Human Performance Technology: Focus on Innovation or Correction?
by Donald T. Tosti, CPT, PhD

There are several ways we can view improvement in any situation. One way is that which is exemplified in quality efforts. This approach focuses on reducing variation and, therefore, searches for the root cause of the variation and corrects it. Such a “mind set” is a logical development since quality grew out of industrial quality inspection. Inspectors look for defects and errors. So those who use quality improvement methods strive to reduce or eliminate as much error as possible. They can be seen in the current, most popular quantity method called Six Sigma. The name refers to the goal of reducing variance to one part in a million.

A second approach, which is often termed an engineering approach, characterized much of the early development in the field of Human Performance Technology (HPT). Our field has its origins in the psychological learning and performance laboratories. There the focus was on determining what facilitated or inhibited performance. Rather than focusing at what reduced variance in behavior these researchers were more concerned with what could be controlled to shape it in a desired direction. When these people left their laboratories, they were more inclined to take an engineering approach to finding ways to achieve their objective.

Both are legitimate, but each starts with different assumptions and, therefore, often leads to different outcomes. They also use somewhat different processes, although there is a great deal of overlap between the two.

Michael Liebman (2005) describes what this difference is: “Unlike those who tend to approach problems from a ‘bottom-up’ perspective by collecting data and seeking patterns, engineers take a ‘top-down’ approach, probing a specific system for clues, taking it apart and considering how each component can be handled in a tailored solution.”

Henry Petroski (2005) says, “Engineering is more akin to writing or painting, and that it is a creative endeavor that begins in the mind’s eye and proceeds into new frontiers of thought and action, where it does not so much find as make new things.”

The biggest difference is that engineering improvement focuses on means and enabling it, and quality improvement focuses on cause and eliminating it.

Engineering solves problems more through analysis and design than through troubleshooting and repair, although both are accepted as legitimate processes.

Over the years, some feel regrettably so, HPT has tended to drift more toward a quality or correction approach than the engineering or innovation approach to problem solving it used in its formative years.

My concern and those of others in the field (Wittkuhn, 2004) is that a linear focus on cause is incompatible with taking a true systems approach. Systems logic views everything as interdependent. Hence, there is any number of alternative ways to produce a given result. A range of “solutions” is possible, not just one that addresses a “root cause” issue.

An engineering perspective treats the organization as a system or a set of subsystems that has been acted on differentially by many elements that influence its state at critical points over time. Our job as HPT analysts, then, is to identify the various critical points to determine which can be controlled to produce the desired improvement. The requirement is to select from a number of possible interventions that would be most cost-effective given the resource requirements. There is almost never one solution, although there may be one best solution.

Quality is popular. It promises managers cost reductions and greater efficiency. Because it sells so well, the tendency within our field is to allow ourselves to be solely defined as “fixers” rather than “innovators.”

We have learned much from the quality field, but it threatens to limit our perspective to repair and correction as our main problem-solving focus.

If we also focus on innovation and the power of using HPT engineering methods in addressing performance issues, we can open new opportunities that just being gap fixers never would provide. It also can position us at a more strategic level in the organization since innovative solutions are more likely to impact revenue and competitive issues.

Through a wide range of present and yet-to-be-determined innovations, we can help individuals and organizations do a better job of creating value for all those who are their stakeholders. We are only at the threshold. The real promise of Human Performance Technology and its benefits is unlimited.

References
Liebman, M. (2005, July-August). An engineering approach to translation medicine. American Scientist, 296-298.

Petroski, H. (2005, July-August). Technology and the humanities. American Scientist, 304-307.

Wittkuhn, K. (2004). Models, systemic thinking and unpredictability in consulting. Performance Improvement, 43(6), 17-19.

This month we had the pleasure of talking with Guy W. Wallace, CPT. Guy is the president of EPPIC, a consulting firm that works on the human side of enterprise process performance improvement to help clients leverage their master performers to achieve peak performance for significant ROI and value added. Guy has served many Fortune 500 firms as a performance improvement consultant since 1982, and is a past president of ISPI. He may be reached at guy.wallace@eppic.biz.

To continue with TrendSpotters’ recent focus on process improvement in organizations, Guy observes that many of his client organizations are engaged, or soon will be, in a seismic shift from addressing one-dimensional performance improvement opportunities at the individual level to developing integrated initiatives that systemically address aspects of cross-functional performance at the process level.

Top Three Predictions
With this major change in mind, Guy shares his predictions for the next two to three years.

First, organizations will increasingly transition from an individual focus to a process focus as businesses globally experience productivity efficiencies gained from the systems approach.

Second, many organizations will either begin to collaborate with, or actually merge with, other organizations that promote or practice LEAN and Six Sigma methodologies because of the results they make possible. LEAN methods primarily streamline processes, and Six Sigma reduces variation of both products and processes.

Third, Return-On-Investment (ROI) emphasis will shift from individual interventions to integrated solutions for a more realistic measure of efforts and results.

