113 - Three Learning Decisions Organizations Face in 1999 - 2000

The MASIE Center http://www.masie.com Elliott Masie, Editor

Three Learning Decisions Organizations Face in 1999 - 2000
By Elliott Masie, President, The MASIE Center

In preparing for Learning Decisions '99, we did an extensive set of
interviews with Chief Learning Officers and Training Managers from major
organizations throughout North America. We asked a simple question:

"What are the core learning and training decisions that your organization
face in 1999 & 2000?"

I was amazed at the extent to which the answers converged on just three key
Learning Decisions. Here is the summary of the survey results:

Learning Decision 1: Aligning Training with Business Objectives:

How can training and learning departments and functions more closely align
themselves, in deed, with the stated goals and objectives of the overall
business?

It was clear from our interviews that training and learning departments face
an immediate challenge of how to align with business goals, objectives and
language. Learning officers are being asked to play a more core role in the
life of the business. Businesses are under pressure to increase
marketshare, cope with globalization and operate on shorter cycle times.
Learning departments are now under acute pressure to demonstrate how they
can contribute to each of these shifts:

* How can learning and training efforts increase the sales function and
result in increased marketshare?
* How can learning and training efforts support the shift to globalization?
* How can learning and training efforts reduce cycle time....the amount of
time between the conception of a change in process and the time it is
actually implemented!

Learning Officers were clear that they needed to shift their planning
process to involve business units more centrally in their positioning and
budgeting strategies. They are also under pressure to expand their focus to
include new metrics that can measure the effectiveness and impact of
learning efforts. They are being asked to express success in business
terminology.

Learning Decision 2: Developing a Corporate Wide Learning Technology
Strategy

How can learning and training decision makers create and implement an
organizational wide strategy for making appropriate use (or non-use) of
learning technology? How do we map a sane course through this maze of real
and hyped capabilities?

The interviews focused on the need for a STRATEGY! While a lot of our
conversations focus on the new tools and technologies that are being brought
into the marketplace, the training managers expressed a frustration with the
lack of an organizational strategy. Technology for learning that is just
air-dropped into an organization will not succeed, according to the
respondents. They feel a strong need to develop an organization wide
strategy that would accomplish several of these objectives:

* Provide a framework for when to USE or NOT TO USE technology as a
component of learning delivery?
* Provide a decision making structure for evaluating each new learning
technology as it is presented to the organization?
* Coordinate the efforts of various business units as they independently
consider learning technology.
* Support experimentation and piloting to test approaches prior to
organization-wide implementation.
* Develop a common language within the organization to describe and discuss
learning technology and technology assisted instructional approaches?
* Align learning technology with parallel efforts such as Knowledge
Management.
* Assist in setting realistic expectations for learning technology.
* Coordinate efforts with IT and other partners needed to implement a
learning architecture.

Learning Decision 3: Economic and Business Models for Learning:

What are new economic and business models we can use to structure and
predict the investment in learning within an organization?

How can organizations plan for appropriate investments in workforce
learning? How much should be spent on learning with what levels of
expectation for ROI? How should organizations approach the staffing issues
for training management and delivery (in-house vs. out-source)? How should
cost recovery be structured as learning moves towards informal and digital
delivery?

The senior learning professionals we interviewed for this survey were
universal in their need for new economic and business models for learning
investment. When asked by the CEO to predict the levels of investment
needed to achieve a targeted skill level, many felt they were at a loss to
express a confident prediction. The learning field has a unique opportunity
to start to build economic models for learning and development that can be
articulated to business decision makers. Here are some of the questions
that our respondents posed:

* What is an appropriate level of learning and training investment for a
worker at various stages of their employment (beginning, middle and near
retirement)?
* Do our systems of charging business units for training create an incentive
or discouragement to invest in learning?
* What are organizations doing to respond to the chant for ROI statistics?
* What is the impact of including informal learning in the budget analysis
of organizational learning efforts?

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These three Learning Decisions will be the focus of The Masie Center's
efforts in the next several years. We will be dealing with them directly
at Learning Decisions '99, an executive retreat for training decision makers
to be held in Las Vegas on May 12 to 14, 1999. Complete information is
available at http://www.masie.com Learning Decisions '99 will provide deep
benchmarking amongst the 285 participants.

Permission is granted to duplicate and circulate the above article. I would
love to hear your comments by email at emasie@masie.com