• Make UITS staff aware of professional development opportunities within the division
• Provide updates to staff on progress towards specific organizational goals or initiatives
• Solicit feedback from staff
• Share interesting information about various aspects on adult teaching, learning and presentations

Today’s update focuses on the second and third goals of providing progress updates and soliciting feedback from staff.

Much of our organizational development efforts in 2011 have been spent on the UITS Strengths Based Culture Initiative.  It began with identifying the desired change, build a culture focused on the recognition and development of employee strengths, rather than weaknesses, followed by implementing a strategy for strengths identification with all of the staff in the division, and now we are planning for next steps. As we are making plans, we’re using the “The Four Commandments of a Strengths-Based Organization”, laid out in the book Now Discover Your Strengths, as our road map.  These 4 commandments are:

1.  You should spend a great deal of time and money selecting people properly in the first place.
2. You should focus performance by legislating outcomes rather than forcing each person into a stylistic mold.
3. You should focus your training time and money on educating [each person] about his strengths and figuring out ways to to build on these strengths rather than on remedially trying to plug his “skill gaps”.
4. You should devise ways to help each person grow his career without necessarily promoting him up the corporate ladder and out of his areas of strength.

I’d like to report on the specific progress on “commandments” 1 and 3, and pose some questions to staff for feedback on moving forward.

Commandment 3: We are currently going through the process of working with all of the staff to do a talent assessment using the Clifton StrengthsFinder 2.0. As we are engaging with departments, we are facilitating discussions with staff on what their talents mean to them and their work teams. Our intent is that this discussion would continue with staff and their supervisors informally, as well as formally through the new Performance Management Process.

Knowing one’s natural talents is just one piece to the “Strengths” puzzle.  Marcus Buckingham, one of the leading figures in the strengths movement, suggests understanding one’s talents and then putting that information to work in discovering your strengths (activities that you’re not only good at, but make you feel strong and engaged).  His assertion is that putting some specific language around the activities that engage you, and make you feel strong, will help you to find ways to engage in those activities more often.

Based on personal experience, I feel this is a helpful exercise. Our team has discussed leading small group discussions/book clubs on Buckingham’s book Go Put Your Strengths to Work.

POLL: Please answer the poll below, and provide and additional comments or feedback as a comment on this post.

In addition to working with existing employees, we are planning on incorporating the StrengthsFinder 2.0 into a more robust employee onboarding process that we are planning to begin work on this Fall in conjunction with UITS HR.  The purpose would be to introduce new employees to this aspect of our culture, build a common vocabulary, and help them engage in more fruitful discussions with their supervisor and co-workers from the beginning.  As we examine this as an option, we have had some discussion on whether we should do this immediately upon hire or within the employee’s first 3-6 months.

POLL: Please answer the poll below, and provide and additional comments or feedback as a comment on this post.

Commandment 1: I have been engaged with some discussions at the Cabinet meetings, and departmental level on whether we should, or can, use the StrengthsFinder 2.0 in our hiring and selection process. I’ve heard feedback from both sides, and recently ran across a blog post dedicated specifically to the question of whether the StrengthsFinder 2.0 can be used for recruiting.

The post makes some interesting points:

• Gallup does not recommend using the 34 themes as a selection tool, as it is primarily intended as a coaching and self-evaluation tool.  In addition, limiting to a handful of themes can rule out people who have the appropriate strength derived from a talent you did not identify. There are many similarities in talents, so you have to be careful to not be too narrow.
• How do you identify what “talents” are necessary for any particular job? Gallup provides consulting services to help you, but that is an expensive route. In addition, Gallup uses interviews from 100 people in the same job to determine the talents necessary for high performance. In UITS, we certainly do not have 100 people performing any single job.

POLL: Please answer the poll below, and provide and additional comments or feedback as a comment on this post.

I think that about does it for our first “progress check”. Please check back often or subscribe to our blog for additional updates as they become available.

Please feel free to provide comments and feedback to this post or contact us by phone or email!

Why it was changed

In the Summer of 2010, feedback sessions were held with staff to discuss the current performance evaluation.  Feedback from those sessions, as well as data from the annual staff survey related to employee engagement, were used to design and develop the new process.  The following lists summarizes some the feedback and survey data that was used to develop the process.

