The tortoise and the hare

Abstract

Using examples, experience and portions of case studies, this paper will share insights and learning from developing training programs for project managers and project controls roles in the midst of dynamic corporate environments. Gaining insight into the project management community's needs and then assuring alignment with management expectations are two very different ‘animals’ akin to the Tortoise and the Hare. This paper will define Orientation, Training, Development, and Qualifications as a means to clearly create a training plan with learning objectives that meet both the community's needs and management's expectations. The paper will share examples, which include sample initial learning objectives and portions of training plans for the project communities and the adjustments made to meet both the communities’ and management's needs and expectations.

Introduction

Once upon a time there was a hare who, boasting how he could run faster than anyone else, was forever teasing tortoise for its slowness. Then one day, the irate tortoise answered back: “Who do you think you are? There's no denying you're swift, but even you can be beaten!" The hare squealed with laughter.

“Beaten in a race? By whom? Not you, surely! I bet there's nobody in the world that can win against me, I’m so speedy. Now, why don't you try?"

Annoyed by such bragging, the tortoise accepted the challenge. A course was planned, and the next day at dawn they stood at the starting line. The hare yawned sleepily as the meek tortoise trudged slowly off. When the hare saw how painfully slow his rival was, he decided, half asleep on his feet, to have a quick nap. “Take your time!” he said. “I’ll have forty winks and catch up with you in a minute.”

The hare woke with a start from a fitful sleep and gazed round, looking for the tortoise. But the creature was only a short distance away, having barely covered a third of the course. Breathing a sigh of relief, the hare decided he might as well have breakfast too, and off he went to munch some cabbages he had noticed in a nearby field. But the heavy meal and the hot sun made his eyelids droop. With a careless glance at the tortoise, now halfway along the course, he decided to have another snooze before flashing past the winning post. And smiling at the thought of the look on the tortoise's face when it saw the hare speed by, he fell fast asleep and was soon snoring happily. The sun started to sink, below the horizon, and the tortoise, who had been plodding towards the winning post since morning, was scarcely a yard from the finish. At that very point, the hare woke with a jolt. He could see the tortoise a speck in the distance and away he dashed. He leapt and bounded at a great rate, his tongue lolling, and gasping for breath. Just a little more and he'd be first at the finish. But the hare's last leap was just too late, for the tortoise had beaten him to the winning post. Poor hare! Tired and in disgrace, he slumped down beside the tortoise who was silently smiling at him.

“Slowly does it every time!” he said.

Aesop sure knew how to use fables to teach and train; strictly from a training perspective stories, fables, parables teach well. And individually, if we apply these learning we might avoid a lot of mishaps, right? In actuality, we learn much from making errors and from applying personal learning to the next project, training program, or activity. In essence that is much of what training and development is all about. We identify a learning need or a competency gap, teach a lesson, apply the lesson, notice outcomes of application, adjust behaviors, identify the adjusted learning need, teach a lesson, and so on and so forth.

Often, the identification of a learning need within project management processes or an individual's (or team's) competency creates opportunities to improve project outcomes, predictability and consistency. Professionally, performance improvement is expected to be continuous; so training programs become an avenue to that end. A project manager's role is to manage and train the team to get work successfully completed; a project manager is expected to be competent in communicating, leading, and managing and his or her cognitive ability, effectiveness and professionalism must be high.

However, with our current world of constant organizational change, increasing performance-based requirements, honed behavioral management, prudency and transparency in reporting, project management growth, and economic uncertainties, organizations find themselves asking the questions like: What is our project management bench strength? How do we increase bench strength for the projects in our portfolio now and in the future? Who do we employ who can handle this kind of project? How do we develop, train and assure qualification of human resources? So the race is established. How do we get into the talent race and assure project and organizational success?

Organizationally, providing training and development for the project manager and the team is crucial to the organization and project success parameters. And many organizations are comfortable with the way we have always done it…however, the race is on. The ability to compete and stay in the race hinges upon meeting both the training needs of the project management community as well as the expectations of executives.

This paper will share how three different organizations’ initial training approaches changed after recognizing the Hare in the race wasn't necessarily the winner. Their approaches incorporated the Tortoise methods when organizational performance wasn't improving as expected. In each case the training plan and objectives required review and adjustment at different stages of execution. In all cases, the Tortoise approach was better suited for plan-do-check-adjust than the Hare. The Tortoise approach establishes a strong foundation and baseline to improve and sustain project management performance to meet organizational goals.

