Training Programs for Enterprise-Wide Change

Transcription

1 Training Programs for Enterprise-Wide Change Top Five Requirements for Programs that Deliver Prepared by VisionCor, Inc. 1

2 Contents Summary... 3 Before We Get Started... 3 Program Principles... 4 Business Partnerships... 5 Resource Planning... 6 Comprehensive Quality Management... 8 Measurement, Measurement, Measurement Additional Considerations Parting Thoughts

3 Training Programs for Enterprise-Wide Change Top Five Requirements for Programs that Deliver Summary Being the leader of a training team during a large-scale organizational change can be a daunting challenge. The demands for training and change management during a large scale change are almost always more than a company s training team can handle with normal business planning, processes and staffing levels. This paper sets forth Five Requirements that the training team must incorporate into their program to ensure that training significantly contributes to the business success of the change event. Perhaps the largest change events are mergers and acquisitions. Systems, processes, reporting structures, support levels, office locations, benefits and compensation changes are all typical during a merger. It is in this context that the Five Requirements are presented. Of course, there are many other large scale change events including new systems implementations, reorganizations, new product line roll outs, and industry regulation changes that can drive the same demands on the training team. While this paper focuses on change brought about by mergers and acquisitions, these Five Requirements can be universally applied to any large scale change event. The Top Five Requirements for Programs that Deliver are: Defined Program Principles Solid Business Partnerships Effective Resource Planning Comprehensive Quality Management Measurement, Measurement, Measurement Before We Get Started There is a little pre-work to be done before we get to the first of the Five Requirements. Upon learning of the change, your training team should be at the very front end of the planning. A client of mine once said, If you want me [training] to be there at the landing, I need to be there at takeoff. If you are unable to be at the table during the planning phase of the change, you can do some investigating to bring your team up-to-speed. Some questions to launch your investigation might be: Who is experiencing the change and what is changing, at a high level? What is the impact and timing of the change? 3

4 What is the learning culture of the audiences experiencing the change? What are their support needs? What resources are possible for training budget and personnel? Where does the organization want to be before, during, and after the change? Once these questions are answered, you can start to build a framework for the planning and execution of the training program. That framework will be based on the audience, company culture, types of changes, intended outcomes and available resources. It will also be heavily based on lessons learned, either from prior company changes, or from the collective experience of the training team leaders and key stakeholders of the company. Program Principles The program principles are the pillars of the program. They set both the expectations and the boundaries for the training program. They will be used by all stakeholders, including training team members, to make plans and decisions. They will: Articulate the vision for the program in more tactical terms Define the elements of the program you are not willing to compromise Provide a framework for program decisions Enable more effective communication to program stakeholders Form a baseline for expectations An example of a program principle is: Focus on survival skills pre-conversion; deliver in small increments, repeated over time, as close to conversion as possible. This principle may seem fairly obvious. It does, however, tell stakeholders how the training organization will approach implementation planning, and on what basis content decisions will be made during design and development. The principle clearly indicates that if it is not a survival skill, it can wait until after conversion. You may have different principles. They should not change, as that would be similar to moving the footers in a building after the walls are up. You should spend time with every key stakeholder at the start to ensure that they agree to the principles, and agree to support your efforts in line with the principles. Likewise, every training team member should understand them and commit to support them regardless of their role. Some example questions to ask during the formation of the program principles include: What level of proficiency should the target audience team members have after training? Is in-person support, simulation, or facilitated training required to get to that level of proficiency? How should the training be delivered, based on culture and audience needs? 4

5 What is the critical skills filter that should be applied to determine how much content should be delivered, and when? Are there limits to the amount of training for certain roles? Are there scheduling, time-of-year, or time-out- of-the-field considerations when designing the program? Business Partnerships Business is all about partnerships and taking a partnering approach to business relationships is a requirement. These relationships may be internal to your company or external (such as vendors). Working effectively with other teams is critical to a successful outcome. When looking at all of the moving pieces in a change of this magnitude, there are many interconnections between departments. Information should flow between departments rapidly, accurately, and timely. Training, like most other business functions, requires the active participation of many different groups. In fact, trainers often act as cross-functional liaisons between subject matter experts who provide content and guidance, line of business leaders who assist with communication and implementation planning, information technology departments who provide support and systems access, and on and on. You will find that your efforts in developing and maintaining good business partnerships throughout the life of the program will benefit you in many ways. You will: Have access to better and more timely information Have more support in resolving issues, and get help resolving problems Have more credibility during multi-functional discussions Have access to more resources, and potentially some additional budget Have a substantially better chance delivering on commitments Some of the activities that may help with business partnerships are: Liaisons with primary responsibility of working with other departments You may have someone who is the key point-of-contact (POC) for working with the IT department. Steering groups with key stakeholders This must be an active group where you ask for guidance and decisions, and they provide support when needed. In-person meetings as much as possible Find occasions to bring in remote employees, and encourage in-person attendance to meetings with other departments. The goal is to build personal relationships. This is not to say that remote team members should not be considered as part of the team. Joint status reporting / sharing responsibility for keeping executives informed Training and the line of business may prepare joint briefings for executives. Work together to spread the word! Promoting the contribution of team members from other departments Recognize people from other departments to their manager and to senior leaders across the organization. Pilot content with key leaders Put together some pilot sessions for leaders, particularly those who are responsible for the training audience. Have them participate and provide feedback. 5