It was determined that the new process should:

• Provide a roadmap for development, improvement and career planning- the new process focuses on goal development, as well as periodic progress monitoring of goal achievement
• Relate goals (direction of career) with PD (what the organization needs) and performance (assessment of fit)- performance and professional development goals are separately identified
• Be flexible and easier- consistent performance factors are used and comments are focused on Strengths and Proudest Moments and Improvement Opportunities
• Provide clear shared expectations of roles and responsibilities- quarterly discussions provide opportunities for clarification
• Provide a method for prioritizing work- quarterly discussions provide opportunity and structure for discussion about priorities and planning how to address priorities together

The feedback gathered determined that the new process should avoid:

• Excessive writing- minimal writing is required for the EDP, and no writing for the quarterly meetings
• Losing track of goals- goals are established in the EDP, and then  revisited in the follow up Goals Check-in meetings quarterly
• Complexity- the forms have been simplified
• One-way conversation/process- Focus is on two-way communication, with input from both employee and supervisor and quarterly discussions about how to work better together to achieve standard goals

How it’s changed

The previous process consisted of a yearly evaluation document, usually completed by the employee in a self evaluation format, then completed by the supervisor and employee during a meeting.  The form had several broad categories, specific questions and a lot of writing.

The new process consists of 2 phases:

• Annually, there is an Employee Development Plan (EDP) document completed.  This acts as the annual “review” that is forwarded onto University HR to officially record the employee’s performance over the past year. The process still consists of an employee self evaluation and manager evaluation. The EDP itselfs consists of 2 sections:
• The performance evaluation sections of the EDP differs from the previous process in that it presents specific criteria to evaluate and employee’s job performance (based on the information in their PD), their demonstration of UITS values, and their supervisory skills, if applicable.   There is then space for employee’s and supervisors to elaborate as much or as little as they want on the achievements and improvement opportunities in each of these 3 areas. The result is a consistent, less writing intensive approach to evaluating the employee’s performance.
• The second section of the EDP focuses on the evaluation of progress on previous goals and the creation of short and long term goals moving forward.  In the previous process, a goal was a goal.  All goals were lumped together. In the EDP, performance goals, related to project completion or measurable metrics in performance, are separated from professional development goals, which can include the development activities necessary to meet performance goals but also development necessary to to make specific improvements or meet career goals. In addition to this differentiation, there is also an opportunity to frame goals looking forward to the upcoming year and longer term.
• In addition to the annual EDP, supervisors and employees are expected to engage in a quarterly Goals Check In meeting. The purpose of this meeting is not to produce a written document, but to provide employees and their supervisors with a structured conversation about the employee’s progress on goals and also how the employee and supervisor can better work together. In this meeting, both the employee and supervisor are given the opportunity to respond to a set of 4 questions.  While there is no formal written document produced from the meeting, action items may be established or the employee’s goal document may be modified to reflect what was discussed.  The Cabinet and UITS HR are developing methods to track that these discussions do occur on a regular basis.

Information sessions

At this point, the new Performance Management process is considered ready to go and we’d like to give staff the opportunity to attend an information session to see the process in action and ask questions.  There will be ten sessions in a 2 week period, and registration is required to attend (sessions with no registrations will be canceled at the end of the work day the day before). All staff are encouraged to attend:

• 05/23/11 10:00am-11:00am Sabin 394
• 05/24/11 11:00am-12:00pm Sabin 394
• 05/24/11 1:00pm-2:00pm Bolton 210
• 05/25/11 9:30am-10:30am Cunningham 231
• 05/25/11 2:00pm-3:00pm Cunningham 231
• 05/31/11 11:00am-12:00pm Sabin 394
• 06/01/11 10:00am-11:00am USR 158C
• 06/02/11 11:00am-12:00pm Bolton 210
• 06/02/11 4:00pm-5:00pm Bolton 210
• 06/03/11 9:00am-10:00am Cunningham B183

Registration can be done online using our registration form:
https://www4.uwm.edu/uits/services/training/UITSSite/registration/

Certainly, one of the newest frontiers is mobile learning and this was very evident at the conference. With the explosion of smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices, both the capabilities and desires for mobile learning and content have never been higher. Seeing some of the things people are doing in this field was really quite extraordinary. Imagine being out in the field, working on Project X, and all of the knowledge bases, instruction manuals, schematics and simulations you need are all available from the device in your pocket or shoulder bag. And, when you’re done with Project X, imagine equally mobile, on-demand access to training modules that teach you new procedures, walk you through new techniques, introduce you to new tools, all the while assessing your comprehension. It seems the sky is the limit.

