>Could you describe to me how in your organisation training decisions are
>made. Who is involved in such decisions? How does the need for such a
>decision arise - i.e. what makes the topic of training arise in the first
>place? How are the employees involved in this decision making process (if
>at all)? What is your role in all of this?
Thomas, When I was at Boeing, I began to do some explorative modeling with
some other training personnel who were interested in system dynamics
modeling (kind of). Anyway, here's a couple of brief notes from my memory
archives (almost a year ago, I left the company to pursue a Ph.D.).
1) It is probably better to create a model including the decisions of
training's customers -- their assumptions, expectations, etc. Creating a
model using ONLY those from training departments does not address the
influence of the stakeholders in affecting those decisions.
2) Much of the training decisions I saw were based on corporate politics
-- who had relationships with the most influential executives, who could
sell 'a perceived need' to influential executives, what executives would
champion the effort, which executives should be involved in the project
definition phase for ownership and implementation ...
3) Linking learning outcomes was an important feedback loop that we had
little experience with, but realized that it would create additional
value.
4) A highly respected mentor of mine, Jeff Morrow (also with Boeing)
seemed to always frame training in the terms 'edutainment' -- I believe
that understanding what customer requirements translate into actual
product design would provide much insight into how the decision processes
actually 'play out.'
Mark Shimada
--Mark Shimada <softplus@dcez.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>