6 Some example questions to ask during business partnership planning include: What level of business unit involvement is critical to the success of the training program? How will key stakeholders be involved in the review and planning process? How will you involve audience leadership in the implementation of training? How will you share accountability with the business and define responsibilities? How will communications with partners be managed? Who manages the relationships? Resource Planning How are you going to do it? How will you get it all done without burning out the entire training department? Prioritize and plan. Initially, you will decide: What work is critical to accomplish during this period of change. How much business as usual work will you retain? Will you cancel or postpone some of the projects currently in progress? Will you delay starting others? How many people and how much money will it take to get it all done? Proper resourcing is more than just the right people in the right jobs. It is also enough of the right people in the right jobs, with enough support to ensure that the team is functioning to its highest potential. Like all of the Five Requirements, resource planning must be started in the very beginning. You will likely not know exactly what, who or how much you will need, but you will need to start with an estimate. Of course, the estimate will be based on all of the information you have collected to date regarding the changes taking place, and then factoring in your past experiences, knowledge of your current team and their capabilities, and time remaining to execute the training program; all of which will likely result in the need for additional capacity and expertise. There are a few ways training teams generally increase their capacity and expertise: Carve out portions of the work and have a vendor develop distinct deliverables (Deliverablebased Outsourcing) Completely outsource the function of training for either the change event, or the business as usual training during the change event (Team Outsourcing) Augment the staff with individual resources as needed (Staff Augmentation) Partner with a company to manage an augmented training team (Staffing Partner) There are pros and cons to each approach, and a company s history and procurement policies may drive a decision one way or another. The Staffing Partner approach is not frequently used in training organizations, but has proven to be effective for these types of programs. In the Staffing Partner approach, a vendor provides a team of people to augment your training staff. The team is selected and assembled based on your criteria for skills, cultural fit, and needs of the projects. 6

7 The vendor manages the selection, onboarding, and care and feeding of the additional team members. In this approach, the Staffing Partner should be responsible for: Conducting all job posting, resume screening, and initial interviewing - The Partner can even work with you to develop detailed job screening scenarios to ensure you are getting the resources you want without having to interview yourself. Providing an orientation to consultants Your new team members show up on the first day ready to work. Managing the process of setting up a contractor to operate in the client environment The logistics of onboarding a large number of consultants can be a daunting task, but The Partner can help manage that process. Providing all administrative support to the contractors Pay, timesheets, expense reports and travel arrangements are all managed by The Partner. Working with the client to manage the scheduling and utilization of resources Because you will not know exactly what you need in the beginning, The Partner can help manage through the challenges of determining what is needed, and finding resources on short notice. Providing coaching to consultants on baseline skills as required Coaching on skills like communication, time management, teamwork, or advanced Word functions, should be The Partner s responsibility, leaving you free to focus on the execution of the program. Maintaining a field presence on-site When you have a large consultant team on site, it is important to have a Partner representative on site with them, to help you with your planning, and to help with the management of the consultants. Budgeting is obviously an important step in resource planning. Without a budget, you will not be able to have any additional resources. Budgets are typically submitted and approved before starting any significant work. A budget advocate someone at a senior level who understands the importance of properly funding the training organization, and someone who can work with the executive team to get your budget request approved - is also a very good idea. Your Program Principles will help determine the resources and budget that will be required such as: Do I need field trainers? Will equipment be needed for learning labs? How many designers will I need based on what I know of the changes and critical skills? Will technical resources be needed to create web materials? What logistical and administrative support will be needed? How will all of the individual projects be managed? What project management and coordination support will be required? Who will oversee quality and the integrity of the training program? Additional questions that will need to be answered during Resource Planning include: Will additional resources be internal or external? If external, will you follow insource, outsource, deliverable-based or time and materials models? 7