Having seen all of these neat applications of learning technology and considered how quickly the learning landscape is changing, I couldn’t help but take some inventory of the e-learning projects I’ve worked on previously.  The majority of my thoughts can be expressed in less than ten words: “Wow! My approach is in need of an overhaul.” I’m not afraid to say it. E-learning has gone through some incredible changes in the just the couple years I’ve been involved in it. It is no longer just an information dump via an automated PowerPoint (and I’m not so sure it ever really should have been). It’s time to evolve with the technology and here are six ways I plan on doing just that:

1.      Central Hubs – Why design many tutorials that each answers one question when you can design one tutorial that answers many questions? A central place for finding answers just makes life easier as long as it’s still easy to find the answers you need.

2.      Interactivity – One of the best ways of ditching the “automated PowerPoint” feel is to make eLearning interactive.  Just sitting there being told something for an extended period of time should be reserved to meeting rooms and lecture halls, right? Here’s to more clicking, dragging, doing, exploring, thinking and learning!

3.      Delayed Feedback – Don’t tell people “you’re doing it wrong” and correct them the second they start going down an incorrect path. Allow them the chance to figure it out themselves and correct them afterward, if needed. Give the learner a couple chances and maybe some hints. People learn from their mistakes.

4.      Trans-assessments – Yes, an entirely made-up term but, one that signifies the replacement of meaningless pre- and post-assessments with meaningful assessments throughout a module. I’m not saying there’s no place for pre- and post-assessment but, the most effective e-Learning modules are those that get their learners thinking throughout the exercise; not at just the beginning or end.

5.      Resource Availability – When e-Learning must incorporate maps, diagrams, models and key terms, they must be available in more places than just the slides they appear on.  Where appropriate, I’d like to provide more opportunities for the learner to re-access and utilize that information no matter where they are in the experience. If the learner is expected to use these tools outside of the e-learning activity anyway, the more I can get them thinking about and using the tools, the more likely they’ll do the same outside of the activity. And, really, resources are meant to be used as something to refer to and use, not something to be committed to memory. Memorization comes with continued use.

6.      More Tools – Up to this point, I’ve used only Captivate, Photoshop and PowerPoint for e-Learning. As great as these tools are, they are limiting. I’d like to be able to utilize different tools to cater to the different learners out there. I’m starting by learning Flash and ActionScript.  But, I also hope to gradually implement other authoring tools such as Articulate and Camtasia and maybe a Learning Management System or two.

So, those are my takeaways and implementation is already underway. What do you think? It’s going to take more preparation on my part but, I’m ready for the challenge. Do you think I’m leaving anything out? What sort of suggestions and ideas do you have? What sort of e-Learning activities have you done in the past that you found useful and effective?  How about useless and ineffective? I’m interested in your thoughts and feedback.

I believe this exemplifies (albeit, sensationally) how rarely we actually stop, take a look around, analyze all of the things we’re juggling and put them into perspective. My feeling is this is particularly true at work and even more so at work in IT. How often do we pause to think about how much technology and the way we support technology has changed since we started working in IT? I’ve only been doing it on a permanent basis for two-and-a-half years now and it can be challenging to think about technology only that “far” back. While it can be a fun, introspective exercise to think about where we’ve been and how we got here, in IT it’s all about where we’re headed. And, this is my point. While we focus on our daily responsibilities and year-long projects, moving forward incrementally, the world of IT is continuing to evolve and advance at a pace that often seems to be approaching something like 490,000 miles per hour. If we don’t stop and examine the big picture every once in a while, by the time we do, we might already be in another part of the IT galaxy without knowing it.

Recently, I read the article “2011 IT Professionals Planning Guide: The Cloud, the Individual, and the Path for IT” by Jack Santos. I would recommend it to anybody from the non-IT person to the extreme-IT person. The article’s findings are rather interesting and they force you to step outside your own IT bubble and look at things from some macro-perspectives that we often do not get a chance to gaze from as we are powering through our latest endeavors. The author highlights three trends that are shaping the evolution and advancement of IT (Externalization, Consumerization and Democratization) and the roles they have played and continue to play in the development of the cloud.  Yes, THE cloud.  Heard of it?  Think more “delivery of IT services using internet-based resources” and less “atmospheric suspension of water molecules that looks kind of like a bunny when you squint.”

