I came across this after reading about it on Training Magazine’s Training Directors Forum…from the Bersin & Associates web site:

The Top 22 High Impact Talent Management Best Practices based on their research, which you can buy via their site at:

- from their web site:

High Impact Talent Management®: Top 22 Best Practices
Corporate Talent Management is one of the most important business initiatives in the coming decade. After more than 2 years of research including 750+ corporations and 1 million data elements, Bersin & Associates has discovered the top 22 talent management proecesses which drive the highest levels of business impact. By popular request, here they are!

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Click on all graphics to enlarge.

And I wondered how their listings “link” to my model for Human Asset Management Systems – HAMS.

In other words, which Human Resource Systems – Human Capital Systems – Talent Management Systems – or: HAMS get these best practices accomplished? Here is my HAMS Model:

The HAMS are a component in my EPPI – Enterprise Process Performance Improvement methodology-set. Here is my table of the linkages…

A description of these HAMS follows…from my March 2005 quarterly column in the series that I am doing for http://www.bptrends.com/ …

The HAMS’s Organization & Job (Re-)Design Systems provide a set of job designs and an organization design conducive to the needs of the process, it’s volume, and configured for the likely abilities and capabilities of the human performers who will be selected into those jobs in the locations where the performers will perform.

The job designs then roll up into the organization design. It is a “bottoms-up” approach driven by the visible top down “end goals” of the process performance.

The HAMS’s Staffing & Succession Systems provide the strategies, plans and mechanisms for staffing plan development and the succession strategies, plans and mechanisms necessary to populate the organization’s jobs with people in an efficient manner, providing career and growth opportunities where possible/feasible.

Staffing & Succession Planning Systems takes the job designs, their process performance requirements, and the enabler requirements, and determines who to recruit, how many, from where, and how.

The HAMS’s Recruiting & Selection Systems provide the strategies, plans and mechanisms for first recruiting and then selecting the best candidates in the right quantities, consistent with the Staffing & Succession plans, and populating the organization’s jobs.

This system must bring humans into the enterprise that have as much of the human attributes needed as possible.

The HAMS’s Training & Development Systems provide the strategies, plans and mechanisms to train and develop the new hires and incumbents consistent with their performance requirements in the organization’s jobs, as they have been designed.

This system takes the individual and back-fills them with the missing key knowledge and skills not acquired during the recruiting and selection processes.

The HAMS’s Performance Appraisal & Management Systems provide the strategies, plans and mechanisms for appraising the job task performance and managing all issues (problems/opportunities) as appropriate, and consistent with laws/regulations/codes and enterprise policies/procedures.

Where performance is falling short of the requirements, performance management, including “development planning (back to the T&D System) as well as last resort efforts such as “progressive discipline” and possible “termination” may be required to resolve the issue and meet the process needs.

The HAMS’s Compensation & Benefits Systems provide the strategies, plans and mechanisms to ensure that the total pay and benefits attract and retain competent staff, appropriate for the various labor markets for the various locations of enterprise operations, and are consistent with laws/regulations/codes, any labor contracts (if applicable), and enterprise policies/procedures.

Pay for performance, or knowledge, or skills, is fairly easy to structure, build and maintain when you understand clearly the process performance requirements and the human enablers. And it is ultimately more equitable.

The HAMS’s Reward & Recognition Systems provide the strategies, plans and mechanisms for providing non-monetary and small-monetary rewards and recognition to appeal to the ego needs of staff, and are consistent with laws/regulations/codes, any labor contracts (if applicable), and enterprise policies/procedures.

Recognizing a job well done requires understanding what a well done job looks like.

Those are the Human Asset Management Systems in the EPPI methodology-set.

For copies of my columns at Business Process Trends, use their search function for “Wallace” at http://www.bptrends.com/

In the big picture of Enterprise Process Performance there are 3 key variables…the Process itself …the People enablers and the Environmental enablers.

Processes are from the Systems that are themselves either core, or leadership or support oriented…to that “department/entity” in the WBS of entities/departments that make up the Enterprise.

