Is training best applied at the moment of application or is training something that is best done ahead of time so that when application does happen the trainee knows what to do?
The answer is-It depends. Training, by definition is skill based and generally is best done near the time of application. Education, on the other hand is learning that is not always tied to application right away, but conveys underlying concepts that help with execution later. In the business world, these two definitions are generally rolled up under the moniker of "training". This creates a problem with execution because managers generally understand that training is usually best applied near the point of usage and that most of the learning that occurs with training is through application of the learned skills. Some say this is 70% of the learning that occurs in training, while a frequently cited number of 10% is applied to classroom training environments.
Many times these figures are cited as a rationale for not investing in any sort of educational activities for employees. In reality, the majority of learning of skills is accomplished through application, and that number is probably close to 70%. This is where I part ways with other managers however. I believe that there are unmeasured benefits for investing in skills training and education of your people. Chief among these benefits is the sense that these employees get of being a part of the future, being thought of as a valid part of making that future happen. It can help create a sense of belonging to a group and enthusiasm for the vision that skills training is meant to support. I know these benefots exist because I have seen them in my people. By sending some of my less enthusiastic people to key skills training activities, I have seen their performance improve, their motivation increase.
Now for education. Education is those topics of knowledge that underly what you teach in skills training. Education is not necessarily meant to be applied immediately but accomplishes certain important goals such as: creating common language, creating common understanding of the world around us, creating common vision for what the future could be and should be, introducing different values and philosophies such as lean or six sigma. Here's the problem. Education often times gets mislabelled as training and is then usually done only when absolutely necessary. Sometimes when this happens, the side effects are painful. I'll give an example: I recently participated in a Value Stream Mapping exercise with a functional group. In this exercise I attempted to introduce several different lean ideas, such as balanced work, pull systems, cellular flow. The team was having none of it, mainly because they didn't know what it was before the event and did not have any opportunity to think about how it may apply to them. In the end of the event, we identified several Kaizen events that needed to be done in the process and we assigned leaders from amongst the group. Then a week passed, and nothing happened, then another couple of days passed, and nothing happened. So finally we got the leaders together and learned that they didn't know how to lead a Kaizen, no one had ever taught them what to do, so we had to have a quick class on Kaizen Leadership so that these folks could get it done. This is an example of education that should have been applied well before the event. If it was part of everyone's knowledge base, they would not have lost as much time trying to figure out what to do. I had one of my employees who was not a part of these events participate in the class and he immediately changed how he was approching a lean activity that I had given him months ago.
So, what is training and what is education? Sometimes the answer is the same and the only difference is the timing of the event, other times its the level of detail given, other times its the expectation set as an outcome of the session. It depends. Good examples of what are typical training topics are Six Sigma, and Lean Tools such as Visual Factory Management, 5S, Gage R&R, DOE, etc..
Some of these might also be educational topics as well but only at a lesser level of detail. For instance: Six Sigma Champion training is really education for champions on how to speak the language of six sigma and ask the right questions of the practitioners. Lean philosophies such as Value/Non-Value add, pull systems, flow, Kaizen Leadership, etc, while they have an application aspect to them, can also be educational at a higher level.
The bottom line is that training and education are investments in the future performance of the people in your organization. Just as Deming said that "It is not necessary to change, survival is not mandatory", so it is true with training and education. If we expect our people to change, we have to provide them with the road map for the change we seek, and the opportunity to learn how to read it.
Showing posts with label Knowledge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Knowledge. Show all posts
Monday, October 24, 2011
Monday, January 25, 2010
Create a Learning Culture
Want to unlock the potential of your employees? Want to harness the power of their ideas? Need to gain their cooperation and active participation in making the company better?
Create a Learning Organization.
What is a learning organization? A learning organization is one that places a high value on the knowledge and experience of the individuals, but understands the vulnerability of not transfering that knowledge to a system through which others can share and benefit from that knowledge. A learning organization seeks out the best practices of individuals, recognizes them, and integrates them into the process for all to use, thereby spreading the benefit of those best practices to the company. A learning company recognizes that the people are its greatest asset and the source of its wealth and success.
