Social Media for Working & Learning

Performance Consulting: finding the best solution from the training, informal learning, performance support mix

When confronted with a learning or performance problem, the normal and traditional response from L&D is to create a training solution, probably in the form of an all-singing, all-dancing content-rich e-learning course.  For a long while I've compared this approach with using a hammer to crack the proverbial nut!

Last week I showed by the use of three case studies (links below) that there are often other ways to solve learning and performance problems - particularly by the use of collaborative approaches that involve new social media (SoMe) tools - and that "solutions" may well contain a number of different elements - training, informal learning and/or performance support - as show in the table below.

Social Media for Working & Learning  aka Social Learning Use of SoMe for: communicating - collaborating - sharing - networks and communities
Formal learning/ f2f training/"e-learning"	Informal Learning learning as you work	Performance Enhancement improvement & support
using SoMe to engage online learners to engage learners in the classroom	using SoMe to find things out by/for oneself to learn with and from others	using SoMe to rethink/improve work processes to work collaboratively with others
Case Study 4: Using Twitter in a face-to-face workshop	Case Study 3 = learning from one another in an organisation	Case Study 1 = working collaboratively across departments Case Study 2 = working collaboratively in a tea

It also has to be said that non-training solutions are often far less costly than training and can be achieved much more quickly and easily, so for that reason alone should be given much more consideration.

A number of people have asked me to talk more about the process involved in the Case Studies I described.  Let me first describe the traditional training process so that you can compare the two.   Once a learning/performance problem has been identified, the normal process is:

• to carry out a Training Needs Analysis (TNA)
• design training/e-learning
• deliver and manage the training
• assess test/course completions

However, the performance process involves:

• carrying out a Performance Analysis (note: this can also be done even if a performance problem has not yet been identified)
• devising an appropriate solution in conjunction with the people concerned- - which may contain elements from the 3 areas above
• supporting the implementation of the solution - with the people concerned
• (and where training is involved - working with training department to designappropriate training)
• finally assessing the success of solution - in terms of how well it resolved the problem and what additional benefits there were

The key features of this approach are that:

• the solution is devised together with the people concerned - and is NOT one imposed on them - they need to be part of the decision making
• the solution is implemented together with the people concerned - ie NOT one created by others for them to use - they need to help set it up as well as use it so it works for them
• the success of the solution is detemined by how performance has improved  - NOT by the number of people who have passed a quiz or completed a training course

The performance process needs to be led by an experienced individual who has a very good understanding of business/working processes as well as the wide range of SoMe tools and systems available (many of which can be used across the 3 areas of the table above).  This also needs to be someone who can help devise creative and innovative solutions for specific problems and not automatically apply a one-size-fits-all "training" solution.  Hence we are looking at the emergence of a new role, that of the Performance Specialist..

So what are the options for using the performance process in your organisation?  Here are 3 possible ways:

1. Use in-house Performance Specialists - if there are experienced and interested individuals in the organisation, then they can take on this role.  If not, you could consider
2. Contracted Performance Consultants  -  the cost of bringing someone in to help will probably be offset by the reduction in costs of training.  Consultants like this will also be able to help upskill others in the organisation. (For more on this, see the C4LPT's own services in this area)
3. DIY Performance Improvement - Otherwise just let workers get on and do it for themselves - if they are not already doing so!  As more and more individuals and teams understand social media and recognise its value for addressing their own productivity and performance issues, this is likely to become more commonplace.  I am actually producing a Guide for those who want to know about this DIY approach, and I'll write more about this in a future posting.

The Performance Specialist: case study 3

This is the third case study that demonstrates the work of a Performance Specialist in an organisation. (You can view the first and second here).  The point of these case studies up to now has been to show that training is not the only solution to a performance problem; this one shows that a training solution may not be the best solution for induction.

A line manager was concerned that the company's traditional induction workshop took place so irregularly that a new employee was often in post for a good few weeks if not months before s/he attended it.  The situation had now come to a head as one of his new employees had resigned before attending it and stated one of the reasons to be due to the obvious lack of interest of the company in integrating her into it. 

The training manager's response might well have been to turn it into an online induction course which would be available to all employees as soon as they joined the company, but instead they asked the Performance Specialist to take a look ...

The Performance Specialist met with the line manager concerned together with some recent new hires in his team to find out more about the issues.  In addition to the delay in getting a place on the workshop, it also transpired that the content of the workshop focused on presentations about the history, vision and mission of the organisation rather than on practical issues like where you got your PC from and where you purchased your lunch and refreshment card.  These things the new hires had to find out for themselves in the early days and although their colleagues were willing to help out and answer their questions, they were unable to spend too much time with them because of their own workload.  However, as a solution to the problem it was clear they were not interested in taking what would be the equivalent of a day's workshop as an online course.