Human and Environmental Assets either have what is needed for the specific process performance – or they are lacking.

My “bug” about using generic competencies, those that Don Tosti refers to as aspirational, is that they are too general and non-specific that they shouldn’t be used to guide/direct training development, or performance measurement.

They are using enablers and not the “surface performance” that should be the targeted measures driving these HAMS type systems and processes.

My preference is to generate specific process performance data, either Process Maps or Performance Models to generate the real enablers of Peak Performance.

As John Coné wrote in his review of my latest book: One of the great strengths of the book is that it is NOT about competencies.You make an outstanding point that there is more to the job than just possessing (or even exhibiting) competencies.

I use the following model to guide analysis of a department and/or managerial performance.

More can be learned about that model by applying it in your own “acid test” situation.

And you can do that by downloading for free, a PDF of my new book (new in 2007):

Management Areas of Performance. Available at http://www.eppic.biz/

These are my 7 reasons why you might wish to consider adopting/adapting the PACT Processes for T&D/ Learning/ Knowledge Management.

PACT is 3 levels of ISD.

CAD is a gated, “systems engineering/
architectural” ISD Process for the design
of a comprehensive curriculum for one
or more critical target audiences.

MCD is a gated, “new product
development” ISD Process, using a
modular, platform design approach for
one or several instructional products.

IAD is a gated, “new product component
development” ISD Process, using a
modular, platform design approach for
developing instructional components.

The PACT Processes will help you build a library of performance-based “Instruction AND Information” to support the workflow processes of your Enterprise.

For more about the PACT Processes see my book, lean-ISD, available as a free 404-page PDF at www.eppic.biz

The Early Reviewers…

John Coné on –
Management Areas of Performance

One of the great strengths of the book is that it is NOT about competencies. You
make an outstanding point that there is more to the job than just possessing (or
even exhibiting) competencies.

I really liked the book. Now, I have to be honest with you – it surprised me that I
did. I have never been a fan of “workbook” type books that require me to do a
lot of introspection and homework. Maybe that’s because I’m lazy, or maybe
because they require me to accept the models in the book as I go along rather
than deciding after I have read it all how well they will apply to my world. Whatever
the case, when I saw how your book was organized, I figured I wouldn’t like
the format and then I’d have to figure out how to tell you that.

But it didn’t happen that way.

I think it is because of the way the book is organized, and perhaps also because
you keep things relatively simple. You don’t ask me to buy into a complicated
and unusual model; but one that is pretty straightforward and logical.

I also think that using the technique of directing people to the chapters that apply to them
the most (as you do in Chapters 4 and 18, for example) prevents us from having
to slog through work that we are not sure goes to the heart of our concerns.
That is a brilliant move, and I wish more authors used the approach.
Thanks for the chapter summaries. They keep the reader on track and tell us
what you as the author think are the key points of each chapter. The intros also
do a great job of keeping us oriented.

The book reads easily and is very clear and concise.

_________________

The book is available as a free PDF at www.eppic.biz

Regarding an article in my current, quarterly newsletter: Pursuing Performance – Spring 2007. Available at www.eppic.biz

For Your PACT Models/Methods/Tools/Techniques Kit
Object Design in the PACT Processes
By Guy W. Wallace, CPT, Author of the PACT Processes

Object Design by Design
In the PACTLogic, the data-logic of the PACT Processes, the content design’s
hierarchy of content is organized, from: that set of design rules for use of font styles and
sizes, the preferred photo of the CEO when a casual look is desired, or that
marketing text that describes the features, benefits and advantages of the new
hot offering, and many other types of content, and has the following levels:

The Enterprise Content Architecture
► T&D Paths
► T&D Events
► T&D Modules
► T&D Lessons
► T&D Instructional Activities
► A Content Elements WELL of
– Enterprise BU/Divisions, Functional, Department Names
– Enterprise Language, Definitions and Descriptions
– Enterprise Logos and use restrictions
– Graphics
– Photos
– Pictures

And by “WELL” I mean a well-organized, well-resourced, SOURCE for content
element collections for purposes of enabling re-use.

