Systems Reflection

Artifact: Performance Technology Makeover from ED TEC 685
PT Makeover

Project Description / Situation:
My Performance Technology Makeover focused on a review of a corporate initiative to implement extensive system enhancements during a critical year-end timeframe and the impact that in had on learning.

I work for a financial services company and year-end is usually a time to freeze all system changes in order to close out transactions and processing. The company decided to implement a very large upgrade to one of our primary systems in early December 2008 – one that impacted all client-facing consultants. We had to train approximately 3,700 consultants in 15 different business units with four different versions of the training. The plan was to conduct classroom training for those in our main locations and online training tutorial for those in our satellite offices and in the field. As frequently happens, the testing was not going well and as a result we did not have a stable systems test environment to build our training from. Added to this situation was trying to complete all training prior to the Thanksgiving holiday. The implementation date was not pushed back and we had to train anyway despite the setbacks. The designers were frustrated and the facilitators had very little time to prepare for classes. Classroom training had to begin in early November in order to finish before Thanksgiving, which meant that the consultants who went through the training first, were not going to use what they learned for almost a month. The online training was longer than a typical computer-based training should be and therefore we risked losing the learners attention.

Outcome:
Since this was an ongoing problem with projects at my company, I wanted my PT Makeover to focus on potential solutions or recommendations that we would actually be able to initiate. I recommended using the post-assessment and lessons learned to gather important information about how training was conducted. Training and the business need to know if consultants were able to apply the knowledge obtained during training and use it to enhance their skills. What obstacles if any have prevented them from using the systems effectively? Follow-up would need to be done with the learners and their management to find out why the systems were not being used correctly. If it was due to lack of understanding or because training was insufficient, we needed to learn from that and try to make changes in the training plan the next time we had a similar implementation. One suggestion to the project team might be to pilot the changes with a small group first, get their feedback and follow-up with the remaining employees once the system was fully tested. Another suggestion might be to roll out the enhancements in a more staggered manner - separated into modules based on when the systems functionality was completely tested and stable. Providing resource material to the learners that they could use after implementation might help bridge the gap between the time they attended class and the time they would be using the new system. Chunking the online training into modules would help retention as well.

Challenges:
The challenge is actually getting the project teams at my company to build realistic time for design, development and implementation of training into their timeline. The training department continuously has to work behind schedule on projects because design and development time is not considered when project implementations are planned out. There needs to be a more coordinated effort between training, IT, Project Managers and business area management to plan projects with clearly stated performance expectations for each business, as well as realistic time built in for each group to complete their work towards the project effort.

Growth:
What I learned from this project is that training needs to be involved in the overall planning of projects and their timing. Rather than being brought in once these decisions are made, we need to be part of the process. We seem to always be reacting to a need when we should actually be proactive in helping to determine what the need is and how training can help meet that need.

By presenting management with feedback and metrics from training, we can show that the timing and extent of the implementation has a direct effect on the customer service provided, which in turn effects how satisfied our customers are with us and therefore how much money they invest in our company. If the company is interested in the bottom line, they need to reevaluate how and when implementations occur. The good news is that after many years of training working for the clients, we are finally starting to work with the clients and helping make the decisions and effecting change.