Improve Your Organization's Performance Now!

Follow Proven Human Performance Strategies for Success.

Improve employee performance, quality, productivity,and retention with the first complete system for Human Performance Technology.

There has never been a time when business, industry, government, and military organizations have had a greater need for strategies to improve workforce performance as a key component in their bid to gain and maintain a competitive edge.

Despite massive infusion of capital-intensive, advanced technology in North America, many organizations are losing the performance and quality race. The quality of products and services has not always kept pace with the expenditure. In fact, many think there has been a significant decline in performance and quality overall.

This problem shows up in the market place, especially where North American organizations are in a competitive mode with each other and with foreign organizations.

Happily, many enlighten leaders in business, industry, and government recognized the problem and therefore see the need for improvement in quality of goods and services.

Though performance and quality is on everyone's lips, few quality programs seem to target directly the prime ingredient in the improvement of products and services; The actions and accomplishments of humans on-the-job.

Given initial capital investment, the largest cost to most organizations is direct labor and overhead of people.

There is a need for a Peak Performance System. Though there is a large number of influences on human performance, current performance and quality improvement efforts do not consider all influences, but target a relatively narrow range of variables impacting performance. For example, statistical measurement, inspections, employee involvement, and so forth.

Many quality improvement efforts are conceptual. They do not have systematic procedures to guide the improvement effort. The goals and processes are often open to wide interpretation.

Within the same organization, performance and quality efforts are often fragmented. There is an absence of goals and objectives. This is an absence of a common model and language. Efforts tend to act independently, and sometimes in opposition to each other. There is a need for a system that is systematic, and for one that focuses on human performance.

Dr. Tom Gilbert, the father of Human Performance Technology, taught us that the economic costs of training are significantly high enough as to warrant our immediate and constant attention through analysis; and, that training should be primarily organization goal related and performance-based.

Now you can learn how to:

• Install a state-of-the-art systematic approach to training (SAT) process (or) replace/enhance your current SAT process.
  
• Analyze performance problems to examine all organizational influences on performers.
• Provide analysts with tools and processes for identifying a solution set that closes all gaps affecting human performance.
• Figure out the right performance supports for the best cost.
  
• Choose exactly the right training (and other interventions) to effectively support your workers!
• Directly and substantially impact the effectiveness of your business.
• Effectively demonstrate the improvements of your workers' performance on key business measures!
  

The Job Aids Workshop, The Front End Analysis Workshop, the Accomplishment-Based Curriculum Development System, and the Peak Performance System are on the cutting-edge of human performance technology. We have conducted hundreds of projects to learn the most effective way to impact people's performance in the workplace. This is an opportunity to tap into thousands of hours of research in the field and apply it to your situation. These workshop are presented in-house at your facility and you can become qualified to present these workshops to your organization.

You will receive:

• State-of-the-art concepts and procedures
• Step-by-step written job aids for all procedures presented
• Personal consultation on your projects and your organization

We offer you three opportunities to improve the quality of human performance:


1. Job Aids Workshop (JAWS)

Job aids save time and money. A job aid is a tool to guide performance in real time. Examples: Checklists, Decision Tables, Algorithms (flow charts), Worksheets, and Cookbooks. The time it takes to develop a job aid is three to five times shorter than with traditional instruction and implementation time is three times shorter. Job aids solve retention problems and result in more accurate performance.

Who should attend: Course Developers, Procedure Writers, Documentation Writers, Technical Writers, Performance Technologists, Quality Consultants

Learn how to:

• Identify exactly when and where to use job aids to help your workers' perform better
• Determine precisely which type of job aid will produce the desired outcome in any situation
• Produce job aids that meet or exceed your expectations; job aids which are cost-effective, have short cycle times, and make a maximum business impact
• Practice developing job aids
• Produce effective, high quality job aids by the end of the workshop!
  
• Take home a detailed job aid you can use to produce other job aids for all your future projects!

2. Front End Analysis (FEA) Workshop

Analysis is an important link to producing cost-effective human performance. Front End Analysis ensure that activities, outputs and goals complement each other to reduce or eliminate waste and rework.

Learn:

• Analytic methodologies that recognize and record all the factors that influence job-site performance.
  
• How to use analytic tools that are goal related and performance based.
  
