Planning for a Needs Assessment

About five minutes away from where I work there is a Whole Foods (www.wholefoods.com).  For those of you who are unfamiliar with Whole Foods it is a grocery store with natural and organic products.  According to their website the stores are run by Store Team Leaders.  The stores are managed by regional offices.  The store near me falls under the Mid-Atlantic region.  I would get a buy-in from the regional manager first and then I would I would work with the stakeholders at my local store in order to get their buy-in.  I would inform them of the purpose of the needs assessment.  According to Brown (2002), conducting a needs assessment can be useful in identifying organization goals, gaps in performance, problems that may not be solved by training and conditions under which the training will occur. 

I would meet with the Store Team Leaders and ask them several questions.  My questions would be focused on uncovering the current state of performance and the desired state of performance.  During the organizational phase, I would ask what the business goal is that they are trying to meet.  I would also ask what the budgeted amount to complete the training will be.  I would also ask what facilities will be available to conduct training if it needs to be done off the floor.  During the person analysis, I would ask who needs to be trained.  I would also ask during what hours are the best to train employee since the store is open outside of normal business hours.  During the task phase, I would ask what skills are to be trained.  Which roles can be affected most by training and if training on particular skills will vary by role.  For example, I think we may find that cashiers would need more training on people skills than the stock room workers.  

I would employ techniques of interviews, focus groups and documentation.  I would ask to some of the records from human resources that include employee performance evaluations and also information gained during exit interviews.  Interviews will allow me to get information from the perspective of the employees.  The focus groups will give me to opportunities to get the employees into a social environment and share with them information I received during the interviews to see how they feel we can change them.  Documentation will provide me with the objective aspect that I may not receive in working with the employees.

References:

Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee training and development (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.  

Brown, J. (2002). Training Needs Assessment: A Must for Developing an Effective Training Program. 

Training Elevator Speech

Below is a copy of my elevator speech explaining why training is important, complicated and necessary.  You may also listen to the audio version of my Elevator Speech.

Training is important, necessary and complicated.  The purpose of training is to promote a change in learners that can be consistently reproduced without variation.  Think about the first time you learned to type or navigate the internet.  No one is born knowing how to do these things.  We have to be trained to do them.  And these were no easy tasks to accomplish you didn’t one day wake up with the ability to type 100 words per minute.  Most training does not happen overnight it is a complicated process that relies on the human brain and all five human senses.  However, success training can help a company achieve its business strategy both directly and indirectly.  It develops employee skills, promotes a positive work environment and helps to attract and retain employees. Training makes each of our lives easier by allowing us to instinctively perform many tasks without thought so we can focus on those that need our attention.  This way, your employees can answer the telephone while reading information on a computer screen and type a follow up email to the customer without having to think twice.  Training is necessary to teach employees the skills your campy needs in order to be a success. 

References:

Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee training and development (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

Stolovitch, H. D., & Keeps, E. J. (2002). Telling ain’t training. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.

Welcome EIDT 6501

Hello Classmates,

Welcome to my blog.  I look forward to sharing with you all throughout this course.

Tyrese

When Scope Creep Attacks

A few years ago I worked for an outsourced Human Resources company.  December and January were very busy times of the year for us.  No one was allowed to take off work unless for an absolute emergency.  It was all about preparing for year end and tax time.  Our main focus was to check in with our client base and to make sure they understood everything that needed to be completed in time to process and receive W-2s and tax returns on time.  This process should work seamlessly without any problems as it was something that we did every year.  However, things went wrong.  First of all, the company sent out reminders to clients.  These reminders were put inside their payroll packages on different color paper.  But most of the clients did not see the letter with all the important dates on them.  So needless to say many deadlines were missed and then W-2s were late.  This had a trickledown effect and employees were calling our clients and they were calling us.  And of course with answering all the calls and trying to address everyone’s issues that didn’t leave a lot of time to actually fix the problems.

If I had been in charge of the project I would have handled this much differently.  I think that there can never be too much notice.   It is better to be definitely sure that someone knows something rather than to assume that they do.  I would have sent multiple reminders.  For the ones that went out in advance they could go inside the payroll packages.  However as time got closer, I would have made it a point to send notification via email as well as in a complete separate package all of its own.  Finally I would have had everyone contact their clients directly to speak with them and ask if they had any questions.  It is always better to prepare so that you don’t have to repair.  Communication is key in important situations such as these to make sure that all parties involved have the correct information and understand exactly what they need to do.

Estimating Costs and Allocating Resources

I was able to find two great resources which will both have their benefits to estimating cost and allocating resources.  The first is a list of average/approximate costs that could be used in order to create an estimate.  The second is a spreadsheet that can be used to enter all of the different things that you will need to keep track of in your budget.

Resource 1:     http://tlef.ubc.ca/application-process/cost-estimates/

This site provides a listing of the average costs for several different things that you will need during your instructional design process.  These obviously will not be the exact costs that you will have but they can give you a starting point on which to gage your possible costs.  It is always good to have some sort of baseline comparison when creating your budget.  If you have nothing to compare costs to then you will not know if you are getting  good deal or a bad one.

Resource 2:     http://preweb.clt.odu.edu/price/

This site will allow you to either create an account with them and have your budget calculated for you or download their spreadsheet in order to help calculate the budget yourself.  You could use the spreadsheet they provide in order to organize your costs for your budget.  You could even possibly use some of the cost estimates from resource 1 in order to fill in some of the costs.

Communicating Effectively

Each of the three modalities used to deliver the message could be received differently based on the method of delivery.  I have included a breakdown of my opinion on each modality and have rated them as well. 