The Race Route: Center of Excellence Approach

Within Project Management Organizations or Project Management Centers of Excellence, training and development of project managers and project controls specialists becomes an important endeavor. Where the role of training organizationally falls is not considered in this paper. Training and development objectives and goals consider minimum criteria to outline required qualifications for project resources; true training and development of resources often gets set to the side while “who is qualified to do the work?' gets answered. The need to document, report and assure management that the department or the organization has the talent pool available to manage the work becomes the priority. If managed appropriately, over the career of an individual, training and development become the ongoing, ‘steady as she goes’ Tortoise, whereas, if the focus is only on the orientation and immediate qualifications or the Hare, ‘just get them qualified to assure our bases are covered,’ we miss the mark. The four entities of training, development, orientation and qualifications must work together to build the bench strength, consistency and predictability projects require.

For the purposes of this paper, the companies being discussed will remain anonymous. Each company was organized with a center of excellence approach. Within the structure of the center of excellence are the responsibilities to create standards, tools, templates and governance that the entire company follows regarding project management. The CoE communicates through management to the organization, the expectations and application of the corporate standards, tools and methodology. Training, development, orientation, and qualifications are included in expectations and application.

Each department or PMO within the company then defined their specific, more detailed, processes, and standards that they are to follow. For example, both the IT PMO and the Construction Organization follow the CoE rules and governance; then each department or PMO provides the details of how to follow the rules within their department language, rules, and techniques. In most cases each department wrote detailed standards, rules, work flows, and issued expectations that required training.

In the scenarios in Exhibit 1, many tools, templates, guidelines and standards were established that the communities were expected to follow and apply by a specific date. Communication plans were implemented and the Target Learners Group (TLG) was made aware of effective dates. In the first case (Company A), was structured like a franchise, where it reported to a corporate office in another state. It had training and methodology of work flows defined and directed from the corporate office. This particular franchise decided to refine the delivery of the training and change the training plan overall objectives. They believed these changes would spur profitability due to efficiencies gained. Over the course of four years the target learning groups were fully applying the improved methods and each of the three departments experienced improvements in communication, consistency and predictability.

In the second case, Company B decided to create a consistent approach to project management due to multiple departments interfacing work without a consistent means to communicate or report resulting in lower predictability, consistency and performance. The company anticipated a large increase in project work and wanted to be able to assign resources based on project scope and size from throughout the company. A small group was formed to create the consistent method, utilizing industry best practices. (The team developed the training plan while the methodology, processes, and tools were being created and rolled out the training to accommodate a start date directed by management.) An outcome of the completed training plan was that all project managers would be ‘qualified’ to work projects based on rank (qualification and training of project manager and size of project). However, the company may have identified too small of a learners group to successfully reach and experience improved performance across the company in the timeframe directed.

The third case, Company C's desire to create and implement project management standards training plan was a result of a merger. The company being acquired had a consistent methodology of approaching project work and the acquisitioning company had multiple PMOs within conducting project work inconsistently throughout. Similarly to Company B, a team was created to look at best practices within and outside of the company and create a consistent approach. The team was then to identify and define the target learners’ groups and create a training plan that included collaborating with the corporate training organization. Duration to complete development of standards and training was recommended; while the merger was being completed, it was directed that the duration recommended would be half the original time to complete all training and qualifications of the identified learners group. This is an example of when a company chooses the path of The Hare, ultimately requiring the plan and objectives to be adjusted.

Race Date, Time and Purse: Defining Training, Aligning Expectations, Establishing Objectives

Fortunately or unfortunately, as stated above, we learn best from errors and then adjust and improve if we actually learn. And we all know the universal rule around the action of ‘assume,’ correct? Often when initiating a training plan for a group we use words that seem universal. Training is…? For a talent management individual “learning and development” may have entirely different nuances and objectives than for a project management individual. “Qualifications,” “Orientation,” “Training,” and “Development” at a glance may be very simple to define until we align individual actions and expectations to specific project manager and project controls roles. The first lessons learned from the three cases are that these terms must be clearly defined so that the learning objectives have less assumptive language and more quantitative language.