• How to calculate worth=value-cost to ensure return-on-investment.
  

Front-End Analysis is a state-of-the-art workshop that will teach you how to assess, analyze, and plan solutions to human performance problems-including "soft skills." And, how to analyze new performance.

Who should attend: Performance Technologists, Course Developers, Trainers, and Quality Consultants

As a Front End Analysis (FEA) Workshop Participant, You'll learn how to:

• Tie your work directly to improved performance
• Determine the most effective way of dealing with a problem
• Decide if training is truly the best solution to a problem, and when other interventions would be more appropriate
• Conduct a New Performance Front End Analysis when dealing with new goals, new processes, new technologies, and/or new workers
• Conduct a Diagnostic Front End Analysis when current worker in current work environments are not meeting organizational goals
• Establish "buy-in" and support for the Front End Analysis process
• Establish up front criteria to use in measuring the effectiveness of your analysis
• Select the best Front End Analysis tool for a given situation
• Take home practical job aids to use for each aspect of a highly successful Front End Analysis at your organization
  

3. The Accomplishment-Based Curriculum Development System (ABCD)

Build a STATE-OF-THE-ART training organization with the award-winning ABCD system.

ABCD is a complete, job-aided system for all steps of ALL tasks of all phases of training development.

Benefits include:

• Produce shorter courses
• Efficient course development time
• Dramatically increased job-proficiency of students as a result of ABCD-developed training.
  

Learn How to:

• Tie training directly to organizational goals and improvements in productivity--a true performance-based approach to training
• Establish a one-to-one link between the training you provide and the measurements of trainees' job performance
• Your people will return to the job with the highest level of competence and a greater understanding of how their work supports the achievement of organizational goals!
• Reduce the amount and length of training courses, yet increase their impact
• Produce, as a subject-matter expert, high quality training immediately upon completion of ABCD
• Design and develop a full range of job aids
• Design and develop curricula, courses, and modules, including practices and tests
• Produce participant and instructor guides
• Select media appropriate to training content
• Develop self-instructional materials
• Test, validate, and evaluate training materials
• Plan for the implementation of training including the details of administration
  
• Thanks to a wealth of procedures, job aids, and worksheets, any non-trainers assigned to your training department will rapidly become competent in the process of analysis, design, and development. You will be able to "Hit the ground running!"

Joe Harless, Developer of the Workshop's Concepts. Joe Harless, a member of the prestigious Human Resource Development Hall of Fame, designed and developed these workshops that will revolutionize your business. Often referred to as the "trainer's trainer" Joe Harless has received the coveted Member for Life award from the National Society for Performance and Instruction (now, The International Society for Performance Improvement). In short, he has a unique genius for solving performance problems.

Many of the top fortune 500 companies and Government Agencies are satisfied alumni of these outstanding workshops: Allstate, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Procter and Gamble, Sandia Labs, Bell Canada, Chase Manhattan, Home Savings, M&M Mars, U.S. Coast Guard, BellSouth, Federal Express, Boeing, General Motors, Bellcore, Duke Power, American Express, Sprint, Motorola U.S Marine Corps, Microsoft.

For more information, go to dougmead.com.

How to Achieve Business Success!

Learn how to survive and thrive in these challenging economic times. Learn how to prepare your business and your employees for fierce global competition and technological change. Learn how practice the science of productivity that results in dramatic improvements in human performance.

Help your people know what is expected of them in their jobs, and make available to them the information that will guide them to do excellent work. Learn how to give them a clear, frequent picture of how well they are performing and what it is they might do to improve their performance. Help your people measure their performance against achievable business goals.

To achieve business success, learn how to analyze, design, develop, test, implement, and evaluate your work systems to most cost-effectively influence human performance that is of value to the basic business goals of your organization.

Learn how to improve your human performance system to ensure smooth work process balance and flow. Improve productivity, reduce errors, reduce rework, improve customer satisfaction and reduce operating costs.

The purpose of my web site, dougmead.com, is to help you accomplish your business goals by sharing knowledge, information and resources to assist you in engineering cost-effective peak human performance.

This useful web site offers plain and simple-to-use resources designed to enhance your performance improvement knowledge, know-how and results.

My focus is adding value for clients, their customers and the global environment. Feel free to take a tour of my web site to discover valuable resources to help you accomplish your business goals. Learn about expert performance-based resources that facilitate the creation of valued results for individuals, organizations, and society in general.

