Rapid Business Improvement

Stop Start Continue Change - a Management and facilitation Model

2008-08-18T01:59:00.000-07:00

The Stop - Start - Continue - Change four step change model is a simple yet often overlooked organizational and individual development tool. Suitable for a wide range of applications including individual, team and organisational, the SSCC model provides a valuable facilitation framework.

For a facilitated team activity simply:

Get four pieces of flip chart paper and label them Stop Start Continue and Change
Next then ask your participants to work in four small groups:
First group brainstorms answers to the question: "In order to (increase revenue by xx USD/GBP/EU, solve this issue, etc.), what do we need to STOP doing?"
Second group does it with "In order to (increase revenue by xx USD/GBP/EU, solve this issue, have a better product etc..), what do we need to START doing?
Third group brainstorms this one: "To (increase revenue, cut costs, solve this issue, have a better product etc..) what do we need to CONTINUE doing? Hint: Brainstorm about what's working really well.
Fourth group brainstorms this one: "To (raise revenue, cut costs, solve this issue, have a better product etc..) what do we need to CHANGE what we are doing? Hint: Brainstorm and capture feedback from staff and customers about what would be better if changes.
Then rotate everybody around so that everyone gets a chance to give each question their best shot. Now you summarise all the points, assign a financial impact to each point that's been raised, make it all into a report that says exactly what you will do (lay someone off? cut a program?) if your stuff doesn't work.

The Stop start continue change model is a simple yet effective model for organisational change, as well as for individual change. It is best used as a facilitation technique.

The Stop start continue change (SSCC) model works well in association with the PRIMO-F model or many other organizational development or individual development methodologies

For more information on this please visit our Stop Start Continue Change page or our main change management or articles pages

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organisational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006 - 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Do management models and theories work?

2008-08-02T01:01:00.000-07:00

"What Management & Business Methods, Models and/or Theories have provided executives/managers and their organizations (e.g. company, institution, team) benefits and improvements"

Over the years I have used many of the management, leadership, business and change models and theories and unfortunately the answer to "do they work?" is YES and NO.

One of the difficulties with any management, business or leadership models is that we forget that the original success for using a given strategy was withing a given set of circumstances:

business life cycle
culture
environment
economic cycle
financial position
staffing/ resource levels
growth phase/ maturity... etc

and if used again in a similar situation I am sure that the model would work fine.. The problem is that many practitioners fail to take notice of culture, growth phase etc and apply their 'favourite' model - either because it 'worked before' or they have just read about it and want to apply it.
I have been on several management and organizational development diploma programmes, and none of which have highlighted the culture prevailing at the time of success. They talk about the models, what its aim is, sometimes where it came from.. but rarely WHY it was selected or developed in the first place.

As consultants and change agents we need to understand where the client is now (holistic) and where they want to get to - and only then design the BLEND of models and strategies required.

Authors and the major consultancy organizations want us to believe that a 'single' model or theory is the 'right' one, but as most experienced consultants and changes know - its the right tool for the job that works....

Management and business models change

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Rapid Organizational Improvement - ROI

2008-07-29T08:08:00.000-07:00

ROI - Rapid Organizational Improvement
It's four in the afternoon on a Wednesday and you boss or internal client says that they want to launch a major change program ... next week. Ever been there?

We strive to be business partners, we seek to build meaningful relationships - then out of the blue we get recruited for 'Mission Impossible'. Do our employers truly believe we are magicians... masters of illusion, or do they just think 'change is easy'?

Change is certainly easier if we are prepared, and that could mean on a regular basis undertaking a holistic organizational review (just in case) so that when situations like this happen we are ready, ready to avoid the reasons why change programs often fail:

No clear vision for the change
New activity not directly linked (or integrated) to organizational objectives
No overall agreed strategy for organization development
Tactical rather than holistic diagnostics
Existing organizational culture not taken into account
Purchasers not clear about what they are buying
Suppliers of consultancy only finding solutions to problems they can solve easily
Lack of predetermined metrics and evaluation of performance and success
Time and financial pressures on the management of the organization
The change process not managed effectively within the organization

What methodologies do you employ to maximise the opportunities of success?

Change management management articles
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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006 - 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Talent Management and nine box grids

2008-07-28T02:06:00.000-07:00

In recent months, despite the Credit Crunch impacting budgets there appears to be an increasing interest in talent management. Now is this because there is a real interest in managing talent, or is it an attempt to show that firms are interested in people but cannot or will not invest? It must be the cynic in me.

Many firms are looking at using nine box grids on which to map individuals. These are usually 3x3 grids with potential plotted against performance. For example:

Matrix or grids like this are often used, and managers and HR teams asked to identify names of individuals into each of the nine boxes. As a short term tool this has its place, however the danger is when names are not reviewed. It is not unusual for an individual to be under performing due to outside influences - sick children etc, and performance does change over time. To ignore these dynamics is putting an organizations whole talent management strategy at risk.

Once people have been identified it is not unusual to focus all development activity on high performers - attempting top get more out. Ironically there is evidence to suggest that if effort is put into the low and middle performers - they raise their game. High performers are already performing well and any investment is not likely to increase performance, so the ROI on these people in the short to medium term is often poor. Sure it is important not to ignore these people, but they are often self motivated and need opportunities to SELF develop - not structured events.

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Going Green

2008-07-25T03:01:00.001-07:00

Increasingly organisations are looking at increasing their 'green credentials', but all too often the usual factors of buying recycled products is often the limit...

If you run an organisation think about the following:

Interestingly many recycled products use more energy to recycle than produced in the first place... so be careful of which recycled products you purchase and why.

Look for products that are made from sustainable sources.

ask your suppliers to reduce the packaging on items - or for them to taks packaging away after delivery

Certainly use products and new furniture from sustainable sources, reduce products with plastic/ man-made fibres.

Put electrical timers on to make sure all power is off at key times reduce the frequency of toilet flushes and the volume of water - some new systems are water free!Encourage the use of web conferencing rather than meetings.

Buy products with reduced packaging.buy milk in glass or card containers,don't chill the water in the water dispenser if you have kettles - go for these heat as you need style Consider going back to the old fashioned 'annual shutdown' - good for staff & the environment.. you can (often) manage customer expectations.

Stop using laser printers and standard ink jet printers and use ink jets with Continuous ink systems - saves money as well as plastic, heat and lots of chemicals - not to mention reducing landfill.

Turn air conditioning up one degree, turn heating down one degree

Reduce the need for standalone equipment like faxes, photocopiers etc and go for all in one machines - they use less standby energy.

Encourage cycle to work - offer changing and shower facilities

Encourage home working

Use trains for long distance travel rather than cars - yes modern trains have wifi so you can work at the same time...

Talk to local bus providers and ask for additional routs to be run at rush hours to make public transport easier - consider sponsoring

buy services from local providers - esp consultancy, training, accountancy, design etc - reduces travel and mail costs.

Email rather than post

How green is your business? how big is your carbon footprint?

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Key Performance Indicators

2008-07-16T00:05:00.000-07:00

Key Performance Indicators are increasing in popularity again. In the 1990's they were one of the key drivers in organisational change, today due to the pressure many organisations are under they are once again becoming an important organisational (OD) strategy.

What is a Key Performance Indicator?
A key performance indicator is a financial or non-financial measure used to help an organisation measure progress towards a stated organisational goal or objective.

KPI's are used not only to run the organisation, but as a communication channel to people throughout the organisation.

The big mistake

When people are new to KPI's they do their research and then introduce KPI's throughout the organisation. Miller in his 1956 research on Capacity for Processing Information suggested from his research that the human mind can deal with approximately seven chunks of information (plus or minus two) - Miller's magic 7.

While there has been a lot of controversy about this, it does appear to remain true that a number of measurable chunks around this number are optimum for performance, hence an organisation should use this as a principle or 'rule of thumb' for Key Performance Indicator development, not a 'law' for their use. This does not mean that an organisation is limited to seven key indicators. the process can be cascaded - for example at a strategic level the KPI's may well be:

Marketing impact, finance, customer satisfaction, stakeholder satisfaction, employee engagement - then each of these in turn can be broken into finer granularity to another seven factors. etc.

For more information read:

http://www.rapidbi.com/created/KeyPerformanceIndicatorsKPIs.html
http://www.rapidbi.com/created/SampleKeyPerformanceIndicatorsKPI.html

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Developing a team and managing change

2008-06-30T05:30:00.000-07:00

Today we received a request:

"I need some ideas and help please. I need to run
a simple first team meeting within the start up division I am employed.
There are 20 people in the division, and all have been employed no more than 6
months. Usual growing pains and fall outs and frustrations of no one quite sure
what they are doing. Do you have any ideas?"

Our reply to this request was...

It all depends on your goals… The following is an outline structure you may consider of value...

A structure like:
Agree the objective(s) of the meeting

Have your one as "how do we get even better at what we do?" - what the most effective organisations and teams know...

Introduce the concept of personal change
Say that as individuals we all have change that impacts us in different ways

Introduce the personal change model….

Give an example of personal change (see www.rapidbi.com/created/changemanagement.html for an example)

Allow people to realise that change is normal and impacts people in different ways – sometimes a change can be quick… sometimes slow. This is about helping people realise that it is ok to feel uncomfortable or not sure. Ask them to give examples of when they have experienced different parts of the model.
One example I give is when my wife asked me to decorate… I said we only did it 5 years ago (denial)… then to finding excuses not to look at the colour charts and catalogues or reasons not to go to the DIY shops (resistance)… then when I started to say… well if we….. then we can…. (exploration)… once the exploration phase is reached then commitment usually follows.

Personal Change Model - the tarzan swing

The danger occurs when a person does the ‘Tarzan swing’ from Denial straight to Commitment without passing through the other phases (even for a brief time).

The risk is that as they have only ‘intellectually’ bought in.. not emotionally, when something goes wrong (even a little thing) these people may well say… see told you so.. knew it would not work. These people ‘swing’ back to Denial, and because there is no forward momentum – they are the hardest of all to change from this point forward.

The best way to avoid this is to spend time working on the resistance and exploration phases… allow questions to be asked – and the challenges is not to be defensive – of this show reason for the resistance.. our goal is to allow them through the resistance phase without confirming their real doubts…

Then when you have explored personal change…

Introduce The Tuckman Team Development model:

The Tuckman Team development Model

Split the group into 4

Ask each group to draw a flip chart describing what each phase of the model might look like – one for form, another storm… etc
Ask them to think about activities they can use to start moving from their part of the model to the next… Form --> storm….Perform --> Adjourn etc..
Give them 15 mins

Then each group to present back

Then ask the group where they thing they are as a team… ask why and to give examples

Then open up the team for ideas and to develop a plan as to what they can do to move the team on…

This should get the ball rolling…

I have used this type of structure with great impact.

For more information on change management visit our change management page or our management articles page
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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Organizational Diagnosis and diagnostics

2008-06-23T01:10:00.000-07:00

Organizational Diagnostics

In the area of Organizational Development there are many activities and disciplines. One of those is the area of organizational diagnosis and the use of structured organizational diagnostic tools.

The effective diagnosis of organizational culture, and structural and operational strengths and weaknesses are fundamental to any successful organizational development intervention. As Beckhard said in the preface to his seminal work

... in our rapidly changing environment, new
organization forms must be developed; more effective goal-setting and planning
processes must be learned, and practiced teams of independent people must spent
real time improving their methods of working, decision-making and communicating.
Competing or conflicting groups must move towards a collaborative way of work.
In order for these changes to occur and be maintained, a planned, managed change
effort is necessary - a program of organizational development.

This was written in 1969 and while much has been learnt it is just as true today.
Since the beginnings of organizational development as a profession, diagnosis has moved from the purely behavioral towards a strategic and holistic business diagnostic approach. Moving away from looking at human interventions in isolation, to exploring the interactions of people in the context in which they operate. equally as organizations are increasingly collaborative in nature, the traditional silo approach to diagnostics is becoming increasingly rare. Organizational development and in particular the diagnostic phase of activities is spreading from the occupational psychologists towards main stream business. This is important for OD practitioners as the role is increasingly holistic in its nature.

The Consulting Process
The organizational diagnostic phase is often integrated within an overal OD process, commonly called 'a consulting process'.
An example of such a process is:

Entry --> Diagnosis --> Action Planning --> Implementation --> Termination

As the second phase in most change of consulting cycles it is also the first fully operational phase of the consulting process or cycle. The purpose of the diagnosis is to examine the problem faced by the organization in some detail, to identify factors and forces that are causing the problem and prepare all information needed for deciding how to orientate any possible solutions to the problems identified.

The diagnosis of the problem is a separate phase or set of activities from the solutions themselves.

The BIR is a holistic organizational diagnostic tool designed to enable organizations to explore the strengths and weaknesses of their current situation, to plan a journey and to measure progress along that journey. The BIR does not follow a single management model or fad, but allow the organization to look and reflect without judgement, yet using perceptions from the key stakeholders

References
1. Organizational Development: strategies and models - Beckhard 1969
2. Management Consulting - Kubr
3. Organizational Diagnosis - Harry Levinson 1972
4. Organizational Diagnosis - A workbook of theory and Practice - Marvin R Weisbord 1978
5. Organizational Diagnosis - A practical approach to company problem solving and growth 1988
6. Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture - Cameron & Quinn 1999

Written by mm and submitted to wikipedia 2008
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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006-2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Green Recruitment - environment or business sense?

2008-06-23T01:07:00.000-07:00

As fuel prices climb ever faster and people begin to struggle paying mortgages etc what policies have organisations put in place to play their part in protecting the environment?

How many organisations are putting max distances from home as a legitimate recruitment filter?

Some years ago I had access to some population data in one London borough, it transpired that every morning almost 150 thousand people left the borough for work - and another 155 thousand travelled in!

In London why would people have to travel more than half an hour to work? (this will be different in diff parts of the country).

This will not only benefit the environment but - will reduce congestion, increase work/life balance and potentially increase retention.

Is it time for us to start taking this more seriously?
What are your thoughts?

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Survey

2008-06-15T04:54:00.000-07:00

Many organizations large and small are interested in measuring and monitoring how their people feel about the organization.

Many consulting businesses offer satisfaction or engagement surveys, however these are often very expensive and are not 'owned' by the business. Other organizations develop their own. This is great in that they measure exactly what they want but they then cannot benchmark with other organizations easily to compare engagement or satisfaction results.

To meet this need rapidBI have developed the Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Survey - Our EESS™ a unique combination of methods in one easy to use instrument.

The EESS is a simple, rapid staff survey which looks at the engagement of your people and measures how satisfied they are. It looks at board, managers and staff views of what is happening. Results can be reported as an organization as a whole or by division/ department.

The process can be used to benchmark externally and automatically compares previous results to the current one.

Users can chose to use accredited consultants or to use the system straight of the webb - with or without support.

The EESS is designed to be a cost effective solution to designing and running your own surveys. to find out more Employee engagementy and staff satisfaction surveys
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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

What is Business Transformation?

2008-06-15T02:40:00.001-07:00

Increasingly in the worlds of project management, change and organizational development the term Business Transformation is being used. But what does it mean?

Is it change re-branded? is it outsourcing? is it a way for IT companies to sell additional services?

In this unique piece Mike explores Business Transformation and looks at how this approach can be used in your company. He gets behind the hype and looks at what can be done at a practical level to manage transformational change.

Read the full article on What is Business Transformation?

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

New consultants using the Creatrix as a leadership development tool

2008-06-13T10:16:00.001-07:00

On Wednesday 6 June 2008 at the IoD in London another group undertook training in use of the Innovation Equation developed by Byrd.

The Innovation Equation:

INNOVATION = CREATIVITY x RISK TAKING

is a behavioural based approach. Under the two main components (Creativity and Risk Taking) are seven behavioural drivers. Using these drivers organisational development specialists can identify current and desired culture and map a change plan to enable the organisation to achieve its goals.

The Creatrix is a model derived from the Innovation Equation and helps to identify strengths and weaknesses in culture and individuals behaviour.
There are 8 orientations in the Creatrix profile:

Innovator
Challenger
Sustainer
Dreamer

Practicalizer
Sythesizer
Planner
Modifier

To find out more visit the Creatrix Innovation site
To engage a certificated Creatrix Consultant

Dr Jacqueline Byrd has used the Creatrix and the Innovation Equation in her book - The Innovative Leader

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006 - 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Time for change in the world of SEO?

2008-06-13T04:29:00.000-07:00

How do you get your site seen on the web?
To enable your business web site to be found on the web - it heeds to be indexed. Over the years many have used Wikipedia and social networking sites for this purpose - some have done it very careffully - others may be considered just SPAM.

Have you also found that you can never really find what you want on the web any more? Sure we have country filtering - but maybe now it is time for a radical change.

For search engines to become reputable again.. all it will take is Google (and others) to ignore the social network sites and all will be restored.

Increasingly the web is becoming a 'big boys' game - where to be on first page for Google for a b2b service you will need to throw a lot of cash at it.the sooner that great god Google starts to ignore wikipedia and all of the social networking sites the better.either that or we have 3 search engines - B2B & B2C and C2C. Three different sets of results for three different purposes - I suspect that people looking for holiday stuff are fed up with seeing trade material and trade people fed up with the latest package deal from their competitor.

The web has grown up - not sure I will call it web 2.0 - but the search engines certainly need to change the rules of the game and start (as AJ started) to become find engines rather than search engines...

Find out more at www.getseenontheweb.co.uk and www.rapidbi.com/getseenontheweb/

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

when is training 'old fashioned"?

2008-05-20T10:31:00.000-07:00

It is 1800 and I am on the 1640 train back from Leeds to London after meeting with a potential client. I overhear a telephone conversation where an individual described a training room as basic.
Yes it had the required tables and chairs, windows, space, a rail to clip flowcharts around the room - lots of wall space etc.. but you have to take your own projector and loud speakers.

So is this 'basic spec' old fashioned - or do we expect different things?
What is considered fit for purpose?
so we need to use PowerPoint every time? Certainly I use PowerPoint from time to tile buy for most training courses I ca take it or leave it.

So if this is 'old fashioned' what is current? what is high tech? What makes a room old fashioned?

Are PowerPoint and interactive whiteboards THE minimum or are these just tools.
what do you think?

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Do you need to find a trainer?

2008-05-18T05:03:00.000-07:00

Are you a manager or HR professional? Do you hire trainers?
With the marketplace changing rapidly it is getting harder and harder to find the right trainers for your business.

Purchasers cannot use day rates as the deciding factor, as generally speaking the lower the day rate the less professional the trainer (to run a sustainable business costs money) - if the rate looks too good to be true - it is too cheap - stay away!

With many trainers claiming to be able to deliver everything from Appraisals to Zoology, we all need to recognise that not all trainers are super hero's - all trainer have limits. Indeed of the material many propose to deliver they can often do:

20% of topics very well...
60% OK and ...
20% of topics - well... why bother?

The question is when you are looking to find a trainer what skill are you looking at...their top or bottom 20% of capability?

We as purchasers need to identify an independently assessed and verified standard on which to use as part of our selection process for finding and hiring a trainer. TrainerBase - the trade association for trainers has recently launched the CLP - or Certified Learning Practitioner standard. This looks to be a robust and at last one of the first 'fit for purpose' standards. Written by practitioners for purchasers it moves the focus for standards away from the government and academic sectors and firmly puts it in the private training sector space.

As a representative of RapidBI, I have just been through this process and can say with some feeling - this is the toughest assessment process I have ever undertaken - and I have done a few in my time! In this process as a participant there was no place to hide, no tricks to get you through and it is not an automatic pass process.... worse participants have to renew every 2 years.

As a participant I can highly recommend this as a learning experience - it has certainly helped the RapidBI team to focus and we are making changes to what we do and how we do it.

TrainerBase publishes some excellent bulletins on training for purchasers - links to two great ones are listed below:

TrainerBase Training Purchaser Bulletin:
Training Purchasers Bulletin 01
Training Purchasers Bulletin 02

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Get seen on the web - build your NetRep

2008-05-12T09:56:00.000-07:00

With the web being increasingly important for purchasers to find training providers, use of the web is critical to many training providers.

Over the past 3 years I have been developing and using web search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques to get my business seen on the net. Recently I was asked to present a session at the TrainerBase conference on this topic. As a result I have been asked to put together a jargon free workshop helping typical trainers improve their web profile.

With this in mind I have developed a process called get seen on the web - a one day programme with practical activities to raise you profile and tap into the work available.

For more information see http://www.getseenontheweb.co.uk/

This one day programme is suitable for Trainers, Consultants and other freelancers, or anyone that wants to establish or develop their NetRep (interNET REPutation).

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006 - 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Fair request for free help??

2008-05-08T22:54:00.000-07:00

This morning I received the following request:

Hi Mike,
I am working on designing an e-learning course ware for the managers, to help them understand the company's rating scale which we use for performance evaluation. we have five scales for performance and appraisal. the problem is most of the managers can't differentiate between the 1st scale and the second for example, Significantly exceeds targets and exceeds targets. these to scales are the one where most of the managers are not able to differentiate. so i am designing an e-learning module a continuum of our whole performance management system e-course. i am facing problem in producing case studies for the course which can define parameters or benchmarking the performance. i will be using according to roles and the organisation but needs a starting point or an example case study. if you can give me your expert opinion on this i will be grateful.

Thanks
Regards

My polite answer was...

Hi
Sometimes we are asked to develop solutions to help people understand - when actually the best solution is to change the system!

There are a number of ways of communicating this type of information, however by far the best is to get case studies from within the client organisation.

If you want help in writing this type of material my hourly rate for this type of advice is .....

Now this post raised a number of questions in my mind -

why was this person doing the work when they clearly do not understand the basics of learning
to be writing e-learning (or any other learning content) one needs a level of attention to detail, and judging by the number of spelling errors this was not this individuals strengths
do people really expect others on forums to solve their problems specifically for free?

I think it is a sad state of our profession that while the views of 'competent' people are sort after, that as a profession many of the people appointed to roles (or indeed commissioned for consultancy roles) are 'not yet competent' and inexperienced to the point off not being able to do the job yet.

Another day to save the world..

Mike

ps As I write this article I feel it would help readers if I were to post the actual request so that you can see the extent of the errors - so here it is:

Hi Mike,
i am working on desinging an e-learning coursware for the managers, to help them understand the company's rating scale which we use for performance evaluation. we have five scales for performance and appraisal. the problem is most of the managers cann't differentiate between the 1st scale and the second for example, Significantly exeeds targets and exeeds targets. these to scales are the one where most of the managers are not able to differentiate. so i am desinging a e-learning module a continuim of oru whole performance management system e-course. i am facing problem in producing case studies for the course which can define parameters or banchmaring the perfomrance. i will be using according to roles and the organisation but needs a starting point or an example case stufy. if you can give me your expert opinon on this i will be grateful. you can email me on my personal email address as well *****@hotmail.com

Thanks
Regards

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

How often to re-survey employees

2008-05-08T04:28:00.001-07:00

Today I was asked an interesting question about staff surveys:

I have recently conducted a Global Employee Survey with my current organisation. There is a lot of discussion around when we should repeat this exercise, this ranges from 6 months to 24 months.

Do you have any advice?

My reply:
This all depends what you want to and are willing to do with the results of the employee survey.

I suspect that the organisation you are in now is very different from the one you knew 2 years ago (assuming you have been there that time). The currency of the results is limited to impacts of change by culture, goals, market place % of manager changes etc...

The question I would want to ask is; how would staff react to a repeat survey?

Great - a lot changed last time or ...
Not again - they did not listen last time so why this time?

How often do you do your employee surveys?

How do employees react?

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Action Learning

2008-05-06T23:45:00.000-07:00

So what is Action Learning?
Action learning is based upon the concept of learning by reflection (or reviewing) on an experience. It is underpinned by the cycle of experiential learning as shown below, where the stages of reviewing and concluding are worked through with the Set. In practice many of us tend to short circuit this cycle and often ship the reviewing phase as it is often difficult to do out of context.Action learning will help 'close the loop' and ensure our learning is as effective as possible (more about learning cycles in module one).

Action Learning Sets are primarily focused on the individual's learning.An Action Learning programme involves the following key elements:

The Set: a group of 6 - 8 people who meet regularly.
The Projects: each participant works on a project or task over the life of the set
The Set Adviser: a facilitator who helps the group to work and learn together.

Although Action Learning is flexible, it is highly structured and focuses on the individual and their need NOT on the programme.

To find out more visit http://www.rapidbi.com/created/actionlearningregrevens.html

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Director of Oomph

2008-04-20T08:29:00.000-07:00

Does your business have a director of oomph?
For a business to be successful not only must it have a marketable product, but it needs to be effectively led and managed. Many larger organisations lack 'oopmh' within.

In our experience many organisations would benefit from ensuring that all staff were not only fully engaged but that strategies are put in place to create a level of oomph to motivate and encourage productivity.

A director oomph may be recruited from anywhere in the organisation, their role is to inject a sense of fun and participation beyond that of the local manager.

Who is your formal or informal director of oomph?

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Going nuts at HRD

2008-04-17T02:08:00.001-07:00

When the stand is quiet what do exhibitors do?

HRD 2008

2008-04-16T10:10:00.000-07:00

Have you visited?
Mike has been on the TrainerBase standalong with Peter, Heather, Charlotte and others from the TBteam.

The exhibition has its usual mix of training providers, venues, tests and assessments , e-learning providers and publishers.

Along with Trainerbase, other membership based organisations including CIPD and BILD were also in attendance.