10 Strategies for Integrating Learning and Work (part 3)

This post continues the Ten Strategies for Integrating Learning and Work series.   Last post I discussed communities of practice and social media, two strategies focused on collaboration and networks where learning and knowledge are a natural byproduct.  This post shifts focus to how structured problem solving and Action Learning approaches can intimately wed learning with working.   I’ll discuss strategies 6 and 7 from the list.  Each uses problems and work tasks as the subject matter for learning, reflection and behaviour change.

10 STRATEGIES FOR INTEGRATING LEARNING AND WORK

1. Understand the job
2. Link Learning to Business Process
3. Build a performance support system
4. Build a community of Practice
5. Use social media to facilitate informal learning
6. Implement a Continuous Improvement framework
7. Use Action learning
8. Organizational learning Tools
9. Design Jobs for natural learning
10. Bring the job to learning

6. Implement a Continuous Improvement Framework

Continuous Improvement Frameworks seem to come and go in waves  (TQM, Six-Sigma, Lean, process re-design and others).  There are many reasons why these programs endure or fail that are beyond discussion in this post but when they succeed natural learning is a key outcome and success factor.

Continuous Improvement methods (at least those originating in Japan…and most do) are based on the concept of Kaizen.   Kaizen is essentially the discipline of making planned changes to work methods, observing the results, making adjustments and standardizing on the improvements–repeated continuously in a pursuit minimizing errors and improving quality.   When applied to the improvement of work methods it mixes personal learning, productivity and innovation.

Kaizen methodology includes making changes, observing results, then adjusting and standardizing the improvements.  Changing, reflecting on feedback, adjusting behaviour…this is the stuff of personal learning.  When applied to work methods it mixes personal and work based learning to the benefit of both.

Brian Joiner in Fourth Generation Management (an excellent resource on management practices grounded in continuous improvement) identifies learning as both a foundation and important outcome of continuous improvement methods.  He states:

“ Together with an understanding of the links between quality and productivity and of systems thinking, rapid learning [through continuous improvement] helps to create a foundation for translating theory into effective action.  Rapid Learning is the best survival skill we can grow in our organizations”

Kaizen is essentially the Scientific Method  built into jobs and workflow.  W. Edwards Deming translated the method to the Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle that is at the heart of the Toyota system and most Quality approaches since the 1950’s .

The PDCA cycle is as much a natural learning cycle as it is a work improvement methodology.  But it is the “check” step that is the real driver of learning.  It requires a meaningful measurement and feedback system.  Without it improvement is nearly impossible.

Joiner again:

“Performing a check is something few organizations do regularly or well. Instead they execute the plan and do…with an emphasis on DO!…what many people think of as decision making.  By getting conscientious about check, by treating decisions as experiments from which we must learn, we get all the components of PDCA to fall into place.”

Here is a video which I’ve posted before that nicely summarizes the natural learning driven by Kaizen methods.   The presenter Matthew May was a senior consultant to the university of Toyota and his this presentation is based on his book The Elegant Solution: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation.

7. Use Action Learning for management and professional development

Action Learning is essentially the PDCA cycle applied to personal effectiveness.   Personal Kaizen if you will.  It involves teams or individuals learning from experience.   Again the emphasis is on observing results from action and making adjustments.  Action learning is very popular in the UK and is growing in North America for management and professional teams that want to use real work as vehicles to learn more effective practcies.

The method has many variations but the general process as described by the World Institute for Action Learning is based on six important components. They are:

1. A Problem (project, challenge, opportunity, issue or task)
The problem should be urgent and significant and should be the responsibility of the team to resolve

2. An Action Learning group or team.
Ideally composed of 4-8 people who examine an organizational problem that has no easily identifiable solution.

3. A process of insightful questioning and reflection
Action Learning tackles problems through a process of first asking questions to clarify the exact nature of the problem, reflecting and identifying possible solutions, and only then taking action. Questions build group dialogue and cohesiveness, generate innovative and systems thinking, and enhance learning results.

4. An action taken on the problem
There is no real meaningful or practical learning until action is taken and reflected on. Action Learning requires that the group be able to take action on the problem it is addressing. If the group makes recommendations only, it loses its energy, creativity and commitment.

5. A commitment to learning
Solving an organizational problem provides immediate, short-term benefits to the company. The greater, longer-term multiplier benefits, however, are the learnings gained by each group member and the group as a whole, as well as how those learnings are applied on a systems-wide basis throughout the organization.

6. An Action Learning coach
The Action Learning coach helps the team members reflect on both what they are learning and how they are solving problems. The coach enables group members to reflect on how they listen, how they may have reframed the problem, how they give each other feedback, how they are planning and working, and what assumptions may be shaping their beliefs and actions. The Action Leaning coach also helps the team focus on what they are achieving, what they are finding difficult, what processes they are employing, and the implications of these processes.

