Advanced Learning Programs

Some of the most effective learning programs developed by best-in-class companies around the world are often also the most basic. Some, based on a theory called “social creativity,” are as simple in concept as getting people together so they can talk and share knowledge.

This kind of learning happens all the time informally, like when people stand around the water cooler and talk about their challenges or new ideas or at conferences and seminars (usually during breaks!). The trick is doing as companies like 3M and Google do, and develop a systematic program that develops your workforce, improves internal communication, solves specific problems, generates new ideas and distributes important knowledge across the organization.

One of the keys to successful advanced learning programs is having the right people involved. The right people for a program of this nature are interested in learning and are clearly motivated to produce quality in their work. A second key is that the individuals be clear about the organization’s ultimate mission and goals, and how they contribute to them. When groups of these people get together, they almost naturally develop a common motivation to understand how they can help each other out – so they talk about it.

The beauty of this approach is in its flexibility in application. For example, advanced learning programs might consist of a single 3-hour session, or a year-long project with monthly meetings, and anything in between.

More formal learning sessions are led by an objective facilitator who helps to frame the discussion, identify group goals and strategies, maintain balance in the dialogue, and to work through areas of conflict. An experienced facilitator will usually provide attendees with some basic communication skills that will enable the most effective knowledge sharing. Possibly the most important role of the facilitator is to help attendees understand how to apply what they have learned to their jobs.

Contact me at 301-624-2761 or at mscott@frederick.edu if you’d like to talk about how your organization can implement some form of advanced learning program.
-Marc

Public Relations = Free Advertising (if you are smart about it).

That’s pretty much the first thing I learned when I sat in on the course PR for Dummies, put on by the Frederick Chamber Academy (which in full disclosure is sponsored in partnership by the Frederick Chamber of Commerce and Frederick Community College). The instructors of the course were Jessica Hibbard, the Communications Director for the Chamber, and Cliff Cumber, the Assistant City Editor of the Frederick News Post.

I learned that conducting effective PR means finding a way to get self-serving media outlets to promote you. News media outlets are in the business of publishing and distributing news. If your organization has news to get published, news media outlets want to publish it for you – for free! Balance that with the knowledge that if you have non-news information to be published, you need to buy an ad.

Is the information you want to get published news? That’s apparently a tricky question, and frankly one best answered by making a pitch to the news outlet you are targeting.

Here are a few things to consider before you make your pitch:

• Is your information unique? A sale or a special promotion may be very important to your business, but it isn’t news.
• Is your information relevant? One local business, the Dancing Bear Toys and Gifts, took the opportunity to get valuable PR last year by holding events that informed consumers how to avoid buying toys that contain lead – and let local newspapers know about it. Readers wanted to know about lead in toys, and local reporters writing about toy recalls mentioned the store.
• Get to the point. News people have deadlines and have been facing downsizing from even before the bottom fell out of the economy. In other words, they are busy so do yourselves both a favor and have a pretty good idea what you want to say before you call them.

-Marc

Immaturity Matters

Does your organization struggle with the following?

1. Commitments consistently missed

• Late delivery
  
• Last minute crunches


• Spiraling or unmanaged costs

2. No management visibility into progress

• Managers always being surprised.

3. Quality problem

• Too much rework
  
• Functions do not work correctly.


• Customer complaints after delivery

4. Poor morale

• People frustrated
  
• Is anyone in charge?
  

These are symptoms of process strain as described by the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute.

To address them, SEI developed the Capability Maturity Model. CMM can be applied to any organization that relies upon a replicable process to deliver the goods.

The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is a methodology used to develop and refine an organization's processes. The model describes a five-level evolutionary path of increasingly organized and systematically more mature processes. Process maturity concepts can be applied outside of the software industry. (Source: Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute)

CMM's Five Maturity Levels of Processes

At the initial level, processes are disorganized, even chaotic. Success is likely to depend on individual efforts, and is not considered to be repeatable, because processes would not be sufficiently defined and documented to allow them to be replicated.

At the repeatable level, basic project management techniques are established, and successes can be repeated, because the requisite processes have been established, defined, and documented.
At the defined level, an organization has developed its own standard process through greater attention to documentation, standardization, and integration.

At the managed level, an organization monitors and controls its own processes through data collection and analysis.

At the optimizing level, processes are constantly being improved through monitoring feedback from current processes and introducing innovative processes to better serve the organization's particular needs.

Common Misconceptions:

1). I don’t need process, I have

• really good people
  
• advanced technology


• an experienced manager
  

2). Process is bad because it:

• interferes with creativity


• equals bureaucracy + regimentation


• isn’t needed when building prototypes


• is only useful on large projects


• hinders agility in fast-moving markets


• costs too much
  

So, it may be easy to avoid processes if you are reliant on your own wits to make it from day to day. The minute you involve others-- and they share the work to meet your business outcomes-- you must engage in a process. Processes can be either bureaucratic or nimble, but the all share the same fundamentals. The questions are —how well does your organization manage them, and do they help or hinder in the accomplishment of business goals?

-Dave

Workforce Development Plan- Part II: Creating a Plan

Earlier, we talked about what a Workforce Development Plan is and why your business needs one. Now, let's talk about how to create one.

A workforce development plan can take many forms, but all will include specific and measurable goals, leverage more and more varied resources, plan for on-going support and follow-up, and will include regular evaluations of program fit and quality.

Managers and employees should work together to develop goals that are linked to operational performance and the bottom line. In the ideal, training will lead to improved employee skills which in turn lead to improved performance, such as reduced costs or improved service quality.
Think broadly about the resources your organization can leverage for workforce development. The most obvious training resource is money, of course, but it isn’t the only one. A resource more important than money is your existing knowledge base – more commonly known as your people. Creating the opportunity and environment that enables employees to really share what they know will create more value than almost any training program you can purchase.


Resources can also come from outside the organization. Speak with your partners, vendors, and even clients about co-sponsoring training or providing each other with cross-training. Check in with local government sources like the Frederick County Office of Economic Development and Workforce Services.

So much of the value of training is lost when the trainee returns to the workplace and gets engulfed in the old day-to-day routine. Your workforce development plan should include giving trainees plenty of support for putting their new knowledge to work. This might include asking the trainee to discuss with others what they learned, or to carry out a special project that reinforces what they know or puts their learning on display.

Evaluating your training and development activities should be a lot more involved than simply asking trainees to rate their experience. Whether someone is satisfied with training is important, but it’s more important to determine if performance improved and if the original goals were met. Effective evaluations require input from staff that have been trained and their direct supervisors, at a minimum.