There are several key steps that need to be taken to facilitate the transition to a learning organization. Upfront planning and commitment is key. Of primary concern early after the decision to create a learning culture is that if steps are taken to create interest in learning, will we be properly prepared to support that interest. If we are not ready, apathy will result, so before we can really go forward with grandiose communication plans and goals and objectives for learning, we need to spend some time setting up the infrastructure for learning. One approach is to visualize and graphically represent the various career paths through the organization. This can be done through a career mapping initiative. The goal of this initiative is to thoroughly understand the key skill needs within the organization by position, streamline and standardize the position criteria, and map all of the potential career paths through the organization. As sample of how this might will look is included here:
In this example, you can see that there are four main tracks of progression through the organization, but there are cross-connections along the way, allowing people to move between tracks into other areas of interest.
Lets take the Six Sigma Black Belt position as an example. For someone to be successful in that position, they need several critical skills and character traits. First they need training in the essentials of what a Black Belt does. They would need a firm understanding of the DMAIC process, statistics, change psychology, team building, data collection, project management, influencing skills, and a desire to excel. Some of those are easily boiled down to quantifiable measureable things, others are charatcer traits, which for the most part, you either have, or you dont have. This information along with the roadmap give employees essential information needed to judge if they think they are cut out for a role as a Black Belt. It also gives them the path to success if they decide to pursue the position. They would know that they need to get some training in statistics, learn how to lead projects and people, learn how to tactfully challenge the status quo, and how to handle team dynamics.
As you can see from the example, quite a bit of detail goes into this analysis. The benefit of this to the organization is to finally be able to charge the individual with some responsibility for their own career and give them a roadmap to success. If the philosophy is that career development as an individual responsibility then you have to give them the tools to manage their own careers. This is the first piece of the puzzle. Once this is done, spend some time evaluating training programs and educational offerings in the marketplace and establishing, through purchasing or internal development, the catalog of available training. One of the key factors in this effort is to ensure that the educational offerings we elect to support are in alignment with our organizational values and goals. For instance, if we use a DMAIC process for problem solving, we should not be sponsoring training activities around other problem solving methods. That would contradict our aim. These are the two key elements of our ability to start the first phase of our transition to a learning organization. Once these are completed and ready for communication then we can roll out the career management program to everyone, begin encouraging managers to sit with their people and discuss career planning, creating career plans and acting on those plans. This activity will in turn enable progress in another major focus area: Promotion from within.
Promotion from within is an important part of creating a learning culture, but it has to be managed properly. Talking up a promotion form within value should be done in the context of promoting people with the right skill set for the job. Promotion from within is not a exercise in saluting the flag, we shouldnt do it for its own sake, but rather make it a key component of the larger aim, raising the skill level in the workforce. Promotion opportunity is a tremendous incentive for growth and learning. Poorly managed, promotion from within will only result in a frustrated workforce submitting their resumes for jobs that they are not remotely qualified for, then complaining when they are not selected.
The third major area of focus is the knowledge sharing activity. We have to create systems through which knowledge can be pulled by the individual that has a need. A major vehicle for this could be the company intranet. Some recent experiences that I have had indicate that as much as 25% of our resources are wasted repeating things we already learned once before and that many of the tough problems that are causing quality issues have already been solved, just not shared. This is a tremendous waste of company resources. A Knowledge Management System can allow for the collection, cataloguing, and collaboration on knowledge so that it is learned once, and applied many times to greater benefit for the company. Many times, a process improvement is achieved in only one location, through six sigma or other means, but could be shared with other locations that have that same process to multiply the benefit of what was learned. Worse yet are examples where that same process improvement was "discovered" by one of those other locations months or years later, wasting valueable time when we could have been collecting the savings. The idea of a knowledge management system is to accelerate learning by avoiding repeating the same experiments time and again, and instead building on previous knowledge to achieve new, higher levels of knowledge.
These actions only address part of the issue however. One of the key factors to our success is how well we create a desire to improve within the workforce. Everything we have discussed so far goes largely towards creating desire to learn for extrinsic needs (promotion, leadership, salary, position, etc.). We need to drill down further in order to create intrinsic motivation to improve our own work everyday.
Many of the ideas and tools of lean can and will help with that. First and foremost is making things visible. Creating visual management systems that allow the worker to see how they are doing is a basic first requirement. I start here because I believe that if we make things visible, that will create some of the initial drive to improve, which will force some of the other changes needed. Those changes are: giving control to the worker, enabling good decision making through well planned instructions, training on the tools of improvement, allowing workers to control the quality of their own documentation and procedures, educating them on the technology of our product and/or the process and rewarding the right behaviors. I believe making things visible is the key to creating motivation. Everything else will follow. The final action here is to determine how to effectively marry up the motivation and results of improving our work everyday with the global knowledge sharing piece so that we can quickly and easily share with each other best practices that come from our improvements.
