our analysis of what is...took a side road to define what could be. Deliberately most of the time. For the Project Steering Team I and my clients set up to "own the effort" knew about this lack of clarity and discussed it in our first Project Steering Team Gate Review Meeting (always in Phase 1) before they handpicked or approved the list of Master Performers and other SMEs we might need in this planned effort.

For more on this topic, see the many resources at: http://www.eppic.biz/

One of My Sessions at ISPI- QMMPASDTEWATOMP

I have facilitated over 300 meetings to define Performance Competence and/or "work with them" in design efforts for instructional design and performance supports development efforts since 1979.


Almost all of them produced what I have been labeling as

• the Performance Model and
• the K/S Matrices

I used to get grief from fellow ISDers because I wasn't always conducting observations as part of my analysis methods.

I was using a structured, facilitated "group process" of Master Performers and Subject Matter Experts handpicked by my clients or their clients.

This was the topic of my chapter, number 11, in the new (2006) Handbook of Human Performance Technology, published by Pfeiffer.

And at the ISPI 2007 Spring Conference "this end-of-April-Beginning-of-May" I'll be covering this methodology in my session:

May 1, 2007 - Tuesday 11:00 am (1255)Room: Salon 6
Quickly Modeling Mastery Performance and Systematically Deriving the Enablers with a Team of Master Performers

Guy W. Wallace, CPT

This session will introduce you to the project-proven analysis methodologies of performance modeling and enabler analysis and will provide an overview of the process and guidelines for conducting each, based on the presenter's experience in over 300 applications since 1982.

The session will also include a series of three interrelated two-person exercises to identify the areas of performance, create one performance model chart, and create one knowledge and skill matrix for a "summer, simple job."

Participants will be able to:

Describe the expertise, process steps, and analysis questions for facilitating a group to generate a performance model and an enabler matrix.

Describe the uses of the performance model and enabler matrix data in downstream instructional and non-instructional interventions.

Track: Analysis, Evaluation, & Measurement (AEM) Audience Level: Intermediate

Come join me!

For more see http://www.eppic.biz/ and http://www.ispi.org/

It's More Processes Than Your Rapid Development Process

Rapid ISD.

That's only one of the 47 discreet "processes" described for your assessment purposes in my book: T&D Systems View. It's available on my web site as a free 400+ page PDF.

Some LEARNING might be best left to Informal Learning means. Other to Formal Learning means.


















How well are you "In-Sync" with your Enterprise Leadership? What would they change if they could? How are they going to measure your success?

















47 processes in 12 systems in 3 groupings of

• Leadership Systems/Processes
• Core Systems/Processes
• Support Systems/Processes
  

Covered in T&D Systems View...a WBS - Work Breakdown Structure of T&D/ Learning/ Knowledge Management...

...so you can think systemically about how the piece-parts interact with each other in order to serve meeting the balanced Requirements and Desires of your varied Stakeholders.

http://www.eppic.biz/

It's about Performance Competence at all levels and at all nodes for ROI

Your Enterprise processes may not be very clear today.





















But your Processes may becoming CLEARER thanks to BPM - Business Process Management - within your Enterprise. As your IT group tries to use IT to enable the right processes, and/or track its activities and results.


But what about the Practices within those Processes?


Will they be getting clearer over time as well? You know- the way people will "situationally act, react and interact" within those better defined Processes. Better defined...except...where the human element is less predictable...as dictated by the process performance situation. Perhaps needfully so.


I.E.: "And here's where the Fire Fighting Team will always enter from the left and move quickly to the right.........................." isn't going to be programmed into the BPM maps' level of detail because they can't Six Sigma movement "except in response to specifics."

Can you imagine YOUR local Fire Department abandoning their "drill and practice of knowledge/skills in processes and practices" in favor of "Informal Learning" approaches?



At the National (or International/ Global) Fire Fighting Academy?


Yes. For sure. Their jobs are very important...and we may want to teach them "how to" learn...and interact...and search the Data-Glut or have "proxies" do so...because we can't feasibly define their process forward.

We can't define their Performance Competence well enough for VERY Formal Learning... even if we can specify their Outputs and their specific measures/metrics.


