I don’t know who started the false rumor that the “group-process” methods were inspired by Deming. Or maybe I do. I’ve heard this several times recently. Hmmmm.

Aaarg!!! Pirates covering their trail….

But that is just not true. My quality exposure to Deming was limited in my early years – I was more influenced by Geary A. Rummler, Joe Harless and Bob Mager than by Deming or Juran or Crosby. Especially in what became CAD and then all of the PACT Processes.

And “Group Process” for me goes back to a stalled Video-based Training project in 1980 at Wickes Lumber in Saginaw Michigan – where I was on my 7th version of the Script – when I had reached that point of frustration – so aptly put by Popeye in his immortal words: “That’s all I can stands – cause I can’t stands no more!”

Here is a Blog Posting about that “origin” for a group process approach to my personal approaches to ISD/ ID/ SAT.

The 12 Rules/Guidelines for PACT Facilitators

The 12 Rules/Guidelines for PACT facilitators that I covered in this Blog series – was “sourced from” my writings from back in 1998 in lean-ISD – in Appendices C. And that was sourced from my field experiences in having conducted hundreds of Group Process analysis and design meetings.

The 12 Rules/Guidelines for PACT Facilitators are – and the links to the prior 12 Blog Postings are:

1. Go Slow to Go Fast.

2. Be Declarative.

3. Write Stuff and Post It.

4. Be Redundant by Design.

5. Use the Four Key Communications Behavior Types.

6. Review and Preview.

7. Write It Down and Then Discuss It.

8. Use Humor.

9. Control the Process and the Participants.

10. Be Legible on the Flip Chart.

11. Beware of Group-Think.

12. Assign Parking Lot Valets.

This Blog Post series embellished the original content already published in lean-ISD.

Background

The first two published articles about CAD – Curriculum Architecture Design – both published in 1984 – one in Training Magazine and the other in NSPI’s (now ISPI’s) P& I Journal – for Performance & Instruction – later becoming Performance Improvement.

Both articles were written in late 1983 and then published in the fall of 1984. That’s how long the “submit-to-read it cycle” used to be – back in the day.

Training Magazine emphasized the Group Process in their version of the article – as they published it – always different from what one submitted – and the P&IJ article focused on the analysis part of the CAD methodology – as I had not developed the formal ADDIE-level of PACT at this point. That happened in 1989/1990. That became MCD – Modular Curriculum Development/ Acquisition.

Then – back to the early 1980s – I did a presentation at the local Chicago chapter about CAD in 1984 – I then went national and presented at NSPI in 1985: “Curriculum Architecture Design Via a Group Process” – and I did so every-other year for about a decade. Click on the graphic below for a link to that in PDF form.

Then I stopped doing CAD presentations and branched out to other relevant topics to ISD and Performance Improvement. Recently – in the past 5 years – I’ve done 2.

I started writing what would much later become lean-ISD – back in the early 1980s. It was originally titled The Curriculum Managers Handbook. In the late 1980s it was titled The Curriculum Product Managers Handbook.

Then I read The Machine That Changed the World – and I saw that what I had done to ISD – as compared to what was being practiced at all of my Client’s T&D functions – was to have “leaned” it.

“Reduced it to practice” is what one colleague exclaimed after seeing an internal SWI presentation on it for our recently expanded consulting staff.

I finally got serious about the book in late 1997 and put nose-to-the-grindstone and got ‘er done in late 1998 – and then went through a fairly exhaustive review with about 12 early readers/reviewers, including the late Geary A. Rummler – who invested his personal time and energies in developing a different book cover and title – and then surprising me with it. He thought my version of the book cover was too busy – and not to a simple, quick point.

We put it to a vote of our CADDI quarterly newsletter readers – and his version of the book cover won out over mine. The rest is history.

Here is a link to that quarterly newsletter – see pages 18-19 where we announce the contest. Can’t get you any closer. And here is a link to my original cover – see page 16. Here is the newsletter where we announce the book going to press. Note the photo of Geary Rummler 2nd to last page. All three of those newsletters were from 1999.