Dr. Paul Elliott, Dr. Tom Gilbert, Dr. Joe Harless, and Dr. Geary Rummler, early mentors, showed many of us that performance improvement could be approached as a science; and, who taught many of us to concentrate on outputs and accomplishments before considering processes. Discover how-to use Human Performance Technology (HPT) to meet or exceed your business goals, strategies, and objectives.

Dr. Tom Gilbert taught us that all engineering begins with the simple economic purpose of creating worthy performance that ensures the value of our accomplishments exceeds the cost of the behavior.
dougmead.com provides you with the most important resources you need to analyze, compare and decide on the best approach to achieve your business goals. This site also provides additional human performance resources to help you learn more about the growing field of Human Performance Improvement. Please make yourself at home throughout this web site. Take what you need and don't forget to BOOKMARK this site for continued reference in the future.

Human Performance Excellence

Do you want learn how-to maximize your organization's work system efficiency, optimize employee and process performance, cut waste, and increase profitability?

Then discover a multi-pronged approach to organizational effectiveness. Workforce performance management is emerging as the primary path toward providing greater alignment of corporate goals and visibility into both individual and organizational performance.

Maximizing the performance of the global workforce is quickly becoming a top priority in the executive offices of thought-leading organizations. Organizations that excel in developing the workforce tend to be high performers and dominate their markets.

The solution:

Step 1:
Read "Read Human Competence; Engineering Worthy Performance", by Thomas F. Gilbert.

• Gilbert, Thomas F. "Human Competence; Engineering Worthy Performance". New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1978

The book cover flap;
Not just another run-of-the mill book on human performance, this provocative volume offers you a new system for getting the most out of people. Sharply departing from standard theories of human behavior, this guide details approaches that have already proved their worth in many companies and schools. Shattering many a precedent, it give you scores of innovative new ideas for, developing people.

Here are just two of the solid benefits that you can expect from the methods explained in this remarkable book:

• You can reduce training time and costs (in industry and in schools) by two thirds while you double training effectiveness.

• You can increase people's productivity by 50% to 200% and often more, while making their jobs more interesting and less demanding.These startling claims are fully validated as the author shows you, step0by-step, how it is possible to achieve these results in your company or school.

The secret? An original theory of engineering human performance, coupled with a detailed plan of action based on proven applications in industry, government, and the schools. Grounded on brilliant principles and sound applications and educational practice, this result-getting volume....

• Explains how to identify people who have the potential to be exemplary performers

• details various economic models for reducing expenses, increasing productivity, improving learning, and other benefits. Plus special easy-to-use worksheets for putting these models in action.

• Shows how to diagnose causes of performance failure - and how to tailor the best remedies to each problem.

• Reveals a remarkable easy way to improve the competence of employees and students substantially.

• Describes a general procedure for measuring any performance - and for translating these measures into economic opportunity.

• Shows how to design training and educational systems that bring better results than ever before.

Upsetting many established ideas, the book dramatically illustrates how the regulation of behavior actually promotes incompetence. It also reveals the relative ineffectiveness of popular "assessment center" approaches to human performance. It proposes instead an accomplishment -based self-motivated selection, assessment, and development system that is far more effective and equitable than any than now exist.

Sharply departing from the standard theories of human behavior, this provocative volume provides scores of proven examples and innovative ideas about how to improve human performance, both at work and school. It will intrigue anyone interested in theories an d procedures for improving human performance. But it is a must for those whose business is human competence - managers - educators, psychologists, industrial engineers, and many other scientists.

About The Author
Thomas F. Gibert holds a Ph.D degree in psychology and served on the faculties of several universities, including Harvard and the University of Georgia. In 1961 he originated a system , call "amthetics." In 1967 he founded the Praxis Corporation, devoted to improving human performance in industry, government, and education. Dr. Gilbert is a recognized leader in his field and was voted the first Honorary Life Member of the National Society for Performance and Instruction.

Step 2:
Take a tour of dougmead.com to see how you can cost-effectively optimize employee work performance in your organization while improving employee attraction and employee retention.

Education and Skills Training; The Engine for Economic Development

Are you interested in what citizens and communities can do to cause successful educational reform?

