Synopses & Reviews
SYSTEMATICALLY MAXIMIZE THE VALUE OF TRAINING IN TODAY’S RADICALLY TRANSFORMED BUSINESS ENVIRONMENTS
- Achieve excellence in the 8 key process areas that matter most
- Strengthen leadership, strategic alignment, content delivery, metrics, and more
- Diagnose and overcome specific obstacles to learning in your organization
- Leverage technology to promote independent learning, not distract from it
Learners have changed—radically. Businesses have changed—even more radically. If you’re a learning leader, you know your organization must change just as profoundly. You may already be working to lead that change. This best-practices book will help you focus your scarce resources on achieving excellence where it matters most today—and where it will matter most tomorrow.
Doug Harward and Ken Taylor have spent seven years identifying and validating the specific processes and practices associated with outstanding training organization performance. Building on this unprecedented research, they help you define priorities that tightly align with business goals and objectives, choose best practices you can realistically implement, and get results.
Reflecting comprehensive new research, this book identifies 8 sets of training processes proven to drive the greatest sustainable performance improvements. Drawing on their pioneering training industry experience, Doug Harward and Ken Taylor drill down into each set of capabilities, helping you build on what you’re already doing well, and achieve excellence on the business metrics that matter most.
This evidence-based best-practice guide helps you focus your efforts where they will deliver the greatest value, build implementation roadmaps based on the field’s hard-earned wisdom, and successfully execute. Reflecting profound insights into today’s learners and corporate goals, it will help you excel whether you deliver training internally, purchase services from suppliers, or supply training services to businesses.
Optimize the value of training by focusing on these 8 process areas:
- Strategic Alignment: Design learning programs that align with business objectives
- Content Development: Assess, design, manage, and maintain content
- Delivery: Manage instructor networks and deliver via multiple modalities
- Diagnostics: Identify causes of problems and recommend solutions
- Reporting & Analysis: Define business metrics, report data, make improvements
- Technology Integration: Integrate learning technologies with each other, and with enterprise systems
- Administrative Services: Support learners via scheduling, registration, and more
- Portfolio Management: Manage, rationalize, and maintain large program portfolios
Synopsis
All learning leaders want their organizations to be perceived as great, but what makes a “great” training organization? How does a training organization achieve greatness, particularly from the perspective of the corporation, the learners, and any customers, clients and partners that interact with it?
This book presents findings that are based on the data, information, and experiences shared with Training Industry, Inc. by several hundred learning professionals over a five year span, from 2008 to 2012. It identified 8 process capabilities, which have been identified as the key functions in the design, delivery and management of corporate workforce training.
Each section of the book focuses on the process capabilities in detail. In addition, individual practices are explained further, noting specific procedures or scenarios and how they are best executed, all supported by best practices and comments from learning leaders.
About the Author
DOUG HARWARD (Cary, NC) is the CEO and Founder of Training Industry, Inc. Mr. Harward is internationally recognized as one of the leading strategists for training and outsourcing business models. He is respected as one of the industry's leading authorities on competitive analysis for training services and works with international companies and new business start-ups in building training organizations.
Mr. Harward previously served as the Director of Global Learning for Nortel Networks where he led the industry's largest global training outsourcing engagement with PricewaterhouseCoopers. He received the Chairman's Global Award for Community Service for his work in developing integrated learning organization strategies within higher education, public schools and business. He has worked in the training industry for more than 25 years. Mr. Harward received an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and a BSBA in Marketing from Appalachian State University.
KEN TAYLOR (Cary, NC) is Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Partner of Training Industry, Inc., a position he’s held since joining the company in 2006. Ken has driven the expansion of Training Industry’s focus from outsourcing to the broader training marketplace, developing a suite of services that includes marketing, research, publications and webinars. As COO, Ken manages company operations, oversees the TrainingIndustry.com website communities, determines technology strategy for TrainingIndustry.com, directs research and industry analysis, and serves as editor in chief for Training Industry Quarterly magazine.
Ken’s career spans 25 years in leadership and entrepreneur roles across several industries and in several focus areas, including Operations, Technology, Marketing and Finance, including serving as CFO of several large business units. Ken has a passion for technology and its impact on organizational effectiveness, driving his deep interest in Learning Technology and Social Media. Managing the evolution of TrainingIndustry.com affords him the opportunity to introduce and test new approaches in getting the right information to people at their moments of need.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Why We Wrote This Book 1
The Demographics of the Research Pool 2
Chapter 1 The Eight Process Capability Areas of a Training Organization 7
The Eight Key Process Capabilities 8
Organization Ratings 10
Conclusion 14
Chapter 2 The Importance of Learning Leadership 15
Conclusion 18
Chapter 3 Strategic Alignment 19
Strategic Alignment Practices 24
Conclusion 32
Chapter 4 Diagnostics 33
Differences Between Diagnostics and Strategic Alignment 34
Linking Diagnostics and Content Development 38
Case Study for Diagnostics: Performance Architecture 39
The Most Critical Diagnostic Practices 41
Conclusion 50
Notes 50
Chapter 5 Content Development 53
The Most Critical Content Development Practices 54
Conclusion 71
Note 72
Chapter 6 Content Delivery 73
Delivery Modalities 73
Instructor Quality 76
The Most Critical Delivery Practices 76
Conclusion 83
Chapter 7 Administrative Services 85
The Most Critical Administrative Services Practices 87
Conclusion 92
Chapter 8 Measurement and Certification 95
Measurement as a Strategy 97
Conclusion 104
Notes 104
Chapter 9 Reporting and Analysis 105
The Most Critical Reporting and Analysis Practices 108
Conclusion 114
Notes 115
Chapter 10 Portfolio Management 117
Getting the Portfolio Mix Right 119
The Most Critical Portfolio Management Practices 122
Conclusion 128
Notes 129
Chapter 11 The Role of Technology in Learning 131
Technologies Should Enable the Learning Experience and Never Be a Distraction 135
Match Tools to Learning Styles 136
Technologies Can Reduce the Barriers of Geography and Time 136
Technology Standards Allow for Improved Interoperability and Access of Content 137
Conclusion 138
Notes 139
Chapter 12 Technology Integration 141
Technology Platforms 142
The Most Critical Technology Integration Practices 145
Conclusion 153
Note 154
Chapter 13 Summary and Key Takeaways 155
The Eight Process Capabilities 156
Practices for Each Process Capability Area 158
The Importance of Leadership 159
Measurement 160
The Role of Technology in Learning 161
One Final Thought 162
Appendix A The Research—2008 through 2013 165
Introduction 165
Process Capabilities 166
Organization Process Capability Ratings 170
Most Critical Practices 170
Conclusion 172
Demographics 173
About Training Industry, Inc 174
About This Research 174
Index 177