Why These Predictions
Both LEAN and Six Sigma are data-oriented methodologies that a growing number of organizational leaders have come to value for the quantitative descriptions they provide of both how and how well processes are performing. Many organizations have adopted both methodologies to streamline existing critical processes to enable them to achieve statistical control.

As LEAN and Six Sigma implementation efforts progress, performance improvement functions will be challenged to better integrate their processes for delivering their products and services with the adopted LEAN and Six Sigma efforts of their organizations, to leverage common planning, analysis, and macro-design efforts.

With all the valuable data, insight, and direction Six Sigma and LEAN can provide, neither methodology, in Guy’s view, adequately addresses the human variable within process improvement, as does Human Performance Technology (HPT). This presents an important opportunity for performance improvement professionals to add value by partnering with the folks from Six Sigma and LEAN to ensure that the people component is addressed in improvement initiatives so that they will be successful.

How Organizations Will Be Different
With leaderships’ heightened awareness of the importance of a process orientation in managing and improving their organizations’ performance, it is likely that they will select Six Sigma, LEAN, or both as a key component of the improvement methodologies they adopt.

This growing focus on LEAN and Six Sigma will increase the number of functions and people engaged in performance improvement. Currently, there is frequently a lack of collaboration in the planning and pursuit of performance improvement objectives. To optimally serve both their internal and external stakeholders and achieve economies of scale, these people will have to increase their upfront collaborative efforts.

The savvy HPTer will anticipate opportunities such as these and will seek out opportunities for participation in Six Sigma or LEAN project pilots and begin to learn their specific terminologies. They will read related books and articles and otherwise become familiar with the specifics of the chosen methodologies.

Regardless of the specifics of the approach selected, it will probably become the HPTers’ responsibility to learn the new tools and techniques and adapt their work to the new approach, versus the other way around. For example, future projects may be framed with a DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control) model rather than the familiar ISD-oriented ADDIE (Analysis-Design-Development-Implementation-Evaluation) model. Both are intended to get things done in an orderly, systematic fashion, and both work.

As HPTers partner with their LEAN or Six Sigma teams, there will be ample opportunity to position and sell the value-added of HPT’s human performance emphasis. Commonalities such as taking a systems view, use of data and measured results, and identifying duplications and overlaps in processes will enable practitioners from the various improvement disciplines to find enough common ground, despite the uncommon languages, to work together for success.

If taking an integrated approach is the path to an integrated solution, performance improvement practitioners should be able to partner successfully with Six Sigma or LEAN practitioners to combine their methods, models, tools, and techniques for optimum performance improvement and organizational growth.

Implications for Guy’s Work at EPPIC
As an external consultant, Guy is constantly challenged to learn about his clients’ improvement efforts related to LEAN and Six Sigma. Many have been actively implementing Six Sigma or LEAN for some time, and Guy has worked to adapt EPPIC’s HPT and ISD methods to integrate more easily with these other methods.

For example, Six Sigma includes analysis methods and tools that are used during performance improvement projects. Rather than duplicating efforts, EPPIC methods adapt to how the project will be conducted using Six Sigma. Guy then uses the Six Sigma data and plans for ways to obtain the “other data” needed for his HPT and ISD efforts, without devaluing or dismissing the data from Six Sigma.

Regardless of his client’s chosen methodology, Guy is continually required to demonstrate the flexibility, adaptability, and the added value of EPPIC’s methods for addressing the human component in process design and improvement.

Advice to New HPTers
Guy points out that it is not possible for any one of us to specialize in and master all of the disciplines under the HPT umbrella. However, the well-rounded practitioner should be able to converse intelligently with specialists from many different areas and establish partnerships to further the success of projects and initiatives in his or her organizations.

One of ISPI’s goals is to provide a vehicle for specialists in a given area to come together to accomplish their goals and to learn about related HPT disciplines so that we can keep pace with changing professional needs. Five of the seven new Professional Communities (ProComms) were established to meet the needs of practitioners from these specialty areas, and the other two overlap them all from both a research perspective and an integrated applications perspective.

Guy encourages all of our readers to investigate the ProComms and participate in those appropriate to furthering their professional development.

If you have been spotting trends that may be of interest to the PerformanceXpress readership, contact Carol Haig, CPT, at carolhaig@earthlink.net or http://home.mindspring.com/%7Ecarolhaig or Roger Addison, CPT, EdD at roger@ispi.org.

Corporate Buy-in Matters! Committed Action by the Client, an Essential Ingredient in Successful Change Efforts
by Elena F. Galbraith, CPT

In the August 2005 issue of PerformanceXpress, ISPI Director Captain Matt Peters talked about the frustrations of implementing performance improvement projects and the importance of sponsor and stakeholder involvement at the onset a project. I appreciate the sound advice he gave and want to challenge us to go a little deeper.

In sales, it’s all about collecting yeses. The more yeses you collect during the sales process, the greater likelihood you will win the sale. The same holds true in selling human performance solutions; the more involved and educated our clients are—the greater skin in the game—the greater likelihood the changes made will produce positive returns for the business.

