Page 8
An Introduction to Competency Analysis and Modeling
by Anne F. Marrelli
This article introduces readers to competency analysis and modeling in the workplace-what it is, how it is accomplished, and how it is applied. Competencies are measurable human capabilities that are required for effective work performance. Competency analysis and modeling is the process of identifying and documenting those capabilities. The models created are applied to a wide range of people-management systems, such as workforce planning, selection, employee development, performance management, and compensation.
Competency modeling and its application in a people-management system is a continuously evolving discipline. Thus, competency practitioners may offer diverse explanations of what competencies are and how they are identified and used.
Page 18
A Whole New World of Interventions: The Performance Technologist
as Integrating Generalist
by Cathleen Smith Hutchison and Faith S. Stein
There are three levels of focus for performance improvement interventions: individual, group, and organization. In working within these three levels, the performance technologist plays a dual role as both generalist and specialist. To be successful, the performance technologist should be versed in the 20 classes of interventions currently identified and be able to integrate them in a program of interventions tailored to the particular organization concerned.
Comparison tables show the increased effectiveness and efficiency of the systemic process over the typical "single intervention at a time" approach. The conclusion lists 10 steps one can take right now to begin mastering multiple interventions.
Page 26
New Theory and Measures for Training Evaluation
by Mary L. Lanigan
Training evaluators depend on the Kirkpatrick model to aid them in measuring training effectiveness. While this model provides assessment criteria, it does not help evaluators to understand how the levels relate to human behavior. If the goal of performance improvement is to train employees to behave appropriately, then the training evaluation model needs to relate to actual behavior and perhaps even be able to predict behavior. A theory that provides practitioners with an understanding of the variables that predict behavior is the Theory of Planned Behavior.
The premise of the Theory of Planned Behavior is that people take in information, process it, and then act on it. Once a criterion of behavior has been reasonably defined, then people's intentions to act or not act are the immediate determiner of whether they will act. People's intentions to behave are influenced by three variables: attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control.
Of the three Theory of Planned Behavior variables, only one variable already exits within the Kirkpatrick model-attitude. Unlike the attitudinal measure, Kirkpatrick does not measure perceived behavioral control. He does suggest, however, that training evaluators measure knowledge and skills. Therefore, the perceived behavioral control measure could be substituted for Kirkpatrick's knowledge and skill measures. Similar to the perceived behavioral-control measure, Kirkpatrick does not employ a subjective norms variable that could measure trainees' perceptions of their human environmental support systems. While these three variables can be equated to Kirkpatrick's Level 2, actual behavior is the equivalent of Level 3. However, Kirkpatrick does not address behavioral intentions while the Theory of Planned Behavior does. To implement this theory into a training evaluation setting, evaluators would create an attitudinal, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral-control instrument and administer each instrument to the trainees pre and post training. Two to three weeks following training, evaluators would administer a behavioral instrument that measures actual on-the-job behavior. After collecting these data, evaluators would run reliability analyses, compare means between pre and post scores, and then correlate the data and run regression analyses to determine which of the three variables are the strongest predictor of actual behavior. By knowing which variable is the strongest predictor of actual behavior, evaluators can elect in the future to only use a single measure to determine Level 3 success.
Page 32
Interview on Document Management with Jim Boyle and Larry
Bielawski
by Bill Miller
This is an interview with the authors of the book Electronic Document Management Systems: A User Centered Approach for Creating, Distributing and Managing Online Publications. In the book and during this interview, Jim and Larry explain that a document-management system is a commercially available software application that can be used to deliver the correct information to the right person at the proper place and time. From the document-management system perspective, a document is a container that brings together information from a variety of sources, in a number of formats, around a specific topic to meet the needs of a particular individual. For corporations and large organizations, a document- management system is a way to preserve, manage, and reuse all their ad hoc yet extremely valuable information that doesn't fit neatly into the rows and columns of a database.
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