"Black Warrior's Curse" a Novel by Joe H. Harless

Today at lunch I finished "Black Warrior's Curse" a novel by Joe H. Harless, published in 2005.
















Yes, that Joe Harless.

It was only this past March that I found out, during my preparations to do a video interview with Joe at his home in Newnan GA before the Spring Conference, that he had even written a novel.

It is an excellent book. I literally could not put it down.

Perhaps it was because I know the author?

No. It is THAT good.

It is the kind of book that I’ll send to several favorite family and friends come Christmas time.

It is about race relations in Alabama as the civil rights movement was growing across the south. The book made me happy, sad and mad at times. Given what is going on in the US right now – it was a timely read for me.














Here is the Amazon.com description:

Connected in a way unknown to themselves, a young white man and an African American of the same age live in a small town on the Black Warrior River in Alabama. It is the site where DeSoto massacred seven thousand Choctaws and their dying leader, Tuskalusa, cursed "all men-of-no-color" who would live on the river. The two become entangled in the bloody struggle for civil rights in the 1960s. Each is changed by the horror of the Birmingham riots and bombings, "Bloody Sunday," and the freedom rides. Each is influenced by men as disparate as "Bear" Bryant, Martin Luther King, George Wallace, Malcolm X, and a Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. Each is shaped and given strength by the women in their lives. In the dramatic climax, the two learn how and why they are connected.


According to what I’ve read online, the movie rights have been purchased. That will be a definite must see – as I think the book is a must read.

Thank you Brother Joe!!! For another great contribution!!!

Cheers!
Guy

How Many C-Levels Does it Take To Get The Job Done?

You might have gotten the same email message in your inbox recently...















...about a webinar that was about how a single position - the CLO - can make something happen.

Something as complex and challenging as DIVERSITY.

What?

Or in the current vernacular: WTF?

The CLO may be one enabler in a specific (authentic) situation: one company/enterprise at one time frame. Not yesterday. Or tomorrow. Today. And the specifics are in some flux.

But there are others. Many others perhaps. Who also enable.

As always - it depends.

And that's what analysts (of many stripes) figure out. They figure out "what's what when." And "who" and "how." And "where" and "why." The 5W's and the 1H.

They could be instructional analysts. Or documentation analysts. Or Business Analysts (IT). Or Six Sigma analysts. Or HPT analysts.

And on and on...the list goes of "type"....of those "who enable" versus those "who do"- and thus themselves enable everyone else.

Those are the Master Performers. In my model's lingo.

The Master Performers that an analyst of some skill can figure out - to help enable others to emulate. If they don't exist there's not much for a SKILLED ANALYST to analyze. Except less-than-Master-Performers.

And then - why bother?

# # #

ADDIE Is Still Takin’ Heat - But Is It ADDIE's Fault?

If you've been around for a while - and gotten old like me - it's not the first rodeo on ISD that you've been through.

A decade later we are still debating the “worth” of the ADDIE model. A decade ago I wrote about it, had my partners and employees at the time review/tweak and we published a response to the issues of ADDIE in ISPI’s Performance Improvement Journal (PIJ). At the time I had been in the biz (L&D) 20+ years.

http://www.ispi.org/archives/resources/DesigningfortheISDLifeCycleWallace_etal.pdf















It’s time to stop blaming ADDIE itself for poor Training, Learning and/or Knowledge Management.

ADDIE is one of our professions’ key models – our model for New Product Development (NPD) as it is called elsewhere.

From Wikipedia:In business and engineering, new product development (NPD) is the term used to describe the complete process of bringing a new product or service to market. There are two parallel paths involved in the NPD process: one involves the idea generation, product design, and detail engineering; the other involves market research and marketing analysis. Companies typically see new product development as the first stage in generating and commercializing new products within the overall strategic process of product life cycle management used to maintain or grow their market share.

1. Idea Generation is often called the "fuzzy front end" of the NPD process
- Ideas for new products can be obtained from basic research using a SWOT analysis (Strengths, weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats), Market and consumer trends, company's R&D department, competitors, focus groups, employees, salespeople, corporate spies, trade shows, or Ethnographic discovery methods (searching for user patterns and habits) may also be used to get an insight into new product lines or product features.

- Idea Generation or Brainstorming of new product, service, or store concepts - idea generation techniques can begin when you have done your OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS to support your ideas in the Idea Screening Phase (shown in the next development step).

