Have we lost sight of the end-game? This old dog was raised with the notion pounded into his head that if L&D does not produce measurable BUSINESS IMPACT, our jobs were at risk for being active participants as expenses in a cost center. Being viewed as an “expense” is not a safe place to be when decisions are made as to who goes and who stays. Trust me, if the choice falls between a department generating positive business impact with one that is contributing expenses to the bottom-line, the decision is easily made.
Author: Gary G. Wise - Author - Grief Coach
Unsupervised, unfiltered, and occasionally undisciplined Writer of Things that thrill readers with engaging stories created by a seasoned storyteller.
All organizations currently own a dynamic learning performance ecosystem. The inescapable question to ask is,
“HOW OPTIMIZED IS IT?”
A “Point-of-Work Assessment Methodology” is designed to provide the answer.
Our challenge is to optimize “Speed-to-Insight”…which is measured by the sum total of time invested that spans from searching through many information sources…to saving, curating, and forwarding “curated bulk information”…to enable critical-thinking that informs decisions through access to concise SIGNALS to individuals, groups, teams or the entire enterprise as “Actionable Performance Insights”. Everything in between is NOISE.
Given the exponential growth of information sources and powerful search capabilities like Google at our disposal, a bulk-curated information tsunami is inbound…if not already on the beach. We’ve effectively curated ourselves into a well-intended, curated, bulk information volume issue.
L&D owns a monster up-front search task to allow research and curation of source content for training…we read and watch videos…we cut & paste…we use SnagIt…we rewrite…we share documents to collaborate with colleagues and/or approvers/SMEs…we glean roughly 2% actionable information after confirming value and relevance…we gain insights…and then we wind up burying them in training content that is nowhere close to assets accessible nor agile enough for application at Moment of Need or at Point-of-Work.
If one’s hair is on fire, the only solution should NOT involve logging into the LMS and completing a “Fire Safety” course. Yeah, I know…ridiculous example, but it paints an accurate picture that points to the need for “just enough – just-in-time – just-for-me” assets/opportunities intentionally designed for application at the Moment of Need.
The time is upon us to converge actionable information and insight with the moment of need and at the Point-of-Work. This is not a training issue, nor is it a job aid or an instruction set, it’s sharing of human wisdom and intelligence.
If systems architecture is moving to the cloud…and it is happening in an ever-increasing pace…shouldn’t we move workforce enablement along with it? Before answering that, consider this…if moving to the cloud does not accelerate productivity at Point-of-Work, we’re still two oars shy of a rowing team.
Adopting a performance support paradigm is a project that never ends. Why? Because the dynamics of the learning performance ecosystem we need to support never ceases being dynamic. We are choosing to adopt a paradigm that is directly aligned and impacted by the speed and the dynamic demands of business performance. What can be more dynamic that that?
“At what point do we reach diminishing returns in workforce productivity by complicating existing workloads with more work to learn new systems?”