You can see the how the process builds on the natural cycle of taking action on a problem, observing and monitoring the consequences and impact of the actions, making adjustments and trying again.  Action learning works because it integrates learning and work.  It brings immediate meaning and context learning while improving real time performance.

• Solve Complex Urgent Problems
• Develop Skilled Leaders
• Quickly build high performance teams
• Transform Corporate Culture
• Create Learning Organizations

This video provides an overview and some examples of Action Learning at work.

Summary

The strategies of Continuous Improvement and Action learning are two sides of the same coin.  Both are based on the natural cycle of acting, observing and reflecting on feedback and adjusting behaviour based on results.  Continuous improvement is focused on improving process and work methods with learning as a byproduct and Action learning is focused on personal learning with business improvement as a byproduct.

Posts in the “10 Strategies for Integrating Learning and Work” series:

Part 1:

• Strategy 1:  Understand the job
• Strategy 2:  Link Learning to business process
• Strategy 3:  Build a performance support system

Part 2:

• Strategy 4:  Build a community of practice
• Strategy 5:  Use social media to facilitate informal learning

Part 3:

• Strategy 6:  Implement a continuous improvement framework
• Strategy 7:  Use action learning

Part 4:

• Strategy 8:  Use Organizational Learning practices

Part 5:

• Strategy 9:  Design jobs for natural learning
• Strategy 10:  Bring the job to the learning

10 Strategies for Integrating Learning and Work (part 1)

The goal of learning in the workplace is performance–individual and organizational.  If we’ve learned nothing else in recent years, we’ve learned that learning is most effective when it is integrated with real work.  Learning pundits encourage this integration but don’t always offer practical strategies that busy learning professionals can to use to make it happen.  How can we begin to truly reduce the number courses and catalogs in enterprise training and find ways to bring learning to the job?

In a series of following posts I’ll share some practices and approaches that have worked for me.  There is incredible variety in the business settings where we work, the jobs we support and the latitude we have to build our solutions.  Hopefully some of the following suggestions will be relevant in your situation.

10 STRATEGIES FOR INTEGRATING LEARNING AND WORK

1. Understand the job
2. Link learning to business process
3. Build a performance support system
4. Build a Community of Practice
5. Use social media to facilitate informal learning
6. Implement a Continuous Improvement framework
7. Use action learning
8. Use Organizational Learning practices
9. Design jobs for natural learning
10. Bring the job to learning

Each of the 10 strategies on the list above, have helped me to improve performance through learning without pulling people way from the job for formal (classroom or e-learning) training.  I’d love to hear some of your suggestions and experiences.

In this post I’ll discuss practices 1 through 3.

1. Understand the job

If your going to integrate learning with work you had better understand the work.  Watch people, talk to people, use appropriate analysis tools, and think like the performer.  Understand their world, day to day pressures, tools they use (or could use) and how they use them.  Understand the job inputs, processes and feedback mechanisms for job incumbents.

Learn and use the many analysis tools appropriate for different kinds of performance–task analysis for visible work, Cognitive walk-through for knowledge work and output focused performance analysis for both.  Process analysis and value stream analysis are useful for seeing work in the context of the broader system. These and other analysis methods are critical tools if you are to find ways to build learning into a job without burdening the learner (employee) with irrelevant or unwieldy tools and programs that don’t fit in the flow of their day to day work.

It’s unfortunate that some job/role analysis efforts have been overly cumbersome or time consuming (analysis paralysis!).  They don’t need to be.  Often they can simply be a good mental model or filter through which to rapidly examine a job or process for learning and improvement opportunities.  A good analysis is part of the solution not a barrier to it.

2. Link information and learning to business process

We often talk about linking training to business strategy and of course that’s critical, but a key link to strategy is cross functional business process.  Well designed business processes are structured to accomplish business objectives.  Every job is driven by a process, implicit or explicit.   If it so implicit as to be almost imperceptible (as if often the case with knowledge and creative work) there is some improvement you can offer before you even start to think about learning.

Once business processes have been identified (or made visible), process phases can be used to effectively embed relevant learning resources. All business processes contain “knowledge leverage points”-those points in the process where key information is needed for optimal performance. These could be key decision points, data collection points requirements, planning requirements etc. and will vary by type of job and process. And knowledge generation is as important in modern knowledge work as knowledge delivery so it’s also important to examine how knowledge can be accumulated through practice and made available to the wider group at those same knowledge leverage points. Here’s a sample cross functional process (sales) with knowledge leverage points identified.

With knowledge leverage points identified, learning and knowledge can be made available at it’s most relevant place, and most relevant form in the work flow.

3. Build a Performance Support System

A Performance Support System is a concept more that a specific solution.   Whatever configuration it takes, the core idea is to reduce the need for training (or eliminate it, altogether) by proving information, decision tools, performance aids and learning on-demand, using tools available at the moment they are needed.  An excellent performance system becomes part of the task and complements human abilities (compensate for weaknesses and enhance strengths).