Engineering has a similar model: Our “Analysis” phase is called “Requirements Definition” or something similar – above it is “idea generation” – which we in ISD can do more formally as we should be able to define terminal performance competence in most of our application efforts – with the exception of really “out-there” future states. Unless we aren’t doing performance-based training – and are doing something like Topic-based Training – where any idea is as valuable as the next – if you don’t have real “performance” on the job as the ultimate criterion/objective.

Unlike most other professions, our ADDIE model is more consistently used than in other fields. We have less tweaking at the Phase/Stage level. And we have scant details that are “common” below the “box with a letter” level. Others have great detail to the engineering of a product/service.

Hmmm.

SO what?

Indeed!
















WIIFM? Or for your Enterprise? Better? Quicker? Cheaper?

Cheaper over the entire life cycle – or just cheaper in the “first costs” but more expensive throughout the life cycle? Who thinks like that!?! When and How? Maybe you and your team should be thinking like that!

As I apply my HPT/HPI/PI “hat” and “thinking” to why ADDIE is held in high disrepute (or is that low regard?) I use my EPPI – Enterprise Process Performance Improvement” framework of the 3 components to Peak Process Performance – 1) the Process itself – 2) the enabling human assets, and 3) the environmental supporting assets.

It ALWAYS takes the right balance of all three. And there is most often - no one right answer.
















It’s time to stop blaming the methodology-set that ADDIE can be – and place the blame squarely on where it belongs – or credit – if that is your situational context: Management. They have allowed/enabled/insisted on this situation.

















Either there is a too tight/bureaucratic ADDIE in place, or none – which really means many. At least one per practitioners. Some practitioners have more than one ADDIE approach. Some make each effort something new. Perhaps exciting for them – but unjustifiable and unsustainable from a Shareholder perspective. Too much extra costs in all that variance.

Just as the late quality guru W. Edwards Deming said:
"A manager of people needs to understand that all people are different. This is not ranking people. He needs to understand that the performance of anyone is governed largely by the system that he works in, the responsibility of management. A psychologist that possesses even a crude understanding of variation as will be learned in the experiment with the Red Beads (Ch. 7) could no longer participate in refinement of a plan for ranking people."


And – “The Appreciation of a system involves understanding how interactions (i.e. feedback) between the elements of a system can result in internal restrictions that force the system to behave as a single organism that automatically seeks a steady state. It is this steady state that determines the output of the system rather than the individual elements. Thus it is the structure of the organization rather than the employees, alone, which holds the key to improving the quality of output.


The Knowledge of variation involves understanding that everything measured consists of both "normal" variation due to the flexibility of the system and of "special causes" that create defects. Quality involves recognizing the difference in order to eliminate "special causes" while controlling normal variation. Deming taught that making changes in response to "normal" variation would only make the system perform worse. Understanding variation includes the mathematical certainty that variation will normally occur within six standard deviations of the mean.”
- From Wikipedia

ADDIE is not an island unto itself – it must co-exist and feed/enable many other processes and respond to yet others.


Just as the late performance improvement guru Geary A. Rummler said:
“If you put a good performer in a bad system, the system would win every time."
















Either management has expected and inspected and provided appropriate consequences for quality in the ADDIE arena, or they have not.


Either they have proscribed the framework of ADDIE and left it loose where best and tight when best – and option/situationally. Or they have not.
















Either they have an ADDIE Process defined well enough, in enough control, or they do not. They then have nothing at all, or a myriad of ADDIEs, or a too tight/ too slow approach that most Customers/Stakeholders feel a need/desire to avoid – because its formality does not pay dividends that are positive. Only negative.

Either it is a collaborative process that is also fast versus slow – or they do not. Either they really use the right people to do the right tasks at the right time – or they do not.
















Either the customers/stakeholders and the suppliers are aligned and “on the same page” for how to approach THIS EFFORT – or they are not.
















How would you quickly assess your situation in these three areas? Good enough – or not good enough?

















And if you need some insight about some ways to think about and do these things – and then adopt what makes sense and adapt the rest – here are two free book PDF resources – available at http://www.eppic.biz/

















As one might say – it might not be the ADDIE Process – it might be operator error. Or a management error.