Questionable attempts at humor aside, I invite you to read the article and take some time considering the questions below if for no other reason than to shed more light on THE cloud, but also to shift your overall perspective on IT (even if only briefly). We’re often limited to thinking of IT progressing one step at a time. I found it refreshing to consider the trends that cut across all of IT, its organization and delivery in a more fluid, ongoing manner.  Do these more abstract trends carry as much weight as the more concrete technological advances we hear about on an almost daily basis? Take a step back and think about where IT’s going and where you’re going in IT.  Is it the same place?  How do you feel THE cloud will shape IT and the role of the IT professional?  Are the fears that some of us have about THE cloud justified by the unknowns that have yet to take shape? Do the pros outweigh the cons or vice versa? Do you feel we can continue to deliver IT the same way we’ve been doing it despite the implications of these macro-trends?  Or, should we continue on while everything around us (IT and otherwise) moves at almost a half-million miles per hour?

¹http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-fast-is-the-earth-mov

For more information, articles, books and training about THE cloud, contact UITS Professional Development.  We’ve compiled all sorts of helpful resources as we further explore this frontier in Information Technology.

UITS Library

uits-profdev@uwm.edu

• Adult learning is problem-centered rather than content-oriented

Essentially, adults learn better when they are engaged in activities where they are asked to apply the concepts they are being taught to solve real (and relevant) problems. However, before you can design those problem-centered activities, you have to figure out what it is the learner really needs to know.

A common mistake when designing training classes is focusing solely on what we want participants to learn (objectives) and failing to factor in whether it is important to them. This is a fatal mistake because if it’s not personally and immediately important, learners won’t remember or apply the concepts.

How do you reconcile the information you have been charged with conveying, and the needs of the learner? It can take years to perfect learner-centered curriculum design, here are some tips for starting out:

1. Start with a needs assessment: Before writing out the objectives you have for the class, conduct one or more needs assessment interviews with stakeholders such as supervisors, employees and customers. Needs assessment should focus on what learners cannot currently do that the training will address.  Interview question templates and assistance are available from UITS Professional Development.
2. Write clear objectives: Using the needs assessment data, write out clear objectives of the skills learners will gain from the class. An easy format to follow: Upon completion of course, learner will be able to …
3. Gain approval of objectives from primary stakeholders: There’s nothing worse than spending hours designing a course and then having it rejected because the objectives don’t match.
4. Course creation: Many new instructional designers start with this step and usually pay the consequence with ineffective training. I could (and probably will) write an entire post on how to actually design your course around your objectives. For now, let’s just say that UITS Professional Development is available for consultation but you can start out with a few simple tricks:
   • Change what your learners see every 7 minutes, and what they are doing at least every 20 minutes. If you’re using PowerPoint to convey concepts, keep your slides short and change them frequently (but not so frequently as to induce dizziness). It’s best to keep the “meat” of your lecture OFF of the slide and have the slide contain information in short “key concept” lists. Add in an interactive activity every 20 minutes .
   • Activities should be interactive, engaging, problem-oriented AND objective relevant. DON’T do something “just for fun”. All activities should be de-briefed to tie into course content.
   • A general course format you can follow: Tell, Show, Do, Review. TELL learners the concepts, SHOW them the concept in application (step-by-step walkthrough is good ), provide learners with an exercise so they can DO it on their own, REVIEW concepts and de-brief activity
5. Conduct a dry run of the course: Even the most well-designed course encounters hiccups in execution. You may think you don’t have the time for this step, but you’ll regret skipping it in the end.
6. Course roll out: Conduct the course to your heart’s content…you’re done, right? Not quite, there is one final step.
7. Collect feedback: Most of the time, courses are not static. They change, evolve, and hopefully improve.Collect and review your feedback after every session, repeat steps 1-6 as often as necessary to continue to meet the needs of your learners and stakeholders.

I hope these tips will help you out if you’re planning any training in the near future.  Remember, UITS Professional Development is always available to assist you further.

Happy Course Designing!

I do believe there are literally hundreds of reasons training does or doesn’t work, only a few of them are factors that we as trainers and developers can control.  I ran across an article by Nanette Miner “The Training Doctor” that provides some insight into why training doesn’t work from the instructional design angle.