And none of them include references that include Deming. Not linked to PACT, CAD or the group process, or the data architecture of PACT. Those were inventions of mine. And those inventions and reductions to practice happened over time – beginning in 1982 – and were field tested in many projects by myself and others.

Hundreds if not thousands of ISD/ ID/ SAT efforts.

Of Note
In 2002 lean-ISD was recognized by the ISPI Awards of Excellence committee and received an Outstanding Communications Award.

I had also been invited to speak about “lean-ISD” at an ISPI Masters Series session the year before in 2001.

That invitation presentation was also written up as an article by me for publication in 2001 in the PI Journal of ISPI. 17 years after that first Training Magazine article.

 

The Group Process is also described in my Chapter (#11) in the 3rd edition of the Handbook of Human Performance Technology in terms of generating both Performance data and Enabling Human Knowledge & Skills/ Attributes/ Values for Performance Improvement – as part of an ISD effort – or not. PACT is a sub-set of my performance improvement methods: EPPI – Enterprise Process Performance Improvement.

And that – EPPI – did not come from Deming either.

Deming didn’t use Performance Model and K/S Matrices (or tables, or whatever), and other Attributes/Values – including Consequences (which is part of the Environment and not the Human side of the assests equation in the EPPI models/methods). Nor did he used Event Specs and Module Specs and Lesson Maps and Instructional Activity Specs – by those or other names/labels.

I did. I created all of those – and used those – and linked those – and …reduced all of that to practice.

In an ISD/ ID/ SAT sense.

While I believe that the 12 Rules/Guidelines of the 12 prior posts in this series are extremely important, there are many other knowledges and skills a great facilitator requires…

Other Tools for Your PACT Facilitator Toolkit
I’ve covered many of the facilitation styles and skills required for conducting PACT Process team meetings. But being a successful facilitator requires other knowledge and skills.

Some of those include having a command of the following mini-processes, often used within larger processes and sometimes used by themselves.

The ones that I’ve found key for my repertoire include
• Process modeling or mapping
• Systematic problem solving
• Systematic root cause analysis
• Systematic decision-making
• Systematic thinking in general

Other key knowledge and skills of a successful facilitator can include general knowledge about how businesses organize, operate, and keep score. This includes general business knowledge on the various functions and organizational structures typical of a modern business.

For example, somebody has to think up a product, somebody has to design and then produce it, and somebody has to process the money transactions and keep the books. In the meantime, others are planning it, hopefully strategically, and continually monitoring it and readjusting the processes and resources as needed.

Knowledge of how businesses are organized might center around the following functions:
• R&D
• Marketing
• Merchandising
• Engineering
• Manufacturing
• Materials
• Purchasing
• Sales
• Distribution
• Service
• Finance
• Human resources
• Legal
• Public affairs
• Customer satisfaction measurement
• Business financial knowledge
– Income statements
– Balance sheets
– Cash flow

Of course, there are many other ways to organize a picture of the business of business. So pick or create one that works for you and your assignment.

Summary
It took me years to develop the PACT Process – beginning in 1982, so that my consultant staff and business partners and contractors could all operate in a common and consistent process manner – with predictable costs, schedules and quality of output/product.

The fact that some of those I have taught directly or indirectly years ago have now chosen to refer to these methods, which I freely share, and have freely shared with Clients since the mid-1980s, as their proprietary methods – and they put their copyright marking on them – and do not acknowledge their real source – is sad.

I know that many do honor my copyrights – for I have seen examples of that that they have sent me. And for that I am thankful.

Thank you to all who do!!!

Cheers!

And – Happy Thanksgiving everyone – whether you are celebrating it today or not!

Again…
This series was sourced and edited/embellished from Appendices C of: “lean-ISD” – a book by Guy W. Wallace – published in 1999 and made available as a free 404 page PDF in 2007 – by Guy W. Wallace, the owner and author of the PACT Processes – at http://www.eppic.biz/

The lean-ISD book’s cover was designed by the late Geary A. Rummler in 1999.

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