# # #

The EPPI Framework for Analyzing & Designing Process Performance - At Any Level of the Enterprise

I like my business models to be good for both ANALYSIS and for DESIGN. To capture what is and/or to describe how it ought to be. I also like them to be scalable, and work from the micro to the mid to the macro. The little picture to the big picture.

So in the graphic above the framework on the left is what is scalable from the entire Enterprise - down to the department - to teams lower than that - whatever. Top to bottom. Where the top and mid levels are simply "roll-ups" from the lowest level you start at. And IF you eventually applied this everywhere in your Enterprise - and I don't think that is typically wise ROI-way - you'd be able to roll up or slice and dice the data any which way.

Whether we're at the level of Enterprise, Business Unit/Division, Function, Department, Team, Sub-Team, etc., etc. - the data set for each job/position/role is framed the same way. Only the specific data in the frame vary. The frame starts by layering the data into that relevant to Leadership, Core Processes both performance and management, and Support areas - see the next graphic.
















In the model there are Enterprise "Systems" made up of multiple "Processes" made up of Stages/ Phases/ etc. The term AoP can exist at any of these levels. The "AoP - Area of Performance" thing is a concept for dividing the whole into logical segments - a divide and conquer tactics if you will, when the strategy calls for segmentation.

Here is the next level of definition for those 4:















Here is the place where I start - but not end - in terms of analyzing for - the chunks of work that the Target Audience is involved in - in Task Performance - where they own some responsibility to contribute to an Output. An Output for which we have defined the formal and/or informal "measures" that all Master Performers have pretty much figured out.

Here is the big picture of that framework/model used for analysis and/or design.
















When you look at the Leadership level - you see things that are typically the province of upper management.















When you look at the Core level you see two workstreams going on: management's and the individual contributor/ teams/ x-functional team. In fact that second workstream in gold in the next graphic may be owned by the department being modeled - or owned by some other department - and the department being modeled is simply providing support.
















In the graphic above the focus (in gold) is on the processes being managed - where the graphic below the focus (in gold) is on the management of those processes. These are more typically "the province" of first line supervision/management.

















The last level - the Support level - is the province of middle management.

And all levels of management are involved in some small or big way in each level of the model.
















I simply use this with groups, orienting them to it as one way to divide their world up. The acid test for them - that I've learned to facilitate - is the likelihood that the LEADERSHIP, the CORE Management, and SUPPORT TRAINING would probably be the same for everyone - and the Core PROCESS TRAINING would be unique to each department, team, sub-team and/or individual contributor.

















Does the model pass your acid test for looking at Leadership and/or Management from a process performance perspective?

If it works for you - you might like my free PDF book: Management Areas of Performance - available at http://www.eppic.biz/




















Early Book Reviewers Wrote:

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.

# # #

It Takes More Than a Learning Path

Although having a set of prescribed job relevant-only information, instruction and experiences laid out in a path that then enables you and your boss/ peers/ team to down-select from the master list and suggested-sequence, and then re-sequence them in a formal Training Plan to meet your specific knowledge/skill needs and the timing of those needs - given your real-world set of task and output responsibilities is a good thing. It takes more than that.

But first let’s focus on the path itself. What is a Learning Path or as known by other names/labels?



















I have been designing performance-based, Enterprise-context, PUSH Target Audience "Learning Paths" since 1982 - using what is now known as my PACT Process for CAD - Curriculum Architecture Design. In 74 projects I have designed over 125 T&D Paths or Learning Paths.

I think of a Learning Path initially as a framework - as initially framing the beginning, middle and end of a T&D Path – my term since the mid-1980s for what has more recently been called a Learning Path – say since the late 1990s.


I use that to initially organize a modular set of curricula to enable the real planning efforts by the learner and their management, and/or peers, teams, etc. into 3 buckets: B-M-E.
















That modular set of curricula can include performance tests for performance certification (versus knowledge certification via knowledge tests).
















So conceptually now, let me share with you more about my thinking about your initial framing of a Learning Path using the Beginning, Middle and End framework, which you can later reframe into 5 to 10 Phases, or Blocks, or Levels - whatever makes sense later in terms of numbers and labels. My clients over the decades have called them by a variety of names. That’s unimportant.

To decide what to teach/expose when so that learning occurs when you want it to – as dictated by the real-world context of the learner/Performer is an important task for PUSH Target Audiences, less so for PULL Target Audiences. When you are targeting for ROI that is.