The Performance Specialist wondered if induction shouldn't actually start BEFORE the new hires stepped through the door on the first day, and the employees unanimously agreed that this would be ideal.  The Performance Specialist suggested setting up a social network type space where new hires could go before they started work as well as after they had joined up to find information about the company (this might be in the form of presentations, documents, etc), how to get set up in the first few days of being in the company as well as providing  place where they could ask questions and post their comments and views.  Those in the meeting thought this would be a good idea, so she asked them if they would be prepared to help with the project in terms of populating it with useful content, as well as helping to answer the questions of new people.  She explained that as more and more people joined the group over time, then their participation would be reduced.  However, they were all happy to become the pioneers to form the group. 

The Performance Specialist then took the idea to both HR and Training to get their feedback on it, and the idea was received favourably.  It was certainly a much cheaper option than creating an online induction programme. Once the space had been set up and was ready to go, then HR would invite all new hires to join it as soon as they had accepted a job offer.  HR and Training decided they would also take the opportunity to change the format of the induction workshop and make it more of a networking event.

The Performance Specialist set up the group space using a freely available networking platform and made it a private group so that only those invited could join it.  She first invited those from the meeting to sign up and they set up their own profiles with their pictures and information about themselves.  They each then took it upon themselves to find useful resources to populate the group space.  The Performance Specialist wrote the welcome message on the site's front page which also explained the purpose of the site, and so the Welcome to XYZ Company space was ready to go.  HR sent out the first invitations, and the new hires began to sign up and fill out their profiles.  They asked questions in the discussion forum which were quickly answered and which sometimes led to further resources or links being added to the site. 

After about 6 weeks the Performance Specialist ran an informal survey to get their feedback.  They all felt that this was a very welcoming approach and that as they had established relationships with colleagues before they had arrived, it was very easy to fit in.  They also knew where to go to get themselves sorted out on the first day.  The face-to-face networking event then allowed them to meet people in the flesh they had come to know in the group space.  It was therefore decided to continue the Welcome group indefinitely.

The Performance Specialist: Case Study 2

This is the second case study that demonstrates the work of a Performance Specialist in an organisation. (You can view the first here). 

A senior manager of an organisation approached the training department because his new PA, Ann, was struggling with producing the documentation for the Strategy Committee.  He thought she needed some further training..

The Training Manager's response might have been to look at the schedule of a training provider and tell Ann she could have a place on a 3-day Word course in a few weeks time.  But instead he asked the Performance Specialist to pay her a visit ...

The Performance Specialist went to meet Ann.  She was a hard-working and efficient PA with considerable experience in using Word, the word processing software.  However, she admitted she was struggling with the "track changes" functionality.

The Performance Specialist asked her what she was trying to do.  Ann explained that she had to send out papers to the members of the Strategy Committee to create a number of strategy documents.  She emailed them a first draft, then each member of the Strategy Committee was asked to make amendments and additions on the document (using track changes) and send the amended document back to her.  She then had to put all the amendments onto one  master document for final review at the Strategy meeting.  It was taking her ages to do, and her boss was getting quite alarmed at how much time she was spending on it.  She asked if she was "missing" something in the track changes function; and thought that some training would help.

The Performance Specialist said that it wasn't a fault of the "track changes" functionality nor her lack of training, but rather that the process itself was causing the problems.  She explained that it would be a much better idea just to create one common document that all the members of the Strategy Committee could have access to and amend themselves.  Ann sighed with relief, as she realised this would solve all her problems in one go. 

The Performance Specialist then discussed the different software options available; their pros and cons and ease of use, and before finally agreeing on the use of Google Docs as the preferred solution, they ran the idea past Ann's boss.  He was delighted with the suggestion and immediately could see a number of possibilities for using it other work. 

With respect to the srategic documents they were creating, he said he could start them off himself by entering some notes, then Ann could take over and work them up into something more professional.  Then they would invite the members of the Strategy Committee to make their amendments directly on the document.

The Performance Specialist then showed both Ann and her boss how to set up a Google Docs account, how to create a document and share it with others.   Once the first document was ready for the Committee, Ann sent out instructions on how to access the document as well as edit it.. The Performance Specialist remained on call to help with the very few teething problems in using the software..  