They can be as simple as a job aid or reference and as complex as the panel of airplane cockpit.  It can include decision tools, searchable information resources, e-learning objects, simple software apps, help systems, advisory systems, video and media based reference material, procedural guidance, job aids, demonstration animations, simulations and anything else that supports performance.  They can be as useful for management and professional work as they are for procedural and administrative work.

Research support for performance support can be found in the area of “distributed cognition” which argues that tasks (mental and otherwise) can be dramatically improved through the aid of external tools that intimately aid thinking and performance.  It is embodied in Don Norman’s distinction between the personal and system point of view regarding performance support tools (“cognitive artifacts” as he labels them in Things that Make us Smart):

“there are two views of a cognitive artifact. The personal point of view (the impact the artifact has for the individual person and the system point of view (how the artifact + the person, as a system are different than the abilities of the person alone).

The personal point of view:
Artifacts (performance tools) change the task

The system point of view:
The person + artifact is smarter than either alone

The point is that a well designed performance support system becomes an integral part of the task.  Performance support systems can include small amounts of structured e-learning if the task requires some conceptual understanding or routine practice before application but generally performance support tools are designed to replace reliance on memory.

Business Process Guidance is an emerging term for performance support more directly linked to business processes.  Panviva and Tata Interactive Systems have adopted the term for their tools.

Posts in the “10 Strategies for Integrating Learning and Work” series:

Part 1:

• Strategy 1:  Understand the job
• Strategy 2:  Link Learning to business process
• Strategy 3:  Build a performance support system

Part 2:

• Strategy 4:  Build a community of practice
• Strategy 5:  Use social media to facilitate informal learning

Part 3:

• Strategy 6:  Implement a continuous improvement framework
• Strategy 7:  Use action learning

Part 4:

• Strategy 8:  Use Organizational Learning practices

Part 5:

• Strategy 9:  Design jobs for natural learning
• Strategy 10:  Bring the job to the learning

(Re)Organizing for Performance Effectiveness

In a blog post a while back I mentioned it might be nice to see the training function morph into something more akin to an organizational effectiveness unit in the next ten years.  So I enjoyed a  recent post (The Rise of the Chief Performance Officer) by knowledge management leader Tom Davenport where he suggests merging organizational groups that share performance improvement as their mission but come at it from different vantage points and methodologies.  He cites a recent meeting of his knowledge management research group:

..we advocated for merging knowledge management with some other function – most likely the human resources/organizational learning/talent management constellation. We felt that knowledge management groups don’t often have the critical mass to stand alone, and knowledge and learning are very similar concepts anyway.

He continues:

... if you’re going to be merging things, you might as well go a bit further… if you want to align knowledge and learning with work, you need to know something about business processes and how to improve them. And if you’re going to align processes with the content needed to perform them effectively, you need to know something about the technology that would deliver the content in accordance with job tasks.

In the end, he suggests a merged unit with a Chief Performance Officer at the helm.

Many organizations have separate departments in these (and other) disciplines, all sharing the mission of impacting organizational performance.

• Learning and Development
• Organizational Development
• Process Improvement (Quality)
• Human Resources/Talent management
• Knowledge Management

Sometimes there are sub-departments within these (for example a performance technology group within Learning and Development).

I’ve had the chance to work with many of these groups and use their methods to improve performance (sometimes on the same performance issue!).  While the approaches of each group are very effective in the right situation, each group tends to see their solutions as “best” or are blindly unaware of the methods developed in sister disciplines.  This competitive and silo thinking rarely results in optimal solutions and can confuse line managers with the array of “performance improvement” solutions to their issues.

Even though learning professionals are trained to analyze performance issues to identify “learning or “non-learning” solutions,  the “non-learning” catch-all is usually the less comfortable road than the learning solution.  Likewise, for a time, everything in the organizational development arsenal seemed to involve team building, and for the Quality department every process required “re-engineering” without regard to the people working in those processes.  In recent years, most performance improvement groups have learned that their solutions are much richer and more effective when enhanced by the perspective of others.

Bringing these organizations all under one roof could accelerate this cross fertilization of ideas, result in innovative new approaches and reduce the redundancy and confusion that exists for line managers. A reasonably neutral label for this organization might be “Organization Effectivness”.  Performance Improvement, Performance Effectiveness, Performance Development are also candidates I’ve heard tossed around.  Of course, the label is less important than how the organization is designed and the services it provides.

Designing the Organization Effectiveness Function

There are potential models for designing such an organization.   For example, an article (Redesigning the HR organization) by organizational design specialist Amy Kates describes a matrix organization structure that could support the complexity of a merged performance improvement unit.   Her award winning model targets HR but I see many useful features for supporting an even broader organization.  The model includes:

Customer Relationship Managers

• front end customer facing team)

Centres of Excellence

• back end expert teams or networks that cross performance improvement disciplines

Solutions Teams

• Multidisciplinary teams that are configured to mirror the complexity of the work rather than the business hierarchy

Here is Amy Kates HR orientated Model from her article:

Here is the model re-illustrated from the broader Organizational Effectiveness view:

Organizational Effectiveness as Internal Management Consulting

Another possible organizational model is the professional services firm or management consulting company.   It would be possible to organize the unit as an internal consultancy of sorts modeled on the multidisciplinary focus of many of the large consulting companies.  Toyota for example has modeled their internal learning and lean process improvement services using a management consulting model.  This article (Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System) describes how Toyota’s Operations Management Consulting Division (OMCD) provides learning and lean process improvement services inside and outside the organization through a management consulting model.

Benefits and Risks

Creating and managing and organizational effectiveness department is not without risks.  The centralization required could result in bureaucratization (although the solution teams and dedicated business partners of the matrix model guards against that),  bringing together professional groups that have operated independently for many years could result in internal conflict and of course deciding who’s in and whose out could be interesting.  But the potential benefits make the idea worth exploring.  Among the benefits I would include:

• Performance improvement solution innovations
• Resource efficiencies
• Improved service and single point of contact to line management
• Cross-fertilization of approaches and methods
• More strategic performance improvement efforts
• Avoid political dominance of single groups
• Professionalization of performance improvement services
• More innovative uses of technology for performance improvement.

The Value of a Good Organization-as-System Map

Last week I worked on two organizational design related proposals.  In both, I used the Organization-as-System (OAS) Map as an important analytical tool and it started me thinking about how useful a conceptual approach it has been over the years.

Originally created by Geary Rummler as tool to envision an organization as a flow of inputs and valued outputs across functional groups, it was designed for use as a precursor to organizational and process improvement efforts.  The best overview is available from his book “Improving Performance”.  I have also found it to be an indispensable tool for understanding, modeling and communicating organizations.

Most organization re-design efforts typically start with an organization chart, a data flow (for IT related change management) or dive immediately into detailed processes documentation as they analyze the current situation.   The Rummler mapping method created a way to visually represent an organization as a system of inputs and valued outputs that was meant to guide detailed improvement efforts.  He called it a Relationship Map and later, Super-System Map.   I like to call them OAS Maps (Organization-as-System).

Three Examples

Here’s an example of an OAS Map I did a while ago for the sales and service arm arm of a global manufacturer (click to enlarge):

Preparing a map like this requires an interview process to identify key inputs, outputs, measures and business units.  In the process you learn how work flows through an organization, often better than your client (or at least more holistically).

During this project I realized that this high level system view of the company would be very useful way to introduce new employees to the company and their role in it.   I built an on-boarding program with animated workflows that followed a customer order though the entire company with stops at each function to learn what that function does and how they add value.   It was a rudimentary simulation of the organization written and visually designed for a new employee to understand their place in the organization and how their job contributes to the whole.  It was a very successful program based on an unintended use of the OAS Map.  Many Business Process Modeling tools (like ProVision and others) allow you to fully simulate an organization starting from an good OAS map.  We should be taking greater advantage of the ability to simulate organizations for training and informal learning purposes.

Here’s another example, this time mapping a training function.  It was prepared as the first stage of a consolidation and improvement effort for the training group.  We were trying to integrate planning and analysis methods that were bubbling up from learning professionals in the group (click to enlarge).

This last example example was used as part of a “training needs assessment” (performance consulting in disguise) to locate subpar performance in a systems engineering group at an aerospace company.  The map allowed me to raise the level of the conversation from training to department performance and move away from the “communications training” initially requested to more substantial process re-design and performance management system implementation (click to enlarge).

How to Prepare an OAS Map

Developing an OAS Map requires good interviewing skills, systems thinking, a visual sensibility and a solid understanding of the system dynamics of a company. The processes will typically follow this pattern:

1. Think of the organization you are analyzing as a black box and identify the outputs (tangible products and services)
2. Identify the customers for those products and services
3. Identify the inputs (resources, information and upstream products and services) that the organization processes into valued outputs
4. Identify who provides those inputs (internal organizations and external suppliers)
5. Identify the internal units, department and groups and the internal workflow

Some Current and Future Uses of the OAS Map

Probably the most powerful “ah ha” OAS maps have allowed me to achieve with clients is the understanding that since all units (sub-systems) of an organization are interconnected, tinkering with independent parts of an (training, sales methods, engineering methods) can have the effect of sub-optimizing the whole.  To manage a company more effectively, or to re-design we need to visualize it more as a cross functional network of interrelated, not independent, components.  This viewpoint is a great staring point for many types of organization effectiveness efforts.

Here are some ways that I have used OAS maps.  I’d love to hear about others.

• Understand and communicate your clients business better than they do themselves
• Identify functional disconnects and variances at a system level
• Put training and skills issues in the context of the larger organization system
• Identify organizational level performance problems and opportunities
• Make knowledge work visible
• Design a process based measurement system (vs. functional measures)
• Design an improved feedback system
• Analyze the current state of an organization issues and opportunities
• Design a future state workflow and organization
• Defining boundaries for a process improvement or redesign effort
• Establish alternative ways to group functions and establish new reporting relationships
• Employee on-boarding programs
• Create organizational workflow simulations for both training and organization improvement purposes

Sadly, Geary Rummler passed away late last year.  I blogged on this in an earlier post. Will Thalheimer recently posted some thoughts from a Geary Rummler Tribute at the recent ISPI conference.   His works continues through the Performance Design Lab, the consulting and training company he had established.

For Web 2.0 What’s in the Workflow is What Gets Used

These early days of implementing web 2.0 for learning (or working, or both) is turning out to be a hit and miss affair.  While social media has been embraced in the public sphere, attempts to implement in organizations have been met with mixed success.  A recent survey by Mckinsey and Company showed as many survey respondents were dissatisfied with their use of Web 2.0 technologies as were satisfied.  Many of the dissenters cite impediments such as organizational structure, the inability of managers to understand the new levers of change, and a lack of understanding about how value is created using Web 2.0 tools.

Tony Karrer in his e-learning technology blog recently wondered about social networking participation –“it’s different when it’s a natural part of how we work”.  Some insight is provided in a popular article from the McKinsey Quarterly Report.  In Six Ways to Make Web 2.0 Work, company analysts suggest some tactics that are instructive for encouraging participation in social media for e-learning or in communities of practice.  One of their “six ways” that resonated with my own experience they labeled “What’s in the workflow is what gets used”.  From the report:

What’s in the workflow is what gets used

Perhaps because of the novelty of Web 2.0 initiatives, they’re often considered separate from mainstream work. Earlier generations of technologies, by contrast, often explicitly replaced the tools employees used to accomplish tasks. Thus, using Web 2.0 and participating in online work communities often becomes just another “to do” on an already crowded list of tasks.

Participatory technologies have the highest chance of success when incorporated into a user’s daily workflow. The importance of this principle is sometimes masked by short-term success when technologies are unveiled with great fanfare; with the excitement of the launch, contributions seem to flourish. As normal daily workloads pile up, however, the energy and attention surrounding the rollout decline, as does participation. One professional-services firm introduced a wiki-based knowledge-management system, to which employees were expected to contribute, in addition to their daily tasks. Immediately following the launch, a group of enthusiasts used the wikis vigorously, but as time passed they gave the effort less personal time-outside their daily workflow-and participation levels fell.

As enthusiastic as early adopters are with new technologies,  each new wave teaches us that unless they add value to how work get accomplished,  the novelty can wear off quickly.   I think the lesson here for organizational learning and e-learning practitioners is to be careful not to simply roll out social media (for learning or otherwise) and expect widespread adoption similar to what we have seen in the public arena.

Also, management will be making a mistake if they feel they are best suited to make the decision regarding how to best use web 2.0 tools. That decision should be a participatory exercise with end users and it should be grounded in workflow or knowledge flow improvement efforts.  Chances for successful adoption will be much greater when employees analyze and improve their business processes building in web 2.0 tools as integral elements to that workflow.  There will also be lots of trail and error involved.  One of the other interesting findings of the McKinsey report was was intended uses sometimes failed but were replaced by unintended successes that emerged from grass roots use of the tools in pilot projects.

Leveraging the Full Learning Continuum

Formal learning (structured and designed classroom or e-learning programs) has been taking a beating these days.  The informal learning movement, powered by constructivist concepts of learning and web 2.0 applications is well underway.   Carl Sauliner almost got his virtual head lopped off in the blogosphere for suggesting that predictions of the death of classroom training may be premature (Long Live Instructor Led Training).

I believe that informal learning in the workplace is critical and has been long overlooked by the learning function.  However, we’re creating an artificial competition between formal and informal learning and should be careful not to throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater.

Learning in organizations is a continuum from informal natural learning through loosely structured learning experiences to formally structured and designed training.  Traditional training functions focused on the design, delivery and management of structured learning programs.   Organizational Development, Performance Technology, many quality systems and Senge styled Organizational Learning practitioners have all merged learning and work through semi-structured, facilitated learning experiences.    Knowledge Management and more recently social media (web 2.0) provide environments that support informal knowledge creation and sharing environments.  This continuum of informal through formal learning continuum might look something like this (adapted from Stern and Sommerlad 1999)

Leveraging the full range of this learning continuum is important for every organization.  Here are some general suggestions on how to do that.

Use formal training to prepare employees for jobs and tasks

Well designed, formal learning (traditional or on-line) develops new skills fast.  Leaving routine, job specific skill development to informal, buddy system methods is wasteful.  Skills will always need to be refined once on the job (informal learning will play a big role here) but organizations need rapid development to a performance standard for quick productivity.  Well designed structured learning is the best way to accomplish this.  The time/performance chart illustrates this time tested principle:

Informal learning encourages learning from mistakes and experimentation and is great for experienced employees.  But it’s also true that we learn our mistakes.  This is the risk of leaving initial training to chance and buddy systems.