The goal of the Path designers are to create something “as flexible as feasible and as rigid as required.”

Period.

Every situation and context might be slightly unique from others. Let that be reflected in each of the Paths produced within an Enterprise. Be flexible when you can - and be rigid when you must be. Reflect that reality! No more, no less.

And if you are using Master Performers as your Analysis and Design Team members – then they will steer you onto the straight and narrow (or curvy and wide) Path as appropriate to the situation as they know it.


Who else would you ask?
















The Beginning of the Path
The Beginning of the Path is the “on-boarding to initial competence” – which gets the learner to whatever level of competence is required. Before they take the wheel or take the floor – so to speak.















The level of competence required upon crossing the line in the path – the first finish line ribbon if you will, differs for every job, say for airline pilots and for department store sales associates. The former needs to pretty much have mastered everything before we can let them take the wheel so to speak – even with backup in the next seat – because of the high risks/rewards. And the latter needs to only have mastered the basics before going solo – with backup there in the form of other sales associates and management – and the much reduced risks/rewards.

So the path is either just the basics – or it is the basics and intermediate and advanced job skills training. The Beginning of the path for some is quick. For others it is long.

As always – it depends.

We use that initial framework - B-M-E - to help us sort the tasks-sets and the enabling knowledge/skills that I have assembled in my prior analysis efforts with a group of Master Performers. I now facilitate that same group or a sub-set of the Master Performers to sort that analysis data into my initial sorting framework of three: Beginning, Middle or End.















To do that we’ve got to “talk about” the path and what would B-M-E mean? When would the typical learner pass from B to M? From M to E? And complete E? Just to provide guidance to ourselves as a Design Team for our initial sorting of Tasks and enabling K/Ss from the Analysis Team’s prior efforts.

The Beginning of the T&D Path would most likely include the highest percentage of Formal Learning components, with the Middle and End of the Path having more Informal Learning.

Social Networks might be used for accomplishing an Event’s Task assignments, getting feedback from Peers before turning in assignments to a local coach or to the manager, etc.

The Middle of the Path
The Middle of the Path is the set of information, instruction and experiences that include more Electives than Highly Recommended, and fewer Mandatory (unless there are annual compliance training requirements to complete).


I’ve found that Design Teams of people from the target job/audience reflect the variance or the lack of variance of the job’s realities from whence they came, and that is a good thing. They will drive a higher level of modularity – so as to let people skip things that may not be relevant to their version of the job but relevant to others holding that same job title.

Job Titles are either broad or narrow buckets in which to group people for compensation purposes.

As always – it depends.

The broader they are in reality, the more modular your Learning Path needs to be. The more modular your Path the more likely the learning might be less efficient where pre-requisites might be sequenced improperly by the learner and their management – unless you bundle those modules "of the modular design" into one Event - to kind-of "force" the proper sequencing of the learning.

Your Path might prescribe sequences in some place - and have a more "open menu" in other places - along the Path.

Learners may not know what they need to know let alone what they don’t know. And in what order to learn things that would be more efficient - and EASIER for them.

When we suggest a sequence of Learning and empower they and their management to plan from there…depending on our situation we may be able to trust that most will do a good job at it.

Or we may conclude that given the realities of that context we have to empower less and disempower more – by bundling modules of content into Events and making those Mandatory or Highly Recommended – and then tracking who has taken what and when.

Sometimes in my Curriculum Architecture Design projects, many of the T&D Path’s Events are built with one Module in an Event, with a few Events that might have dozens and dozens of Modules in their composition.
















The End of the Path
The End of the Path would have the most Electives, a few Highly Recommended, and probably no Mandatory training (unless there are annual compliance training requirements to complete).

Given the situationally feasible blend of deployment modes used in the Path, and the entire set of Enterprise Paths, there may be many deployment channels that needed to be put in place or re-engineered and then managed. These could include everything needed to enable Instructor led training to happen, or self-paced “e” learning or book reading to happen, or Coached or structured and unstructured OJT to happen via Social networking within, or within/without, the Enterprise to happen.

As always – it depends.

The Infrastructure Requirements for Supporting Learning Paths are Driven by the Process Requirements
I don’t know about your Enterprise’s model or methods for capturing and presenting it’s Processes, but my model for a function/ department/ team that might have been called T&D in the past and L&D in the current state, and might be called P&D in the future state, looks exactly like this:
















My 47 Processes are bundled into 12 Systems and those are in three groupings, Leadership, Core and Support. Leadership and Support Systems and Processes are generally owned outside the department. Owned by others. Core are typically the Systems and Processes that are Unique to the department, that they “own.”

