Either your strategy in meeting the “Learning ’cause they gotta soon be Performing” needs of key target audiences – or everyone on the payroll – is “by design” or “by chance” – or a blend of the two. I’d generally recommend a blend – as much of what could be on someone’s Learning/ Training Path and what Results would be achieved from some formal treatment – just isn’t worth the Investment from a business perspective.

Most Enterprises seem to approach learning development/ acquisition with a “one-off” approach – rapidly. One rapid fire, aim, ready effort after the next. Usually in response to a client who has a need RIGHT NOW!!! Leaving content that is gapped and overlapped – at tremendous cost to the shareholders – remember them?

But that’s what happens when you don’t have something akin to a Curriculum Architecture Design to insure that gaps and overlaps are either avoided – or deliberate. And also what happens when one effort cannot use content from previous efforts and investments in the development and/or acquisition of content.

And that’s not good stewardship – in case that matters to you, your Enterprise and/or to the shareholders whose equity is funding all that you do. And then everyone lives with the consequences of that approach.

Gaps and Overlaps are costly in terms of additional costs for redundant development and/or missed opportunities to share common content – as is or after modification (to make it authentic enough). They – gaps and overlaps – can be both deliberate and avoided.

And when a gap is deliberate – left to Un-Structured OJT or Informal Learning – then business decisions can be made as to how to best enable that approach – that deliberate approach. Including just how informal will we leave it – that gap?

We could: not even bring it up, or mention it, and leave it to the learners and their management to just figure it out.

We could: name it and let them go from there.

We could: name it and define it and its content boundaries – after all, it is a piece in the puzzle of content related to performance competence – and so while there are some things we need to just leave to total chance, to informal means – we shouldn’t be stupid about it. Give them some clues!

We could: name it and show its place in a Learning Continuum/ Learning Path/ Training Path, etc. Put it in the suggested sequence on a visible Path or in the list of Training/Learning to consider in the Planning Tools we have – online and/or on paper.

Without a blueprint – which BTW is what I called one of the key result of Curriculum Architecture Designs back in the day – before I started creating Paths too – for the Learners and their Managers. Those blueprints were for the suppliers of content – giving them their framework for moving forward – to avoid overlaps or gaps – unless by design. That was addressed in the Training Magazine article back in September 1984 – see that here.

If you are going to leave certain content that could be but should not be – and will not be – to Unstructured OJT or Informal Learning – what are your options?

We could: look at everything we have left unattended to or intend to leave unattended to – and then decide “with our business logic and thinking caps on”  what the implications are for our current state in leaving those unattended to. Is that positive – or negative – or both (another blend in the mix of considerations and results)? Perhaps we’ll want to better enable that approach – using Informal Learning as the mechanism to getting after Performance Competence.

What is Performance Competence – in an Enterprise Learning Context?

It is the ability to perform tasks to produce outputs to stakeholder requirements.

In my view anyway.

It’s not about activities. It’s about results – worthy accomplishments – that meet stakeholder requirements. Which is a target you’ll never hit without doing some analysis. And having a plan. And the methods and infrastructure to accomplish this. It’s been done before. I’ve been doing this since 1982.

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