Expert Perspective From Ellen Wagner, Ph.D.
Some Thoughts from the Trenches:
(I've raised a number of points that I would ask your design
teams to consider before they move ahead with their designs.
And, in the spirit of working within the context of the case,
I'd like to suggest to Jason, that he keep his resume current.
I'm wondering if he can see the warning signs...)
The capital investors (Media World Pictures) sound like they are
running out of patience with the freewheeling spending and
non-accountable management style of DAI. It also sounds like the
DAI management is starting to wake up to this fact, at least a bit.
However, the concern hasn't really penetrated with DAI's creative
departments. It also sounds like the training department hasn't
caught a clue, either. I'm a bit surprised that the DAI management
hasn't already implemented some fairly explicit cost-accounting
mechanisms in place to show the capital investors that they are
taking the profitability concerns seriously. My sense is that
any day now, the MWP management is going to restructure DAI, from
the mission statement on down. DAI seems a bit too focused on
taking care of DAI, and not so focused on providing customers/clients
with excellent service - and certainly not on making the parent
organization profits, which is what business is all about. Like
it or not, that is the bottom line.
At the very least, the training department should expect a "wake-up
call" from the executive management of DAI any time now. Think
about this from a financial officer's position: DAI hasn't been
profitable for two years. The training department wants to implement
an expensive training initiative that will not be rolled out for at
least another nine months (and you do need to factor in time for
rollout delays - it happens, so you need to plan for it). It will
take at least 6 - 9 months from the time the initiative is rolled-out
to show any possible bottom line impact of the EPSS intervention.
Given the number of variables that may confound the financial
analysis, it might be hard to attribute increased efficiencies
directly to training. So we're looking at probably 18 - 24 months
to turn things around via training, with no guarantees of success.
That sounds very scary to me.
Let me put it this way: The company will turn a profit faster if
they eliminate direct spending. I would think that the training
department will want to walk very carefully if they don't want to
find themselves cut back to bare bones, depending on outsourcing
for meeting the essential training needs of the company.
Training departments are often perceived as a great organizational
"black hole" of cost, unless the training staff management is very,
very good at showing a direct significant impact of their
interventions on bottom line company financials. And this is very,
very hard to do. Remember that internal training typically doesn't
generate revenue. And temper what you've heard about demonstrating
organizational value by improving productivity - when push comes to
shove, unless you can show that you are making money, or directly
saving money for your company, you are at risk when cost-cutting
efforts come down. And cost cutting always comes down. That's part
of the ebb and flow of business. (This has a lot to do with why
people at DAI are let go at the conclusion of a project - it's
because they don't have anything billable to do, and the company
won't absorb the cost of keeping them on until the next activity
"peak" hits.)
Training efforts typically have costs for staff, resources, vendors,
equipment and facilities. Training typically pulls staff away from
their jobs. While training may eventually get people up to speed on
essential skills for performing at peak levels, training can also
decrease efficiencies as people begin to implement new skills in
practice. Is the workflow such that you can afford to have people
NOT working at peak efficiency? Sometimes it is more efficient to
let unqualified or less people go and hire other, more qualified
people than it is to train those who are not "up to speed". Also
keep in mind, in highly competitive businesses, employers absolutely
HATE spending money on building an employee's skill capacities, only
to have that highly skilled staff member lured away by another
company. Sometimes it is better to find the highly skilled person and
invest less money in keeping them current than it is to really train
someone to do work your way and then have them get swept up by the
competition.
IF the DAI training staff want to be sure to get this EPSS project
funded, they need to think about positioning the initiative as part
of a performance improvement initiative that is championed as a
strategic imperative by central DAI - or even MWP management.
This means collaborating directly with executive staff, and letting
the executive staff push the initiative throughout the company. And
THIS means not emphasizing the intervention, but to instead focus
on the result. What I see is that the training department (which
operates its own little fiefdom) is planning on providing the
creative departments (who operate as their own independent
fiefdoms) with tools that the training department thinks they
need. These are NOT tools that the creative departments themselves
have asked for. Remember, creative departments (or engineering,
or product development or product sales, or whoever is involved
in the core business activities of a company) don't typically
hold training staff in particular high regard. You can see this
by the very limited amount of time Jason was provided when
interviewing the company decision-makers. In some organizations,
the creative / engineering / product development / product sales
staff will actively plot and scheme for ways of getting training
budgets reallocated to their own projects! So designers need to be
aware that not everyone in their organziation is interested in their
success. I also notice that there wasn't a single executive
stakeholder included among Jason's interview subjects - I don't
know if that's intentional or an oversight, but strategically it's
not going to serve this effort very well. My sense is that the
training department is going to have to be a lot more strategic
in how they position this initiative within DAI if they want to
see it come to fruition, and to be successful.
Training is not as universally popular with employees OR with
employers as one might think. Increased productivity certainly
is a good thing; increased proficiency on the job is also good, as
is learning how to do cool new things with new technology. But
internal corporate training programs and courses are not
necessarily the best way that these results are achieved.
Remember that training pulls people away from the job for which
they are being paid. In the midst of a big project like "Rocket
Boy" getting people away from their jobs at all is going to be
really, really hard. The pipeline staff will be busy and their
managers will go ballistic if there is even a hint of pulling
someone off-task when a deadline is staring everyone in the face.
(For this reason it IS a good idea that the training staff is
leaning toward an EPSS - but I want to come back to this in just
a bit...)
About the time allocated to this effort - Nine months may not
seem like very much time to implement a project like this. Just
keep in mind that in highly competitive industries, nine months
can represent two or three new product cycles. That means that,
in those competitive settings, training may be expected to have
been revised two or three times in that same nine months. (On a
personal note, nine months for project implementation sounds
like an incredible luxury to me...). Just be aware that if the
work can be done in less time, and can show impact sooner rather
than later, that would be a very good thing.
We also really need to take a look at Jason in all of this, as
well. From the sounds of it, his last two jobs were oriented much
more toward development than design. This has afforded him the
opportunities to play a more "creative" role than may be expected
of a "lead designer". Lead designers are as often as not a project's
manager. Lead designers may get involved in some of the
storyboarding and coding and scripting, but they need to play a
very different project role than do their developer colleagues.
It's really helpful that Jason has an affinity for the entertainment
industry, and that he may be able to develop basic proficiencies
with some of the equipment that his training designs will need to
feature. Nevertheless, Jason needs to remember that HIS job is to
make sure that he constructs a design that responds to the needs
of his stakeholders, funders, the intended audience(s) and his own
supervisory staff. He needs to be sure that he engages the
participation of key subject matter experts - including unit
"opinion leaders" who will "bless" the integrity of the resources
he develops by virtue of their participation.
He also has to be sure that the technical writers, artists,
programmers, coders and QA staff working under his direction to
create his EPSS will be able to get their work done. He sure
isn't going to be producing this EPSS on his own - not in this
environment, and not with the audience(s) he is going to have to
satisfy. Does Jason have any real project management experience?
Does he understand the importance of setting expectations? Does he
really understand who his clients for this project really are?
(I've noticed that Jason's two previous jobs have been as part of
an internal training and development team. Does he have any real
experience working with clients? Even internal clients?) Does
Jason have an intact EPSS development team, or will he need to go
outside the company to find that kind of talent? Does he know how to
select staff? Does he know how to build a team from a crew of
individual contributors? Does he know how to manage project scope,
and to manage for "scope creep"? Does he know how to implement
project change management procedures?
Now, to the anticipated EPSS: I would hope that Jason recommends
a Discovery Audit (that's what we call it in my company) to determine
what the real performance problems are before he starts lining up his
EPSS team - even if he does it informally. There is no point in
getting his own training supervisors all cranky, but there is also
no point in marching down the path they have selected for him if he
is the one expected to be successful. (As a mentor of mine once
told me, "Don't take on responsibility unless you also have
authority to make necessary decisions.") It does seem as if an EPSS
may be called for, looking at preliminary indicators. However, I
think Jason will be much better served if he:
- Understands what the performance problems really are.
- Understands how training is going to make a difference in profitability.
- Prioritizes who is going to be served by whatever intervention
he recommends.
- Knows who the project stakeholders are.
- Knows who needs to come "on board" for the project to be successful.
- Can articulate what the success factors for this project actually are.
- Identifies the project contingencies (timeline, budget, staff
restrictions, access to SMEs, and so on).
- Knows what risks he is likely to encounter, and how he plans to
mitigate against those risks.
Once he get all this figured out, then it's time to start drawing up
his proposal. He should be sure to factor all of these questions
into his formal needs assessment component of his design proposal.
David Jonassen is Professor of Instructional Systems at The Pennsylvania
State University. Dr. Jonassen has previously taught at the University of
Colorado, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Syracuse
University, Universiteit Twente, and Temple University and consulted with
businesses, universities, and other institutions around the world. He is
working on his twentieth book and has published numerous articles, papers,
and technical reports. His current research focuses on designing
constructivist learning environments, cognitive tools for learning,
knowledge representation methods, problem solving, computer-supported
collaborative argumentation, cognitive task analysis, and individual
differences and learning.
Dr. Ellen Wagner is Vice President of Consulting Services for
Informania, a performance improvement consultancy based in San
Francisco. She is responsible for directing and supervising
projects and staff dedicated to assessment, design, development,
implementation, and evaluation, which are the core of Informania's
activities. Ellen also serves as Informania's lead instructional
design consultant, and works closely with Informania staff and
clients to ensure that their custom performance improvement
interventions are valid, reliable, engaging, and effective.