The use of Google Docs proved to be very successful, and freed up Ann to work on some other more interesting and exciting projects.  Ann's boss was very appreciative of the work of the Performance Specialist, and asked her to spend more time in his department to try and improve the productivity of all the members of his team.  He also recommended to the Senior IT Director that they use Google Apps throughout the company, and this is likely to take place very shortly.

The Performance Specialist: 3 case studies

This post continues my discussion of the role of the Performance Specialist.  Over the next few days I am going to look at some case studies where a Performance Specialist working within organisations helped different teams address their own performance problems.

Case study 1

The Sales Manager of a consumer electronics company approached the training department because he was concerned about the length of time it was taking to create and deliver the online training courses for new products and new product updates.  This had a knock-on effect that meant that his sales people were not able to talk intelligently about these new products to their customers which often led to poor customer satisfaction results and also weak sales in the early days of a product launch.

The Training Manager's response woud have been that they could reduce the time taken to create and deliver the online courses by a number of weeks, by bringing the development work back in house and hiring a couple of instructional designers, and then purchasing the authoring softwaare as well as all the multimedia production and editing kit that was necessary to create the course.  This would however incur some additional costs.  But instead he asked the Performance Specialist to look into this.

The Performance Specialist convened a meeting of product managers and sales people to discuss the problem.  She found out that they normally worked in complete isolation and very rarely had any communication with one another.  She also found out product training took place after launch because that was just the way they had always done things.

She asked the product managers if they would be happy for the sales team to find out more about the products before the launch date and answer questions on them, and they said they would be delighted.   She made the suggestion that the product managers might like to set up blogs about the new products and write regular postings to keep the sales team up to date with their development, they might describe the key functionality, show images and mockups they had built,  and of course answer any questions the sales team had about the products.  This was agreed as a way forward and a pilot was set up on a couple of products to try it out..

So the next step was for the Performance Consultant to show the product managers how to set up the blogs (they used freely available blogging tools for this) and how to make their postings.  She then showed the sales team how to read the feeds from these blogs in a feed reader (so they didn't have to waste valuable time visiting the blogs to see if they had been updated) .   She also showed them how to write comments on the postings with their questions or feedback. 

During the pilot, the Performance Consultant remained on call to help with any blogging and RSS problems that might arise;  there were very few.  Once the product neared launch, the product managers posted the specification sheet on the blog which the sales team could download and print off if they wanted. 

The result: at product launch, the sales team were ready to start talking to their customers about the new product.  Sales in the early weeks of new product increased and customer satisfaction scores shot up too.   The pilot was deemed a success, and a brand new open source blogging platform was installed within the company firewall to take the project further.  Additionally, it brought the product development team and the sales team closer together and from then on they held away days to discuss new innovations and product design.

The case for the role of Performance Specialists

Yesterday I wrote a posting where I used a zoo analogy to show the difference beween "training" and "learning".  I also suggested that training departments might want to follow the lead of zoos, which have re-focused their work from the preservation of endangered species in zoos to undertaking in-country conservation projects, and that training departments could consider moving the focus of their work  from purely training to undertaking performance projects in departments or project teams, through the role of a new breed of learning professionals that might be termed Performance Specialists.

Today, I want to talk more about the role of the performance specialist and contrast it with that of the training specialist, and at the risk of pushing the zoo analogy too far, I am going to compare these two roles with those of zookeepers and wildlife conservationists to make it a bit more engaging and memorable.

The Zookeeper Zookeepers are responsible for caring for the animals in a zoo.  They need to be very knowledgeable about the different animals in their care and how to help them maintain as happy a life as they can in captivity.   Originally animals were kept in cramped conditions - cages and pens, etc, but in recent years, zoos have provided more natural enclosures for the animals in their care.  However, since observing an ape or gorilla sitting quietly in its cage is often not exciting enough for some visitors, zookeepers were in the past required to get the animals to perform tricks. One well known show was the Chimpanzee Tea Party at London's Regents Park Zoo, which ended in 1972.  A letter to The Times in 1991, however, reported a disappointing day at the zoo:  "The fun of the zoo was missing .. The chimps' tea party has been replaced by a cow-milking demonstration. Educational? Yes. Entertaining? No." This questions the role of the zoo, is it about education, entertainment or the preservation of endangered species?

The Training Specialist Training specialists are responsible for the design and/or delivery of training courses. Although they don't need to be knowledgeable about the subject matter since this is "captured" from SMEs, they do need to have instructional design skills or trainer skills (depending on which part of the process they are involved in). Although training courses were originally face-to-face they are now offered online or in a blended format. However, since the content of a course or workshop is often quite unexciting, training designers and trainers  often have to resort to other devices to make the topic more palatable, e.g. games, animation, audio and video sequences.  One report asks, however, "Is using multimedia in online courses effective pedagogy or just bells and whistles?" This poses the question, what is the role of the training department?  Education, entertainment or improving business performance.