Getting Corporate Commitment
Positive change over time must be managed and owned by the people closest to the work. This sense of ownership is vital to realizing the potential value a proposed solution can bring to the business and to the individual. I say individual because, in the end, each individual must embrace the new way—whether a new process or new practice. As I see it, the two essential components are involvement and education. Let’s break each one down.

In synopsis, involve the client early, look for opportunities to transfer ownership of the solution, and give what you know away!

This article series is designed to increase the visibility of the workplace impact that CPTs are making. These collected stories are meant to provide a showcase that you may share with your clients.

Performance Issue
The problem was a situation where relationships within a team and the senior management of a major department of local government appeared “to have irretrievably broken down.” The initial brief was to restore working relationships and avert a possible claim being made against the County Borough Council at an Industrial Tribunal for effectively dismissing them by making it impossible to carry out their job, which is known as constructive dismissal.

This County Borough Council was in the midst of a major restructuring program with cost savings as one of the key criteria. The existing structure was based on two central departments and seven service departments with an overall total of 7,000 employees.

The situation, intensified by the general unrest caused by the impending changes and perceived reduction in service levels within one of the service departments, had deteriorated to such an extent that an emotional outburst from the senior manager directed at a team member resulted in a formal complaint of bullying and harassment being registered. The outcome was the suspension of the senior manager with a potential Industrial Tribunal pending. The impact on lost productivity and low morale within the department was dramatic!

Performance Analysis
The first vital step was to determine the underlying causes of this incident prior to designing the most effective interventions. It was proposed that a staged approach following HPT standards and CPT principles would lead to the best solution:

Research Phase
Stage 1: One-to-One Sessions

Stage 2: Review of Research
The uncovered problem was fundamentally that the work environment, including processes and resources, was not supportive of enabling performers to achieve the desired results in an environment where the “goal posts” kept changing.

All action steps would be identified, as a team, through a facilitated “Team Away Day” meeting to explore key areas:

Stage 3: Team Away Day
The agenda for the day was developed from data of the current work processes and performance environment of the accused performer and the team (i.e., expectations, resources or tools, feedback and consequences, relationships and inter-dependencies). Specific areas discussed on the Team Away Day included:

Degrees of Change Exercise
Each sub-team worked together to clearly define what services were currently provided under the headings of:

Risk analysis, a comparison between:

Cross-Awareness: Each sub-team visited each other’s area to expand their awareness of current issues and challenges.

Presentations were made at the end of the Team Away Day to the departmental manager and deputy departmental manager.

Stage 4: The “Way Forward” Plan
Key issues identified:

Performance Solution
The client has confirmed that the following results have been achieved:

Organizational Results

About the CPT: Christine Marsh, CPT, is a principal at Prime Objectives. She may be reached at CMarsh@primeobjectives.com.

From the Board: Working Behind the Scenes for ISPI Membership
by Marilyn Spatz, CPT, ISPI Director

Committee emails, conference calls, proposals, budget requests, reports, and numerous other activities are happening behind the scenes of the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI). Global emails travel between committee members, ISPI Board members, and ISPI staff. Do you know anyone who has volunteered to be on a committee? Do you know that there are dozens of opportunities to volunteer your time and professional skills to better our Society?

Curious? I went to the ISPI website at www.ispi.org to see if I could find out the names of standing committees. With a click on “About ISPI & Membership” in the left navigation bar, I found another link to “Committees.” Wow! I found the names of 11 standing committees and their respective chairperson(s). Each committee has a charter that explains its purpose, goals, and an idea about their value to you, the ISPI member and prospective member. These committees have short-term subcommittees that review conference proposals, award applications, research grant proposals, and numerous other tasks. Get acquainted with a committee by emailing the chairperson and indicating your interest. Committee chairpersons recruit throughout the year for new committee members, who will take responsibility in April 2006.

The fall spotlight is on the Nominations Committee. Committee members follow a very systematic process to review nominee applications against the position criteria. The committee charter is:

Tough work? Yes. In addition to reviewing applications and evaluating each nominee’s experience and skills against the criteria, there are phone calls to references, conference calls, and reports to write. The slate of candidates that the ISPI membership will vote on in January is a result of hours of volunteer time between September and November of this year.

Thank you to the Nominations Committee for their dedication and time to present a slate of qualified candidates that can lead our Society.

In summary, I want to thank and praise every ISPI member who has worked on a committee, subcommittee, or task force. My fellow ISPI Board members and I appreciate your dedication to continuing the rich tradition of volunteering to achieve business and organizational goals for our strong professional community in ISPI. We have a long history of dedicated volunteers who keep the Society looking to the future, achieving annual goals, and supporting the administrative structure that allows vision and growth.

Implementation: Assuring Adoption
by Judith A. Hale, CPT, PhD

The ADDIE (analysis, design, develop, implement, and evaluate) model has been around a long time; however, not a lot of attention has been given to the implementation phase. Usually, when people talk about implementation they mean the initial launch or the subsequent offerings of an instructional event after the pilot, not the adoption of the behaviors required to fulfill the promise of the intervention. What does it mean to fully implement something whether that is a new technology or a way of doing business?

