The iSPEAD Solution

Driving Employee Engagement, Professional Development and Business Outcomes Across the Organization

Informal Special Project of Effectiveness, Advancement and Development

Introduction

What is Project Based Development (PBD)?

This is NOT Doing a Project -

This is Project Based Development

Why is PBD Important?

PBD Supportive Research

What is iSPEAD?

The iSPEAD Culture

How Does iSPEAD Work?

What Materials are Available?

Introduction

Employee’s have different learning styles, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, personal motives and passions.

A “one-size fits-all” approach will not gear them towards achieving high standards.

Project Based Development (PBD) A method of learning and development

PBD has emerged as a highly effective and significantly engaging development system

aligned to employees and organizational goals

The success of PBD can be attributed to three important developments over the last 10 years:

1. Revolution in Learning Theory

-Knowledge, thinking, acting, communicating and the contexts for learning are inextricably tied

-Learning & development is partly a cultivation activity, social activity and application activity

-Learning takes place within the context of culture, organizational community, and past experiences and interpretations

-Research shows that learners not only respond by feeding back information, but they also actively use new knowledge to explore, interpret, innovate and create

2. Increased Emphasis on Clear Outcomes, Organizational Alignment and Personal Accountability

-It is clear that employees need both new knowledge and new skills to succeed

-PBD is an attempt to create new and strategic development practices that reflect the environment in which employees now work and learn

3. Fragmented and Misaligned Employee Development

-Development has been misaligned to organizational business drivers leading to disengagement and ambiguity

-Align development with capabilities important to driving positive business results

-PBD initiatives effectively organize content and activities using defined capabilities and researched frameworks to amplify and extend the skills and competencies of employees

•Model Based Application for professional development - shifts away from the usual instructor led or web based training, lectures, workshops or seminars

•Longer-term, strategically aligned, employee-centered, and integrated with real organizational issues and practices

•Fosters critical and strategic thinking, creativity, and innovative approaches to exploring complex or unfamiliar issues

•Removes employees from their comfort zones, and promotes understanding, which is true knowledge

•In PBD, employees explore, make judgments and decisions, interpret, and collate information in meaningful ways

•It is representative of how adult professionals are asked to learn, demonstrate knowledge and apply skills and behaviors

What is Project Based Development?

A Project, Assignment or Task is

at the Heart of PBD

May or May Not Be Meaningful

Value May Not Be Defined or Recognized

May or May Not Drive Organizational Outcomes

Without the Proper Framework and Guidance, Simply “doing a project” Can

Have Negative Consequences to the Employee and to the Organization

May Not Align to Organizations Key Business Drivers, Strategy or Be Relevant

Initiatives Use the Same Skills and Behaviors of the Employee Rather Than Incorporating New Knowledge, Skills and Behaviors and New Ways of Thinking, Acting

and Communicating

Strategic Alignment and Frameworks are at the Core of PBD

This is NOT Doing a Project

This is Project Based Development Traditional “Projects, Assignments or Tasks”:

Why is PBD Important?

Employees develop skills for living in a knowledge-based, action rewarded, constantly changing and highly technological workplace - today’s workplace

Outdated model of passively learning knowledge, attending classroom training or participating in “one size fits all” workshops is no longer sufficient in preparing employees for complex problem solving, thinking strategically, collaborating effectively or leading others

Accelerates “In the Job” learning while preparing employees for future roles and leadership positions within the organization

Action Learning vs Passive Learning

Accelerates Performance

Knowledge and Skills

Why is PBD Important?

Employees become directors and managers of their own learning and development

PBD is a better model for producing gains in performance, development experiences while elevating the level of employee engagement and accountability for results

Evidence shows that PBD enhances the quality of learning and leads to higher-level development through employee engagement with complex, novel, and real work issues

Engagement and Experience

It’s Proven Superior

Employee Controls

PBD Supportive Research Morgan W. McCall, Jr. of the Center for Effective Organizations:

“Experiential assignments” boost employee achievement and accelerates development. Lessons stuck because they were the result of things employees did, not things they read, listened to or watched others do.”

Some of McCall’s findings include:

∀Diverse assignments, getting employees outside their zone of comfort, and applying themselves in a business critical project is highly effective for learning.

∀Diversity and adversity maximize development and performance.

∀Being appropriately “shocked and pressured” teach the most.

∀Challenges require employees to learn new skills and behaviors on the run, act decisively, work with others under trying circumstances and cope with ambiguity.