With these steps taken, we will be far down the road to building a learning organization and fully leveraging the most valuable asset we have, our people.
Create a Learning Organization.
What is a learning organization? A learning organization is one that places a high value on the knowledge and experience of the individuals, but understands the vulnerability of not transfering that knowledge to a system through which others can share and benefit from that knowledge. A learning organization seeks out the best practices of individuals, recognizes them, and integrates them into the process for all to use, thereby spreading the benefit of those best practices to the company. A learning company recognizes that the people are its greatest asset and the source of its wealth and success.
There are several key steps that need to be taken to facilitate the transition to a learning organization. Upfront planning and commitment is key. Of primary concern early after the decision to create a learning culture is that if steps are taken to create interest in learning, will we be properly prepared to support that interest. If we are not ready, apathy will result, so before we can really go forward with grandiose communication plans and goals and objectives for learning, we need to spend some time setting up the infrastructure for learning. One approach is to visualize and graphically represent the various career paths through the organization. This can be done through a career mapping initiative. The goal of this initiative is to thoroughly understand the key skill needs within the organization by position, streamline and standardize the position criteria, and map all of the potential career paths through the organization. As sample of how this might will look is included here:
Lets take the Six Sigma Black Belt position as an example. For someone to be successful in that position, they need several critical skills and character traits. First they need training in the essentials of what a Black Belt does. They would need a firm understanding of the DMAIC process, statistics, change psychology, team building, data collection, project management, influencing skills, and a desire to excel. Some of those are easily boiled down to quantifiable measureable things, others are charatcer traits, which for the most part, you either have, or you dont have. This information along with the roadmap give employees essential information needed to judge if they think they are cut out for a role as a Black Belt. It also gives them the path to success if they decide to pursue the position. They would know that they need to get some training in statistics, learn how to lead projects and people, learn how to tactfully challenge the status quo, and how to handle team dynamics.
As you can see from the example, quite a bit of detail goes into this analysis. The benefit of this to the organization is to finally be able to charge the individual with some responsibility for their own career and give them a roadmap to success. If the philosophy is that career development as an individual responsibility then you have to give them the tools to manage their own careers. This is the first piece of the puzzle. Once this is done, spend some time evaluating training programs and educational offerings in the marketplace and establishing, through purchasing or internal development, the catalog of available training. One of the key factors in this effort is to ensure that the educational offerings we elect to support are in alignment with our organizational values and goals. For instance, if we use a DMAIC process for problem solving, we should not be sponsoring training activities around other problem solving methods. That would contradict our aim. These are the two key elements of our ability to start the first phase of our transition to a learning organization. Once these are completed and ready for communication then we can roll out the career management program to everyone, begin encouraging managers to sit with their people and discuss career planning, creating career plans and acting on those plans. This activity will in turn enable progress in another major focus area: Promotion from within.
Promotion from within is an important part of creating a learning culture, but it has to be managed properly. Talking up a promotion form within value should be done in the context of promoting people with the right skill set for the job. Promotion from within is not a exercise in saluting the flag, we shouldnt do it for its own sake, but rather make it a key component of the larger aim, raising the skill level in the workforce. Promotion opportunity is a tremendous incentive for growth and learning. Poorly managed, promotion from within will only result in a frustrated workforce submitting their resumes for jobs that they are not remotely qualified for, then complaining when they are not selected.
The third major area of focus is the knowledge sharing activity. We have to create systems through which knowledge can be pulled by the individual that has a need. A major vehicle for this could be the company intranet. Some recent experiences that I have had indicate that as much as 25% of our resources are wasted repeating things we already learned once before and that many of the tough problems that are causing quality issues have already been solved, just not shared. This is a tremendous waste of company resources. A Knowledge Management System can allow for the collection, cataloguing, and collaboration on knowledge so that it is learned once, and applied many times to greater benefit for the company. Many times, a process improvement is achieved in only one location, through six sigma or other means, but could be shared with other locations that have that same process to multiply the benefit of what was learned. Worse yet are examples where that same process improvement was "discovered" by one of those other locations months or years later, wasting valueable time when we could have been collecting the savings. The idea of a knowledge management system is to accelerate learning by avoiding repeating the same experiments time and again, and instead building on previous knowledge to achieve new, higher levels of knowledge.