Case in point: Company C went through several drafts and rewrites of their training plan. The plan clearly communicated training objectives, multiple tiered learners groups, training modules for each TLG with appropriate durations and level of detail, and so forth. Then a management directive required that the plan needed to change the primary course; the duration of the primary training course had to be reduced by 8 hours of classroom time (it was originally planned to be a 3-day semi-simulation). The learning objective stated that all will be “trained and able to apply.” Cutting eight hours significantly reduced the opportunity for hands-on use of tools and templates. The team was not able to fulfill the learning objective as defined if they were to fulfill the duration requirement. The team changed the original learning objective and more clearly defined ‘training’ to mean ‘orientation,’ thus reducing the detailed application of the training for the learners group. This matters if performance improvement is a defined goal.

Before beginning to create the training plan and the learning objectives, define – as in PMI Charter and Scope development – the assumptions, terms and constraints the training plan is going to work under. According to BusinesssDictionary.com the following are definitions of the fours entities of the plan:

Once defined in general, then expectations of what of each entity will provide can be outlined to further define the company's vision of training and development for projects and teams. By aligning Training and Development with the expectations that time, materials, planning, courses, and so forth are required, establishing from the beginning, that a Tortoise approach is necessary to build strength in the company's talent bench. In other words, over and over again, companies short cut the basics of defining vision, mission, terms, assumptions, constraints, attempting the Hare approach, only to find they should have taken the steady, sure route. In addition, if baseline and systems are set up early, management can know ‘who's on first’ and ‘who is on the bench’ at any time. The systems can then provide the data and immediate answers to executives by collecting the data from Orientation and Qualifications. Exhibit 2 provides an example of outlining expectations of Training and Development beside Qualifications and Orientation.

Although each of the four entities is similar, when it comes to creating a training plan that requires action of an employee, specificity is a must. The CoE should then adapt and add specifics to each definition. From each of these definitions comes the ability to measure or establish metrics. In Exhibit 3 sample metric definitions illustrate that the training plan and the metrics reported to management must be linked and developed with each in mind, especially if the training plan and the objectives are going to be linked to performance improvement. The most difficult metric to measure is the proof of actual improvement in individual behavior, so often what is actually measured or documented is the number of activities, reports, data that have improved over a course of time. Having the baseline information readily available is often a stumbling block to getting pure performance improvement metrics; so when defining and developing objectives, know or develop the baseline measure.

Learning Objectives are more readily defined and more clearly stated when the TLG is identified and understood. Learning objectives ultimately should be developed based off the overall learning plan vision or charter. The plan should define how the objectives will be met through the work described in the plan. And all work (training, developing, orienting, and qualifying) is then monitored, controlled, changed and reported against the original vision or charter. Like defining the baseline of performance, all success and improvement will be measured and accepted according to the baseline. So taking the definitions, the vision/charter and the baseline to the next step is to identify and clearly understand who the target learners group is.

Race Entrants: Identifying Target Learners Groups

In Exhibit 1, a ratio of TGL to total company was provided so the task of training was better understood based on sheer volume of required participants. The type of training, cadence of training, re-qualifying training, and documentation of training metrics, all becomes clearer if the order of magnitude of training program is understood. For instance, must we train 100 individuals over 6 months or 1000 within 3 months? The answer to this question then provides a means to look at type of course and delivery of course — classroom instructor led, web-based on-demand, on-the job training course, and so forth.

Case in point: Company B identified a small ‘universe’ of learners based on total career path expected. In the process of developing the single process, for the sake of company consistency, predictability, and accuracy in project management, it was determined that a career path should be established. The expectation of this was to allow focus of training, support, oversight to the project managers. The project manager role was one of leadership, management, and communication using keen cognitive abilities striving for effectiveness and professionalism. The project manager was expected to have all the necessary competencies to perform the work such as those outlined in PMI's Project Manager Competency Development Framework. So each department identified only those individuals/roles that would be conducting work every day as a project manager/leader. Less than 100 individuals in the company were identified as career path project managers. All the training, qualifications, orientation and development discussions focused on the expectations, needs and requirements of a project manager. Classroom, instructor led modules were created and delivered over the course of 6 months in the fashion of 6 - ½ day seminars. An assumption was made that once the project managers were fully trained, they would not only apply all the learning and training, but they would also communicate this methodology and expectations ‘up’ to management and ‘out’ to project team members. This assumption was faulty; therefore, after 1½ years of training and running up hill, the plan was dramatically revised to include career path, plus all support roles and team members. A year later, discussions of including managers of resources that work on projects arose.

