|
Back to the Performance Improvement Journal Home PageSeptember, 2005 Editor's Notes: Performance System Architecture |
| www.ispi.org | Contact ISPI | Policies |
|
Executive Summaries
|
| Coaching: The Missing Ingredient in Blended Learning Strategy by George H. Stevens and Gary W. Frazer, CPT, EdD Blended learning, as originally intended, is the admixture of traditional classroom and other face-to-face skill development with technology-based learning, electronic performance support, workflow, and knowledge management to best reach all outcomes desired in a human performance technology strategy. Blended learning is, at least in theory, becoming a foundation around which companies structure learning strategy. The challenge for many companies is that, as they embrace blended learning in practice, there is often focus only on "blending" the components of e-learning and classroom learning--at the expense of other essential online and offline components. If the goal of blended learning is to improve workplace performance, we must blend another element to ensure transfer of learning to work practice: flesh-and-blood coaching and feedback. Where coaching and its sibling mentoring are included in a blended learning strategy, outcomes are quantitatively more effective. Where they are not, challenges for performance technologists, learners, and organizations ensue. How Performance Improves by Jerry L. Harbour, PhD, and Julie L. Marble, PhD Countless articles and books have been written about and numerous programs have been developed to improve performance. Despite this plethora of activity on how to improve performance, we have largely failed to address the more fundamental question of how performance actually improves. To begin exploring this more basic question, we have plotted some 1,200 performance records to date and found that irrespective of venue, industry, or business, there seems to be a fundamental and repeatable set of concepts regarding how performance improves over time. Such gained insights represent both opportunities and challenges to the performance technologist. Differences in performance outcomes may, for example, be as much a function of the life cycle stage of a performance system as the efficacy of the selected improvement method itself. Accordingly, it may be more difficult to compare differing performance improvement methods than previously thought. Training Future Manager -- Leaders by Irving H. Buchen The conventional comparison and contrast of CEOs and managers may obscure the assumptions about leaders and managers. At least 10 areas of development are emerging to identify a new hybrid: the manager-leader. But this new focus requires a new kind of managerial training. A description of the parameters and content of such training is proposed in this article. Controlling Program Evaluation by Stephen L. Cohen Training evaluation is a topic that deserves and receives considerable attention, particularly as corporations continue to demand hard evidence that training delivers improved bottom-line results. While the frequently mentioned five levels of training evaluation (i.e., reaction, learning, application, business impact, ROI) are a good start at assessing a variety of impact measures, including business results, the need for control groups in their design appears paramount. Control groups, that is groups not subject to training, help eliminate certain explanations for results. Without them, it seems difficult to establish the impact of those groups who have been trained. This article explains why, how, and when different control groups should be included in training evaluation designs. Using Curriculum Architecture in Workplace Learning by Ken Kaufmann Any time more than one learning event is offered, a designer grapples with how one relates to another. While concepts of curriculum development are common in schools, they rarely are applied in workplace learning. What does curriculum mean in the workplace? What does curriculum architecture look like in the workplace? A curriculum answers the question: Who learns what, when, and how? This article describes how a curriculum architecture can be used to answer practical design and implementation questions in workplace learning. Saving Retiring Knowledge Workers' "Secret Sauce" by William Seidman, PhD, and Michael McCauley Organizations will soon lose critical knowledge from retiring knowledge workers (RKW), which may undermine organizational success. Conventional wisdom on how to protect against RKW knowledge loss has significant flaws and rarely produces an effective program. If an organization can narrow its requirement to protect against loss of knowledge to only its most critical processes, and to just the tacit knowledge of the few people who are essential to the success of those processes, the problem of protecting against the loss of RKW knowledge becomes much more manageable. In addition, by emphasizing the immediate use of the potential RKW's knowledge, an organization can gain value from this knowledge, generating a substantial return-on-investment. Digital coach technology efficiently gathers RKW tacit knowledge and promotes the immediate use of knowledge, protecting the organization while generating significant near-term value. |