But where both ends and means can be clarified, we should look at each process performance situation and assess its ROI for the Stakeholders, based on their REQUIREMENTS and perhaps their desires. At least we should probably know and understand their desires. Even those we don't intend to meet now or later...because things change.


What is the best approach given the extreme range of options in Learning/Training/ Knowledge Management?

How informal should you leave your approach to Performance Competence?


Well, what are the Risks and Rewards for having and/or not having assured Performance Competence?

















Learning/ Knowledge Management/ Training/ Communications systems are needed to instill the current "awareness, knowledge, skills" necessary for Performance Competence...

























for the targeted "learners/Performers"

























- who are capable of and motivated to "learn the job" because they have been both "recruited for" and "selected for" - regarding the other key human asset enablers...that are THE "incoming" knowledge, skill, physical attributes, psychological attributes, intellectual attributes and personal values/beliefs. What's left, what isn't "incoming" has to be dealt with.


It's not about Learning. Except in rare cases. Where the learners/Performers are on the leading-bleeding edge of process or pure knowledge.



And if an owner or group of shareholders are paying for it...it's still all about Performance Competence...at all levels and at all nodes. Within the Enterprise. And in the Networks and Value Streams of its Industries.


















http://www.eppic.biz/

The Costs for a Lack of Process and Practice CLARITY

The Need for Informal and/or Formal Learning is always driven by a "Required" and/or "Desired" Performance Competence - and the ROI for addressing the "need" and/or ignoring it, or deferring it, or redefining it and then addressing it, etc.


Where Performance Competence = is the ability to perform Tasks to produce Outputs to Stakeholder Requirements.


Not to be confused with Competencies.


The Response of Informal Learning to Directed Informal Learning to Semi-Formal Learning to Very-Formal Learning is situational. As always, it depends.




















In "Investments in Learning" there is ALWAYS a "Cost of Conformance" - "CoC" -- and -- a "Cost-of-NonConformance" - "CoNC" which compares "doing nothing" versus "doing something"


...and the "costs" of each...providing one with the data to calculate ROI for this and other opportunities competing for the (most likely) constrained resources of most-any Enterprise.




















When I think about this and apply it to "Informal Learning" I see many potential "costs for doing nothing" -- BUT -- I understand it is "very situational" and one must ask these type of questions about any "particular situation" and then be careful to NOT OVER GENERALIZE the answer to all other situations across an Enterprise. Because I do believe that there is a time and place for Informal Learning.


Informal Learning - where the Enterprise decides to deliberately "leave Performance Competence" to chance...as a conscious, calculated "business decision" is very OK with me. They may enable it with Performance Support tools (sometime called Learning Tools), but they are not addressing it "by design" with clear outcomes at predicted costs for future returns. Not as they might treat a big ticket Capital expenditure.


But it is especially OK with me when and where the "leaders of the Enterprise" clearly understand WHERE each "ignored opportunity" is - so as to enable them to systematically re-address that in whatever routine they see wise - and re-address all of the other opportunities to "Invest in Learning for Returns" - and move some up to a higher priority...in their due time...when it is the right time...for the Enterprise as a whole.


Because a key bottom line question for leadership is:

• What are the costs for redundant Informal Learning?

I think it could be a very big "cost" number for some Enterprises. Not for all. Key variables?

• The more people you have doing "similar, very similar and/or the very same" work performance...the more it's going to cost.

• The more that performance is inherent with Risk of non-compliance and customer/stakeholder dissatisfaction...the more it's going to cost.

That's just two variables to consider for your situation. And that may be more than enough data to justify doing something about it...or nothing at all.


What might you do if it is "worthy" to address?

1. Clarify both the Processes and the Practices that are necessary to protect and improve the Enterprise.
2. Map the Processes/Model the Performance - at a high level and point out where "which" particular "human practices" - of the management or individual contributor or team member - have a GREAT LEVERAGING or AVERAGING effect on Enterprise Process Performance.
3. Identify BEST SITUATIONAL PRACTICES - Process by Process...where the comparative ROI indicates to make the investments for the returns...as a wise business decision.

My approach to clarifying all of this is best presented in my book: lean-ISD. It is available as a free, 404-page PDF on my web site at: www.eppic.biz