In identifying the TLG, consider those who need to learn and apply immediately, who are leading the work versus those who have oversight over the organization responsible for the work vs. those who are part of the project team/stakeholders. Learning objectives, and hence the training content and learning interventions, may need to be adapted for each particular group.

Case in point: Company A identified two learners groups; one group facilitated the service, the other group received the service (like internal customers). The method of training the facilitators, the materials used, and the time spent was extremely different from the training developed for the recipients of the service. Materials, duration, and method were all dramatically simplified or reduced for the recipients. In developing the roll-out plan and schedule as part of overall training program objectives, timing as well as volume were considered. The plan and program were very successful because all training and roll outs were completed as expected and services received were immediately applied within the company. The franchise received the highest award that year partially due to the success of the new program and training plan associated with it.

Identifying the roles that need-to-know and then the roles that support the need-to-know group is one way to start defining the urgency and content of the training. For example, in Exhibit 4 the project managers, the project controls and their managers are probably the roles that most immediately need the training of standards, tools and templates, especially if these processes and rules are the guidance, governance and tools by which they conduct their daily work. This learners group may be considered the initial learners group by which nothing will progress unless they are studied, trained and qualified to work within the given or the new process. In Exhibit 4, ancillary and tertiary learners groups are also suggested. Once the possible learners groups are identified, and the plan and objectives document how the learners groups will be or will not be trained and developed within the program.

Understanding the existing knowledge base and skill set of the learners groups in general will also assist in development of the training content, the means of delivery and specific learning interventions. Creation of a Skills and Competency Matrix (Exhibit 5) helps to identify minimum qualifying criteria for ongoing training and development program. The completion of a matrix helps to outline those educational, experiential, certification, skills, and competencies which will be necessary for the individuals to progress. Collaborating with human resource departments to gather data on current job functions, incorporating tools, such as PMI's PathPro® to assist in creating career paths and job descriptions, and other talent management tools as references to create the skills and competency matrix will further validate finalization of learning objectives, and then, the training plan or program.

With all the information gathered and assessed, the learning objectives can be drafted; just like in project management, scope has been initially defined. The target learners groups are identified, and ongoing expectations, use of training plan, and program are understood. The level of detail required or content for the trainings is better understood and the expectations of management regarding performance improvement are defined.

Sample Learning Objectives:

Initial Learners Group

1. Project Managers will be aware of, understand and able to apply the Company Standards to their daily work. They will have an overall understanding of corporate expectations in their role as a leader and as an accountable-party for project planning and execution. In addition, they will understand and apply the continuous learning and development expected, as well as complete qualifications required to remain within their role.
2. Project Controls Specialists will be aware, understand, and able to apply Company Standards to their daily work. They will have an overall understanding of corporate expectations in their role as project controls and support to the project manager and team. In addition, they will be able to understand, and apply the continuous learning and development expected, as well as complete qualifications required to remain within their role.
3. Supervisors over project managers and project controls specialists will be aware, understand, and be able to hold their employees accountable for following the Company Standards to their daily project work. In addition, they will understand and apply the continuous learning and development expected as well as complete qualifications required to remain within their role.

Ancillary Learners Group

1. Functional Supervisors will be aware, understand and able to appropriately assign and delegate project related work to their employees according to Company Standards. They will have a general understanding of the critical nature of working with project managers or management to create a highly functioning team as per Company Standards.
2. Functional Team Members will be aware, understand, and be able to perform activities as a project team member in accordance with Company Standards; they will have a general understanding of the critical nature of working with project managers or management, to be a part of a highly functioning team as per Company Standards. (Finance, Audit, Communications, and Sponsors are included in this group).

Exhibit 5 - Skills and Competencies Matrix - Example

Within the learning objectives, words like ‘aware,’ ‘apply,’ and ‘understand’ should be defined and clarified in the training plan; consider creating a Glossary of Terms. For example, the word ‘apply’ in Company C's plan was changed to something like ‘identify’; changing the ‘training’ objective to more of an ‘orientation’ objective, thus allowing the course duration to be reduced and accommodating management's direction.

The training plan now comes directly from needs assessment of the learners groups and then aligns the needs with management's desired outcomes and expectations. Using the Skills and Competency Matrix and the summary of a needs assessment allows the plan to outline the level of knowledge and training that a functional supervisor may be required to attend versus a more detailed, hands on course that a project manager may require. The CoE and whomever conducts curriculum development (talent management, corporate training, CoE, consultant) may now collaborate to develop specific course objectives and outline the course and training modules. The consideration of culture, course objectives, learner's group need and feedback, technology and learning delivery methods become the focus of the performance improvement plan via the training plan (and maybe a good topic for another paper).