I use this template to assess the systems and processes that a L&D organization has in place to help them look at Risks and Rewards to our Stakeholders if we are too loose with our Process management – and where we need to tighten up. Most of the time that is what is needed, but there are times when some Processes were too tight and themselves needed to be loosened.

As always – it depends.















# # #

Lessons in Fireworks Safety - July 4th 2009

Taken from out on Lake James looking in toward Mimosa Landing.

Click To Play

# # #

"Proven" Magazine & Guy Wallace Article Reprints Now Available

The fifth issue of Proven is out - and it and the prior issues are available at http://www.getproven.com/ - and so you can obtain the 1st four articles/columns of mine easily - and the current article/column. And the future quarterly issues too.

My quarterly series - of which there are 11 columns - is all about both the drivers and the providers for the human asset management systems (HAMS) and the environmental support asset management systems (EAMS) that enable a paper process. Most processes are one thing on paper and another in their physical reality.

To me a process is it's conceptual design (on paper) and the people and non-people things that make it real.

This is part of my EPPI - Enterprise Process Performance Improvement - model/methodology-set.















In a typical "three legs of the stool" model - with the Process as #1 and the #2 Process-driven Human Asset Requirements and the #3 Process-driven Environment Asset Requirements - the Big Picture of EPPI attempts to identify a framework for Process investigation/inspection.

Key to this is the framework of AoPs - Areas of Performance - which facilitate a WBS - Work Breakdown Structure for a Process, a family of Processes (which is a System to me), and the entire Enterprise as needed - which creates a Enterprise Process Architecture - following the existing Organizational structure. No need to revamp that first before becoming Process-centric.
















The HAMS and the EAMS look different in any Enterprise - and Enterprise to Enterprise. The model provides a framework for figuring out where the assets come from and are cared for in any one particular Enterperise.

The HMAS are typically the "province" of HR - and the EAMS are typically scattered throughout an Enterprise - making them more challenging to get aligned.















Please pass this link and info on to those in your professional networks who are interested in Process Performance Improvement!

# # #

Learning Discriminations and Other Performance "What Ifs"

Warning: Opinions Comings...















Enterprise Performance Competence - which in my mind is: the ABILITY TO PERFORM TASKS - TO PRODUCE OUTPUTS - TO STAKEHOLDER REQUIREMENTS - requires the performers to "learn" the appropriate response to each situation. There are many way to learn this. And there are a variety of Formal and Informal approaches to encourage and enable this learning to take place, either BEFORE the need and/or DURING the need.

As always - it depends.
















A client of mine back in the early 1980s once stated with pride that his organization valued people being "Maze-Bright." That's the ability to "figure it out"
- to "master the maze" - and to "perform in spite of the maze" I recon.

That "maze" stuff is now less talked/ written about due to all of the Business Process Engineering and ReEngineering that's happened - also formally and informally - since the 1980's craze with that silver bullet.


But perhaps not. Maybe it is coming back round for a revisit now known as something different....

Perhaps many find that appealing because they have not or can not find a way to approach the learning needs of jobs, teams, departments, functions, business units, and the entire Enterprise - and can come up with nothing more than a Wants Assessment versus a performance-based Needs Assessments.


I start my Needs Assessments with a group of hand-picked Master Performers. Because we want everyone else to emulate them. learn their tips and tricks. And because if I interview them one at a time they'll miss up to 80% of what a novice really needs to learn. And observing them one at a time is too time consuming - too much cycle time and cost.

Can the Needs Assessment be done better, faster and cheaper?

Yes.

I work with my Analysis Team of Master Performers to create my version of a WBS - a Work Breakdown Structure - by creating a set of Areas of Performance (AoPs) for a job Performance Competence Requirements, or for a team (a roll up), a department (a roll-up), a function ( an roll up), a business unit (a roll up) and the Enterprise 9 the final roll up).

Here are a set of AoPs for a Sales Representative who has a large geographical territory, has prioritized accounts, and has sales plan targets per customer and prospects, and has to master the sales process as well as product knowledge and perform continuous customer service...















