EIDT 6501 Training Speech

For EIDT 6501, training and Development, I was asked to come up with a speech that explained why training was important and complex and how it could help a business.  Click on the video below or follow this link to hear my speech on VoiceThread: voicethread.com/share/818118/ 

Training is a worthwhile investment when planned and executed properly.  An organization should train to their goals, strategies, and competencies desired in employees.  Training is more than instructing others to mimic the steps necessary to complete a task or process.  It provides skills necessary to think and react to anomalies that may occur throughout the process of completing the task.

With continuous training, employees can develop new skills, refine current skills, and adapt to changing environments.  This helps the company remain competitive and potentially reduce lay-offs in an ever-changing environment.

To execute training properly, a systematic approach using ADDIE or similar method should be used.  ADDIE is an acronym for Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate.  Special attention should be placed on the analyze phase to ensure both the learners and business' needs are met.  Another commonly overlooked phase is the evaluation of training.  In it, the questions of: are the learners able to apply the knowledge and lessons taught, is the training relevant to the current needs, and does the training support the business long-term and short-term needs should be asked.

As you can tell, training is a complex process that helps businesses remain competitive and obtain their goals.

Changing Thoughts, Once Again

Officer Jayme Biendl's memorial service was last Tuesday.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend and show support not only to her memory, but to my friends who worked alongside her.  Her death was a shock to me, even though I never met her.  Several of my friends work with her, and they were very shaken up by the events.  But it also makes me wonder about what happens if James' killers are found guilty next month.

There is no death penalty in the state the trial is located.  I used to think the worst punishment for a 16 and 18 year old was to have them in jail for the rest of their lives, with no chance of parole.  Let them think about their actions for the rest of their lives knowing that they will never see freedom again.  I know from my friends who work in the Department of Corrections that county jail is much worse than prison, which is the only reason I am glad the trial was delayed a month.  But the tragic events of Jayme's death highlighted the differences and really cast a shadow of doubt on my beliefs.  The suspect in Jayme's death is a man who was found guilty of rape three times, and under my state's 3 Strikes rule, received life without parole.  Because of his good behavior, he was downgraded to medium security and was allowed privileges within the prison.


So what happens to the two suspects in James' murder if they are found guilty?  Will they be allowed privileges and freedom to move around the prison unsupervised?  Will they think it's all fun and games and have no cares in the world?  Or will they sit, alone, depressed, reliving the night they decided to take some one's life and wishing they could change their actions?  Of course, I want to believe they will be miserable and relieve the night constantly, feeling despair over their actions and the remainder of their lives.  But I'm not so sure that's what happens.


I am disappointed to have missed Jayme's service.  My friends who worked with her know I wanted to be there to show support to her family, friends, and coworkers.  I remember the morning after she was found dead and the phone calls I received to check on my friends.  Thankfully, when I heard the news I knew it wasn't them because they had been out with me the night before.  But I felt their shock and disbelief later in the day when I saw them.  I wish there was something I could have done for them, but having been there so recently myself, I know all I can do is listen when they are ready to talk and be patient with them as they process their emotions in whatever way necessary.  And the one thing they don't know is how much this event has affected me, my thoughts, and my grieving process.

Scope Creep

A few posts ago, I shared a project from hell titled Change Fail, where nothing seemed to go right.  This week I've been asked to write about scope creep and that same project on waste contains elements of what I've been asked to share.  If you recall, one of the issues involved with customers adding more requirements to the project after a charter and project deliverables had been defined.  Unfortunately, it was a project I was "in charge" of, but my manager retained the project manager, sponsor AND champion positions.  In essence I was only executing what he told me to and arguing or offering a different point of view was looked down upon.  He went as far to tell me that he knows best and if I didn't do as he asked, my performance review would be affected.  What a nice guy, eh?

Background

As part of the project, one of the deliverables was a report to categorize and summarize the waste by product run.  A report was designed with input from the stakeholders and agreed to.  The proof-of-concept showed the same view and data fields the final product would show.  The only difference was the data displayed on the report was fictitious at the time since automated data capture was not available.  Even with fictitious data, we kept the numbers in a reasonable and realistic range to mimic reality.  However, once the report was approximately halfway completed, the stakeholders decided it was no longer good enough for them and wanted additional capabilities in the report such as report by individual operator.  They went as far as to tell us that they would not trust the report until it contained the information they requested and I would be personally running the reports by hand until they could get the report they wanted.  To run each report manually, it took approximately 5 hours per product per piece of equipment.  There were five winders included in the report, and each winder could potentially change product once a day.

