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January, 2007
Volume 46 / Number 1
Editor's Notes: Aligning HPT
Practices and Processes
Holly Burkett, CPT, MA, SPHR
Commentary--Unlearning: The Hardest Lesson of All
Joan F. Marques, EdD
Designing for Performance, Part 1: Aligning Your HPT Decisions from Top to
Bottom
Ryan Watkins, PhD
Wanting to improve individual and organizational performance is a worthwhile
ambition. Yet your success in accomplishing this relies heavily on the suitable
selection, design, and development of performance technologies. Only when
capable performance technologies are systematically aligned with the desired
results of your organization and its partners will you achieve sustainable
performance improvements. In this article, the first of a three-part series, you
will find a systematic process for initiating the design of a performance system
that will accomplish useful results. From identifying the performance
expectations of internal and external partners to justifying the performance
objectives you establish as guides for future decision making, the systematic
processes described in this article will provide you with the initial tools for
successfully selecting an integrated set of performance technologies that have
the capacity to accomplish valuable results.
The Partnership Between Project Management and Organizational Change:
Integrating Change Management with Change Leadership
Barber Griffith-Cooper, MEd and Karyl King, PMP
The nature of project management is change. Even though all knowledge areas in
the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) are rooted in controlling
change, none of these areas specifically addresses the human elements of change.
There is a significant distinction between directly controlling change relative
to the nonhuman aspects of a project (change control) and effecting
change in the human dimensions of a project through leadership (change
leadership). This article characterizes the distinctive activities of change
leadership and change control and their interrelationship throughout the project
life cycle. Although distinct, change control and change leadership are
interdependent and mutually supporting-both are needed to support project
success.
Aligning the Culture and Strategy for Success
Donald T. Tosti, CPT, PhD
One way to define culture is "the way a group of people prefer to behave." The
trick for organizational leaders is to find ways to ensure that the company
culture, that is the way their people prefer to behave, is supportive of what is
needed to successfully deliver the company strategy. Using a
criterion-referenced approach, we can first examine our strategy and mission to
determine what results we want. Then working backward from results, we can
define a set of practices that best support the attainment of those results. The
organizational alignment model can then be used to establish the operational
values that should make up the company culture. Finally, using a series of
systemic change applications, we can implement an HPT program of strategy and
culture alignment. The key to this change is that the resulting culture is
clearly aligned with the goals of the organization.
Synchronized Analysis Model: Linking Gilbert's Behavior Engineering Model
with Environmental Analysis Models
Anthony Marker, PhD
Performance technology has many analysis models and selecting which to use can
be challenging. Arguably, the most prestigious and most used HPT model-a cause
analysis model-is Gilbert's behavior engineering model (BEM). However, even this
powerful cause analysis model has its limits; although it does examine
environmental symptoms in general, it doesn't account for the organizational or
environmental levels at which performance problems occur. For data on such
levels the practitioner may turn to environmental analysis models such as those
developed by Kaufman, Langdon, Rummler & Brache, or Rothwell. But the
practitioner who uses both a cause analysis model and an environmental analysis
model will be left with two sets of data that do not easily integrate into a
useful guide to action. The model presented here-the synchronized analysis model
(SAM)-is an effort to remedy this situation. By integrating the cause analysis
model of Gilbert's BEM with levels derived from the environmental analysis
models, the SAM offers the practitioner an enhanced tool for resolving
performance problems.
Performance Issues in International Donor-Funded Development:
A Starting Point for the HPT or PI Professional
M. Mari Novak, CPT and Steven J. Kelly, CPT
During the past decade, the benefits of HPT approaches used in the commercial
sphere are being adopted in the much different world of donor-funded
development. The challenges of applying these strategies and methodologies to
this complex and foreign arena require special consideration of application for
real-world results. The authors provide some insight from their combined 50+
years of work in this environment for prospective HPT professionals thinking to
enter this critical and growing sector.
Dribble Files: Methodologies to Evaluate Learning
and Performance in Complex Environments
P. G. Schrader and Kimberly A. Lawless
Research in the area of technology learning environments is tremendously
complex. Tasks performed in these contexts are highly cognitive and mostly
invisible to the observer. The nature of performance in these contexts is
explained not only by the outcome but also by the process. However, evaluating
the learning process with respect to tasks involving technology is difficult to
measure objectively. As a result, audit trails (also called log or dribble
files) are becoming extremely valuable tools in evaluating learning and
performance in complex environments. This article reviews efforts of researchers
in various areas, describes the nature of research using dribble files, and
provides a framework on which investigators might build evaluations.
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