When jobs change, new methods or technology are introduced, formal training methods can again be the best method to get up to standard quickly.

Use non-formal (semi-structured) learning to build organizational capability

When employees become productive, they need continuing opportunities to learn and develop in ways that grow organizational capability and resilience. Here learning must be intimately integrated with work–almost a byproduct.  When employees say they learn the most from “experience” this is what they mean.  Learning by doing.

Skilled facilitation through team development, real time problem solving and process improvement efforts move learning in the direction needed to build individual and organizational capability.  Organizational Development, Human Performance Technology,  Senge inspired Organizational Learning have all produced sophisticated methods for results focused learning in job settings.  After initial training, as job expertise develops through experience, less formal learning interventions are more effective for shaping culture, building capacity, and improving performance.  I discussed some methods in my last post.

Create processes and tools that build learning into jobs and cause informal learning

Experienced employees also learn plenty (sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally) simply from interacting with people, ideas and objects in their work environment using the natural learning cycle I described here.  We can create work systems that can cause this type of informal learning through well designed and visible work processes, feedback, and performance systems. Web 2.0, social networking tools and communities of practice give employees, especially knowledge workers, tools to create, share and use organizational knowledge.

Clark Quinn in his recent article Social Networking: Bridging Formal and Informal Learning, includes this useful chart describing the value of formal vs. informal learning for new and experienced employees.

The Learning function in combination with other functions tasked with improving performance need to work together to use the full range of the learning continuum.  How the learning continuum is used and where emphasis is placed depends on job type, organizational function, industry sector, performance issues etc. but the ultimate solution should be a combination of informal, non-formal and formal learning methods to best suit the needs of the organization.

Ultimately we need to use the continuum to create programs and services to:

• Build requisite knowledge and skills
• Create pervasive learning opportunities beyond initial skills
• Encourage collaboration and team learning
• Establish systems to generate, capture and share learning
• Build organizational capability and adaptive capacity

Kindling for Ideas

I came across another interesting web 2.0 app recently. It’s called Kindling and it allows users to submit an idea, discuss it and then vote on it.  From the companies website…

“Kindling makes it easy for your group to submit, discuss and vote on ideas. Good ideas naturally rise to the top helping your business or organization uncover brilliance that might otherwise go unnoticed”

Similar applications have been creatively used by Starbucks (MyStarbucksidea) and Dell (Ideastorm) to collect customer ideas.  Kindling brings the concept inside the organization.

Here’s a video describing the application:

Introducing Kindling from Arc90 on Vimeo.

Learning applications

From an organizational learning perspective, the tool offers a lot of interesting possibilities. A few that come to mind:

• Team decision making.  For years group facilitators have taken teams through flipchart based consensus and voting exercises for group decision making (markers and stickers for everyone!). This tool can automate that that process for groups and organization wide application.

• Suggestion systems are still commonplace in many companies. Kindling is a suggestion system for the knowledge-based company.

• Problem solving for continuous improvement. Any company involved in continuous improvement or process re-design work can use the tool to identify causes and fixes.

• Voice of the Customer. Customers (internal and external) always have needs and wants for what you produce.  Using this tool they can submit ideas or you can provide ideas for them to vote on and discuss in small groups or large aggregates.

• Similarly it could be used for learning needs identification and program evaluation

I have a feeling web 2.0 applications like Kindling and Rypple (for performance feedback, I discussed here and here) that meet specific communication needs in organizations and can be used to transform existing processes are going to get quick traction.

Update: June 30/09

I came across a public application for idea ranking today.  Check out UserVoice.  It has scaled pricing but you can use it for free depending on the number of “votes” you need.

The Big Question: Workplace Learning in 10 Years

Nothing like an economic crisis to get us thinking about our future.  The Learning Circuits Blog big question for March is “What will Workplace Learning look like in ten years?”  Harold Jarche and Jay Cross have questioned the value of the training department in their article “The Future of the Training Department”. Predicting the future is a sucker’s game but always fun because it is actually a visioning exercise.  As Peter Drucker once said “the best way to predict the future is to create it” .  So with that in mind here are some thoughts on the future of training and learning in the workplace.

The best way to predict the future is to create it- Peter Drucker

Back to the future: The last 10 years.

If you believe that the best predictor of the future is the past, then your view of the workplace learning in ten years would be dismal indeed.  Little of the essence of the training function has changed in the last ten years. The big questions remain– how to link to business strategy, how to measure impact and ROI, how to develop the right skills, how to create and use organizational knowledge.