Reasons for Creep

A 1994 article in Computerworld lists the top five reasons for scope creep:  poor initial requirements definition, new applications (technology) were unfamiliar to users, projects take too long, failure to manage user expectations, and failure to involve users in early stages.  Unfortunately, I do not feel that any of these reasons were the reasons why the scope kept changing.  At the very start of the project, the people requesting the changes were involved in bi-weekly meetings.  They were provided with an example report that would be automated for them.  The report contained the exact format and data they would receive on a monthly basis and they were given an opportunity to make changes as needed.  After they signed off on the full-scale development of the report, they began changing the requirements and questioning the usefulness of the report.  I honestly and full-heartedly believe we involved the users at the start of the project (every report and data field was approved by them), managed user expectations and provided specific requirements definition by providing an exact replica of the report.  When asked why they wanted to change to report, they were unable to state a clear reason why it was necessary and were not able to provide proof the new requirements were being reported or utilized at present.  The stakeholders were also not able to state how the newly defined requirements would be used to monitor performance of the department.

The reason I believe the stakeholders kept changing the requirements and providing unclear and unrealistic demands was due to change resistance.  They were dragging their feet and delaying the project to avoid being monitored and measured on waste.  Portny et al (2008) point out that upset clients are a common result of creep due to the additional time or cost associated with the project.   Since the report was being provided free of charge to them, the only item they could complain about was the delay.  Never once did they mention the delay or ask when the project would be complete, which supports my feeling that they did not want to implement the waste tracking system.  Beach’s book, Leadership and the Art of Change (2006) also substantiated my belief that it was a resistance to change that caused scope creep and additional requirements.  Unfortunately, the project manager/champion/sponsor never used any method or process to control the project changes or attitudes.  Every suggestion I made to help control the scope and provide realistic reports and time-lines was ignored by him.  By ignoring the requests and not offering any acknowledgment of the requested changes, frustration levels grew between the stakeholders and myself since it appeared that no one was listening to anyone.

Methods for Controlling Creep

Had I been allowed to proceed in my proposed way, I feel the frustration could have been reduced.  Some suggestions to managing scope creep included:

• Referring back to the original project time-line and agreements 
• Explaining the impact of the changes
• Requiring the stakeholders to demonstrate how the information would be used
• Demonstrating how the requirement was currently being met in a separate report (which was one of the claims)
• Maintaining a change log or scope creep document
• Speaking with the stakeholders’ management team 
• Just saying "NO" and backing it with a valid reason 

Each of these suggestions can be backed in literature including Portny et al (2008), Anthes (1994), and Gurlen (2003).  In the end, the stakeholders agreed to a spiral development approach where we improved the report at distinct intervals once we proved the basic report was accurate.  However, they would not agree to using the report until it was 100% complete according to their opinion.

End Result

The project had a happy end for me after all!  I decided to leave the company, partly due to my management and the way the company managed this project.  OK, who am I kidding? That was a major part of my decision.  On a serious note, a year after the project started, it is still on-going and is not much further along than 6 months ago, even though I've only been gone for 3 months.  I occasionally receive phone calls from my replacement asking for my help or trying to understand the people, attitudes, and agreements in place.  In reality, a project like this should have taken 3 months to complete.  I have worked much more complex projects in shorter time, including dealing with people resistant to change.  The lack of support and direction from the project manager/sponsor/champion was a major cause of the delay and frustrations.  Had he stepped in and been more firm regarding the changes, the project would have progressed faster.

The types of problems encountered in this project was typical of many other projects at the site.  I believe the resistance to change and inability to properly manage projects has already had a large negative impact on the site.  Just the other week they announced additional layoffs and a potential sale of the facility.  In the event they don't find a buyer, they stated they will close the facility.

               

References

Anthes, Gary H.  (1994, May). No more creeps! Computerworld, 28(18), 107.  Retrieved February 10, 2011, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 311539).

