The PACT Process’

“Enterprise Content Architecture”

sorts and stores your legacy content as well as your new modular content…not modules.

In PACT the term “Module” is a temporary design device used in CAD – Curriculum Architecture Design efforts…usually for “critical job performers in critical business processes” with high Risk/Reward issues and a desire by the internal client…and therefore by my client too…and now me…to address the Performance Competence capability of the Target Audiences with Formal Learning/ Training/ Knowledge Management.

And to inform/train and direct them to the tools of the job…including all of those learning tools that are really performance tools…for their directed informal learning needs AND their non-directed informal learning that will happen as they perform…hopefully getting better and better each time they do that particular performance cycle.

Since we always used this 5-Tier inventory framework/structure (going back to the mid-1980s) our clients saw the “reuse potential” go way up for each CAD effort they had us or others do. It was right there in each design.

Reused legacy training/instructional content on the T&D Path. We even “reused” the designs for “content-not-yet-built-but-already-designed-at-either-the-CAD-level-or-at-the-MCD-levels-from-prior-PACT-efforts. That’s when they saw the promise. Right at the front end of the T&D Path.
The T&D Path
The front end of the T&D path…or the top depending on the “path’s/menu’s” physical orientation…always starts with…self-paced…or Structured OJTs…addressing…
Orientations to the T&D/Learning/Knowledge Management systems and approach that I’ll be in….and then right into orientations about my new Company, Division/Business Unit, Function, Department, then to my new job, and then to the intra and inter departmental Process Performance teams that I’d be working on and what they are all about…performance-wise.
The “Advanced Organizers” Just Keep On Coming from Tier 1 Content
Then back to more about MY JOB including all of those Processes that I work in…from the context of the overall Enterprise Process Performance Architecture…and all of the Areas of Performance that break out from the processes that involve my job title.

And then a quick overview of the Outputs and key stakeholder requirements and Tasks for me and the others in any cross-functional/multi-job title effort…

Wow! But if done right and with not too much overkill in the bulk amount of content…and by informing me of how to find more on anything later…you can really put the learners/Performers
in their PERFORMANCE context. And do it just-in-time, quickly, and online if that makes sense. Now-a-days it usually does.

And now the learner, me, is ready for a few more Survival Skills that the immediate front-end of the Path is typically intended to address. Now it might be time for a face-to-face or voice-to-voice meeting with my boss using a structured interview provided in my next T&D Event on the Path – that will help ME figure out MY immediate assignments and upcoming assignments, from someone who may or may not have given it a lot of thought, or have time for thinking it out now.

Just in case…we structure this and put the onus on the learner/Performer.

Then the next step is a little collaboration between the boss and myself as we planned my T&D using the LMS to produce what is sometimes called an IDP…Individual Development Plan…starting from right where my last T&D Event ended. The boss could have had me do my own plan in a non-collaborative manner and then reviewed it in a discussion when she had the time, but my boss said she only did it that way if the timing was a real problem. Then she’d have delegated her role to someone else available and appropriate.

Later I found out that everything on My T&D Path to that point had been Tier 1 content. I can see it in the ECA they use here for “self-access” for both push and pull learners/Performers.

It doesn’t always work that way. Some of the more dangerous jobs around here have safety and/or security content BEFORE the structured interview with their boss or team lead. But not my job.

What’s Next on the T&D Path? Tier 2 Content.
What’s next are a bunch of Tier 2 Content online that walked me through each Areas of Performance for the Processes where I’ll be contributing. These were more in-depth advanced organizers.

Not only did it lay out the AoPs and their Outputs and key requirements/measures by stakeholder…it listed all of the Tasks per output with a Role/Responsibility Matrix that clarified all of the roles and who was responsible for what. And then it provided what it called the “typical performance issues” and their likely causes and an overview of the tips I’ll learn about in later content…in the “how to” content…on how to avoid these type issues and/or how to deal with them if un-avoidable or un-avoided.

And then it gave me lists of varying lengths of what it called enabling “awareness/ knowledge/ skills” that I’d need to master before getting to the “how to” content. For each Area of Performance – the AoP.

I understand that for some jobs in my new company, especially for internal transfers/laterals and promotions, that the candidates actually take some of this training before they and the organization agree on the job change. I guess if it scares off some potential internal hires then everyone wins. And some even get further into the Curriculum Content…they take some of the enabling content, known as Tier 3 content.

That’s where I’m off to now.
Tier 3 Content
The Tier 3 content is mostly online content. With a lot of static data from live sources and archived files on PDFs. And more interactive online content providing information for awareness, and highly interactive content for real knowledge-building and some basic skills-building.

The content that isn’t online is usually either a S-OJT or a U-OJT. Structured On-the-Job Training and unstructured OJT…but at least there’s a name/title to provide a little guidance. We have more U-OJT than S-OJT. Some of the OJT regardless of there being structure or not may require a Designated Coach versus a Coach.

And then the content in Tier 3 that isn’t online or deployed via some sort of OJT is in traditional group-paced, facilitator-led. Sometimes the facilitator has to be designated too. Otherwise local management can assign the delivery to anyone they choose…and live with the consequences I guess.

It provides more timing flexibility except when it might create risks regarding compliance issues. At least that’s their story.

But most of the content that is deployed via traditional group-paced, facilitator-led methods is reserved for the content of Tier 4 and Tier 5…the “how to” content.
Tier 4 and Tier 5 Content
Tier 4 and Tier 5 Content are a mix of blends of media deployment types, like the Tier 3 content. And while online content, both static and interactive, dominates the CONTENT warehouse shelves, there are more S-OJTs and Group-Paced offerings here than in Tier 3 content.

And I figured out that there is one offering between these two Tiers…for each Tier 2 offering. For every Tier 2 there is either a Tier 4 or 5.

So what I’ve been doing since the Orientations at the front of my T&D Path/IDP is getting in-depth Advanced Organizers in each Tier2, taking some of the key enabling K/S content BEFORE getting to the “How To” content. And some of this is obvious, especially for the short content chunks. But some of this is going on in some of the longer T&D Events where there is some mixing of Tier 2 and 3 and 4 or 5 in the same Event.

In looking at some of my “paths” through all of this content, several of the Tier 3 content items served me multiple times as enablers for more than one AoP. And as I look at the remaining T&D items on my path I’m betting that I’ll notice that more and more.

Benefits
I think that’s why the people here seem to have a common/shared language for everything – processes, outputs, tasks and even the ISSUES! They seem totally in-sync.

I guess they’ve been down this path that I’m on, in at least a similar manner. There does seem to be a fair logic to it all. Very performance oriented – and not content oriented. Even the gaps in the curriculum warehouse are labeled.

And that I’m told will start you on a more effective Informal Learning effort. I know there is more to my job than what’s been covered in formal content. And I sure feel fully prepared to dive into those now-chartered waters.

The only place that this approach wouldn’t work well is where the entire job is bleeding/leading edge stuff. And those jobs are probably the exception rather than the rule at most places.

Learn more in my book, availble as a free 404-page PDF: lean-ISD

Go to: http://www.eppic.biz