Once I have that WBS of AoPs in hand - I can start to capture relevant data (relevant to my downstream needs in my version of an ADDIE approach to engineering an instructional product (or product set)) in my Performance Model charts.

The PM Chart data can be derived from Process Maps if available - to ensure that the more detailed PMs align exactly to any other description of the process or job, or can be chunked out to overlay to some other descriptor. The PM ensures a "process-orientation" to everything else - which helps with "authenticity" issues/needs, as well as later being central to your Change Management Systems for all of your Instructional and Informational Content.

















But if there is no set of Process Maps already available - I don't create them - unless asked to - and that's something that's created using the AoPs and Performance Model Chart's data. It's a roll up.

The PM Chart captures the Outputs and their key measures, formal or not - plus the associated tasks, the task-sets, a cluster of tasks per output. Most Enterprises' don't really have formal measures in place across all jobs - some jobs like sales, but not most jobs, leaving most to Informal Measurement, but Master Performers know what these informal measures truly are. That's just one of the many things that they have mastered. And they know what the informal standards are. And any Formal Standards.
















After the tasks are determined the roles/responsibilities (not shown in graphic here) can be linked back to each task.

Here the next column captures the Voice of the Master Performers and their collective/collaborative view on the typical Performance gaps - where the typical performer is not "hitting" the measures' informal standards well enough - or their focus is on the wrong things.
















I believe that it is important to capture these gaps from ideal and to not just focus on the positive things already going on - and avoiding the moose in the room of gaps from ideal, from standard, formal or not. Appreciative Inquiry is never going to fix a design flaw in an army tank. Or a mechanical deflect in the wing frame on a jet airliner. Or the shortages of critical materials to the process. Or the abusive practices by some bosses.

It'll help us celebrate the wonderfulness of our best practices as practiced by some/a few, and help others learn from that too. But avoiding what's not ideal and addressing that/those leaves a lot of performance improvement potential "on the table" - so to speak.

So we would want to look at that - what's not ideal everywhere - and why? Why haven't everyone else already mastered these places in performance where most performers are not performing to ideal - an ideal that isn't un-real, just ideal. It is a level of performance already achieved by a few or maybe many, but not all, performers.

As always - it depends.
















So the last part of the gap analysis is to determine what are the "probable causes" as opposed to a more time-consuming effort at "root causes" - are they due to a lack of K/Ss? Or Attributes/Values? Or are they due to a lack of Environmental Supports?

I separate the two types of "human assets" from the one broad category of Environmental Supports (which are more detailed in my EPPI methods than in my ISD focused PACT Processes methods). Some of the human assets can be addressed by Training/ Learning/ Knowledge Management - and others cannot. And the lack of Environmental Supports definitely cannot be fixed by Training/etc. But the learners/Performers can be forewarned.

And being forewarned is being forearmed. And that's a good thing!

There are three basic types of task-sets in my thinking.

Typical/ Routine. Atypical/ Non-Routine. And Rare/ Unlikely.
















In the typical/ routine task-set situation, once learned the need for continuously doing the performance will reinforce the knowledge/skills needed. This is where one must be on guard for bad practices that over time become the practices of many. Where this is risky and/or costly the Enterprise addresses this by potentially many means. Policy changes, training, etc., etc.


Perhaps Informal Learning is best. Perhaps old Joe or Jasmine can teach Guy the new guy what Guy needs when he needs it. I learned the job of sales clerk that way at a Do-It-YourSelf Lumber Yard in the mid-late 1970s while in college. Albert told Guybert what Guy needed to know as Guy dealt with customers when we were busy - and otherwise over Albert shoulder has he dealt with customers.


When he was satisfied that I had learned something - say about windows, plywood or roofing shingles, he would direct customers to me - unless there was a sales contest on - and then it was every man/woman for themselves. Then there was less learning from the Informal Learning approach.


I mastered kitchen cabinets on my own during a big promotion - and I was the top sales person for 4 months during that promotion - as a student working 24-30 hours a week. If you are motivated you can learn a lot even with very little Formal Instruction. If your employees are not motivated - then having Formal Instruction may not be effective anyway.
























With the knowledge and insight of what ideal performance is, and where the typical gaps are, one can think about the ROI for addressing those routine task-sets via Formal Learning or Informal Learning - and where Murphy lies - as in: Murphy's Law - as in: If anything can go wrong it probably will.
