These actions only address part of the issue however. One of the key factors to our success is how well we create a desire to improve within the workforce. Everything we have discussed so far goes largely towards creating desire to learn for extrinsic needs (promotion, leadership, salary, position, etc.). We need to drill down further in order to create intrinsic motivation to improve our own work everyday.
Many of the ideas and tools of lean can and will help with that. First and foremost is making things visible. Creating visual management systems that allow the worker to see how they are doing is a basic first requirement. I start here because I believe that if we make things visible, that will create some of the initial drive to improve, which will force some of the other changes needed. Those changes are: giving control to the worker, enabling good decision making through well planned instructions, training on the tools of improvement, allowing workers to control the quality of their own documentation and procedures, educating them on the technology of our product and/or the process and rewarding the right behaviors. I believe making things visible is the key to creating motivation. Everything else will follow. The final action here is to determine how to effectively marry up the motivation and results of improving our work everyday with the global knowledge sharing piece so that we can quickly and easily share with each other best practices that come from our improvements.
With these steps taken, we will be far down the road to building a learning organization and fully leveraging the most valuable asset we have, our people.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Six Sigma-Its no substitute for knowledge
I recently was having a conversation with a senior manager who was lamenting that "six sigma analysis" did not find the root cause of a longstanding problem but our scientific knowledge did. I think this may have been meant as a dig at me since I'm a Master Black Belt but I think he makes a great point, slightly misguided but still a great point. Six Sigma, or any other problem solving process is only as good as the information analyzed. We've all heard the adage "Garbage In-Garbage Out". I've thought alot recently about the perspective of this senior manager and it reminds me of something that I think is worth reminding ourselves from time to time. Six Sigma is no substitute for knowledge. In the problem I was discussing with this senior manager, no routine data was collected on the process step that produced the problem.
Some people seem to think that Six Sigma is an excellent method for discovery of new knowledge. I understand why this misconception occurs. One of the strongest tools in the Black Belt's toolbox is Multivariate Regression. This toolset is used to uncover hidden relationships in data and thereby help uncover the root causes of problems that can't be solved in other ways. This, I believe, leads people to assume that Six Sigma properly applied can find new knowledge, and it can, but only when the data is present. The strength of six sigma is in the disciplined, logical problem solving approach that is inherent within the DMAIC method. But, Six Sigma will not find the root cause of a problem if there is no data on that problem or that particular root cause. The DMAIC method teaches us to follow the data, and trust the statistics. We still have to use our brains though and when the data and statistics do not present an answer to the problem, we have to expand our circle of thought to include other information that didn't get included in the first go around.
In all of the six sigma classes that I have taught and all of the mentoring I have done with project leaders I have emphasized that six sigma is not a substitute for your brain. Use the DMAIC method, but follow the data and trust the statistics and if they tell you that you have not found root cause, go look somewhere else for the answer. One of the best places to go is to the guru. Sometimes, scientific experimentation has already produced the answer to our problem but we may not have ready access to that knowledge because it resides in someones head, rather than in a library somewhere.
Some people seem to think that Six Sigma is an excellent method for discovery of new knowledge. I understand why this misconception occurs. One of the strongest tools in the Black Belt's toolbox is Multivariate Regression. This toolset is used to uncover hidden relationships in data and thereby help uncover the root causes of problems that can't be solved in other ways. This, I believe, leads people to assume that Six Sigma properly applied can find new knowledge, and it can, but only when the data is present. The strength of six sigma is in the disciplined, logical problem solving approach that is inherent within the DMAIC method. But, Six Sigma will not find the root cause of a problem if there is no data on that problem or that particular root cause. The DMAIC method teaches us to follow the data, and trust the statistics. We still have to use our brains though and when the data and statistics do not present an answer to the problem, we have to expand our circle of thought to include other information that didn't get included in the first go around.
In all of the six sigma classes that I have taught and all of the mentoring I have done with project leaders I have emphasized that six sigma is not a substitute for your brain. Use the DMAIC method, but follow the data and trust the statistics and if they tell you that you have not found root cause, go look somewhere else for the answer. One of the best places to go is to the guru. Sometimes, scientific experimentation has already produced the answer to our problem but we may not have ready access to that knowledge because it resides in someones head, rather than in a library somewhere.
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