Beach, L.R. (2006). Leadership and the Art of Change. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Gurlen, S. (2003)  Scope Creep.  Retrieved February 10, 2011 from http://www.umsl.edu/~sauterv/analysis/6840_f03_papers/gurlen/

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Project Management

Project managers can have it tough sometimes.  They are being asked to plan a project, complete with cost and resource estimates, sometimes in an area they are not too familiar with.  On top of the planning, they have to act like an orchestra conductor (Laureate, 2011) to ensure the project progresses forward and success is achieved.  But don't fret, there are some tools and websites that can help you with project estimation, which to me, can be one of the hardest parts of management.

PMI (http://www.pmi.org/), the site for Project Management Institute is where I go first to check for help, advice, and resources on project management.  PMI is the certifying body for PM, and their site contains the Body of Knowledge (BOK) for project managers, professional development section, and knowledge center.  The knowledge center features many articles on a variety of PM topics.  The only downside to this site is some of the articles and areas are restricted access to PMI members only.  But that doesn't mean you can't find great information and help on topics like budget estimation and resource planning.  One of the most helpful and free items to me is BOK.  The BOK often helps me research the proper term that I need help and assistance with.  Because terminology changes from company to company and discipline to discipline, the BOK triggers me with specific words I should include in my searches for help.  If you are lucky enough to have a membership, there are many articles written by SME on cost control, project estimation, and scheduling.  The articles include informative information, white papers, and case studies which have all been reviewed by a panel to ensure they further and advance project management thinking.

All About Project Management (http://managementhelp.org/plan_dec/project/project.htm) is a great resource to have in your back pocket.  The site contains many helpful links for the entire project life-cycle, including agile project management, and is overseen by Kevin Lonergan.  Agile project management is commonly found in IT projects, but more and more aspects of agile PM are making it into mainstream PM.  There are some great agile management concepts that the links talk about such as iterative or spiral development, scrum techniques, and visual controls.  The site not only contains links to other resourceful sites, but also to blogs where you can learn from other project managers.  This site is definitely one you should bookmark, as I find myself coming back to it time and time again because of the consolidation of information.

There are also free templates out there to help with project planning, cost and resource allocations.  Microsoft offers a few good project templates for Microsoft Excel products and you can find them by searching on project and/or planning for business.  For cost estimating, Social Signal (http://www.socialsignal.com/blog/alexandra-samuel/how-create-budget-estimates-proposals-and-project-management) has a great article and tools and templates available for download.  An Excel worksheet, with a pretty comprehensive checklist is also available at the following location:  http://www.exinfm.com/excel%20files/Estimating_Template.xls  I find the strength of this template is the checklists is offers at each stage of the project. 

Overall, there are a ton of resources available on the internet as well as your library to get you through any sticky point of a project.  It is difficult to recommend specific sites because each one is specialized to an area of a project and oftentimes an industry:  budgeting, resource allocation, agile management, getting teams to work together, etc.  Each site and template offers it's own strength - you just have to look for it.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Communicating with Stakeholders [DVD]. In EDUC 6145. Baltimore, MD.

Messages Delivered in Various Modalities

Communication and message interpretation changes with each modality it is delivered in.  For this week’s assignment, we were given the same message delivered three different ways:  email, voicemail, and face-to-face (via video).  The message is in regards to obtaining a missing report that is vital to the originator’s task.  Without the report, the originator is unable to perform their work and provide information by the assigned due date.

The first modality explored is email.  In my opinion, the email was wordy, indirect, and didn’t express the urgent need upfront.  The email opens with a statement that the person may be in a meeting or workshop all day and away from their computer.  This statement means email is not the best choice to communicate with them.  The communication continues asking for the report, but not providing a deadline of when the report is needed.  It is only asked if they could provide an ETA on when it will be complete.  If this was my message to someone I would have began with what was needed in the opening statement and provide a date when the information is due by.  Dr. Stolovitch (Laureate Education Inc, 2010) states that the purpose of a communication needs to be mentioned upfront, and in the first sentence or two if possible.  Because it is assumed the recipient has been away from their desk, the email may be more effective as a follow-up to a face-to-face interaction or a voicemail.  If it was a follow-up, I would have stated that the email was a follow-up to the previous communication. 