The Email: Worst

The email modality falls in dead last place in my opinion.  This seemed to be the least effective way to deliver the true meaning and intent of the message.  As I read the email I felt that it would come off as rude and pushy if I received it in my inbox.  I got the impression that she was saying even though I know you have been busy you need to hurry up and do what I want so that I can get my work done.  This email was poorly written to get its message across.  As explained by Dr. Stolovitch, written communication needs to state upfront the purpose.  This email begins by explaining that she understands how busy he has been and does not get to the point.  The email also ends without setting forth any type of deadline dates.  She mentions that it is important that he respond to her but does not say by when.  Email was simply not the proper modality to use because there is no way of knowing how soon the email will be read, how the importance of the email will be received or whether or not she will even receive a response at all.

The Voicemail: Better

While the voicemail was a better choice than the email it still was not the best choice.  The tone of voice used in the voicemail did seem calm and understanding so I do not think it would be received as rude as the email could have been.  But there is still the chance that the person getting the voicemail may feel like she is saying that the things that she needs to accomplish are more important than the other things on his plate.  As we learned this week in the Communication to the Stakeholders video program phone contact is best used for ongoing communications not important ones with deadlines.  The voicemail will still have some of the same issues as the email.  There is no way to know when someone listens to your voicemail and even if they do listen to it you are left to wait until they respond. 

Face to Face: Best

Face to face communication is the best modality for this given situation.  From being able to see her face to face you can tell that she does not mean to be pushy of rude.  She is simply looking for a response and some results.  There is body language that is displayed as well as the smile on her face that makes the interaction seem non-aggressive.  Also even though she has already come up with several different solutions it gives the opportunity for the two of them to discuss the options.  This way they can reach an agreement on not only the method of delivery but also the deadline to have it by.  This gives both the sender and the receiver of the message and opportunity to voice their opinions and come to an agreement without the need to go back and forth.

Overall

I feel that communication within a project team needs to be as clear and concise as possible.  This will alleviate the need to go back and forth.  In this situation with either the email or the voicemail even if she receives a response or a deadline it may not be one that is acceptable to her which require her to go back to him again.  The amount of time that it takes to go back and forth on details takes away from valuable time towards the project.  I think that when it comes to important details that must be agreed upon by two parties those conversations should be had face to face.  Then following the face to face conversation and email can be sent to confirm what was discussed.  From this activity I was able to see firsthand how the modality of the message can affect the message itself.  I have also learned that when dealing with others it is best to try to keep in mind how what I am trying to say will be received and to use the best method of communication to ensure the correct message comes across.  Something as simple as a request can be received very differently by two different people.  It is important to know the preference of those you are working with.

Project Post-Mortem

For my project post-mortem I have chosen my home improvement project.  I purchased my first home about three months ago and had several home improvement plans that I wanted to do right away.  While I will not say that this project was completely unsuccessful, it did not end up meeting my desired outcomes.  The home had an in-law suite on the first floor which included an extra kitchen area.  This kitchen area had cabinets, stove and sink.  So my boyfriend and I grabbed the sledge hammer and got started removing the wall.  Doing all the demolition work was the easy part.  We were then left with pipes in the middle of the floor.  So I called my father who came over to help my boyfriend to remove the pipes from the floor.  Next we ended up with a big bulge in the wall.  So we decided to remove that portion of the wall thinking it had simply bowed out from pulling the cabinets off the wall.  However, it turns out that they apparently used a have an old wood stove in this room with a pipe that connected to the chimney which they have used concrete to close off the pipe and that was creating the bulge.

So as you can tell what sounded like it would be a straight forward project was not so straight forward.  In the end we were finally able to get our opening made between the two rooms.  We were able to frame it out.  And we also fixed the bulge from the pipe and painted the rooms on both sides of the opening.  But we ran out of extra money and extra time to put into the project.  So right now part of our room has carpet on the floor and the other part has vinyl flooring.  We also still have small holes in the floor where the pipes used to be and most of our supplies are still sitting in that corner.   Needless to say the project is left partially finished.  While I thought out the main components I had missed all the finishing touches such as need to redo the entire floor now that there was one continuous room.

I would say that the failure of the project can be contributed to a lack of planning and experience.  I did not create a proper timeline or budget for this project.  I let my eagerness to begin get in the way of proper planning.  The Project Management Minimalist gives the following steps for project success. 

The Nuts and Bolts: 10 Steps to Project Success

Step 1: Define the project concept, then get support and approval.

Step 2: Get your team together and start the project.

Step 3: Figure out exactly what the finished work product will be.

Step 4: Figure out what you need to do to complete the work products. (Identify

tasks and phases.)

Step 5: Estimate time, effort, and resources.

Step 6: Build a schedule.

Step 7: Estimate the costs.

Step 8: Keep the project moving.

Step 9: Handle scope changes.

Step 10: Close out phases, close out the project.

If I were going by the 10 step process from the The Project Management Minimalist,

 I would have to say that I only completed steps 1-3 and part of 4.  If I had completed the other 10 steps this project would have been a much bigger success.  If I had completed step 4 I would have known as best as possible, without the unforeseen, what I would have needed in order to complete the project.  Step 5 would have told me that it was probably not the right time to take on the project because we only had a few days off and not enough time to devote to completing the project on top of moving into the house and unpacking.  And most importantly step 7 would have told me that we did not have the funds to dedicate to the project at that time.  The good thing is we can still salvage this project because it is in our own home.  I have learned a valuable lesson on taking on a project and not being fully prepared. 

Reference:

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.