Personal Development Plan

Introduction to Assignment

This week we were required to complete a personal development plan for ourselves and to also include a presentation to an organization on the importance of having a training and development plan for its employees.

Video Presentation

Personal Development Plan

Competencies

Strengths

·       Learning strategies (selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things)

·       Critical thinking (using logic reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems)

·       Making decisions and solving problems (analyzing information and evaluating results to choose the best solution and solve problems)

Areas for Improvement

·       Communications and Media (Knowledge of media production, communication, and dissemination techniques and methods. Including alternative ways to inform and entertain via written, oral, and visual media)

·       Virtual training and teaching others (instructing others through the use of a virtual classroom)

·       Oral Presentation skills (presenting information in large face to face environments)

Development Goals

Long Term Goals: Accept a position of increased responsibility on the level of learning and development manager (or beyond). The area of specific interest is in performance consulting.

Short Term Goals: Continue to improve my skills in public speaking, while using my skills to design, develop, implement, and evaluate store sales training.

Training and Development Needs

The table below shares the training and development needs I will require to achieve my long and short term goals.

Development Ideas	Rational for Development
Executive Education (Tuition Reimbursement)	M.S. in Instructional Design and Technology – emphasis in Training and Performance (Walden University) The benefits to the organization are: I will further hone my competencies and skills by applying theory, research, creativity, and problem-solving skills to a variety of technology applications in order to help reshape the way information are created, integrated, and delivered. You will also develop the skills to assess, create, and manage training materials. The combination of these skills will help you to support technology-based training in educational institutions and corporate training environments. Through your coursework, you will gain the experience needed to efficiently and effectively use technology and multimedia tools, including Adobe Captivate and Adobe Creative Cloud applications (Walden University, 2017). Noe states Verizon Wireless tuition reimbursement program resulted in increased morale and helped to attract new and retain current employees (p 380). By completing this degree I could be considered an asset for the organization's succession planning strategy.
Mentoring Relationship	A mentor would help provide me with career support. For example, career support to include but not limited to, coaching, protection, sponsorship, and provide challenging assignments (Noe, 2013). What I could provide to the mentor is helping them develop their interpersonal skills, communication skills, and increase their self-esteem and worth in the organization (Noe, 2013).
Job Experience	New job assignments can help take advantage of my existing skills experiences, and contacts, while helping me develop new ones (Noe, 2013). This could support the short term goal above to build sales training for our salespeople.
Job Rotation	Job rotation would give me the opportunity to try a series of job assignments in various functional areas, which in turn will make the training courses I build stronger supporting my short term goal above. Noe states job rotation helps employees gain an overall appreciation of the company’s goals, increases their understanding of different functions, develops a network of contacts, and improves problem-solving and decision-making skills (p 389).

High Tech Training

Introduction

This week’s assignment we were asked to explain the impacts of five selected technologies has and will continue to have on how people learn and interact, and the implications of this for training.

The five technologies I choose to focus on are mobile learning, distant learning, simulations and games, virtual reality, and social media. Let’s take a look at what I found through my research.

Mobile Learning

In the New Horizons report, put out by the New Media Consortium 2017, cited a study done by McGraw-Hill Education and Hanover Research of over 2,600 US colleges students, nearly two-thirds were using their smartphones to study. They predicted mobile learning will grow by 2020 to $37.6 billion (p 40).

What I struggle with is visualizing mini-courses being effective on the smartphone-size screen. So what would be the best type of learning when using mobile? That is when I found a study done by IBM. The results verified my hunch that learners are not going to use their small little smartphone screen for mini-courses. What IBM found from their study of 400 employees they surveyed and interviewed, is employees in nearly all of IBM’s business units across all geographic regions were using their mobile phones almost exclusively for in field performance support from colleagues and access to late-breaking information (Ahmad, and Orton, 2010).

