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Back to the Performance Improvement Journal Home PageApril, 2005 Editor’s Notes: Process, Practice, and Productivity
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Executive Summaries
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| Implementation: The Forgotten Link on the Intervention Chain by James L. Moseley, CPT, and Nancy B. Hastings Implementation is often the weakest link in the intervention selection and design process. This article introduces the plan, do, stabilize, and institutionalize stages of the implementation process and articulates their corresponding, common tasks of communication, action, auditing, and feedback. Planned change is at the heart of this linear model, which is easily applicable to both short-term and long-term interventions. The model’s greatest strength is its ability to function as a roadmap for facilitating change. Systems Theory and Technology: Lenses to Analyze an Organization by Seung-Won Yoon and K. Peter Kuchinke Despite the increased use of virtual work groups and online professional communities, few conceptual frameworks exist to justify and guide the implementation of such organizational forms. With its explanatory power for adaptation and self-organization principles, complexity theory can help human performance technology professionals identify problem-solving paths. In addition, complex adaptive systems, such as virtual work groups and communities of practices, can help identify what resources and supports they utilize and need. Evaluating Distance Delivery and E-Learning: Is Kirkpatrick’s Model Relevant? by Dominique L. Galloway Technology has not only altered the nature of business, but it has changed the way business training is delivered and, in turn, the way training and development, which are increasingly based on technology, must be evaluated. Distance delivery, including e-learning, is of increasing interest to many corporations. Until recently, Donald L. Kirkpatrick’s four levels for evaluating training programs has been the predominate model for traditional training, delivery, and learning assessment, but little investigation into how well Kirkpatrick’s model evaluates distance education and training has taken place. This article examines Kirkpatrick’s four-level model in relation to evaluating learning and suggests a return on investment model as a supplement that can be easily modified to distance education and distance-oriented performance-improvement interventions. Intranets: Bringing Integration to Performance Measurement by D. Keith Denton, PhD The corporate intranet has been used most often simply as an electronic library and at best as a means of sharing knowledge. But when it is combined with new data visualization software it becomes a powerful performance measurement and feedback system that can help organizations better achieve strategic objectives. Organizations often do not act as a team because their daily efforts, thinking, attitudes, and capabilities are not visible or are at odds with each other. The untapped power of corporate intranets, in combination with a coordinated feedback and performance measurement system are discussed in this article. Performance Systems Analysis: Learning by Doing by Marc P. Knowles and Sookyung Suh This article discusses the learning process for acquiring human performance technology skills within a course at Florida State University entitled Performance Systems Analysis. The course gives students a chance to work with clients that have identified individual or organizational performance discrepancies that are not in line with their organization’s mission. This article addresses the importance of practical application of learned skills in a guided environment so that students and instructors can realize the value of such a course. The skills are vital to the students as they matriculate into the professional world. Instructional and constructivist principles, which are the foundation of the course, are discussed. Finally, the procedures of the four month-long analysis are discussed, along with the instructional and analytical methods that are used. The underlying principles described in this article will promote academics and beginning performance technologists to take a deeper look at problem-based learning. The Performance Technologist’s Toolbox: Work Samples by Anne F. Marrelli, CPT, PhD This third article in the Performance Technologist’s Toolbox series focuses on the data-collection method of reviewing work samples. It begins with a description of several applications of work samples in performance technology, including examples of how the author has used this method. The article includes a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of work samples and concludes with guidelines for application. |