Starting Blocks and Finish Line: Outcomes, Success, and Failures

Each of the companies had at one point separate and varying ways to view and utilize Training, Development, Orientation and Qualification. Each company, at any given time, used the terms almost interchangeably. So in each case, the company direction initially assumed each was the same or similar in terms of a plan. It was not until the plan stumbled that the conversations began to discover and uncover the weaknesses of the plan, and then collaboration worked to complete the check, adjust, learn and improve cycle.

Company A initially, prior to the franchise improving the corporate training, utilized an Orientation method. The materials and procedures were handed to facilitators and to the recipients. They were expected to read through, examine and try out the materials on their own and then use them in their day-to-day work. Individuals had the materials and relied heavily on word-of-mouth and convenience to use or not use. Management was continually disappointed because the materials were not used to the fullest and project performance was remaining flat. When the franchise office decided to change the plan and the objectives to incorporate Training and Development for the facilitators and have a revised Training for the Recipients. They more fully developed their plan and then worked the plan accordingly, and performance overall improved.

Company B developed the training plan, learning objectives, and training modules, then rolled out everything exactly according to plan. The new standards, tools, and templates were being used across the company, yet not deeply within departments nor equally in all departments. Two departments actually decided to not use the standards and to reorganize so that they did not have ‘project managers’ managing work. Until the inconsistency and lack of depth in adoption of the standards were identified, Company B believed they designed a plan that incorporated all four entities. However, because the plan was built on the faulty assumption that the project managers would carry the training, development, qualifications, and orientation on their shoulders, it was not successful in getting acculturated. Once they took a step back and adapted the training objectives to include management and team members, then they rolled it out again through ‘re-qualifying’ the entire career path and their team members. It was then that management started to notice project performance improve.

Company C's initial approach was split; half the CoE wanted the career path members to be provided Qualification and Orientation type of indoctrination; in other words, give them access to the standards and they are professionals so they will figure it out. The other half wanted to provide varying degrees of project simulations, hands on use of the tools and templates in as real to life classroom scenarios, incorporating Development and Training due to the variance in company cultures. The learning objectives got created and agreed upon, as were the plan, the change management and communication plans. As soon as the plan began to be executed, the timeline for application of all standards got reduced, so it was identified that the classroom course needed to be reduced. In addition, the facilitators of the management overview course got changed. So, all four entities were forced together so to speak. Whereas the development was literally put on the back burner; training cadence and delivery got doubled and tripled, resulting in instructor burn out and course evaluations to decline. Qualifications (interest in qualification card skyrocketed) dramatically increased and Training took a turn toward becoming simply Orientation; the objective of this course is to assure that you know where to find stuff. It is yet to be seen how the project performance will fare once all the training is completed.

Recovery and Training for the Next Race: Recommendations

Developing a training, learning and development plan for project management organizations is truly at the crux of improving performance. The opportunity to identify gaps or inject new ways for an organization to work is an opportunity to seize. Harvard Business Review recent study, ‘Taking Measure of Talent’ reports:

Project management has a direct and immediate impact on business performance. Training and developing, orienting and qualifying this talent pool are critical to our companies’ missions.

Use the identification of a weakness to fully develop a plan that provides metrics assessing and assuring progress and improvement. Create a plan that provides learning and encourages behavior change; orientation that assures project personnel; development that bolsters the individual's skills and gifts; qualifying that builds a strong team roster and with metrics that are meaningful to the community as well as the executives. This can be done when project management professionals collaborate with the talent management/training experts.

It is important that the team creating the plan have a clear vision to guide decisions and direction. By clearly defining Orientation, Training, Development, and Training as a means to create the training plan and learning objectives; by taking the time to aligning expectations with learning objectives, by defining and striving to understand the needs of the learners groups and incorporating into the learning objectives, a firm foundation upon which to race is created. The long term, continuous improvement of successfully meeting all company goals and objectives, whether it is profitability, reduction of risk, increased consistency and predictability, overall building bench strength toward improving performance can be likened to a sure and steady Tortoise approach. Recognizing when to apply the Tortoise approach versus the Hare approach can establish a means for the company, as a team, to win the race.