The second modality explored was a voice message left for the individual.  The message was the best out of the three explored, but could still be improved.  I felt the voice was lacking emotion and a sense of urgency.  While the voice was not monotone, it did lack inflection and came across as being required to call the individual.  The voice sounded bored and not really interested in obtaining the report.  This could be for several reasons, one of those being that the individual with the late report is always late and the voice is accustomed to having to follow-up on the individual.

The last modality presented was a video representing face-to-face communication.  This was my least favorite of all three communication types viewed in this exercise.  The person looked defeated, sounded uninterested, and had non-verbal gestures that could be viewed as inappropriate.  The individual only gestures when speaking about the late report, which could be interpreted as placing blame on the person they are speaking to.  She also looks away when asking for a ETA or if the report could be sent via email.  This tells me she is not comfortable speaking to this person and requesting information.

Overall, while the message in all three scenarios was the same, I felt the voicemail was the most effective in this scenario.  Major improvements could have taken place in all three examples.  In general, the message was not clear, concise, and focused as Dr. Stolovitch (Laureate Education Inc, 2010) suggested it should be.  Each communication should have started with the purpose and intent of the communication, and included specifics as to what was being requested and by when.  Email and voicemail may have been the wrong choices to communicate with if the person has been gone all day.  Depending on the circumstances, voicemail and/or face-to-face would be my primary choice for communication with email as my last choice.  The choice of words is also important in portraying a message.  The choices used in the examples make the requester come across as unsure, defeated, and uninterested in all examples presented.

Research has been performed on effective communication forms as well as leadership and communication styles.  Gluckler & Schrott (2007) have found that face-to-face communication  is the most effective type of communication form among teams when compared to email and mobile email (smartphone).  Voicemail was not included in the study.  Traditional email (sent via desktop computer versus mobile device) was effective in summarizing meetings, decisions, and communicating to a broader audience that included people who were kept up to date on the team's progress.  Mobile email was by far found to be the least effective for communication in a team setting.  Based on this study, as work published by Allen (1977), effectiveness of communication decreases over distance.  After about 30 feet of separation, the message being communicated becomes distorted and loses impact.  F2F communication is recognized as being the strongest, best, and most effective form of communication.  But as an effective communicator, verbal and non-verbal cues still remain an important part of the message.  As previously mentioned, I preferred voicemail over the F2F message provided in this week's case study.  The non-verbal message the person communicated overshadowed what she was trying to accomplish.  In summary, careful thought must be applied to the message, choice of words, non-verbal message, and mode of communication.  Attention should be paid to the background and personality of the person you are communicating with to ensure it will be an effective fit.

References 

Allen, TJ. (1977). Managing the Flow of Technology: Technology Transfer and the Dissemination of Technological Information Within the R&D Organization.  Boston, MA: The MIT Press.

Gluckler, J. and Schrott, G. (2007). Leadership and Performance in Virtual Teams: Exploring Brokerage in Electronic Communication.  International Journal of e-Collaboration, 3(3), 31.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010). Communicating with Stakeholders [DVD]. In EDUC 6145. Baltimore, MD.

Change Fail!

One of the most important and overlooked project phases is the after-action review or project post-mortem .  If the project was successful, team members are often do not see the value in reviewing the actions and countermeasures taken throughout the project duration.  A project post-mortem will help identify what to keep doing and what strategies, tactics, and processes were beneficial.   If the project wasn’t successful or had many challenges throughout its duration, an analysis provides an opportunity to review what happened, identify warning signs which were missed, and discuss strategies for future use if the problem is encountered again (Greer, 2010).

When projects don’t go as planned, it can be difficult for a team member, sponsor, champion, or project lead to admit there was room for improvement in the approach.  One particular example is a project on developing a waste management system that still has not completed in over 10 months.  As I left the project to pursue other career interests, I had a post-mortem review with several key team members.  Unfortunately, there were no positives discussed that pertained to the project steps or phases.  Several areas of the project were identified as contributing to the problems seen on the project:

• Lack of definition
• Scope creep
• Lack of resources
• No support

Many of these issues could have been prevented in the beginning stages of the project.  Project management tools were not used, mainly due to the sponsor ’s direction.  The sponsor had his own particular way of running a project, which does not follow traditional project management (PM) principles, which affected the project lead since she was the sponsor's direct report.  There was no project charter, scope, or documentation other than a milestone list.  The only documentation created pertained to waste definitions and measurement systems.  Unfortunately, the project lead was not given responsibility, authority, or accountability and the sponsor dictated what they should do.

