Oct 1 2011

Where to Start An Audit of Your Learning Operations

My analysis model for looking at any organizational entity – has 14 sets-of-processes – which I call Areas of Performance – AoPs – that I start with. How is this accomplished in the Enterprise, I ask directly or snoop around indirectly.

My goal is to convert my mental model, made tangible, with other Analysts-in-Training – and perhaps Certification. So I committed it to paper – back in the day – and wrote about it, presented on it, and trained others to use this as their starter – for either analysis or design – of organizations and jobs and multi-job/cross-function process performance. The toughest (worst) case is a complicated organization with many routine and non-routine process-sets – and the easiest is a straight-forward simple set of routine processes. Your analysis framework needs to be robust to both uses.

In the Learning & Development realm – as with any other function – I’d start with the Core Processes and Products – the reason for being – those outward facing Processes that serve external Customers with Products. Our outputs are their inputs. I start my analysis there in the Core of the model.

Then after that – it depends.

It depends on what I have learned/uncovered in the Core areas.

I’d start with those three – in the Core – even though “bucketing” them into three might be initially deceiving – for you’ll see that there is a great deal of complexity in these three. As there are in the other buckets as well.

There are 14 Buckets in my mental model/framework for analyzing an organization – here it is applied to an L&D operation – for the range of: the lone person, the team, a department, a function, or a vast empire.

The complexity of your empire can be captured – as well as the simplicity of your Texas Ranger’s approach to getting the job done (one riot, one ranger).

But start with the Core AoPs – the reason for being – for your Learning & Development organization. Start with those Product producing Processes.

Yours – may already be broken.

CORE – Curriculum Architecture Design

Your L&D Product and Service Line Program Management Processes may be broken if:

Projects undertaken by the L&D system are not the most critical to the Enterprise.
Return on investment and economic value add forecasts do not exist, or suggest a low-payback for the efforts.
You’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop/acquire generic content, e.g., time management and communications skills, when strategic and/or critical Enterprise initiatives have been under-resourced in the past.
No project management portfolio exists for the critical Target Audiences.
The Portfolios are not aligned with the business’ or the L&D organization’s strategies.
The Portfolio is not logical, and it doesn’t align with functions and/or management’s model of business; it’s not an engineered architecture – it’s a list of courses.

Your Service Line Design Processes may be broken if:

Portions of the Enterprise are complaining of a lack of needed services from L&D or are recommending/demanding them.
L&D service efforts are “one-offs” and not part of a comprehensive effort to understand the total, critical needs of targeted audiences, and then address and meet those high-payback needs with services on a priority basis. Perhaps you could offer coaching – but cannot afford to do that too!
L&D services don’t directly target high pay-back performance improvements.
Service offerings don’t align with critical, high-payback business/ L&D strategies and needs.

CORE – Modular Curriculum Development

Your Product and Service Line Development and Acquisition Program Management Processes may be broken if:

You can’t measure positive return on investment and economic value add actuals against plans for products/services.
Product and service development is being done because someone internal to the L&D system thinks it’s a good idea—the portfolio is not being managed.
Products and services developed aren’t maintained due to resource constraints.
Resources are not reallocated as needed based on changes in business direction.
You don’t know what to work on next if a project is completed early.
Projects are not sequenced to take appropriate advantage of synergies (e.g., similar content/subject matter experts between projects).

Your Modular Curriculum Development Processes could be broken if:

Your content does not meet the established objectives for transferring awareness, knowledge, or skills to the Target Audiences’ jobs.
Your content development efforts are somewhat ad hoc, not in control, and not predictable in terms of their eventual costs or cycle times.
Your content development does not design and build appropriately reusable “chunks” of content for sharing with other Target Audiences.

Your Purchased Product Acquisition Processes may be broken if:

L&D bought often doesn’t make the grade in terms of creating the awareness, knowledge, and skills as measured in the Target Audiences during/after the L&D deployment.
It takes too long to evaluate and decide on which L&D you should purchase.

Your Purchased Product Modification Processes may be broken if:

You have/have had any legal issues (lawsuits, complaints, or future risks) resulting from making modifications to copyrighted materials.
The cycle times and costs for making modifications are not reliably predictable.
Content bought and modified often doesn’t make the grade in terms of creating the awareness, knowledge, and skills as measured in their Target Audiences during/after the deployment.

Your Existing Content Maintenance Processes may be broken if:

Products are still being deployed or accessed that are in need of updating.
Updating cycle times and costs cannot be reasonably predicted.
You never stop updating.
Maintenance is not a planned, resourced or prioritized project effort.

CORE – Curriculum Deployment

Your Master Materials Storage and Retrieval Processes may be broken if:

It is too difficult to retrieve material masters for updating or deployment purposes.
It is too difficult to access current content to attempt reuse.
Materials are used in deployment when the intent should have been to make them unavailable during updates.
There is no version control of material masters that ensures all materials are up to date.

Your Master Materials Change Management Processes may be broken if:

Outdated materials are still being used in deployment after updating.

Your Scheduling Processes may be broken if:

There are complaints from the Target Audience about availability of your offerings.
Seats (or site spaces) go underused or seats/spaces are backlogged.
Materials are overstocked or under-stocked (unavailable) when requested.

Your L&D Facilitator and Coach Development and Certification Processes may be broken if:

There is an insufficient number of staff to deploy L&D per the demand.
Evaluation feedback identifies any problems with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes/demeanor of the facilitators, coaches, or other support staff.

Your Facilitator-led Deployment Processes may be broken if:

Feedback from delivery evaluations (learners, instructors, administrative, etc.) suggests problems from their perspectives, with things other than facilitator credibility or content accuracy, completeness, and appropriateness, but including non-content items such as the room, facility, and equipment issues.

Your Self-paced Deployment Processes may be broken if:

Feedback from evaluations suggests problems from the learners’ perspective for things other than content accuracy, completeness, and appropriateness, including items such as availability, timeliness of receipt, or accessibility.

Your Coached/Mentored Deployment Processes may be broken if:

Feedback from delivery evaluations (learners, instructors, administrative, etc.) suggests problems from the learners’ perspective with things other than coach/mentor credibility or content accuracy, completeness, and appropriateness, including non-content items such as room, facility, and equipment issues.

Your Individual Development Planning Processes may be broken if:

There are no individual-to-group-to-Enterprise roll-ups of the participation plans. They are all discrete and not linked.
Individual plans are not used and/or no common format exists.
No one has a realistic clue of the future demand for development products and services.
Seats and sites are under-filled or sites are underutilized for many deployments.
Seats and sites demand outstrips availability.

Your Ordering and Registration Processes may be broken if:

Customers complain that their “orders” are not being filled in a timely manner or are being filled incorrectly.
Expediting orders is usually necessary and taking a lot of people’s time and attention.

The School of PACT

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