8 Do the resources need to be on-site? How will they access systems or company resources? How will they interact with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and Stakeholders? How will the team be organized and what are the accountabilities? Who is responsible for identifying and addressing resource issues? How will they be addressed? How will resource needs be forecasted and budgeted? How will the actual be tracked against budget? Comprehensive Quality Management Quality is inarguably an important part of everything we do in business. Comprehensive quality management as a deliberate part of an overall plan is often overlooked. There are often so many other considerations and planning needs that quality planning often does not start until there are quality issues. When we talk about quality, we mean more than eliminating typos or bugs. A Comprehensive Quality Management Plan should ensure that: Training and communications are targeted to the needs of the audience and business. A full time training team will likely know the audience well; however, o What if there are a number of new consultants on the team? o What if the training audience is part of another company? o How will knowledge about the audience and a detailed understanding of their needs be incorporated into the overall plan and every deliverable? o Does everyone on the training team understand how the training will ensure achievement of business objectives? Training and communications are in line with company culture. There is typically a great deal of stress for all involved in a large scale change. Ensuring that training methodologies and language are aligned with company culture and past methodologies will help provide some level of consistency during the transition. Reviews of deliverables must include the culture as a consideration. Information is accurate. This is another obvious statement, but inaccurate training is delivered all the time. The training team may be working with a home office group to obtain information for training materials, but does that accurately reflect how the work is done in the field? Do the people involved in the training have the right information? Processes should be in place to ensure that information is validated with multiple sources. Deliverables are in line with the overall plan. Different designers and developers may be working with different Subject Matter Experts. How will your team: o Ensure that all of the materials are true to the original program design and training plan? o Ensure that all materials fit as part of the overall curriculum? o Recognize if there is redundant information between training components? o Recognize any gaps? The quality of the whole should not be overlooked. o Ensure that deliverables are consistent and error-free. The process and time required to ensure error-free materials must be spelled out in the quality management plan. 8

9 Providing for the time and resources to ensure quality must be included in the budgeting process. The following are some mechanisms for comprehensive quality management that can be employed: Sponsors If there are a number of consultants or new employees working on training materials, consider assigning a senior training team member or manager as a sponsor for that part of the curriculum. The sponsor would primarily review materials to ensure the training was in line with the needs of the audience and company culture. The sponsor can also act as an escalation point for issues with content or subject matter expert participation. Design Manager - A design manager would review all of the deliverables to ensure they are consistent and error free as well as take the lead on ensuring the look and layout of the materials, and design and development standards, are in line with and specific to the project. They could also be the same as the Curriculum Owner. Curriculum Owner As the name implies, a curriculum owner owns the curriculum, and ensures that all deliverables are in line with the overall plan. They identify any overlaps and gaps, and take the lead on addressing training needs that pop up during the course of the project. Subject Matter Expert (SME) Integration SMEs possess the knowledge and skills necessary to a successful project, and they should be an integral part of your extended training team. Live interaction in person or through tools like Live Meeting should be promoted during content gathering and reviews as much as possible. It is also important to ensure that lack of SME participation is quickly addressed and resolved. Comprehensive Reviews Materials should be reviewed often as a regular part of the design and development process. Internal training team, peer, SME, curriculum owner, design manager and sponsor reviews should all be considered and included in the schedule. Each reviewer should be clear on their responsibilities, and what they are charged with looking for during the review. Pilots with Target Audience All material should be piloted, whether in person or online. This is not only a way to achieve accuracy and audience fit, but it is a good way to build excitement and energy for the training implementation. Escalation Process for Content Any issues with content accuracy, information gathering, pilot feedback, deviation from the Program Principles, or general quality concerns should have an escalation process. This process should be defined in advance and communicated to the whole team, and revisited often during the project to ensure compliance. Questions that will need to be answered during Comprehensive Quality Management Planning include: How will you ensure that knowledge about the company, history, audience and culture are incorporated into all of the training deliverables? How will SMEs be involved in the development and approval of training materials? What SMEs need to be involved, and how will they be managed? How will you ensure that training materials are consistent, error-free, and are in line with the initial design? How will the integrity of the curriculum be maintained? Who makes decisions about what to add or remove? What is the curriculum oversight? 9