∀Real-work issues are the driving force in professional development

∀Adults learn when they need to or have to. Challenging assignments automatically create an optimal learning environment.

In addition, an analysis conducted by 1 Small Project, LLC (2010) found evidence to support the following:

∀PBD is more popular with employees and managers than traditional training methods.

∀Compared to other development and training models, PBD dramatically enhances the quality of employee learning in critical and relevant business areas.

∀PBD is more effective than other models of instruction for producing gains in knowledge capacity and individual performance.

∀PBD is an effective strategy for learning complex skills such as planning, communicating, strategic thinking, problem solving, decision making, and collaboration.

∀PBD can significantly increase employee engagement, attitude, accountability and self-reliance. For managers, PBD can elevate professionalism, coaching, engagement and collaboration.

∀In order for PBD to succeed, managers should provide support for employees in skills such as knowledge inquiry, project planning, reflection, and workplace skills (for example, time management and resource allocation).

∀PBD effectiveness is enhanced when incorporated into whole-organizational development efforts.

1 Small Project Insight

What is iSPEAD?

An iSPEAD initiative can be defined as:

An extended professional development learning process that uses defined capabilities, requires critical and strategic thinking and challenge to stimulate the progression and mastery of one’s thinking, actions and communication.

An iSPEAD initiative:

A solution based system of professional development,

leadership learning and performance acceleration

A deeply researched blueprint for effective and strategic on the job

learning

A cost-effective and innovative approach to driving employee

engagement and business outcomes

iSPEAD at a Glance

The iSPEAD Culture

Creating the right conditions for learning, growth and achievement require a focus on the:

Personal: iSPEAD recognizes that people are different, have motivations that are specific and personal and operate on different levels of competency. One project or program will not be a fit for everyone.

The iSPEAD project is designed with the individual professional in mind (iSPEAD teams can be formed too). This approach recognizes and respects the individual’s autonomy.

*Purpose: Employees work harder and perform better when they have a strategic and relevant goal. The goal of their development must be aligned with their personal needs and motivations.

The iSPEAD framework is specifically designed to ensure this happens by linking individual development pathways with employee goals and desires while at the same time aligning development with core organizational capabilities.

*Passion: When Personal and Purpose are in place Passion kicks in. The drive for personal achievement creates feelings of inspiration or flow. This sense of reward anchors the individual into a meaningful learning experience.

The 3P Model of Success

How Does iSPEAD Work? A comprehensive iSPEAD initiative is chunked down into a strategic framework:

Prepare

What business results has this individual attained?

What results have been missed?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of this individual from their perspective and from their peers/managers

perspective (skills and capabilities)?

What are their personality tendencies (human factors)?

What are their personal goals?

Have career or leadership derailers been identified?

Answers The Questions:

(1) Self-Assessment Organizational Capabilities Indexing

At what level is this individual’s domain expertise?

Does the individual need additional domain expertise?

What organizational capabilities (core business, professional or personal) and at what

level are needed to produce a successful outcome?

What type of iSPEAD initiative is this individual ready for?

Will the experience be different from what they’ve done previously?

Is it currently too much of a stretch for this leader?

Is the intended project aligned to the iSPEAD Success Factors – TRIM-D?

(2) Determine Leader/Project Match Organizational Capability & Leadership Level Matching

Answers The Questions:

TRIM-D Success Factors

Align

(3) Determine Return on Development (ROD) Balancing Risks (to the business & employee) vs. Rewards (employee development)

Is this project too important to risk with the current capability level of this employee?

How can I mitigate risks if we proceed?

How Can I maximize the employee’s development while in this project?

At what point (if one is realized) might the employee become overwhelmed?

Where does the return on employee development meet the

return on business and employee risk?

Is it currently too much of a stretch for this leader based on their personality and tendencies?

Answers The Questions:

(4) Establish Role of Governance Organizational/Management Consensus, Oversight and Peer Group Reflection

Are we in agreement that we are encouraging an action based, performance-driven climate conducive to developing our employees?

Are we interested in developing and retaining potential leaders, leader sustainability and leadership development support?

• Is the project linked to impact and organizational strategy?

• Will there be facilitator driven peer group reflection touch points?

• Is the iSPEAD initiative monitored - Journal Driven?

Answers The Questions:

Engage

(5) Ongoing Knowledge Inquiry New Knowledge, New Actions, Different Outcomes

Answers the Question: Is the employee aware of what new knowledge they need to seek? What new skills they need to act on? and why?

When employees embark on a development project or task, the majority of participants miss the key ingredient essential to attaining different and better results than in the past. That key ingredient is awareness.

