~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Get Zeroed-In on Learning Measurement
Issue 2 Fall 2005
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In this issue
-- Roadmaps: Where strategy meets execution
-- Benchmarks: Who’s that knocking on my door?
-- Featured Measure: Average Cost per CPE Hour
-- Case Study: Strategic planning at Defense Acquisition
University
-- Opinion: Buy versus building your performance measurement
solution
Greetings! Get Zeroed-In on Learning Measurement is a quarterly newsletter devoted to learning and performance measurement and the people and processes surrounding it. Each issue contains feature articles, benchmarks, case studies, opinions, and upcoming events relating to learning measurement, learning analytics, and strategic reporting inside and outside the learning organization. | |
Roadmaps: Where strategy meets execution ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Organizations
align strategically to a vision and execute tactically to a plan. The
success of the organization hinges on your workforces ability to focus
their efforts on those specific tasks that comprise the plan and your
ability to measure and influence the performance of the workforce in
pursuit of the overarching strategic goals. Sounds simple, but without a
formal performance planning and measurement process important tasks linked
to success can fall through the cracks, and your workforce can quickly
deviate their efforts to areas they deem important but have little or no
alignment to your strategic goals. Fortunately, it’s not because people
purposely drift their focus to other activities, but rather throughout the
course of normal business, seemingly important items crop up, interjecting
themselves, drawing one’s attention to those areas that either make the
most noise or are more desirable to work on then the current, yet more
critical tasks. Without proper guidance, people tend to rearrange task
priorities to meet their preference.
Guidance starts with your organization’s annual roadmap. A roadmap is essential to give workers and stakeholders clear insight to the strategic goals of the organization and the business driver outcomes and benefits of each. Furthermore, the roadmap identifies the strategies or objectives that collectively enable the organization to meet each goal. Aligned to each of the strategies are key measures that can be seen as progress indicators along the path. With roadmap in hand, all parties involved know and understand what the definition of success is for the organization and, at a high level, how it is expected to be reached. At the next level, a matching performance plan aligns key tasks and deliverables to each strategic objective. The performance plan tells your work teams what they should be working on and exactly how they will be measured. Expectations are set using performance targets. In some cases, a single task may have multiple performance targets, ones relating to percent complete, schedule slippage, and cost overrun. With targets set, progress is easily captured by responsible parties through a simple check mark against completion, a percentage of completion, the number of days ahead or behind schedule, or the dollar amount over or under budget. The progress towards targets indicates the success of the initiative at hand. By monitoring progress against targets, management can quickly gauge the health of their initiatives and what tasks pose risk to their strategic objectives, and continuing upward, risk to longer term goals. Roadmaps are the cornerstone of success to award- winning organizations seeking Six Sigma, Malcolm- Baldrige, and similar accreditations. Make your roadmap a living document and you will breathe new life into your workforce each year as you embark on your strategic journey. | |
Benchmarks: Who’s that knocking on my door? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ More common
then ever, organizations are going beyond the traditional networking and
benchmarking models at national and local conferences, and hitting the
road on multi-city tours to visit the operations of complimentary
organizations in an effort to gather and evaluate best practices,
benchmarks, and ideas. In fact, many organizations plot and measure their
success as “thought leaders” by how many benchmarking visits they make
annually, in addition to the exposure they receive through trade
publications, speaking engagements, and other press opportunities.
What are organizations learning by making these live, onsite visits? A lot says Jeff LaBrache, Director of Global Benchmarking & Educational Assistance at Hewlett Packard. “Being onsite, you can see first hand the people, process, tools, and technologies that make these organizations successful or where they would do things differently if they got a second chance”, says LaBrache, “You don’t easily get that at a conference or trade expo. And, when you’re one- on-one, or in the right sharing environment people are more open and honest about real issues and challenges. LaBrache recently facilitated a benchmarking discussion at Elliott Masie’s Learning 2005 in Orlando, FL. A number of points were made including the separation of benchmarking into two distinct categories, processes and measures. Organizations in search of best practices focus on benchmarking processes while other organizations zero-in on specific measures in search for the elusive “benchmark” itself. And what do participants do with a benchmark once they find it? Most use it to set goals and targets of their own in an effort to outperform the norm. Results of a poll during the discussion found that 91% of the participants are commonly asked by management “what is so & so doing in this area”? Accordingly, 88% of the participants preferred gathering benchmark information from peer companies over mining service bureau statistics from organizations like ASTD and Gartner. It appears that many of these companies may be packing their bags soon and hitting the road. Plan your benchmarking interviews wisely. Make sure you ask the right questions and in as much detail as possible to get your desired results. That way when you bring the benchmarking data back to the office, you’re not asked more questions whereby you need to go back to the source multiple times to get answers. So don’t be surprise if you get a knock on your door from practitioners wanting to know how and where your learning organization excels. Disclose what you can within reason and put non-disclosure agreements in place to protect what might be proprietary or confidential information. But be open and honest with your guests, because chances are it could be you knocking next! | |
Featured Measure: Average Cost per CPE Hour ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ What it
means: How cost effective are we in delivering continuing professional
education (CPE) learning to meet CPE compliance requirements.