Implementation is the institutionalization of new behaviors. Most interventions require a new set of behaviors to reap the long-term benefits. For example, following a new work process, using a new technology, giving people constructive feedback, engaging customers in a different way, documenting work differently, all depend on new behaviors. You can increase the odds of institutionalizing new behaviors when you take a multi-faceted approach that includes governance, attention, measurement, and self-determination (see Figure 1). Each aspect increases the odds that ownership, adoption, and control shift to the client and not remain with the learning and performance improvement function.

Figure 1. Implementation Model.

Governance is about the creation of a leadership structure that legitimizes the intervention, communicates the purpose of the intervention, provides a platform to resolve issues, and clarifies the roles and responsibilities of the people who must adopt or support the adoption of the new behaviors. Organizations frequently create steering committees to oversee the design and development phases, but not the implementation.
Measurement is about tracking and reporting changes in the leading and lagging indicators of success to the people whose behavior must change and their internal customers and leadership. Measuring and reporting needs to continue long enough to assure the new behaviors are reinforced and become ingrained. Measurement also lets you know if an intervention is living up to expectations and, if not, that the cause is not due to the failure to adopt the required behaviors.
Attention is about keeping the goals and status of the intervention on management’s agenda for an extended period of time. Managers come and go and their replacements and those who stay frequently direct their attention to new things. As a result, attention is diverted away from previous commitments. Lack of attention is interpreted as lack of interest and can foster either passive aggressive behaviors or legitimize abandonment of the intervention.
Self regulation is about the creation of tools and standards so people know what behaviors are required and can monitor their rate of adoption. Ownership and control of the intervention must rest with the people whose behavior must change and who will reap the benefits of the intervention. Having tools and standards also improves the odds that people know how to judge the adequacy and sufficiency of their adoption of new behaviors. They eliminate the need for Learning and Performance policing others’ behavior and reporting non-compliance; an adversarial position.

Learning and performance professionals can help clients experience the promise of improvement by setting up a leadership structure for the implementation, reporting interim results, keeping the promise on the agenda, and enabling people to monitor their own degree of adoption by giving them performance support tools.

Judith Hale, PhD, author of The Performance Consultant’s Fieldbook, Performance-Based Certification, Performance-Based Evaluation, and Performance-Based Management, has been a consultant to management in the public and private sectors for over 25 years. She specializes in needs assessments, certification programs, evaluation protocols, and the implementation of major interventions. She is an ISPI past president and award winner for her work. She has successfully and effectively applied the tools cited with her clients. Judy may be reached at Haleassoci@aol.com.

Tidbits from Behavior Science
Matching Environments to Performance Requirements
by Carl Binder, CPT, PhD

Regular readers of this column might be starting to see a pattern here. My scholarly family tree began with B.F. Skinner, my professor at Harvard, and then B.H. Barrett, Ogden Lindsley, Eric Haughton, and Tom Gilbert. These people were mutual friends and colleagues, and, I’m glad to say, handed down quite a bit about behavior science and its applications to me.

This month I want to talk a bit about what Gilbert called “instruments” in his Behavior Engineering Model, or what we call “Box 2—Tools and Resources” in our “Six Boxes” rendition of Gilbert’s original thinking. While recent decades have seen quite a few contributions to our understanding of how best to match environments to performance, one of the least known goes back to research conducted by some of Skinner’s students and colleagues in the laboratory.

A big challenge in early behavior science laboratories that studied the learning of humans, lower primates, and other species was to design a manipulandum or operandum—a device that a learner could operate repeatedly over relatively long periods of time to make responses, sometimes at very high rates (e.g., above 60 per minute), without fatigue. You had to build a manipulandum for each species, because species differ in their performance capabilities and requirements. For rats, the traditional rat lever worked best because, as we discussed in the last issue of PerformanceXpress, the rat could operate it in a number of ways, reliably and without tiring. Pigeon keys were completely different: little plastic disks that the pigeon could peck thousands of times to produce consequences and demonstrate discrimination without damaging either its beak or the device. Researchers built and “calibrated” all kinds of different devices for learners to use, and for human learners it was perhaps an even greater challenge.

Ogden Lindsley, who began the field of human operant conditioning with Skinner at Harvard Medical School, designed a number of ways for humans to record their responses. The most famous came to be known as the “Lindsley Manipulandum” (see Figure 1) and was designed so that people could either push or pull it, grasp it firmly or use the palm of the hand (to push). Lindsley designed and redesigned the device until performance data showed that people could use this response-maker for long periods of time, without any drift in their rates of response and without doing damage to themselves or the equipment. Lindsley devised a number of other response mechanisms, including floor mats to measure walking, rocking chairs with microswitches to record movement, panels to press, and even voice-operated switches.

Figure 1. Lindsley Manipulandum.