Recommendation: Learn How-to Design an Exemplary Education System. See a Successful and Replicable Model using Joe Harless's model for improving education at the web site of the Central Educational Center, a national Model High School in Newnan, Coweta County, Georgia (just southwest of Atlanta on I-85 at: http://www.gacec.com/index.cfm?section=about.

If you are truly interested in what citizens and communities can do to successfully cause educational reform, then I strongly suggest you visit the Central Educational Center web site and then read, "The Eden Conspiracy"; Educating for Accomplished Citizenship by Joe Harless, ISBN 0-9665010-4. It is available on amazon.com. The above mentioned Central Educational Center Model is based on this excellent book that explains how-to cause dramatic improvement in our children's schooling. This book provides a common sense approach for local educational reform by one of the nation's leading experts in human development. Joe explains how to motivate students, how-to improve the curriculum and how-to bring about higher levels of learning for almost all students. Working together we can increase exemplary performance and better manage human resources throughout the world by supporting a better exchange between business and academia, so that the academics are putting their substantial intellectual powers and resources to work better preparing students for exemplary workforce performance.

Discover educational approaches that produce comprehensive and seminal changes in the way learning delivers business value. What Bill and Melinda Gates Want You to Know In their first interview together, Bill and Melinda Gates say they're terrified an entire generation is failing in school. Stand up to change America's school crisis. Stand Up - Oprah.com. I also recommend you read "Education' Myths" author, Jay Greene. This book was featured on 20/20 on Jan. 13, 2006 — In his special report on public education, "Stupid in America," John Stossel speaks with Jay Greene regarding; What Special Interest Groups Want You to Believe About Our Schools and Why It Isn't So." Greene takes on the conventional wisdom that pouring more money into public schools leads to improved education. Citing national statistics on education expenditures, Greene argues that inadequate spending is not the problem behind poorly performing schools and students. Greene also rebuts some popular assumptions about the roles race and socioeconomic status play in student performance. What should be the ultimate purpose and goals of education? What are the desired student accomplishments as a result of the educational process? What student behaviors are relevant to produce the accomplishments? What is the gap between current accomplishments and the desired accomplishments? What are the causes of the gaps? What interventions are indicated? What specific content should be taught? It is important that these issues be addressed not only before embarking on educational reform, but also in the sequence listed above, because the findings of each analytical step become the input the next.

__________________________________________

Are you charged with improving workforce performance, reducing training costs and producing effective Corporate Skills Training & Development Curriculum?

Recommendation: Build a state-of-the-art training and development organization with the award-winning the Accomplishment-Based Curriculum Development System (ABCD). Now your training organization can design and develop training they can guarantee will work. Increase training's value and credibility in your organization. Tie training and development directly to organizational goals and improvements in productivity---a true performance-based approach to curriculum planning and training design. Joe Harless, a member of the prestigious Human Resources Hall of Fame, designed and developed these workshops that will revolutionize your business. Often referred to as the "trainer's trainer" Joe Harless has received the coveted Member For Life award from the National Society for Performance Improvement (now, The International Society for Performance Improvement). In short, he has a unique genius for solving performance problems. Establish a one-to-one link between the training and development you provide and the measurements of trainee’s job performance. Produce, as a subject-matter expert, high quality training immediately upon completion of human performance improvement training. Master essential development skills. Learn the secrets of successful curriculum development. Guarantee your training to provide job-relevant skills. Reduce training costs. Document the value of your training. Make performance measurable and observable and give a base-line from which to measure how performance has improved after training. You can quickly show how performance has improved and demonstrate the value of what you do. The Peak Performance System is perfect for e-learning media because the methodology enables you to select the best, most effective delivery media for any type of training. The Peak Performance System is extremely well suited to training delivered through technology because it enables you to break training into smaller segments which trainees can take as needed. Tailor training to your audience's needs and design training you can guarantee will work for any medium. There is no better way to acquire these skills than by attending these workshops. Become qualified to present these workshops personally to your organization.

Solutions by Design; Lessons That Enable Average Performers To Excel

Improve customer satisfaction - improve safety performance - increase productivity, stream-line work processes - reduce the cost of formal training time and shorten the time to competence - produce exemplary quality in your products and services - reduce employee turnover - reduce the cost of rework - attract and retain employees by improving employee satisfaction - prepare employees for fierce global competition - accelerate time to productivity - prepare employees for technological change -improve your bottom-line - and increase long term profitability.