The project was severely constrained in terms of potential solutions.  The sponsor, yet again, told the project lead the exact solution he wanted to see, regardless of time, cost, headcount, and employee acceptance.  The primary stakeholders, managers of the area who were to adopt the solution, were highly resistive, but the sponsor ignored their concerns and directed the project lead to "tell them what they will be doing; don't hold their hand; and if they knew what was best for them they wouldn't be in this situation to begin with".

Scope creep was allowed to placate the stakeholders.  Even though the project lead pushed back on many of the changes made, stating that the project can be refined after the initial deliverables were met and providing information on why the changes were not feasible at the current time.  The sponsor, again telling the project lead what to do, allowed the changes because it kept the stakeholders engaged and semi-interested in the project.

Overall, the project should have not been started.  The timing was not right and communication, project planning, and personal/team dynamics harmed the project.  These areas are commonly identified as pitfalls and items to pay attention to to ensure a successful project in literature on change management (Beach, 2006; Portny et al, 2008, Allen & Hardin, 2008).  The project was not ran with a team approach, which caused many issues along the way (Scholtes, Joiner & Streibel, 2001).  Not having a clear, well articulated charter and deliverable that the group agreed upon was also an area that impacted the project (George, 2002).  Most importantly, the project sponsor threatened the project lead to do it his way becasue of the direct reporting relationship.  This made it extremely hard to use any project management tools, offer opinions and advice, and hold people accountable to their decisions.

 

Allen, S., & Hardin, P. C. (2008). Developing instructional technology products using effective project management practices. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 19(2), 72–97.  

Beach, L.R. (2006).  Leadership and the Art of Change.  Thousand Oaks, CA:  Sage Publications, Inc.

George, M. (2002).  Lean Six Sigma. New York, NY:  McGraw-Hill.

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.

 

Sholtes, P., Joiner, B., & Streibel, B.  (2001).  The TEAM Handbook (2^nd ed.). Madison, WI: Oriel

 
Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 

Lots of writing, but little posting

Since October, I've done a lot of writing.  Some for school, but most of it came as a release after James' murder.  The only thing is I never released most of it since I wanted to go back and edit the posts, which never happened.  So today, I'm combining some of the posts and publishing them.  Maybe in the future I'll go back and edit them and clean them up the way I envisioned when I began writing.
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Over the past two months I have been reflecting on my family and our experiences together.  It's been two months since James was murdered, with the preliminary examination occurring yesterday and surfacing more memories of my family's time together.  Coming from a large and close extended family, there are many memories of my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandmother growing up.  With about a 15 year age gap between sets of cousins, it's been interesting to see the younger one's reactions when us old-timers tell stories of our youth.

There are certain things that my large, Polish family did together while I was growing up.  Every Sunday was spent at my Grandmother's house and all my cousins were there.  We had a blast playing games together and picking on each other.  Well, maybe we didn't enjoy ALL our time together, but it turned into fond memories by all involved overtime.  Our parents would go on vacation together and my grandmother would watch between 4-6 of us at a time.  Boy, the stories we can tell these days!  But after she passed away and we all began to grow up, our younger cousins missed out on that opportunity.  They think we are crazy when we tell them of the games we played, our sleeping bag races, the hide-n-seek games where we would "forget" to look for someone, our trips to the corner store to buy gum, or the absolutely crazy times we had at the "dirt hills" where we would ride our bikes down a vertical drop with several trees in our way.  The seven of us were best friends and have so many good memories of our times together.

The younger set missed out on that opportunity to play and get into trouble together every weekend.  At the funeral, through emails, and at Christmas dinner, the younger ones have started to ask us to tell more stories about what we did at Grandma's house, what their father was like before he married and had kids, and how we all survived without maiming each other.  (Okay, there might have been a few stitches here and there, but nothing serious!)  The best thing I've learned from all the reminiscing we are beginning to do is we all remember different pieces of our youth.  Even though we've grown apart in both life and geographic location, we remain connected through our memories.  No single one of us can paint a complete picture of our past without the rest of us to help them fill in the void that old age (or conscious effort) leaves.