———————-
See the full article and additional content regarding performance-based ISD and Human Performance Technology in Pursuing Performance – Spring 2007.

www.eppic.biz

I am just a couple of days ahead of myself, but my schedule requires it to be so…or to be late…

UPDATE: 12-Part ISPI PX Series on “Project Proven Tools and Techniques for ISD” is now half-completed.

The June articles, one within the 750 word limit published in ISPI’s Performance Xpress e-zine…and a longer version published in the Instructional Systems ProComm discussion area’s document section, will be posted by the end of the week. More about where to get PDF copies later.

The series is covering the following 12 topics beginning with the January 2007 issue:

Already published…
1. The Gathering and Use of Target Audience Data
2. The Performance Model
3. The Enabling Knowledge/Skills
4. Existing T&D Assessments for Re-Use
5. Curriculum Architecture Modules, Events and Paths
6. ADDIE-level Events, Lessons and Instructional Activities


Yet to be published…
7. ISD Design of On-the-Job-Coaching and Qualification/Certification Events
8. Key ISD Roles
9. Teams for Curriculum Architecture ISD Efforts
10. Teams for ADDIE-level ISD Efforts
11. Pilot-Testing Guidelines and Tools for ISD
12. Tips for Recruiting and Working with a Powerful ISD Project Steering Team

My intent is to share what has worked for me during my 28+ years of experience
as both an internal and external ISD/HPT consultant – in over 250 projects with my clients – including 44 US Fortune 500 firms and a few firms in Europe and Canada!

AND—- I am also posting an expanded version of each article on the ISPI web site for the IS ProComm, to encourage and enable readers to engage: ask questions, make challenges and generally share their approaches of what has worked for them!

ISPI encourages anyone who would like to participate in the IS Professional Community to go to Discussion Groups, log in, click on My Subscriptions and add the Instructional Systems ProComm to your list of groups.

Then you’ll be able to acquire the expanded version of the article…or go the Resources area of my web site at: www.eppic.biz as I have them there too.

And…consider getting involved in any or all of the other 6 ProComms as well, or any of the other Discussion Groups!

For Discussion Group Help (a “primer”): See Help on the Discussion Group Home Page:
http://performance.ispi.org/scriptcontent/Custom/indexPage.cfm?page=DiscussionHelp&section=communities

For a copy of PX go to the Publications tab from the home page of: ISPI – the International Society for Performance Improvement – at: http://www.ispi.org/

This posting is from an article that was originally published in Svenson & Wallace, Inc.’s Management Update newsletter, summer 1992.
The Detailed Project Plan

I believe that trainers need to plan well to help ensure that a training project meets all of the internal training organization’s and external customer’s criteria. However, many trainers resist developing plans detailing their projects. The rationale? The plan is too subject to change to be worth the effort of planning at a detailed level.

My personal view is that most (not all) Project Plans that are subject to many changes were probably not very good plans in the first place. Or, if they were good Project Plans, they were poorly/inadequately sold to the customer, and changes occurred because they were not the customer’s plan as well. And everyone found out about THAT late. Sometimes just a little late; sometimes way too late.

It’s fact that many trainers either avoid making detailed plans or making any plans at all. However, I believe in detailed planning because the process forces me to think through:

• All of the key tasks required
• The prerequisite activities for key tasks
• The key outputs/deliverables

These are critical for the planning process.

With a good plan, I can better anticipate potential issues and problems. I can build strategies and tactics right into the plan to preemptively deal with those issues and problems. My Project Plan is critical for spelling out the details of the intended project—all the whats, whens, wheres, whos, and whys.

Most trainers are able to conduct a detailed task analysis; they should very easily be able to construct a detailed list of tasks to conduct one of their own projects. A trainer could even pretend to be conducting a task analysis exercise on him- or herself, being both interviewer and interviewee.