While this might seem esoteric for those of us involved in the practice of Human Performance Technology (HPT) today, it is both conceptually and historically relevant. As Gilbert, Skinner, and Lindsley shared discoveries in programmed instruction and human learning during Gilbert’s year at Harvard, the challenge of building environments to suit the behavior of performers was surely part of the discussion. Gilbert’s recognition that we must take environmental variables beyond antecedents and consequences into account, reflected in the second cell of his Behavior Engineering Model, certainly has a connection to the calibration of laboratory learning environments. Just as we can trace the link between switch closures in basic research labs and accomplishments in Gilbert’s thinking, we can also trace his expanded recognition of environmental variables in part to design of performance environments by basic researchers.

Since the early days of HPT, our appreciation of environmental enablers of performance has accelerated, including ergonomics, job design, and process management. But it’s very interesting to reflect on the fundamental insight provided from those early researchers that the ability of the individual performer to respond efficiently and effectively depends a great deal on the “instruments” or tools and resources—the environment and response interfaces that management provides.

Reference
Gilbert, T.F. (1996). Human competence: Engineering worthy performance. Silver Spring, MD: International Society for Performance Improvement.

I-Spy: Websites of Interest
by Todd Packer

In the northern hemisphere, fall is in full force. As the leaves change and descend…er…fall to Earth, we grab our rakes. This month, we also rake the Internet to find some websites to help improve performance for all people.

Performance technologists find many challenges as workplaces adapt to people with different abilities and capabilities. In 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush proclaimed October as National Disability Employment Awareness Month, giving all of us the opportunity to reflect upon the achievements and barriers that people with disabilities face in the workplace. This month, we will look at some websites that provide resources for people striving to improve work settings for all people. Including paragliders.

These are the general categories I use for the sites featured:

E-Klatch: Links to professional associations, research, and resources that can help refine and expand our views of HPT through connections with other professionals and current trends.
HPT@work: Links to job listings, career development, volunteer opportunities, and other resources for applying your individual skills.
I-Candy: Links to sites that are thought provoking, enjoyable, and refreshing to help manage the stresses and identify new ideas for HPT.

Any listing is for informational purposes only and does not indicate an endorsement either by myself or ISPI. I hope you find these resources useful, and your feedback is greatly appreciated.

E-Klatch
Cutting-edge research continues to examine factors that affect people with disabilities. To access current interdisciplinary centers in the United States that conduct research in this area, visit the The Association of University Centers on Disabilities. Among various resources, you can access a comprehensive Disabilities Dictionary that lists disability terms, organizations, and more. The site also offers links to government resources for Hurricane Katrina survivors, a listserv of The National Training Directors’ Council (NTDC), job listings, research funding opportunities, and more. You can access the National Information and Reporting System (NIRS), which lists projects and products of benefit to people with disabilities—a recent keyword search on “performance improvement” (no quotation marks) found 38 projects. There is even an official NIRS song, which prompts I-Spy to wonder what would be ISPI’s official song? Email I-Spy your ideas!

HPT@work
In our modern workplaces, one common malady that can lead to disabilities is typing injuries. Resources and information to address this issue can be found at the Typing Injury FAQ, “an educational site, provided by the CTD Resource Network, Inc.” that focuses on Repetitive Stress Injuries. You can access an extensive list of articles (including A Unique Approach to Workforce Wellness by John Schlyer, CPE, an interesting piece that links lean manufacturing to individual wellness), as well as respond to their Call for Articles. Also, we suggest a visit to their comprehensive listing of international organizations, with links as varied as the World Health Organization, Sweden’s National Institute for Working Life, the Job Accommodation Network, and the National Association of Myofascial Trigger Point Therapists. The site also offers information on diverse products, from furniture to software, and includes some pictures related to proper posture and assistive devices. Learn to type ergonomically and you can surf the web for a long time.

I-Candy
Fencing. Tennis. Waterskiing. Disabled athletes compete in these sports and many more. For a view of exciting (and inspirational) action shots from the Athens 2004 Paralympics, visit the Bogetti-Smith Gallery photos on the WheelPower website of Kelly Smith. I-Spy found this link at the “Sports & Recreation” section of AllAbilities.com: Disability Links for People of All Abilities. Of the many links on this site, you can access Flyability, a British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association Disability Initiative, where you can learn more about the Flyability Paragliding Wheelchair.

So until next time, strive to always perform to the best of your ability, adapt your work to prevent injuries, and “cyber-glide” safely!

I-Spy continues to advocate for a day, week, or month in honor of HPT and our excellent profession. Please send your suggestions to tp@toddpacker.com, and we’ll share some ideas in a future column.

When he is not Internet trawling for ISPI, Todd Packer can be found improving business, non-profit, government, and individual performance through research, training, and innovation coaching as principal consultant of Todd Packer and Associates, LLC, based in Shaker Heights, Ohio. For sample articles on performance innovation and additional information, please visit www.toddpacker.com. Todd may be reached at tp@toddpacker.com.