(6) Enroll, Engage & Measure Think, Act, Communicate & Discover

While Knowledge Inquiry is the start of the engagement phase of an iSPEAD initiative, we are now at the point where the employee moves into action and the project gets underway.

The iSPEAD journal and Smart Project Planner

- Houses all the project planning tools, frameworks and templates the employee needs to stay on course with their initiative - Included in the journal are step by step instructions, timeline templates, visual planning maps, thoughts, tips and suggestions to keep employees engaged and on track with their development purpose

Is the employee aligned strategically?

Are they ready to go?

Are they prepared to use the iSPEAD Journal to navigate their course of learning?

Answers The Questions:

Review

(7) After Action Review

How effective was the employee as a learner?

What did they do to block their learning and what did they do to help themselves learn?

What parts of the project were frustrating?

What parts of the project were exciting?

To what extent did they learn and implement their new knowledge and understanding of the identified capability?

What may be in store for future development?The conditions to consider may include:

A significant learning or business success

A radical or innovative approach

A transformation of business processes

The after action review incorporates guidance and feedback to the iSPEAD participant.

The iSPEAD Journal contains an excellent templates to initiate that discussion.

The employee should consider presenting their development project, writing a white paper or building a case study under certain circumstances.

Answers The Questions:

iSPEAD is Ongoing

Think Beyond One iSPEAD initiative

•As stated earlier, a project, assignment or initiative does not have to be “new” or “other” work.

•Turning normal projects, work or assignments into an iSPEAD initiatives can have dramatic effects.

•Successful PBD requires a systematic, ongoing effort to be effective and sustainable.

•iSPEAD is designed as a process that results in progressive growth and mastery of behavior and skills over time

•Planning multi-iSPEAD initiatives will increase the effectiveness of PBD and keep employees engaged and visible throughout their career.

iSPEAD: Employee Resources

iSPEAD Quick Start Guide

A guide to help you understand and apply the key elements of an iSPEAD initiative. More visuals than text, it’s an effective manual for both employees and managers starting an iSPEAD assignment.

The Employees Guide to iSPEAD

A comprehensive roadmap to help you prepare, align and engage in an iSPEAD initiative. The handbook takes you from the thinking stages all the way through to a projects end. It includes the critical step by step process of engaging an iSPEAD initiative.

The iSPEAD Journal

The iSPEAD Journal is an employee workbook that aids in the design and implementation of a personal, tailored and strategic iSPEAD development project. With the journal, each employee will be able to monitor and record their experiences while implementing their iSPEAD initiative. The journaling process helps the employee initiate discussions with others while tracking key learning’s. It houses everything they’ll need to start a project that matters.

The Managers Guide to iSPEAD

A comprehensive coaching guide to any iSPEAD initiative. The handbook takes you from the thinking stages all the way through to a projects end. It includes the step by step coaching approach during all phases of an employee iSPEAD initiative.

iSPEAD Coaching Card - iSPEAD Framework & Success FactorsA visual reference card that helps an iSPEAD manager/ mentor coach to the key elements of an iSPEAD assignment. A nice tool for an iSPEAD participant as well.

An iSPEAD Case Study

A 1 Small Project, LLC researched and documented case study outlining the effectiveness (in detail) of an iSPEAD initiative on the employee and the organization.

The iSPEAD Smart Project Planner

A simple, project based software program on creating, planning and implementing personal or professional projects that helps organize every aspect of an iSPEAD initiative.

How to Do a Project That Matters Handbook

An excellent visual based guide on creating, planning and implementing personal or professional projects that have incredible impact and wide visibility.

Highly Effective Projects for Performance Acceleration: A Project Idea Database for Smart ProfessionalsA database of hundreds of project ideas. Ideas can be used as is or used to spark other ideas related to your specific business area. Project ideas are broken out according to organizational or professional capabilities.

The Smart Professionals Guide to On-The-Job DevelopmentA reference guide to using everyday work events and activities to develop your skills and behaviors while on the job.

The iSPEAD Solution: Driving Employee Engagement, Professional Development and Business Outcomes Throughout the Organization – A PowerPoint Presentation

A comprehensive presentation for establishing the iSPEAD program in your department or organization. The presentation creates excitement, creativity and engagement. It explains the iSPEAD program, details Project-Based Development and why it’s important to businesses. The presentation includes detailed notes for each slide.

The Smart Development Index - Self-Assessment System

A system designed to create leader self-awareness and alignment between capability development and business impact.