The biggest change has been in technology (LMS, e-learning, authoring, collaborative tools).  Learning applications have allowed us to develop and deliver more training, more efficiently that ever before.  But more training is not necessarily better training.  A pretty good argument can be made that e-learning has actually reduced the quality and effectiveness of the learning function in organizations.  There are many notable exceptions and current developments in simulations and scenario based approaches are promising.  Rapid development tools (again with exceptions) have resulted in perpetuating the content driven information dump. However our tracking, record keeping, reporting, content management, self service and ease of access are better than ever!!!  Again to quote Drucker “There is nothing as useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all”.

The next ten years

Predicting the future is a bit like picking Oscar winners.  There are those you think will win vs. those you think should win.  A lot of factors are at play that may keep training in the same box as the last ten years–same back end and an ever changing skin.    To keep from exposing that cynical view too dearly, here is a list of some of my hopeful winners over the next ten years.  I don’t believe, as Harold does, that training function should be put out of it’s misery but I do hope that we can change it’s mission and methods and shape technology to meet our purposes rather than visa versa.

One mission

There are a lot of staff and line groups that compete for the performance improvement pie. This includes organizational development, operational training, knowledge management, Quality and process redesign, change management and others.  I hope in ten years we have one organization that works tightly with management to improve performance and add value to the organization.  This would allow the unit to both develop knowledge and skills and shape the environment in which the skills are to be used…resulting in much greater performance results.  Organization Effectiveness anyone?

Less training, more learning

Old news you say. Maybe, but I think “learning” has simply replaced “training” as a softer label for the same old, same old.  Informal learning methods like coaching, mentorship etc will play a role but I’d really like to see consulting services targeted at developing “ways of working” built around a natural learning cycle of  a) try something, b) collecting and chart results, c) receiving visual feedback and d) making informed adjustments. This habit of team problem solving and continuous improvement is learning.  See my posts on Let Learning Lead and Learning in Action.

Merging work and learning

With the right workflow, tools and methods, learning can be built directly into work and have far greater impact than formally structured programs.  The organizational effectiveness function should be directly involved in helping management re-design process and workflow to optimize learning, building performance support tools, and track continuous improvement.

Better “training”

I hope we’ll be doing less structured training but get better at the training we do.  Even as organizations move to knowledge based work there are many jobs that still require procedural tasks that are most efficiently learned through well designed and executed formal training.  We used to call it skills training.  Even in knowledge work there are patterns, processes and systems that need to be learned to be effective.  Knowledge workers can be left to their own devices, informal chats and all the informal learning tools they desire but maybe a more efficient way is to compress this experience into  well modeled simulation. I hope the next tens years brings some real advances and tools for learning simulation development.

Focus on knowledge work

I think there will be a large movement towards improving the productivity of knowledge workers and knowledge work in the next ten years.  Knowledge and service sector productivity trails manufacturing by a wide margin.  To stay competitive knowledge based companies are already looking to re-purpose proven manufacturing management systems like the Toyota Production System for knowledge work environments–See this article for example.  I think this can and should shape learning approaches, content and consulting over the next ten years.

Learning as management consulting

The organizational effectiveness (nee Training) organization  in ten years should evolve to something more akin to an internal management consulting group.  It should have the formal charter and mission to improve organizational performance, not provide training solutions, although that would be part of the solution set.  Consulting skills should be paramount.  Management will approach the unit for their performance improvement abilities rather than training programs.

Less measurement myopia, more learning from process data

When learning and organization effectiveness consultants are connected to their client’s business,  the persistent “can you prove it?”, “what’s the ROI?” questions will diminish because the proof will be in the measurement systems built into the workflow of the organizations they support.  Business measures will be learning measures.

Technology

I leave it to last because i hope we can begin to lead it instead of visa versa.  There is no doubt technology is going to evolve dramatically in ten years.  I hope it has more of an influence on how we learn than on what we learn. I’d like to see more simulations that model and compress work processes for rapid learning.  I’d especially like “rapid learning”  come to mean how fast we can cause learning rather than how fast we can develop it.  I’d like to see it used to improve the quality of learning as much as the efficiency of managing it.  I’d like e-learning to be a quaint term from the past.

Human capital and LMS systems will become one and the same (more mergers to come).  Web 2.0 will feature in these systems but will not be dominant.  Free form use of Web 2.0 will thrive and morph in the public (consumer) sphere.  In business, as the drive to improve knowledge work gets more tightly focused on producing results, web 2.0 apps will be harnessed for knowledge sharing and creation around specific projects and teams.    I hope that future learning consultants will be right inside the workflow, using whatever technology emerges to help employees rapidly and efficiently add value for customers.  The “next” technology will always capture our imagination but I hope that we get better at learning from the past to not let our enthusiasm distort effective application.

In some ways all of the above are what performance consulting and organizational development camps within our profession have been trying to encourage for many years.  Maybe, the current miasma in Training will be just the medicine to get us moving.