2005 Award of Excellence Recipient
Standalone WBT: How to Produce Effective, Learner-controlled Web-based Training
by Carmen Taran, CPT, EdD

As increasing e-learning offerings are part of business, government, and academic institutions, more professionals with solid e-learning design and implementation skills are needed to ensure the national and international competitiveness of our organizations. The purpose of the book titled Standalone WBT—How to Produce Effective, Learner-controlled Web-based Training (WBT) is to provide guidelines and standards for producing effective standalone online instruction.

The originality of the book springs from the fact that, currently, there are not many printed, research-based resources that narrow down the field of e-learning to specific components so that such a complex concept becomes manageable to understand, design, develop, and implement.

A quick search of books related specifically to web-based training performed on www.amazon.com produces few results. Descriptions of the books included in this list demonstrate that the majority of materials published on the topic of WBT lack one or several of these benefits:

Sharp focus. Most books related to WBT are too generic and often overwhelm readers by addressing features and applications of a variety of WBT methods (e.g., synchronous and asynchronous WBT). Standalone WBT addresses only the production of standalone WBT, which involves only the student and the computer, without any other educational agents. Consequently, readers know exactly what to expect from Standalone WBT and are not overwhelmed by information that they either do not need or for which they are not prepared.
Balance theory and practice. Most current books on WBT rely either on explaining abbreviated instructional theories and models or on providing tips and tricks on how to produce WBT without a theoretical foundation. Standalone WBT offers a good equilibrium between theories in education, psychology, communication, and instructional design, and it provides practical examples, extracted from real-life situations.
Balance technology and design. Due to the fact that technology is so ephemeral, books that offer “how-to” guidelines for producing self-paced WBT should not focus heavily on what software applications or hardware to use to create a particular online training product. The focus should be on solid instructional design that is fluid enough to adjust to whatever technology fits designers’ skills and available resources and learners’ ability to access the training. Standalone WBT has a sharp focus on steady design versus shifting technology.
Real examples. Most authors who publish WBT-related books have difficulty in acquiring the necessary approval for including real-life examples in their materials. Because the author of Standalone WBT works within a corporation that relies heavily on WBT and has collaborated with many WBT vendors, it was easier to obtain approval for offering readers real-life examples of WBT products. This feature contributes to the credibility of Standalone WBT.

In addition, Standalone WBT presents a balanced combination of serious content and humorous, anecdotal elements. Readers are informed but also entertained.

The book was submitted for an ISPI award based on the author’s intent to share with HR practitioners practical guidelines for producing effective WBT, implicitly responding to the needs of a speed-maddened, budget-restrictive world, in which it has become increasingly difficult to align training schedules and make strict time commitments. The book takes into consideration economic, environmental, financial, and instructional factors and aims to help designers produce quality online training.

One of the most significant accomplishments achieved through the publication of this book is that SBC Communications, Inc., the second largest telecommunications company in the nation, has purchased the book to be used as part of their instructional designers’ mandatory certification path. Here are a few testimonials offered by designers after reading Standalone WBT:

“I am so impressed with the Standalone WBT book. I see this as a very practical resource that will be helpful to all of us instructional designers as we embark on the journey of developing more online training. The book contains a lot of practical guidelines that I look forward to including in my applications.”

“...[T]he book will serve as a valuable resource to instructional designers and programmers alike. This resource is based on solid instructional design principles and offers practical guidelines and numerous examples of how to effectively design, develop and deliver training online.”

This book is intended for training managers, instructional designers, and course developers, as well as any adult educator who has experience developing conventional classroom training. Others who might benefit from this book are technical writers, usability testers, and graphic artists who work within a training organization. If you are interested in purchasing this book, please click here.

To further enhance the value of the award and to ensure greater exposure of the program throughout the Society’s membership and the profession, the International Society for Performance Improvement asked the 2005 Awards of Excellence recipients to contribute an article to PerformanceXpress highlighting their projects.

A Unique Opportunity: A Conference on 21st Century Literacy at Beautiful Lake Tahoe in California’s High Sierras
by Lynn Kearny, CPT

A profound shift is taking place in the way people communicate and express themselves. A new concept of language and what it means to be literate is evolving. The new form of expression is multi-modal, incorporating visual and aural with textual elements. Its immediacy itself is an element. Technology is a key enabler, allowing for sophisticated use of images, video, sound, and text all at once.

I am a founding member of a small professional association of graphic facilitators and recorders (the writing and drawing I do on the wall to record sessions at the ISPI Annual Conference). We are called IFVP, the International Forum of Visual Practitioners. We would like to make the ISPI membership aware of the opportunity to attend a really unique event. At the IFVP 10th Annual Conference on October 21-23, we will be addressing human and organizational learning, particularly through (but not limited to) the visual context. Since ISPI members do the work that we do, we all have a significant contribution to make to the inquiry. The conference program will engage all in a dialogue and exploration of 21^st-century literacy, and what that means going forward, at the social as well as organizational, process, and individual level.