The Wildlife Conservationist This role is primarily concerned with the preservation of endangered species in their natural habitat.   Wildlife conservationists need to have a wide range of knowledge and skills as the projects they work on can be quite varied and diverse and specific to a particular region or country. Conservationists often conduct ecological  surveys to prioritize sites, assess the status of natural habitats and the wildlife they shelter, and determine the extent and causes of threats to habitats and surrounding communities, as well as are called upon to deal with problems that have already been identified by countries and regions. Because of the specialist nature of the projects, they usually need to be solved by creative thinking rather than applying one-size-fits-all solutions.  Conservation projects are of vital strategic importance to the regions and countries in which they take place.

The Performance Specialist This role is primarily concerned with helping individuals and teams address and support their own productivity and performance.  The performance consultant needs to have a wide range of knowledge and skills as the projects they work on can be quite varied and diverse as they are specific to a particular team or department in the organisation. Performance consultants may be required to identify, prioritise and assess the extent of performance issues in organisations as well as respond to problems that have been already been highlighted by line managers. Because of the specialist nature of each project they work on, they usually need to be solved by creative thinking rather than applying one-size fits all solutions - although training may play a part in the process. Performance projects are of vital strategic importance to the organisations in which they take place.

Clearly an organisation needs to have both training and performance specialists within it.  I have taken on both roles at one time or another, and I know which I personally find the most fulfilling, but I do recognise that different people will aspire to different roles.

However, if you are looking for some help in developing the role of Performance Specialists in your organisation, then do let me know, I'd be pleased to help

Can training departments learn from zoos?

About 6 weeks ago I wrote a posting on this blog, entitled What is the future of the LMS?  Within a few hours, my colleague in the Internet Time Alliance (ITA),  Harold Jarche had followed it up with one of his own, LMS is no longer the centre of the universe, and so began, what we at the ITA are now calling, The Great LMS Debate (you can see the chronological list of postings here.) 

At the Learning & Skills Group Conference earlier this month, Jay Cross mentioned this debate in his keynote and a number of other session speakers picked up on it too, and this sparked off further discussion in blogs and tweets.  On Saturday Charles Jennings added a further posting to this thread, called Real learning, let's not confuse it with completing templated exercises.  Charles's rational, reasoned and elegantly written post is a must-read, and it got me thinking even further. 

Firstly Charles reminds readers:

"We shouldn’t confuse what L&D/Training departments spend a lot of their time on with real learning. Learning professionals spend a significant amount of their time (maybe even the majority) designing and delivering content and then evaluating completions and short-term memory outputs from structured mandatory and compliance training modules and courses. "

He then goes on to define "real learning"

"Most of us have been persuaded that the majority of real learning occurs in the workplace through experience and practice and over the water cooler through conversations and reflection."

"Learning is an accumulation of experiences supported by practice in context and by interaction with others – who may be your peers, your supervisor, or your friends. Even your friendly learning professional."

The distinction between "training" and "learning" clearly seems to be one of the stumbling blocks to moving forward. Only the other day, my ITA colleague, Jon Husband, referred me to a tweet from @panklam Patti Anklam at the recent E2.0 conference, that said

"big obstacle to social learning conversations: people translate "learning" to "training" automatically, unconsciously"

In recent times, a number of people have tried to explain the differences between training and learning. For example, Jay Cross, another ITA colleague, has written a lot about the important role of informal learning in an organisation in his book and on his Informal Learning blog as well as how it differs from training

"Learning is formal when someone other than the learner sets curriculum. Typically, it’s an event, on a schedule and completion is generally recognized with a symbol, such as a grade, gold star, certificate or check mark in a learning management system. Formal learning is pushed on learners.

By contrast, informal learners usually set their own learning objectives. They learn when they feel a need to know. The proof of their learning is their ability to do something they could not do before. Informal learning often is a pastiche of small chunks of observing how others do things, asking questions, trial and error, sharing stories with others and casual conversation. Learners are pulled to informal learning."

But maybe it is more useful to consider training as a subset of  learning where the majority of learning (the actual percentage can be argued over) that takes place is informal.

I wanted to come up with an analogy to make this concept more memorable, but the best I could do was this.  Wild animals kept in captivity are a subset of the total wildlife population, where the majority live in their natural habitat in the wild.

As with all analogies you can't push them too far, but as I looked into this one further, I realised that training departments (that manage training) might actually have something in common with  zoos (that manage animals in captivity) after all.

I read that zoos have had to change in recent years due to ecological pressures.  They have not only reduced the number and species of animals they have as exhibits, but also focus now on conservation issues, and some have even rebranded themselves.  For instance the New York Zoological Society, based at the Bronx Zoo, became the Wildlife Conservation Society and is also now responsible for millions of acres of protected lands around the world with field conservation projects in many countries. 

It seems to me that Training/L&D Depts might be able to learn something from this as they are also experiencing pressures (financial, technological etc) and need to think seriously about their future role and survival.  If they took the same approach as zoos, they might want to consider reducing the number of training courses they design, deliver and manage (perhaps just to the absolute essential ones as required for compliance and regulatory purposes), and  move the focus of their efforts from managing training to supporting informal or "real" learning.  

This might be done, in a similar way to zoos, by working on field projects with individuals and teams to help them help themselves to address and support their own performance and productivity needs through informal and collaborative approaches. 

Like zoos, L&D departments might then consider re-branding themselves in such a way that reflects this new role, with titles that demonstrate their focus on "performance" rather than "learning".  This re-branded function would also provide new opportunities for learning professionals who wanted to specialise in this area of work rather than on training design or delivery.

But what about the tools and systems required for this type of work?  Just as conservationists use different methods to care for the animals in the wild than they do in zoos, there is clearly a similar need for new tools for individuals and teams to use for working and learning. Charles Jennings makes a very interesting suggestion in his article in answer to this question:

"Maybe LMS vendors would be better off sticking to their knitting and letting the maelstrom that is the profusion of targeted ‘2.0’ (for want of a better term) tools that are emerging virtually every day to provide support for process-based learning."

The Internet Time Alliance LMS discussion thread

At Tuesday's Learning & Skills Group conference in London, Jay Cross mentioned how we at the Internet Time Alliance (ITA) had been discussing the future of the LMS.  Once again this subject touched a nerve for many people, and I had many requests for links to the postings that Jay displayed in his presentation.  So I thought it would be easier to list all the key posts that the ITA members have made on this subject in chronological order so that you can see the flow of ideas:

• What is the future of the LMS?  Jane Hart,  4 May 2010
• LMS is no longer the centre of the universe Harold Jarche, 4 May 2010
• A transition path to the future Jane Hart, 5 May 2010
• Identifying a collaboration platform Harold Jarche, 5 May 2010
• A case for the LMS? Clark Quinn 6 May 2010
• 5 stages of Workplace Learning Jane Hart, 7 May 2010
• Workscape evolution Jay Cross, 7 May 2010
• The networked enterprise and learning support Harold Jarche, 8 May 2010
• A unified performer-facing environment Harold Jarche, 10 May 2010
• Why bash the LMS? Clark Quinn, 10 May 2010
• Using Google Analytics as a LMS Jane Hart, 11 May 2010
• Are you going to disappear into the fog, Jane Hart, 12 May 2010
• Into the fog Harold Jarche, 12 May 2010
• Compliance of an industry Harold Jarche 13 May 2010
• TELUS Case Study, Jane Hart, 15 May 2010
• The SMARTER approach to workplace learning, Jane Hart, 17 May 2010
• When to LMS Clark Quinn, 18 May 1010
• Amateurs, ideas and learning Harold Jarche 21 May 2010
• Once more across that chasm Harold Jarche 27 May 2010

Finally, my State of Learning in the Workplace Today provides an overview of the key points of this discussion.

UPDATE: A Further blog posting

• Real-learning, let's not confuse it with completing templated exercises, Charles Jennings, 19 June 2010

Yammer now integrated with Sharepoint 2007

Yesterday Yammer (the private micro-blogging service) announced on its blog, that  using the Yammer SharePoint Web Part "you can access your Yammer feed directly inside SharePoint, eliminating the need to toggle between SharePoint and Yammer". 

and more ...

"This seamless integration brings your Yammer conversations into your existing workflow. You’ll be able to collaborate on a document in SharePoint and then instantly share it with your colleagues on Yammer without having to leave SharePoint".

This integration of key collaboration tools into the workflow is, as I and many of my ITA colleagues have been saying, going to be the future of working and  (informal) learning in the organisation.  

BTW For those of you with Sharepoint 2010, Yammer blog states:

Yammer integration with Microsoft® SharePoint® 2010 is currently being developed and will be available this summer.