Let Learning Lead

I’ve been reading an interesting book by Mathew May, a senior advisor to the University of Toyota:  The Elegant Solution: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation.

The Toyota Production System (TPS) and Lean Production are legendary of course (and becoming more so in light of the self-destruction of the North American car industry) but the book doesn’t tread this well worn ground.  Instead it extracts principles from the Toyota Production System of use in non-manufacturing and knowledge work settings.

An excellent chapter of note for learning and performance professionals is “Let Learning Lead“.  In it May argues that learning and innovation are intimately linked but that learning must come first–that it is a precondition for innovation. Through learning, ideas are converted into action. The conversion happens through a natural, informal learning cycle. He’s not referring to loose and simplistic approaches to informal learning, but rather building the essential steps of The Scientific Method into jobs and workflow.  Broadly, those steps would be Questioning, Solving, Experimenting/testing , And Implementing .   W. Edwards Deming translated the method to the Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle that is at the heart of the Toyota system and most Quality approaches since the 1950’s .

May uses the chapter to describe his variation on PDCA targeted at knowledge work and innovation:  I.D.E.A. Loops – a learning cycle for innovation. His cycle is

• Investigate

• Design

• Execute

• Adjust

In this video the author (May) explains the Let Learning Lead premise and and comments on formal and informal learning. Towards the end he asks “to what degree is experimentation (learning) built into your work processes?”. Good question.

Implementing a performance feedback system

I received a few e-mails on my last post on performance feedback as informal learning. The questions concerned how to implement a performance feedback system of the type I described, so I thought I’d follow up with some implementation steps and alternatives.

Performance feedback is frequent, specific and objective information to individuals (or teams) regarding how well they are performing against job requirements/standards. A performance feedback system is a process for consistently and visually providing performance feedback to employees.

Here are the broad steps of what needs to be done to implement a performance feedback system. This is followed by two approaches on how to implement them

1. Identify the key job or role outputs.

Outputs (results, accomplishments) are the valued outcomes of our thinking and behaviour at work. (documents, decisions, designs, materials etc). They are the starting point for any effective performance feedback system. Identity outputs at the process, department, job or team level depending on the scope of your project. Most jobs will have 5-8 key outputs.

2. List the critical requirements for each output

Business processes transform job outputs into valued products or services. Therefore receivers or users of those outputs, are your best source to define what makes them useful or valuable. These “critical requirements” can usually be categorized into one of three types:

• Quality (accuracy, ease of use, novelty, reliability etc)
• Quantity (frequency, volume, rate, timeliness)
• Cost (labour, materials, overhead)

Any output can be measured on all three variables, but it is only what is most important to the user/customer that should be measured. To determine importance ask:

• Does actual performance typically vary on this measure?
• If performance varies on this measure does it matter?
• If it does vary is it large enough to require action?

Often higher level measures (unit, department, process) can help define what measures are important.

3. Define how each requirement will be measured

There are really only two ways to measurement critical requirements. Counting and Judging. Counting is easiest and most appropriate when requirements like volume, frequency and rate and accuracy (errors) matter most. It is common in manufacturing environments.

The output of knowledge and service oriented work will usually require measures of judgment as well. Judgment is essentially opinion or evaluation by comparing to a standard–ranking or rating an output based on perception or pre-established criteria like rating scales.

4. Define the target/goal for each measure

Without a goal or target performance the feedback will have no meaning and the visual display will have much less impact. Goals can be derived from a number of sources including the following:

• Top performers: What levels of performance are achieved by top performers in the group?
• Customer or user requirements: What level of performance does the user or customer (internal or external) of the output require?
• Benchmark studies: What are best practices in the industry for similar jobs/roles?

5. Create a visual display of performance against the target over time.

Graphs are the best way to present performance feedback because they can communicate trends, provide an at-a-glace snapshot and can be maintained by the employees whose performance is being graphed. While there are many chart types to choose from the best and simplest are line graphs that chart performance over time (time series, run charts and control charts)

Encourage self monitored performance. When feedback is given to people individually or in small groups they can measure their own performance and enable feedback to be immediate.

Do not display individual performance graphs publicly. Individual graphs should be kept privately. Team graphs can and should be displayed publicly.

Some performance management software systems have charting capabilities but are often not useful for results driven performance feedback because they measure employee behaviour rather than job output or results. Charting software from process and quality improvement organizations will be more appropriate here.

Implementation options

The steps listed above can be implemented though group managers or directly with performance teams. In both cases a performance consultant will facilitate the process.

Manager implementation: The consultant works directly with a unit manager to complete the steps described. Outputs, requirements, measures and feedback display methods are determined by the consultant with input collected from the unit manager. The manager then rolls the program out with appropriate communications and support. Employees may or may be consulted through the process

Team implementation: The consultant works with the employee team, using facilitated education and design sessions to generate employee defined outputs, requirements, measures and feedback display methods. Employees own the results of the effort and are more inclined to support the implementation.