You can read the article for yourself on her website, but I wanted to highlight a few related to training preparation that I experience quite often or hear about from clients and colleagues:

• Adults have a need to know why they should learn something.
• Adults become ready to learn when their life situation creates a need to know or need to be able to do in order to be able to perform more effectively and satisfyingly.
  (Excerpted with permission. The Training Doctor. Author: Nanette Miner. www.trainingdr.com)

I can’t tell you how many times someone comes into a class I’m teaching or coordinating and says “I’m just here because my boss told me to come”.  Usually it is those participants that struggle the most with synthesizing the course information, which means they’ll have difficulty applying the skills on the job (if they even try at all).

Before training occurs, managers and supervisors need to have conversations with employees to explain why they need the skill, how it will benefit the employee and organization, and to create an action plan for after the training.

Something not addressed in the article is that training often fails because there is no follow-up or retention.  It’s not the class itself, but the fact that the time isn’t taken to master the skill after the course.

It’s important to understand that training doesn’t end when the class ends.In fact the period after the training is probably the most important.  This is a period of time where the employee has to practice the skills and apply it in a variety of situations.  The goal is that the skill will eventually be fully absorbed and become a natural habit, or a type of knowledge they can access without effort.  The participant must make an effort to get this kind of practice, but managers and supervisors can certainly aid in this process. Some suggested activities for managers and supervisors:

• Meet with the employee to discuss what was learned and find out how they’ll apply it
• Assign the employee to a project involving the skill.  For additional support, this project may be mentored by someone in the organization who already has the skill.
• Create an informal “learning” group of employees who have attended the training and can continue to discuss the skill and help each other in the skill acquisition phase
• Create a performance goal with the employee involving the skill and discuss their progress in their annual review

As a development professional working within a single organization, I have a vested interest in making sure that training works and those skills are applied in my organization. I benefit not only because I remain employed, but also because I can enjoy working with more skilled (and happier) colleagues. However, I can’t do this alone.

As I look to the new year as a time of fresh starts and a chance to improve, I would love if my fellow employees, managers and supervisors would increase their engagement in training and development– to see training as a multi-step process, rather than a one time event.  In the end, it may take a little more time and a little more effort, but I think our end result will be better.

We haven’t made any additional software upgrades, but are planning on upgrading to Photoshop, InDesign and Dreamweaver CS5 in the Summer.  At this point, we haven’t had any customers requesting Office 2010- have you heard differently?

To check out our Short Course offerings, visit our website:

http://shortcourses.uwm.edu

For those not familiar with the term “social learning”, the book referenced in the webinar essentially defines it as using social media (Web 2.0) to tools to disseminate or teach information.  Facebook, Twitter, IM, wikis, blogs, file sharing services- these are all social learning tools.

I use most of these tools daily to do my job, but I’ve never thought of them as “learning” tools.  When I consider them that way, I wonder how others are utilizing them (can you provide specific examples?) and if there’s anything we can do as a department to capture the power of these tools?  How about pitfalls to relying on them? How do you measure their efficacy? What are your thoughts?

For more information on “The New Social Learning”- the book has a website:

http://www.thenewsociallearning.com/

Our last Short Course will be December 8th.  When all is said and done for this semester, we will have held 53 courses (144.5 instructional hours) over 12 weeks and we’ve taught 165 people in those courses.

We’re well on our way towards planning our Spring 2011 semester and will begin classes in early February.  Most of our courses will stay the same, but we’re hoping to be able to upgrade to CS5 for our Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Acrobat courses. A full schedule will be available on the Short Course web page in early January.

For anyone who supervises students, this semester’s deadline is 12/15. However, due to the timing of finals and the evaluation deadline, our last class is offered December 8th. Our supervisor level classes are over for the semester and each of our other 3 classes have one section left between today and 12/8.  For a full schedule, visit the UITS Student Professional Development page (note- not all staff have automatic access to this page. If you need it, please let us know and we can set you up).

Supervisors of students have been receiving information all semester on their student’s requirements, so hopefully know what needs to be done and the consequences for not completing a requirement. Please contact me if you do have questions or concerns.

The plan right now is to look at the survey data and to present an idea of our “next steps” at the December 17 Tech User’s meeting.