10 Measurement, Measurement, Measurement Measurement is important only if it helps you meet the business objectives for the program. Some training teams approach measurement by first asking, What metrics do we want to track? A more appropriate approach is to begin by asking, How do we know whether or not we are meeting our business objectives? To that end, measurement should start with the activities that the team has defined as being critical to the accomplishment of the business objectives. The activities will then be tracked and measurements will be added to those activities to determine if they are being accomplished at the appropriate levels. Activities should be tracked before, during and post-implementation. They should also include both project team and training activities. One way to frame the measurements is by asking two questions: Are we getting ready? and How ready are we? Measurement by itself is not enough. Every measurement must have a specific goal attached to it. The measurements and goals will typically have a timeline established as well. (See table below for examples.) The final element of an effective measurement plan is a contingency plan. If the measurement is not in line with the goal, a contingency action should be triggered to bring the activity back in line. Since only activities critical to meeting the business objectives are being tracked, if they are out of line, they must be corrected. By having contingencies in advance, action can be immediately implemented. Additionally, the act of contingency planning often improves the initial implementation and reduces the chance of a problem in the first place. Some examples of measurement items are: Activity Measurements Goals Contingencies Final training deliverable Pilot training session Completion of specific e-learning module with confidence survey % complete, status and trend, issues, quality review outcomes Completion of pilot, scores on post pilot survey, feedback from participants, trainer observation comments % of total audience complete, # technical issues, # support calls, Survey scores % complete over time, no issues, defined quality expectations No show stopper comments, less than 5% content changes, participants excited to recommend training Goals for completions over time with end date, Tech and support call threshold, Expected range for confidence scores Stakeholder escalation process, schedule alternatives, staffing changes, implementation changes Resourcing identified to rework content, secondary pilot date, implementation changes Dev team on standby to fix tech issues, Field leadership escalation path to drive completions, follow up plan for low confidence 10

11 Activity Measurements Goals Contingencies Systems conversion event # and types of calls into support areas, volume of operations business, issue escalations No global issues resulting from training gaps, no escalated issues Trainers and developers on standby to address critical gaps, trainers deployed key locations for rapid response, augmentation plan for support areas Questions to be answered during Measurement Planning include: Will you have a detailed project schedule, and how will you know it is on track? How will you know if the audience is taking the steps to get ready for the event? How will you know if the audience is ready for the event? How will you provide information that is critical to make decisions throughout the process? What are the sources and recipients of information? How will you manage information flow? Additional Considerations Here are some additional considerations when planning your training program: It is not over at the BIG BANG If there is a conversion event, the training plan should not end there. If you have used a critical skills filter, there is still training to be delivered that is important to the audience. There will also be issues that pop up that were not anticipated. The plan should include staffing that is set aside to deal with the issues, or other work that can be prioritized below the issues. Plan for post event support No matter how good the training program is, employees will forget some of it, or will encounter a critical need that was not covered in training. Post event support can help minimize the operational impact. Issue information flow How will you hear about issues that come up either as a result of training, or that can be addressed through the training function? Are you tied into the IT helpdesk, any centralized issues centers, or support areas? Training should be monitoring the information to help the organization quickly close any post conversion/event gaps. Plan for a buddy system Buddy systems are a great way for front line leaders to get help from other people in their roles. Pair up managers and supervisors whenever possible and encourage the use of the buddy relationship. If a merger, partner roles from both legacy organizations Involvement from both organizations is critical. Each company has a perspective that is important. Ignoring or not including half of the equation can create difficulties. 11

12 Parting Thoughts These are obviously not the only planning aspects of a well-designed and executed training program. We feel, however, that if you focus on these Five Requirements, you will have a much greater potential to meet and exceed the desired program outcomes. The recommendations outlined in this document have been formulated after a significant number of hours of program management and team leadership in these types of programs, and a substantial amount of performance analysis and after action review. We hope that you are able to make your life easier by avoiding some of the lessons we learned over time. About the Authors Tom Allen is a Managing Director for Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Advisor Training Department. With more than 17 years experience in the training and development space, Tom has led several large training initiatives for the firm, including merger training on back-to-back mergers, training for new financial advisors, and implementation of the firm s corporate university. Tom was also cited in 2007 by the St. Louis Business Journal s 40 Under 40, a list highlighting the top executives in the St. Louis area under age 40. Tom holds an M.A. in English Literature from University of Missouri-Columbia, and a B.A. in English and Economics from Vanderbilt University. Todd Fleming, a certified Project Management Professional (PMP ), is currently a program and Program Manager and Senior Consultant for VisionCor Inc., a consulting firm specializing in providing capacity and expertise. In this role, Todd is responsible for planning and directing large and complex training programs and projects. Todd is an experienced program and project manager. He has personally managed a wide variety of projects totaling well over 10,000 hours of direct project management experience. Todd has managed teams of project managers, instructional designers, trainers, technical developers and IT professionals. He has led training project teams with over 100 members 12