What's the point in competency frameworks?

One of my clients asked me recently, what is the point in competency frameworks? As far as he was concerned they just seemed to be getting in the way of his task of helping people to learn their jobs - just another bureaucratic corporate process which ate up time and gave back little in terms of real benefits. I sympathised with what he was saying, but felt uncomfortable with rubbishing what, for me, is one of the foundations of modern performance management. So I developed my own list of pros and cons and here�s what I came up with:

Against:

1. Competencies are often expressed at such a high level (�innovativeness�, �leadership�) as to be meaningless and in no way observable.
2. At the other extreme, competencies can in such detail and so specific to a particular context as to be unworkable.
3. Competency frameworks are hard to develop. They require a clear understanding of the job in question and a relentless focus to think in terms of what employees need to be able to do rather than what they need to be.
4. They are even harder to maintain, particularly once the initial burst of enthusiasm has � well � burst.
5. Assessing competencies against a portfolio of evidence is cumbersome and time-consuming. On the other hand, a simple subjective rating may not be sufficiently reliable.

For:

1. Evaluating someone�s performance on the basis of what they can actually do is a whole lot better than judging them by their personal qualities, their qualifications, the amount of time they spend on an activity or even their knowledge.
2. Competencies focus on the outputs of a learning experience not the inputs in terms of how you learned. So, someone who can do a job on the basis of their work experience or their private study is judged the same way as someone who obtained those same competencies through formal learning.
3. Competency frameworks provides a basis for designing learning activities and content. This has to be preferable to teaching what you like teaching or what you personally believe in.
4. They also provide a basis for individuals to plan their personal development. It should not be a mystery how you get to be promoted.
5. And they also provide a foundation for more objective performance reviews.

So, what do you reckon? Should we keep them?

When compliance is not enough

Yesterday Tom Kuhlmann posted about Those Pesky Compliance Courses, making the point that compliance courses aren't usually performance based and therefore a 'course' is probably not what's really required; he recommends keeping them simple, putting a test up front so those who already know the rules can exempt themselves from the body of the material, and un-locking all the navigation, so no-one's forced to sit through something they don't need.

All good advice, as you would expect from Tom, but only assuming the whole process is just one of getting boxes ticked to satisfy an external regulator. If the material is really not relevant, then it makes sense to make the box-ticking exercise as painless as possible, like renewing your passport or some similar administrative chore.

Now i'm not going to pretend that I'm an expert on compliance courses. I've never had much to do with designing them and, as someone who hasn't been an employee for 30 years, only occasional cause to use one. It's just that, when I have been required to undertake a mandatory course, as I have recently as a result of a client engagement, it has seemed pretty important to me; important because my behaviour really could put me or my client at risk. Without doing the course, I don't think I would have been sensitised to the risk. If I just bluffed my way through a quiz or flipped across a few screens, I still wouldn't be sensitised, because I would not have been emotionally engaged (except, I must admit, in the challenge of passing the quiz). When the risks are small in terms of probability but serious in terms of consequence, mere compliance may be enough to get the boxes ticked, but wouldn't reduce the risk and that does matter.

So, if mere compliance is not enough, and you really need employees to take note, what would I recommend? Well, here's what works for me:

• Tell stories which show what could really happen. Make these completely realistic and without exaggeration. My favourite is acted video scenarios which play out in stages throughout the course. Because authenticity is the key, these need to be really well written, acted and directed. Not cheap I know, but powerful. If you really haven't got the budget, use photos instead although the dialogue still needs to be spot on. Ask challenging questions throughout the scenario which are directly related to the key principles and rules.
• Use real-life cases to show what has actually happened in your own or other organisations and how this affected not just the employer but the people involved. Great to tell these stories on video if you can.
• Keep the formal exposition of rules and policies as brief and top-level as possible. Stick to the absolute must-knows and reinforce these points often. Make absolutely clear where all the supporting information can be found and when and why this would be useful.
• Focus your assessments on the key behaviours you're looking to change, not on superficial knowledge which is easy to test. Whatever you do, avoid multi-answer questions in which you have to get every part right to score any points at all - these drive me mad!

And, of course, you cannot rely on e-learning to do the whole job. The key messages need to be constantly reinforced through other media and the behaviours need to be modelled from top managers down. There are times when the life of your company or of your employees could depend upon it.

M-learning: What's the big deal?

Just released is the eLearning Guild�s new report, Mobile Learning: The Time Is Now, put together by Clark Quinn, who really knows his stuff on this topic. If Clark says the time is now, it probably is. In fact it probably has been since the first iPhone was launched and certainly once we got the iPad. Before that, the very idea of mobile learning was a bit bizarre.

In some respects m-learning is no big deal, because mobile devices are already ubiquitous and essential performance aids. They can do most things you can do on any desktop or laptop computer, except perhaps for more complex forms of media creation. While they can do some location-sensitive things you wouldn�t do on a desktop computer, particularly with the aid of GPS, much of the time (and there are important exceptions) that�s of little relevance to learning and performance support. So, computers you have with you everywhere you go, is that a big deal? I don�t know, perhaps it is.