But some task-sets are less routine. Either less seldom and/or on demand and not predicatable.


















Having some clarity and documentation about Performance Competence enables a focused, collaborative view - otherwise everyone's mental models are different, their language is different, and their points are interpreted with greater and not lesser variation.



















And there are those Performance Competence requirements that are "from left field" - highly unlikely - but of high RISK and/or high REWARD that you really do need to prepare for them, unlikely as they might be.















And within those there still lies in wait - MURPHY. Unlikely too, but a potential threat.

















After demystifying the authentic performance context with the AoPs and Performance Model Charts - one can prioritize targets due to their high RISKS/REWARDS potential and target testing and/or assessments of terminal performance competence and enabling K/Ss if really warranted and worth that cost to administer and track.

















Assess Performance Competence is easy with the PM Chart data in hand. Imagine having that data for the following Call Center Sales Job...















If you needed/wanted to test Knowledge/Skills then determining all of those K/Ss that enable performance can be systematically derived - from the Performance Model Charts' data.
















I use 17 categories of K/Ss - to leave no stone unturned. And to link to my "object-oriented" design methods (later/ downstream)...















Here is how I think about testing/assessing for Typical/ Routine...
















Here is how I think about testing/assessing for Atypical/ Non-Routine...

















And because this is important too - here is how I think about testing/assessing for Rare/ Un-Likely...

















The analysis methods are described in many of my articles - going back to 1984 in Training Magazine and ISPI's P&I Journal. This is also covered in my book: lean-ISD.


















The Performance testing aspects in this Post are covered more extensively in my book: Performance-based Employee Qualification/ Certification Systems, co-authored with Ray Svenson.




















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Getting Aligned - If Not Already

Getting aligned - if not already so.

This is another one of those things you might start doing late, because late is still better than never at all. But ideally you should have had this addressed during the good times so that when the bad times came you were prepared - and aligned. Already so.

"Aligned to what?" You Say
Getting aligned to your internal/external customers and their current and future needs, their strategies and their tactics. Do you know what they are so you can help them see what your support might mean in terms of hours, schedules and costs?

"Aligning what?" You Say
Aligning the systems/processes of your Enterprise, Functions and Departments to those customers' strategies and tactics for today and preparing for any changes needed in your deliverables for your customers in the near-term future.













Running Training Like A Business requires having a business model about your primary deliverables and the processes that enable that directly or indirectly.

There's more than one way to do that of course, and I have mine. "Adopt" or "Adapt" As Needed for your situation/context! One size never fits all!

Here is my T&D Systems View Model with Call-Outs for the 12 Systems in my Systems View.















Key to everything is being aligned. With little variance. To the needs and desires of your Stakeholders.

Every context is different - but I think one of your first decisions has to do with how Formal to make this alignment - or how Informal.

Your choice may be a "cultural fit" or a "cultural misfit" - and you may have your very good reasons for going counter-cultural - or not. But how to succeed at it!?!

I would say - put your system/ your people/ your leadership in the hands of your Customers and Stakeholders - and facilitate them in deciding what's OK and what's Not OK. And where the priorities of needs and resources meet and end. And in some contexts - smaller contexts, less complicated contexts - being Informal about this is do-able. And in other complex contexts Formal would be preferable.

And where Formal is deemed most appropriate, then establishing a formal "Governance & Advisory System" (by any name you like) is the way to empower your Customers and Key Stakeholders to direct and resource you, and redirect/re-resource you as appropriate to your larger context.

You are their servant. So serve them. Help them decide how to steer your ship - or at least direct you regarding "where to?"




















In a complex situation I would try to set up a very Formal System so I could get better aligned, perfectly aligned, to the Voice of My Customers and My Stakeholders. Especially when complex. Especially when there are conflicts and some requirements/desires are "in conflict" with one another. How to make that happen both quickly and colaboratively - as it's most often best when those mechanisms are already in place when the need arises - and don't have to be done on the fly.

Especially for complex situations with high Risk and high Reward potential. Espedcially then.




















My book: "T&D Systems View" is available as a free PDF at http://www.eppic.biz/ - and it is available as a both a hardbound and a Kindle book at http://www.amazon.com/.

It just might provide you with a starting template for defining your systems and processes and the enablers you need to serve your customers and stakeholders to the best of your resources - so that you can self-assess and self-direct your own improvements.

Get aligned!

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