What is a detailed plan good for? It can

• Provide direction to all personnel involved in the project, including the customer’s personnel.
• Allow tracking of the planned schedule and costs in close to real time.
• Help the project get back on track if something starts to derail it.

Most importantly, if approached correctly the planning process can be used to get customer buy-in. The best way to do this is to create a rough draft of the plan after obtaining the customer’s input. Let the customer review and edit the plan. Let the customer own the plan. We should think of the project as the customer’s project and ourselves as implementers of the project.

Eight Sections of a Detailed Project Plan
The Project Plan should contain the information described in the eight sections below – whether or not you organize it by these 8 sections. The project plan content can be organized and presented in many different manners, but plans containing this kind of detail have served us well as we’ve completed training projects over the years.

Check out plans by others elsewhere in your Enterprise for guidance on how to construct your detailed plan. Do they all have executive overviews, or do they just jump right in to the details? Model your plan after those formats familiar to your internal clients. Don’t make them learn something new – unless they want you to approach this differently. Ask them.

1. Purpose
This section deals with the what of the project. It presents a very short statement reflecting the ultimate end objective(s) for the project, expressed in a manner such as, “The purpose of the proposed project is to . . . (fill in the blank).”

2. Background
This section expands on the rationale for conducting the project, the why. Why this project, why now, why for this target audience(s), etc.? This section usually ties the project to the business conditions and initiatives driving the project.

3. Scope
This section identifies the who of the project, the target audience(s) that will be addressed. It also establishes the breadth and width of the project, including the project boundaries. The scope must be well understood early in the project so as not to create false expectations.

It is vital that this section of the plan be easily understood by all customer segments (including executive management). Poorly managed customer expectations at this early stage almost certainly guarantee disappointments at the end of the project.

4. Approach
This section outlines the various methodologies and mechanics to be employed in conducting the project. What is the general or primary method to be used? What are the secondary methods?

How will these methods be used—for data gathering, data reviews, design efforts, design reviews, etc.? If you intend to use surveys, individual interviews, group-process interviews, document reviews, and so forth, spell those out here. Use this section to avoid surprises as to how you conduct the project.

5. Project Phases and Milestones
This section provides an overview of the phases and milestones used in the Project Plan. We use the four (CAD) or six phase (MCD/IAD) model to portray the macro-steps of the project…in series and/or overlap along a time line.

Shown in that way, it’s apparent that we’re dealing with a process. Our detailed plans are one way we maintain control over the instructional content development process, specifically control over

• Quality
• Cost
• Schedule

In fact, I use detailed plans in all of my projects, not just for training development projects.

6. Outputs/Deliverables
This section outlines the specific, key outputs to be produced during the project. A detailed description of each output should be included. The use of the output during the project and after the project should be spelled out.

7. Roles and Responsibilities
This section presents the roles and corresponding responsibilities for all groups or teams involved in the project. Typical roles and responsibilities are shown in the sample page for Section 8 next. (Of course, not all projects are organized by group or team. In those cases, the roles would be changed and the responsibilities assigned to other individuals or parties.)

8. Project Tasks/Roles/Schedule
For all project phases, this section presents the project tasks, estimated time requirements per role, and the estimated schedule for tasks. A sample page from this section is shown below.

My detailed plans might include 10-20 pages using this format. Getting down to some very detailed TASKS – when I feel I need to be able to “point those out” – in a quick review of the plan and who needs to do what, when and perhaps with whom. To make sure that my plan is in alignment with the customer and other stakeholders and their expectations and desires.

My list of clients since 1982…by Industry. This link http://www.eppic.biz/about.htm will take you to a page with a listing of all of MY projects, organized by Client name or by Industry.

The staff that I managed/led at SWI and CADDI also did many additional projects for many of those clients on MY list, but I don’t include those in MY list of projects. These are clients and projects that I had a significant role in serving them. Most often it was my project and I was the lead. On some I had other staff consultants assisting me; on many I was working solo – with the help of our Production Department that is.

And you can see that for some (Amoco, AT&T, GM, and Siemens Building Technologies-which had been MCC Powers in the earlier years) I did a lot of repeat business.

I’d like to thank all of these clients for their trust over the years!

Automotive
Ford Design Institute
Ford Motor Company
General Motors

Financial Services
Arthur Anderson
BankAmerica Corporation
Commerce Clearing House, Inc. (CCH)
Discover Card
H&R Block
Northern Trust Bank (Chicago)
Valuemetrics, Inc.

Energy
Amoco Corporation
Alyeska Pipeline Service Company
ARCO of Alaska
British Petroleum—America
Channel Gas Industries/Tenneco
Dow Chemical
Exxon Exploration USA
NOVA
Novacor, Corunna Site
Occidental Petroleum Labs

Government
NASA
NAVAIR
NAVSEA
Norfolk Naval Shipyard

Information Technology
American Management Systems
EDS

Manufacturing
Alcoa Labs
AT&T Microelectronics
AT&T Network Systems
Bandag, Inc.
Burroughs
Bellcore Tech
Data General
Detroit Ball Bearing
Digital Equipment Corporation
General Dynamics
Hewlett Packard
Imperial Bondware/Federal Paperboard
Johnson Controls Incorporated
Lockheed (General Dynamics)
MCC Powers
Motorola
Multigraphics
NCR
Northern Telecom
Siemens Building Technologies, Inc.
Square D Company
Westinghouse Defense Electronics

Pharmaceutical
Abbott Laboratories
Baxter
Eli Lilly and Company
Sphinx Pharmaceuticals

Retail
Spartan Stores/ISSC

Services
Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company
ISPI (NISPI)
Pacific Gas & Electric

Telecommunications
Ameritech/SBC
AT&T
AT&T Communications
Illinois Bell
Verizon/GTE

In praise of service men and women everywhere fighting for freedom.

And in praise of Advanced Organizers.

Let me digress…

I entered boot camp 2 days after Christmas 1972. 16 weeks later I graduated to another 2.5 weeks of schooling for deckhands…on the deck force…to learn how to chip and repaint ship hulls, decks, bulkheads, ladders and overheads…

(Landlubbers – see Wikipedia for definitions)

…and tie knots. And many other FORMAL LEARNINGs. Almost always performance-based and practical. Just like boot camp.

All 3 of my “A” Schools were booked and I was unable to graduate from 16 weeks in boot camp in sunny southern California to the “A” School of my choice, despite my test scores and my recruiter’s reassurance – just as the same darn thing happened in “his office” the day after my receipt of the letter informing me when and where to report to the Army.

I was on a short break from 1.5 years in college to earn money to go back – when my low draft number (82) caught up with me. I called my father and he was at my door in less than 60 minutes with a recruiter from HIS branch of the service after HS, during the end of WWII. The war ended for him in boot camp, just as the Viet Nam war “ended” for me while in boot camp.

Lies – or just positive thinking in overdrive – is what my recruiter told me the first of my two days of knowing him – that I wouldn’t have any problems getting the school of my choice in boot camp – the first of several critical learnings – that I wasn’t, at first, planning on having. Totally INFORMAL LEARNING.

Until I wised up…due exclusively to my girl friend’s older brother, Gary, who had recently ended his 10-year tour in the Nuclear Navy, and had taken it upon himself to take me aside at Christmas dinner and GIVE ME A LESSON OR TWO ON MY NEAR TERM FUTURE. Or maybe it was a dozen.

He talked AT ME for a couple of hours, displeasing the girl friend more than a bit. But I was polite and listened. Don’t remember if I asked any clarifying questions. He didn’t ask me anything to see if I’d learned a darn thing.

But I did learn – I know for sure.

Because as my near term future began to unfold a couple of days later – starting at the AFEES building in Kansas City Missouri and at the old downtown KC airport and the Las Vegas airport and then the drive from the final airport to the boot camp in San Diego…I began to see that the INFORMAL LEARNING, totally un-directed, un-guided – except by Gary who had a performance perspective in mind as he warned/taught me in his “advanced organizers” – it was all real, true and important.

That’s what they were: Advanced Organizers for all of the formal and informal learning that was about to come at me. Like being run over by a tank…but then…this is a nautical story…so, like a ship rolling over a row boat. The ship doesn’t even feel the bump and the row boat that didn’t get out of the way – was at the bottom.

Sometimes that may be all that’s really missing for the learner/Performers – good Advanced Organizers, providing them with enough mental models to better anticipate the performance requirements, the Performance Competence requirements…

…performing tasks to produce outputs to stakeholder requirements.

A lot of new stakeholders in a new performance system. Somehow Gary got across to that young 20 year old “about-to-be-a-recruit” enough of a “heads up” to move me from an Informal Learner to a more directed and appreciative Formal Learner. Who now had a better appreciation of the new stakeholders in my life for the next three years. And something about THEIR expectations.

There was much more than just learning at stake. There was peak performance. Or the consequences for less than peak performance. Which became important during the ships involvement in the evacuations first of first Phnom Penh and then again for Saigon later in April of 1975. I ran my CCTV system on the USS Okinawa 24/7 for many weeks with the help of my buddies on their off time, as we transported thousands and thousands of refugees away from their war torn homelands. I didn’t get to use my bunk for all those weeks.

The XO asked me what I had to show on the 75 TVs around the ship for our guests, and after I gave him my mental list of all of my AFRTS programming, he told me: play the cartoons!

Cartoons. The universal language.

My best wishes to all US veterans, service men and women, and to those of all of our allies, for your safety and well being! And especially to those troops who have come home wounded in either body and/or spirit.

Bless you.

Today I read of a list of the top 12+ (I won’t give THEIR specific number out) Personal Skills desired by businesses. Because I have done over 125 analyses since 1982 that generated just such lists I was wondering how theirs compared to mine. And I wondered where their list came from.

So after a click or two I was perusing their list. That caused me to go find my collection of some of those 125 sets of analysis data to see how my list of Personal -and Interpersonal- SKILL items really compared to theirs.

Theirs reminded me of the soft/squishy list of Competencies without any anchor to specific performance to make them more real…more as enablers than COMPETENCIES.

I don’t have one list…although I could sort through these and create a common list…and have done so in the past to create a starter list…a straw-dog-model IF YOU WILL. But I always prefer that my Analysis Team generate their own list w/o any prompting.

For one, that activity is typically near the end of a long-long-long 2-4 day meeting, generating a consensus Performance Model and then using that to systematically derive enablers in 17 categories – and this category is 13 of 17. I know the group is usually near brain-dead about this time. It’s too easy for them at this point to look at someone elses list and say “yeah – that works for us too.” But then I don’t believe my data – for this portion anyway.

So here are 12 examples of lists of Personal/Interpersonal enablers…from real projects…where each list was systematically derived after the generation of a set of Performance Models that anchored these types of lists – there can be 16 other such lists if all 17 of my K/S Categories are used.

Click on each to enlarge…

The goal of knowledge/skill analysis is to derive systematically the enabling knowledge/skill (K/S) items and document them on Knowledge/Skill Matrices. The items documented are the enablers that lead to the ideal, high-performance state.

These are knowledge/skill items that are not just thought to be needed, but known to be needed. The Knowledge/Skill Matrices link each knowledge/skill item to the performance that it enables (as described in the Performance Model).

Thus, the Performance Model ensures that the discrete knowledge/skill enablers in the Knowledge/Skill Matrices are performance relevant. And, in turn, the performance orientation is passed on to the design work products for which the Knowledge/Skill Matrix is an input.

To develop a Knowledge/Skill Matrix, knowledge/skill items are identified and listed on a matrix chart. The process uses a list of predefined knowledge/skill categories, covered in chapter 24 of lean-ISD.

Additional data points are gathered for each knowledge/skill item on the matrix; these are captured in the columns on the right-hand side of the matrix.

The data in the columns of the Knowledge/Skill Matrix is captured live by the facilitator during the same two- or three-day meeting in which the Performance Model is built.