Smart phones and tablets with crystal-clear, high-resolution screens (my iPad�s resolution matches that of my 27� iMac) are great devices for media consumption and more than adequate for many forms of collaboration. People love their phones and tablets because they don�t look or feel like computers and basically they do what you want, wherever you want, just about instantly. They are intimate and personal devices with which to interact, particularly when they�re yours. It�s hard to feel the same way about a corporate Dell running Windows XP.

And for many of us, the situations in which you�re likely to most use a mobile device - particularly on trains, on planes and generally when you�re waiting around - are much better suited to a productive learning experience than when you�re at your desk and very much in lean-forward mode. And for me, it's much easier to concentrate on learning content when it fills the whole screen, rather than appearing in a small window alongside your emails, the report you�re writing and a web browser that�s running your LMS.

Another consideration is that more than half the working population do not sit at a desk looking at a computer for most of the day. Their jobs are inherently mobile. Up until now it has been very hard to provide performance support to these people. Now you can.

So, now I think about it, this is a pretty big deal.

I was also interested to read the mLearning Whitepaper just released by eNyota Learning, a developer based in India, which looks specifically at the issues associated with taking SCORM courses onto mobile devices. They identify several barriers, basically because most authoring tools export to Flash and Flash is not supported on most mobile devices, but also because of the difficulties of linking to an LMS through an app. These are not trivial issues but they are being solved very rapidly. I�ve purchased Articulate Storyline because it provides the facility to export to HTML 5/IOS (although I�d probably have bought it anyway because it�s a very flexible tool) and plenty of other tools, including Captivate and Lectora, are mobile friendly. In the meantime, if all you�re interested in is the delivery of trackable SCORM courses then we still do have PCs last time I looked.

But before we home in on mobile devices as just another delivery channel for the same old, same old, we should look at what they can already do without any effort at all, not least play videos and podcasts, display web pages and documents, provide means for collaboration, provide access to databases and decision aids, and run games and simulations (OK these two do require some effort). The end result of all this won�t always be learning, but it will be enhanced performance and surely that�s what really matters.

As Clark says in the summary of the eLearning Guild report: "Mobile learning isn�t about courses, but about using personal digital devices to assist us in performing knowledge work wherever and whenever.�

And that�s a very big deal indeed.

Time to tame the HiPPO

In the latest edition of Wired magazine I came across  the term 'HiPPO' - the highest paid person's opinion. The term is widely used in web design and usability circles to refer to those people who have the final word on any design issue on the basis that they're the highest paid person in the room. Apparently, the evidence suggests that those dotcoms for which design decisions are made on the basis of some powerful person's opinion do much less well than those which base their decisions on data. I'm not surprised.

I've worked with some pretty outrageous HiPPOS in my time, usually clients. They over-ride expert advice on the basis of some prejudice, outright ignorance or a political motive. We've all been there.

Now I'm an out-and-out rationalist. I don't hold hard on to any view if  someone can persuade me of a better one, typically because of new evidence. In fact I relish the opportunity to hone my mental models of learning and development and online communication to ever better reflect the real world. If only those HiPPOS were rationalists too. Too often what they're telling you in essence is: "Don't confuse me with the facts. My minds made up."

If there is a way to tame the HiPPO it is with data. Without hard evidence you are defenceless - and quite justifiably so. If it comes to a battle of opinion they'll always win, simply because they're paying your salary or signing off your invoice. But if you come armed with plenty of data, only the most Kamikaze HiPPO will risk being made to look a fool further down the line.

As Bill Clerico famously says: "In God we trust. All else bring data."

This house believes the only way is e-learning

This was the motion I had to argue for in a debate last week at a conference of NHS pharmacists. I definitely got the short straw because it's impossible to defend an absolute. And of course e-learning is not the only way. I decided to argue instead for the idea that e-learning (defined very broadly) is where attention should be focused given the problems we're currently facing in workplace learning.

Here's a rough outline of my argument:

First of all we have some pretty significant problems:

• A scarcity of budget for training
• A scarcity of teacher/trainer time
• A scarcity of time for learner to spend training
• Massive disruption in the employment market as a result of the economic downturn, structural changes caused by technological change and globalisation
• A requirement and a desire to reduce CO2 emissions

At the same time there is are new expectations:

• A demand for learning content and experiences that are highly relevant to current work issues
• A demand for immediate access to learning content and experiences
• A demand for more flexibility in ho, when and where these experiences are made available
• Along with a recognition that it is no longer necessary to know everything, but instead to have access on-demand to resources

We also now recognise that motivation is largely a factor of a sense of purpose, a desire for autonomy and a quest for mastery.

Traditional training cannot help us to overcome these problems.

The only way to overcome these obstacles is through e-learning.

Let's clarify what we mean by e-learning:

• content of all sorts, top-down or user-generated
• interaction with experts and coaches
• interaction with peers
• can be real-time or self-paced
• can be delivered through a multitude of devices

E-learning allows to exploit the power of computers:

• all forms of digital content, including audio, video, animation, text and still images - 2D and 3D
• adaptivity and personalisation
• immersive simulations

E-learning allows us to exploit the power of networks:

• to join together in the creation of learning content
• to provide learning on a scale that has hitherto been unthinkable

We are at a crossroads:

• huge problems
• new expectations
• wonderful opportunities afforded by technology

Only e-learning can enable us to create a new model for vocational learning that is responsive, scalable, engaging and relevant.

The only way is e-learning.