How it's measured: Learning history records in your learning management and/or administration system must reflect cost, duration, and delivery dates. Costs for internal learning can reflect hard out-of-pocket expenditures or a prorated per person cost (e.g. chargeback value) against the original development investment. External learning must also be accounted for. The final measure is calculated by summing the cost of all CPE related learning and dividing it by the total hours delivered. Subsets or dimensions of the measure can be calculated by field of study and delivery method. Who's using it: Professional service organizations, particularly audit, tax, and business advisory sectors needing to meet National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) requirements. Companies include Grant Thornton, RSM McGladrey (an H&R block company), PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Ernst & Young. Note: For those organizations not subject to CPE compliance, this measure can easily be converted to Average Cost per Learning Hour whereby the target scope encompasses all learning history records for a period of time. | |
Case Study: Strategic planning at Defense Acquisition University ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When it comes
to strategic planning for learning organizations, Defense Acquisition
University (DAU) leads the pack in both forward thinking and process
maturity. The DAU strategic planning process includes: a Strategic Plan
that covers 6 years but is updated annually as a living document; an
Annual Performance Plan that establishes tasks and performance measures
for the current year; an Annual Performance Report that assesses the
actual versus planned accomplishments for the year; and an Annual Report
that informs DAU customers and stakeholders of DAU’s achievements for the
preceding year.
DAU structures its strategic plan this way: strategic challenges are translated into five strategic goals. Each of the DAU goals represents a major part of the business – customer, mission, infrastructure, people, and transformation – that are considered broad areas and represent statements of strategic imperatives. Each of these goals is covered through a small, but encompassing set of enabling strategies (objectives) and measures. These enabling strategies are more detailed in nature and contain the direction needed to understand the precise areas to target their attention and are used as strategic goal composite measures of progress. In addition, and in alignment with the strategic goals, separate and discrete performance tasks are defined in the DAU Annual Performance Plan and are to be accomplished during the year. These tasks are projects, each with a project manager. Key outcomes / output measures and indicators of success define progress toward the higher level enabling strategies. The collection of enabling strategies’ metrics is further aggregated into indicators of goal progress. An Annual Performance Report is prepared to assess performance plan tasks and overall program progress of the strategic goals, as well as University strengths and opportunities for improvement. The strategic planning process starts with identifying opportunities; threats; major shifts in technology, market, competition, or regulatory environment; and long-term organizational sustainability within an annual environmental scan. Each year, the environmental scan activities cover analyses of Defense transformation and strategy documents, Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics) strategies, and benchmarking studies. Analyses are performed by reviewing periodicals and attending conferences as well as other outreach opportunities as they arise, to determine the utility of best practices and to perform comparative analysis of performance. In addition, the University President meets three times a year with an external group of advisors called the Board of Visitors who bring an assessment of DAU’s progress and sustainability. From the environmental scan and strategic assessments, strategic challenges are defined for the University. DAU’s strategic plan addresses these challenges. A complete copy of DAU’s 2006-2010 Strategic Plan & FY06 Performance Plan is available at the DAU website. The document is a great model to follow and a testament to the outstanding leadership and direction of DAU. Direct link to DAU’s 2006-2010 Strategic Plan & FY06 Performance Plan ... | |
Opinion: Buy versus building your performance measurement solution ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In many cases,
when executives begin their decision process for implementing a new
software solution they must first answer the question of whether to buy or
build the features and capabilities they have determined are critical. The
factors impacting this decision usually involve corporate information
technology (IT) policy on software development prioritization, actual
comparisons of costs to create the functions needed with internal
resources, the time fairly estimated for internal/external delivery of the
defined functionality and widely varying estimating rules for judging
between the criteria. An added dimension is caused by unavoidable
conflicts for internal resources that can complicate the buy versus build
comparison further.
Here, we present a format that may be helpful in successfully evaluating the cost/benefit comparison between the purchase of a performance measurement solution and the alternative of committing to the attempted development of an equivalent system by internal IT resources. Learning executives faced with the need to gain use of an action enabled, top down, desktop view for driving successful alignment of the learning investments they manage with the corporate strategic priorities of the enterprise their learning initiatives serve should answer the following questions before making the buy versus build decision:
The answers to these questions provide a framework for conceptually putting the key elements into your chart for contrasting alternatives between buy versus build. Assigning specific numbers and detailing and quantifying each option must be worked through your individual circumstances. For a detailed drill-down into each question of this buy versus build framework, and a sample buy versus build proposal, download the “Buy versus Build” paper at Zeroed-In's website. | |
Pertinent Articles and Resources ... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Recent News ... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ email: cmoore@getzeroedin.com phone: 410 859 0478 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
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