Exemplary business organizations focus employees on accomplishments and understand the importance of knowing how things work within their system. They understand that they need to shorten and accelerate time to global markets and promote product quality and regulatory compliance. Exemplary organizations focus on critical choices regarding:

1. WHAT they want their employees to ACCOMPLISH and DO to achieve the business goals.


2. The most cost-effective INFLUENCES needed to obtain and sustain the accomplishments and behaviors of their employees.


3. Design and development of programs needed to carry out 1 and 2 above, such as training - work design - work environment engineering - and motivation-incentive programs.


4. Implementation and evaluation of the programs selected and developed.

Exemplary organizations understand the importance of work process balance and flow. An analogy is the Yin-Yang symbol that represents ancient Chinese understanding of how things work within the universe. The outer circle represents "the total system ", while the black and white shapes within the circle represent the interaction of two energies, "yin" (black) and "yang" (white), which cause systems to perform at some level of performance. The yin and yang shapes cannot exist without one another. The shape of the yin and yang sections of the symbol, actually provide a sense of the continuous movement of these two energies causing everything in the Universe to happen. The two shapes represent two energies that create and harmonize the Universe by their interaction. These two opposite, conflicting energies are found in every action and reaction. They symbolize the two polar energies that, by their fluctuation and interaction, are responsible for our dynamic universe. Reality consists of relationships between opposite principles, Yin and Yang. Two opposites that form a whole system only in combination.

Example of Balance and Flow

Focus on operational efficiency and agility. When you implement new software systems, ensure balance between the implementation of the new software system with the the need to shorten time-to-competence for employees who need to perform new tasks required by the software implementation. It is very important to identify the most cost-effective training methods that enable employees to know how-to work with the new software. By doing so you increase the probability that employees are motivated to enter information in the new software accurately and in a timely manner. In addition it is important to provide employees with the most appropriate work environment; tools and hardware required to operate the new system.

In God We Trust, Everyone Else Bring Data

The concepts of Yin and Yang provide the intellectual framework of much of scientific thinking in fields like biology and medicine. The organs in our bodies are interrelated and are best understood by looking for correlations and correspondences. Work processes are also interrelated and are best understood by looking at correlations and correspondences as well. New performance planning analysis identifies potential sources of imbalance and accurate diagnosis of current sources of imbalance, such as skills/knowledge/information, work environment, motivation, incentives, and/or worker capabilities.

Proper Analysis on the Front-End Minimizes Re-Work on the Rear-End of New Implementations

The principle of Yin and Yang is the foundation of successful business. The Front-End Analysis (FEA) process contributes to ease of implementation of new systems by analyzing the origins of optimum work performance (the outputs and behaviors of accomplished performers). If you focus too much on new technology systems alone, without planning for changes required in human performance, then the new technology cannot possible perform at an expected level of performance.

It is important that not to rush to premature solutions of human performance issues

Exemplary businesses teach selected employees how-to produce Front-End Analysis data to ensure employees focus on valued accomplishments, and not bend their will or ambition to the achievement of empty ends. Exemplary businesses learn how-to carefully observe what exemplary performers produce and the tasks they perform and learn what accomplished performers do differently than average performers. By observing their outputs and behaviors, exemplary businesses gather knowledge about the most cost-effective solutions to work performance issues. When average or deficient behaviors are treated correctly with the appropriate blend of interventions, the danger they pose dissipate. Physicians in examining patients judge their general appearance; they feel their pulse and determine what causes the disease. When businesses choose to balance new technology software with cost-effective human performance systems, Yin and Yang are in proper harmony enabling organizations to ensure balance and flow between work processes resulting in exemplary business results.

Make a Maximum Business Impact with Job Aids & Performance Support

Moving from knowledge in the classroom to knowledge anywhere/anytime!

A client of mine recently asked me how-to improve retention of training and increase transfer-of-training to-the-job. The stimulus for his question was that follow-up training evaluation data revealed that there was often a rapid and dramatic loss of retention of the skills/knowledge after his organization's training courses had ended. His training team had determined that no matter how great the learning gains during training, and no matter which media and teaching strategies they used, they still were realizing a dramatic loss in retention and transfer-of-learning to the job. I shared with him that retention of training is a primarily a function of time and frequency of exercise. Classic studies show that we lose what we don't use, and the loss is significant very soon after learning. The common method of solving skills/knowledge deficits (including instruction-for-recall) is expensive and doesn't work most of the time.