A few highlights include:

Bob Horn, ISPI’s 2004 Thomas F. Gilbert Distinguished Professional Achievement Award honoree, will graphically facilitate and map the “ill-structured” or wicked problem of social messes: complex; ambiguous; tightly interconnected; economic, social, and political; always seen differently from different worldviews; and full of value conflicts. Visual maps increase our ability to understand and tackle wicked problems.
David Sibbet, one of the three inventors of graphic facilitation, will lead a discussion on the educational ramifications of the new literacy. David facilitated the 21^st Century Literacy Summit sponsored by Adobe Systems, the George Lucas Educational Foundation, and the New Media Consortium this past April.
Mike Mills, inventor of Apple’s QuickTime software, will show how he uses rapid visualization to facilitate software development. There’s a lot of storytelling to be done, conjuring up how people will interact with software that hasn’t yet been invented. (Mike works visually, but has never seen graphic recording done.) Mike will list ideas he’d like to have icons for, and we’ll generate some on the spot.
Vivian Wright, an internal strategy and organization consultant at Hewlett-Packard, will model a live virtual meeting demonstrating some simple, accessible techniques to combine graphic tools and group process that bring a human touch to virtual meetings. Conference attendees will participate.

I hope you can join us for this exciting event! If you have any questions about the program, the atmosphere, the location, or the cost, I will be happy to respond.

Lynn Kearny, CPT, has been an ISPI member since 1980, and serves on the Conference Committee for IFVP and is a Charter member of IFVP. She may be reached at lkearny@sprintmail.com.

2006 Honorary Award Nominations

The International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) has three special honorary awards that recognize outstanding individuals and organizations for their significant contributions to human performance technology and to the Society itself. The awards are the Thomas F. Gilbert Distinguished Professional Achievement Award, the Distinguished Service Award, and the Honorary Life Member Award. As done in the past, the membership is asked to submit names of qualified individuals for consideration for the Distinguished Service Award. If you are interested in nominating an ISPI member, please email the following information to april@ispi.org:

Name of award
Name, telephone number, and email of nominee
Name and telephone number of nominator
Brief supporting information for the nominee

This year’s recipients were Thomas F. Gilbert Distinguished Professional Achievement Award: William R. Daniels, and the Distinguished Service Award: Christine Marsh. The Honorary Life Member was not awarded in 2005. The deadline to receive nominations is November 18, 2005. For more detailed information on the guidelines used for selecting individuals to receive these awards, visit www.ispi.org or click here.

2006 Awards of Excellence Program: Be On Your Way to Recognition

The International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) annually recognizes people, products, innovations, and organizations that represent excellence in the field of instructional and Human Performance Technology (HPT). Submissions receiving the “stamp of approval” in this criterion-based awards program receive acknowledgment and recognition by their peers throughout the year and at a special awards presentation held during ISPI’s Annual International Performance Improvement Conference in Dallas, Texas, in 2006. Click here for more information and to submit your 2006 entry application. Entry deadline is October 14, 2005.

Kudos!

Training Magazine (July 2005) reviewer Janice Love cites Beyond the Myths and Magic of Mentoring as one of her five favorite books!

“For ‘Most Referred to Other People,’ the award goes to Beyond the Myths and Magic of Mentoring (Jossey-Bass, 2001) by Margo Murray. I should get some kind of commission for referring this book to so many associates. Not only have I mentioned it individually, I’ve even broadcast my admiration for it, when I taught a program on mentoring that was broadcast to Department of Energy sites throughout the United States.”

An error appears in Figure 4 of Gene Drumm’s article “Putting the Pieces Back Together to Realign Performance in the Organization” published in the July 2005 issue of Performance Improvement journal. To access a corrected version of the article, click here.

Tell Us How ISPI Has Improved Your Performance in the Workplace

We would love to hear from you. Share your testimony about how ISPI has helped you in your professional career, and help us show the world the value of membership in ISPI. Whether you have attended one of our performance improvement conferences, HPT Institutes, or workshops, or read PI journal and newsletter, we want to know what aspect of ISPI has been most instrumental in your practice and implementation of performance technology.

To submit your testimonial, send an email to membership@ispi.org and include your full name, title, company, city, and state. If you’d like to include a photo of yourself, please attach a color photo to the email (preferably JPG format). Your testimonial and photo will be posted on the ISPI website. For more information or questions, contact Francis George at 301.587.8570, ext. 110.

Performance Marketplace is a convenient way to exchange information of interest to the performance improvement community. Take a few moments each month to scan the listings for important new events, publications, services, and employment opportunities. To post information for our readers, contact ISPI Director of Marketing, Keith Pew at keithp@ispi.org or 301.587.8570.

Annual Conference Sponsors
Understanding your business processes is key to improved business performance. GEM’s Process Power™ solutions include training in process modeling, process assessment, and gap analysis, leading directly to enhanced employee process knowledge. Our GEMWorX FlowModeler^® process tool supports your business improvement goals. Visit GEM, or call 215-706-4190.

Conferences, Seminars, and Workshops
Add performance and pizzazz to your training. Whether it’s a 45-minute presentation or a week-long workshop, Thiagi can make your training come alive with interactive experiential activities. Nobody does instructional design faster, cheaper, and better than Thiagi. Visit http://thiagi.com/game-design-services.html.

DSA Workshops on Instructional Design, Criterion Referenced Testing, and Web-based Training. Design ready for registrations at http://www.dsink.com/. The Criterion Referenced Testing, the Instructional Developer, Designing Instruction for Web-Based Training, and the Course Developer Workshops online anytime.

Education and Career Resources
HR.com’s Metrics and Measurement Executive Council. In today’s competitive economy, it takes innovation, education, and experience to reach the top and achieve unparalleled levels of success. Our Executive Council addresses the most critical issues facing your organization. Visit www.hr.com/executivecouncils.

ISPI Online CareerSite is your source for performance improvement employment. Search listings and manage your resume and job applications online.

Magazines, Newsletters, and Journals
The International Journal of Coaching in Organizations (IJCO) is a professional journal, published quarterly to provide reflection and critical analysis of coaching in organizations. The journal offers research and experiential learning from experienced practitioners representing various coaching schools and methodologies.

Performance Improvement journal is ISPI’s premier HPT publication, reporting on the latest applications, trends, and ideas in the field. A subscription to PI is a benefit of membership, and non-members can subscribe for only $69 in the United States ($119 international).

Performance Improvement Quarterly, co-published by ISPI and FSU, is a peer-reviewed journal created to stimulate professional discussion in the field and to advance the discipline of HPT through literature reviews, experimental studies with a scholarly base, and case studies. Subscribe today!

ISPI Membership: Join or Renew Today!

Are you working to improve workplace performance? Then ISPI membership is your key to professional development through education, certification, networking, and professional affinity programs.

If you are already a member, we thank you for your support. If you have been considering membership or are about to renew, there is no better time to join ISPI. To apply for membership or renew, visit www.ispi.org, or simply click here.

ISPI is looking for Human Performance Technology (HPT) articles (approximately 500 words and not previously published) for PerformanceXpress that bridge the gap from research to practice (please, no product or service promotion is permitted). Below are a few examples of the article formats that can be used:

In addition to the article, please include a short bio (2-3 lines) and a contact e-mail address. All submissions should be sent to april@ispi.org. Each article will be reviewed by one of ISPI’s on-staff HPT experts, and the author will be contacted if it is accepted for publication. If you have any further questions, please contact april@ispi.org.

PerformanceXpress is an ISPI member benefit designed to build community, stimulate discussion, and keep you informed of the Society’s activities and events. This newsletter is published monthly and will be emailed to you at the beginning of each month.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact April Davis, ISPI’s Senior Director of Publications, at april@ispi.org.

ISPI
1400 Spring Street, Suite 260
Silver Spring, MD 20910 USA
Phone: 1.301.587.8570
Fax: 1.301.587.8573
info@ispi.org
http://www.ispi.org

PerformanceXpress

References
Liebman, M. (2005, July-August). An engineering approach to translation medicine. American Scientist, 296-298.

Top Three Predictions
With this major change in mind, Guy shares his predictions for the next two to three years.

Performance Analysis
The first vital step was to determine the underlying causes of this incident prior to designing the most effective interventions. It was proposed that a staged approach following HPT standards and CPT principles would lead to the best solution:

Research Phase
Stage 1: One-to-One Sessions

Degrees of Change Exercise
Each sub-team worked together to clearly define what services were currently provided under the headings of:

Risk analysis, a comparison between:

Stage 4: The “Way Forward” Plan
Key issues identified:

Performance Solution
The client has confirmed that the following results have been achieved:

Organizational Results

PerformanceXpress

References Liebman, M. (2005, July-August). An engineering approach to translation medicine. American Scientist, 296-298.

Top Three Predictions With this major change in mind, Guy shares his predictions for the next two to three years.

Performance Analysis The first vital step was to determine the underlying causes of this incident prior to designing the most effective interventions. It was proposed that a staged approach following HPT standards and CPT principles would lead to the best solution:

Research Phase Stage 1: One-to-One Sessions

Degrees of Change Exercise Each sub-team worked together to clearly define what services were currently provided under the headings of:

Risk analysis, a comparison between:

Stage 4: The “Way Forward” Plan Key issues identified:

Performance Solution The client has confirmed that the following results have been achieved:

Organizational Results

References
Liebman, M. (2005, July-August). An engineering approach to translation medicine. American Scientist, 296-298.

Top Three Predictions
With this major change in mind, Guy shares his predictions for the next two to three years.

Performance Analysis
The first vital step was to determine the underlying causes of this incident prior to designing the most effective interventions. It was proposed that a staged approach following HPT standards and CPT principles would lead to the best solution:

Research Phase
Stage 1: One-to-One Sessions

Degrees of Change Exercise
Each sub-team worked together to clearly define what services were currently provided under the headings of:

Stage 4: The “Way Forward” Plan
Key issues identified:

Performance Solution
The client has confirmed that the following results have been achieved: