Thursday, March 13, 2008

Mapping Internal Business as Accounts from L&D perspective

Was wondering how it would be to map a Business as an account (internally) and what are the various parameters one should keep in mind while doing that. May be you can add some more value to this.
I wanted to come out with a model which should help all the Learning Solutions Providers at large... :)
I think the following parameters make sense to have it as a part of L&D Account mapping...
Your inputs to these things are much appreciated.
a. Understand the Client-

  • Create Client Profile - Client Facts, Business Imperatives, Performance, Environment, and SWOT Analysis
  • Create Value Analysis (SVA) Model - Enables the team to understand client performance, identify value creation opportunities and related value drivers, and determine how L&D Team can deliver tangible business value
  • ASK THE CLIENT! Elicit and validate information on their needs and imperatives, key executives, culture
    Gain insight from third parties and external sources (alliance partners, research industry analyst information, media, etc.)
  • Related industry High Performance Business research.

b. Create the Account Plan-

  • Position/Perception: How do we want to be perceived by the client in terms of our capabilities and services? What can we do to improve our position relative to the competition?
  • Relationships: How can we strengthen current relationships? Where do we need to penetrate the organization further? What are the relationships we need to build for future work, and how do we do that?
  • Competitors: Who are the biggest threats at this client and what are their strengths and weaknesses? Who are their supporters and advocates, how do we neutralize them? What is our plan to beat or unseat them?
  • Opportunities: How do we want to drive value for this company? What are the opportunities that we want to focus on now – and build for the future?

c. Live the Plan-

  • Drive the momentum: meet regularly and often
  • Carry out action plans: hold team members accountable for what they “signed up for” in the account plan
  • Review team accomplishments and sales metrics
  • Focus on improving relationships and converting ideas into opportunities
  • Revisit and refine strategies
  • Keep the leadership engaged
  • Conduct regular Client Value Reviews (value we have delivered through our work with the client) with the client
  • Post the Account Plan on the available in the repository
  • Schedule regular Account Plan Reviews with leadership.

How to measure the training efficiency

This is just a thought that I was having on informal and formal learning,.
You might decide that having the learners "informally" learn a task is more efficient than "formal" training, but according to Carnevale, Gainer, & Villet's , "Training in America: The Organization and Strategic Role of Training," formal learning is about three times more efficient than informal learning. Now they don't break down the numbers, but consider this -- Allen Tough, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, who was one of the thought leaders on informal learning, discovered that within each informal learning episode (where the primary motivation is to gain and retain certain knowledge and skills on a task), the average learner interacts with an average of 10 people.Thus rather than informal learning being a solitary act, these learners are interrupting the daily activities of their coworkers as they seek advice and coaching. So now you might think it is more efficient to actually create the training program, rather than have them learn it informally.But consider this -- a large piece of research on informal learning was produced by the Education Development Center (EDC) in 1997. This was a comprehensive two-year study funded by the US Department of Labor and the Charitable Trusts. It included companies such as Boeing, Siemens, Data Instruments, Ford and Motorola. When observing operations at the Motorola Company the researchers calculated that each hour of formal learning spills over to four-hours of informal learning or a 1:4 ratio. It seems informal and formal learning is implicitly tied together.So now depending on how many "episodes" of informal learning are in your formal training program, you have now potentially exaggerated the savings you were hoping to achieve as the spill-over to informal learning could erase it all with its inefficacy and disruptions to the rest of the workforce!Yep -- calculating "efficiency" is a piece of a cake
!