We completed a Front-End Analysis to determine the best course of action to improve their training performance. Front-end analysis data revealed that the most appropriate intervention was blending job aids into their training curriculum.

The result of implementing the recommendation continues to be profound. One significant organization output has been the cost-effective duplication of the performance of the organization's best employees. The training manager's team learned how-to develop well designed performance support job aids. Employees now use job aids to perform some of their job tasks by first reading a step, then performing the step. Job aids don't forget. Organization's around the world, large and small, are learning that well designed job aids are simple and cost-effective to design and use.

Most of us are familiar with gaining knowledge from classrooms and on-the-job through co-workers. This type of knowledge is difficult to retain and transfer to-the-job. Now performance support through job aids provides anywhere/anytime knowledge.

What is a job aid? A job aid is a tool to guide job performance in real time. Job aid formats include; checklists, decision tables, flow charts (algorithms), worksheets and cookbooks. Job aids are a repository for information, processes, and perspectives that inform and guide planning and action on-the-job. Job aids for performance are storage places for information other than in the memory. They should provide stimuli and responses and reduce the quantity of information needed to be recalled by the performer.

Job aids provide a detailed description of exemplary performance. Therefore it is critical that job aids are developed by observing and documenting how exemplary performers perform their work. Job aids should capture both the overt behavior (Actions that can be directly observed) and covert behavior (Actions that must be inferred from overt behaviors) of exemplary performers. Job aids need to be tested by target audience performers to ensure they are very easy to follow.

Job aids save time and money. Job aids are less expensive to develop than instruction-for-recall. Job aids often serve to dramatically reduce formal training time. Job aids often yield more accurate and reliable job performance. Job aids force the developer, subject matter experts and accomplished performers to define desired performance. The time it takes to develop a job aid is three to five times shorter than with traditional instruction. Implementation time is three times shorter. Job aids reduce formal training time, minimize the need for experience and are easier and less expensive to change than formal training.

Most importantly job aids focus attention on what performers are expected to do and produce.

Job aids solve retention problems and result in more accurate performance. Job aids are more reliable than memory and quicker to develop than formal training. Job Aids provide clear and easy-to-follow instructions for employees to use on-the-job.

Learn how-to take complex information and make it simple for employees to follow. Learn how-to design cost-effective job aids to use immediately upon returning to the organization after training. Organizations that use job aids are achieving optimum performance from their workforce. Job aids are cost-effective, have short cycle times, and make a maximum business impact. Job Aids can be low or high tech. There is a lot of fresh thinking on how-to format job aids. They can be electronic, hard copy a wizard, reference card, poster, or a laminated job aid for use outdoors for people who work outdoors exposed to the elements. There are some good books available that explaining more about job aids.

There is also a workshop available that can be delivered in-house and provides hands-on-learning to help transfer job aid development skills to-the-job. Learn more at: dougmead.com.

Human Performance Technology; Improving Results, Enhancing Knowledge and Producing Know-How

For the first time in history, scientists are uncovering astounding evidence about improving human performance. Performance Technology is about improving how we put our knowledge to work and increase our ability to produce valued results. Performance improvement continues to shape the future of many individuals and organizations around the world through learning, sharing, working together, and networking.

Human Performance Technology (HPT) , with all its potential, has so much to offer, including business, government, military, health care, universities, non-profits, and other large, medium and small organizations. This blog is about sharing information to help move the field forward and helping others improve their performance and achieve or exceed their goals. The knowledge available in our field is dynamic and growing. Our thought leaders are constantly adding to the foundation of that knowledge. There is an annual Performance Improvement conference being held April 5-8,2008, in New York City. During the conference, participants will come together to learn and share so that we can build on what we know already, improve our skills at applying that knowledge; and facilitate the creation of valued results for ourselves, our clients, our organizations, and society in general.

Learn more about the field of Performance Improvement and the Performance Improvement Conference at the International Society for Performance Improvement; http://www.ispi.org/ and at http://www.dougmead.com/.