The implications for mobile training is it will allow us an easy way to get up-to-date information to learners and employees, it can be useful for enhancing transfer of training through providing follow-up; it brings training to learners who constantly travel, or don’t have the time to attend face-to-face classroom courses or programs (Noe, 2013). Now let’s take a look at distant learning.

Distant learning

Distant learning for this blog will focus on the virtual classroom. With supporting technologies like Adobe Connect, Webex, and Skype we are able to help organizations to have a competitive advantage over their competition by reaching their geographically dispersed workforce. Saving them on financial burdens related to training like travel expenses. Through the use of a virtual classroom, we can provide information about new products, policies, or procedures, as well as deliver skills training and expert lectures to field locations (Noe, 2013). Simulations and games are growing in leaps and bounds over the years and work well as a supplement to mobile and distant learning so let’s take a look at that next.

Simulations and Games

How many of you go home after a long day of work pull out the iPad or other device and start playing Candy Crush? Be honest. I know there are millions of you out there because my Facebook account is always getting a request for more lives. Would you look at this game as a learning tool? This puzzle game actually helps in developing thinking skills. In the article Candy Crush Saga by Learning works for kids they point out not only that this game is highly addictive but it promotes flexibility and planning when it comes to building one's thinking skills (Gadget, 2017). Who would have thought? The U.S. Army uses simulation technology to teach counterinsurgency techniques to battalion commanders. The key with simulations and games is how to use the fun and motivational aspects of games to help employees acquire knowledge and skills (Noe, 2013). The implication to training is its cost savings in travel expenses and the ability for the learner to practice in a safe environment. Simulations and games is a great transition into the next technology virtual reality.

 Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality (VR) enables learners to step into an immersive, computer-simulated alternate world where sensory experiences can occur (NMC, 2016). Just like simulations, virtual reality allows the learner to practice dangerous tasks without putting themselves or others in danger (Noe, 2013). At the 2017 Training Conference in San Diego, I had the opportunity to play with the technology that will support virtual reality. Though the cost of the camera and goggles are extremely affordable the software to edit the video and put it into a 3D state is not quite there yet. I expect by next year that we will be seeing the kinks in the software worked out and a price that will make this an affordable tool to use for training. Finally, let’s turn the spotlight on social media.

Social Media

The world of training seems to be exploding with new approaches to informal learning. Social Media fits nicely with an informal learning approach take a look at YouTube for example. The other day my headlight went out on my Buick. Instead of taking it to the shop and being charged an ungodly amount of money to have it repaired, I turned to search on YouTube for a video to show me how to replace it. After investing $30.00 for the light, 20 minutes of my time watching the video and getting the screw to finally come lose, my new light was in and working properly. I was then able to leave a comment to some helpful tips I uncovered while replacing my light with anyone else that would review the video. The impact on social media training is instruction is augmented by information and collaboration (Stolovitch, 2010). What a quick way to learn! Watch, do, and share the experience. Wala! New light installed in my car.

Conclusion

Media and technology can substantially improve the efficiency of training and learning. However, Stolovitch warns technology has little to no impact on the effectiveness of training (p 182). There, of course, is exceptions to his warning. Stolovitch adds technology can become effective in training when the skills and knowledge to be acquired are of a technological nature and are taught using the technology for which the skills and knowledge are required (p182).

References

New Media Consortium. (2017). New Horizon Report 2017 Higher Education Edition. Retrieved from https://www.nmc.org/publication/nmc-horizon-report-2017-higher-education-edition/

Ahmad, Nabeel, and Peter Orton. “Smartphones Make IBM Smarter, But Not As Expected.” T+D 64, no. 1 (January 2010): 46–50

Noe, R. A. (2013). Employee training and development (6^th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill

Gadget. (2017). Candy Crush Saga. Retrieved from http://learningworksforkids.com/playbooks/candy-crush-saga/

New Media Consortium. (2016). New Horizon Report 2017 Higher Education Edition. Retrieved from https://www.nmc.org/publication/nmc-horizon-report-2016-higher-education-edition/

Stolovitch, H. D. (2011). Telling ain’t training: updated, expanded, and enhanced, 2^nd edition. American Society for Training and Development

Planning for Needs Analysis

Assignment Introduction

In this week’s assignment, we were to explore a company from a list that was provided to us. We were asked to try to get a sense of the organization's products and/or services, consumers, management philosophy, and strategic objectives. Then we were to recommend how we would approach the needs assessment specific to stakeholder we would need to get buy-in from, types of questions we would ask during the organizational, audience, and task analysis phases, what documents or records might we request to see, and what techniques would we employ.

Intel

The Organization I choose to explore was Intel. Intel offers both product and services to a large range of customers. The customers could be from business, education, or consumer and can be located globally. The products and service they offer are anywhere from processors, devices, networking and communications, to software and services. This by no means is a complete list of all their products and services but gives you a good idea that they are a tech organization. The management philosophy started with Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore which is “go off and do something wonderful” and included a hands-on work environment (Intel, 2013). Their strategic objectives are to power the majority of servers and the cloud, allowing businesses to transform their industries by quickly sharing data, storing information, and making content accessible from anywhere in the world (Intel, 2017).

What stakeholders would I want to make sure I have buy-in from?

I would want to include upper-level managers to determine if training is related to the company’s business strategy and if so, what type of training is required (Noe, 2013). Mid-Level managers would be included to attain the financial goals for the particular units they supervise (Noe, 2013). Finally, I would want to include SMEs to find the possible gaps in knowledge and skills and job incumbents that are currently performing the jobs to tap into their knowledge about the job (Noe, 2013).

The type of questions I would ask and to whom during the organizational, audience, and task analysis phases?

Organizational Analysis Questions

Upper-level Management

• Is training important to achieve our business objectives?
• How does training support our business strategy?
• What are the threats to our talent base?

Mid-level Management

• Do you want to spend money on training?
• If you want to spend money on training what is the budget?

Audience Analysis Questions

Upper-level Management

• Do employees in specific functions or business units need training?
• What do employees need to do to accomplish our business objectives?

Mid-Level Management

• Who should be trained? Managers? Professionals? Core employees?

SME

• Do you see anyone other members of the organization that isn’t on my list that should also be included in the training?

Task Analysis Questions

Upper-level Management

• Does the company have people with the knowledge, skills, and abilities or competencies needed to compete in the marketplace?

Mid-level Management

• For what jobs can training make the biggest difference in product quality or customer service?

SME

• What tasks need to be performed?
• What is the necessary equipment needed to perform the task?
• What are the conditions under which the task needs to be performed?
• What are the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for successful task performance?

Job incumbents

• How frequently is the task performed?
• What tools are used to perform the task successfully?
• What role performs the task?
• What are the steps to performing the task successfully?
• Is there currently a process or procedure document on how to perform the task successfully?

What documents or records might I request to see?

The type of data I would request to see would be historical data, which should include performance date levels. This data would help with establishing what current state looks like and how we can get to the desired performance upper-management is looking to obtain (Noe, 2013). Also if there are help desk calls, assessment result, focus group documentation, interviews, and other companies training practices (Noe, 2013)

What techniques would I employee and why?

The technique I would use for performing the needs analysis would be to schedule a meeting with upper-management first so I could begin the organizational analysis. Since the organizational analysis identifies whether training suits the company’s strategic objectives and whether the company has the budget, time, and expertise for training it should be conducted first (Noe, 2013). The audience analysis and task analysis can be conducted simultaneously because it is difficult to determine whether performance deficiencies are related to a training problem without understanding the tasks and the work environment (Noe, 2013).

Reference

“Intel CEOs: A Look Back.” Intel Free Press, March 20, 2013. http://www.intelfreepress.com/news/intel-ceos-a-look-back/4967/

Noe, R. A. (2013). Employee training and development (6^th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill