Why do dick and jane learn differently?- Challenges in implementing today's GIS/IT systems
John A. Middlestead Manager, Data Integrity & Technology MichCon Gas, a subsidiary of DTE Energy 3200 Hobson St. Detroit, Michigan 48201 Abstract Have you ever wondered why it is so tough to train and rollout a geographic information system / information technology (GIS/IT) system to either an office and/or field work force? Why do some people get it and others do not? What does it take for the light bulb to go on? What about the effects of all this change on the work force? These questions can be frustrating to the Team who has worked diligently to put forth a system that they thought was easy to learn. In today’s dynamic organizations where employees are being peppered with new systems and new hardware tools, we must find ways to help all employees not only learn the system but to understand why their contribution is important. As many of us found out in college, it was not necessarily the material itself that was hard to learn but the way an instructor or professor taught the course. System implementers must go in with their eyes open to training alternative opportunities. Some people are visual learners, some auditory, and some are “hands on.” How to integrate the various learning styles into a system rollout must take careful planning, especially when the luxury of numerous training revisits is impractical in today’s world of competition. This paper incorporates the viewpoints of several utilities and outside consultants as well as this author’s experiences as to what works and what does not. Introduction “Why don’t “Dick and Jane” understand?” The world would be allot easier to live in if everyone had the same level of knowledge, the same personality traits, processed information the same, behaved in predictable ways, all accepted change at the same pace, attacked work in a like fashion, learned in the same way, etc. This may be great in theory; however, it is not very realistic. We are not designed that way. Besides as many of us have concluded it would be pretty boring if we were all the same. Any change in the way we do things results in a variety of responses by individual. We have all been subjected to a substantial amount of change in how our business is done. Everything from office tools to field tools is different today from twenty years ago. Resistance to change comes when there is uncertainty, feelings of insecurity, and the ever popular “I don’t want to be told what to do”. How we design and roll out technology requires that we understand the bridge to those who will use our GIS and IT solutions. This requires our increased listening to those who will do the work and provide some degree of flexibility in the tools we provide. Along with this we need to understand that a very critical component that is often shortchanged is the training required for the office and field workforce. Understanding first that there are differences in “how” Dick and Jane learn and secondly, accommodate those differences through the enterprise, then and only then, will we maximize our investment in technology and the information that is obtained and used. Differences in all of us Work Preferences and Learning Most of us have gone through some battery of profiling for personality e.g. Myers Briggs® or various work / career preference surveys. An excellent tool that is available for analyzing “work preferences” is The Kolbe Concept®, which is the one that I will reference. I recognize that there are other tools available for measurement, however, for purposes of an example I have chosen Kolbe. “The mind has three parts – thinking, feeling and doing. We have all been tested for how much we know by taking tests in the classroom – that’s the cognitive part of the mind. Your personality or emotions are the feeling or affective part of the mind. What you do comes from the conative part of the mind, the part that originates the way you take action, strive towards a goal and exercise your willpower. The Kolbe Concept® deals with conative part of the mind.” The four Kolbe Action Modes that we all have varying levels of instinctive actions of are as follows:
– Follow Thru – Through which we are a planner, designer, programmer, theorist, systemizer, or pattern maker. – Quick Start – through which we are a catalyst, generalist, innovator, entrepreneur, promoter, or impressionist. – Implementor – Through which we are a manufacturer, molder, builder, handcrafter, weaver, agriculturist, or handler. The content and methods of training must be carefully considered when it comes to understanding the audience. So, when a professional trainer or someone from the IT Staff who happens to be either a heavily weighted Action Mode of Fact Finder or Follow Thru try to train an Implementor conative stress can occur. Kolbe defines it as three forms of conative stress:
– Strain: results from unrealistic self-expectations for how you will act. – Tension: stems from another person requiring you to function out of your mode of operation (MO). Another Perspective Psychologist Howard Gardner, who has become very influential in education, has addressed the changing world of work through what he calls “The Seven Types of Intelligence”. According to Gardner, all people possess at least seven distinct sets of capabilities – or intelligences – which work in concert, rather than isolation. When thinking about “Dick and Jane” and how they learn, Gardner poses additional challenges for us as the teachers of geospatial and enterprise-wide information and technology to the workforce. Gardner’s Intelligence Areas include:
Stan Weber, in his paper The Last Frontier for GIS Data, speaks about of the ultimate GIS end user and the promise of this century. This can also apply to all of our IT systems. “It has been the promise on the lips of GIS project teams since the technology made inroads into the corporation--the seductive tease that the reduction or elimination of paper maps and records for the field personnel was “just around the corner.” The reduction of countless man-hours typically wasted either trying to either locate facilities or make changes to their characteristics would be the great “shot-in-the-arm” for that overburdened business case. Those entities that gritted their teeth and began scaling that mountain of dollars known as data conversion, could look forward to the day somewhere in the future when digital information would be in the hands of Jack Construction and Jill Fieldperson. As we enter the new century of 2000 and look forward to the future, we find the GIS landscape teeming with technological advances, which have the potential to finally tame that “last frontier.” A seemingly impenetrable wall, which for so long remained paperbound, is now tumbling.” Along with the promise of geospatial information and technology reaching the targeted Dick and Jane end user comes the challenge of additional, more human, issues around change management, quality of entered data and ability to grasp and adapt to new work processes. Weber also points out that one-size does not necessarily fit all when we compare “office” personnel to “field” personnel. “There are a lot of time and resources tied up in teaching Jack and Jill how to use Windows 2000 and GIS applications on a laptop computer, for example, as opposed to having them use tools that are just “tap-and-click” or “speak-and-say”. A careful examination of the type of business processes will most likely result in different tools, so we can’t be too quick to use a “one size fits all” approach. Job design and scheduling may require a vastly different tool than that needed for a technician who does drive-by inspection. The focus must be on the long-term goal of getting the field personnel to take “ownership” in the data that resides in the corporate databases. For too long, a wall of distrust has impeded efficiency due to fact that the people who update the records are not the same people who use those records in the field. The sooner an organization can use mobile computing technology which allow the field technicians to alter and update the corporate records, the sooner the wall of distrust will begin to crumble.” Resistance … Is It Always a Bad Thing? Daniel Pagan, from Manila Electric talks in his paper, Managing Change In A Business Environment, about the benefits of resistance. During our implementation as we are adjusting to the planned change, people became discouraged because of the problems that developed. The project was subjected to criticism, attacks and even failure, because it appears to be not working. So what we did was to stop for a while, look back and re-examine the change proposals. We then revised the implementation procedure making sure that they are appropriate and then use the system for its intended purpose. This is one benefit we got from employee resistance wherein it served as a check and balance of the proper implementation of the project, and resulted into benefits on the company’s interests. It also shows that that reasonable employee resistance causes management to screen its proposed changes more carefully, and it discouraged careless project implementation. The kind of resistance that we got helped us identify specific problem areas; thus we can take corrective measures before serious problem occurs. It also serves as a guide so that implementers do a better job of communicating a change that would lead to a better acceptance in the long run.” Weber in his 2001 paper, Getting Difficult People to Successfully Deploy Difficult Technology, states: “Organizations deploying successful technology implementations have usually learned from previous failures or by trail and error. Assessing the ability to change is equally as important as the need for change, and many organizations fail on this key point. An often-overlooked item is the present state of the organization in light of its ability to change and handle new or revised work processes. All too often the management of an organization will approve a thorough and detailed business case for a large technology or system implementation project, without taking the required time to assess the “readiness level” of the employees with regard to their ability to change. How many efforts in the past could have been successful if the implementation plan was altered or phased-in to take into account the “organizational readiness for change” of its users? I would submit to the reader that many (not all) system implementations catalogued as “failures” in the past, were due to the organization’s failure to take the necessary steps to understanding their people and the amount of change they could absorb. In my experience, the success or failure of technology/system implementations has not been as dependent upon the technology or system itself as it has been on the people developing and implementing the solution. An organization certainly would not choose to implement technology if it did not believe it would work. So therefore, the success or failure lies chiefly in how well the solution has been communicated to the eventual users, how well the solution replaces the existing business processes, how well the users have been prepared and trained, and how well the promised benefits are actually measured and realized.” How do companies handle GIS/IT training Noted below are some quotes from a request for input from GITA’s geoXchange. In many cases you will note great sage advice for all of us to gain from. Keep in mind we in business are still learning how to incorporate difference in learning preferences, the practicality of how to individualize training within tight budget constraints, timing issues in a deregulated world, etc. What follows are three company’s viewpoints: “I have found a consistent problem with training plans within our company. When a new system is introduced and training is provided to users prior to them ever playing with the system, the retention rate from that training is very low. Until people get behind the wheel they don’t even know what questions to ask. We have been most successful when we provided minimal initial training, then let people use the system for a month or two, and then brought them in for more formal training. They then know what you are talking about and come to the training with questions from actual experience.” “We have noticed that there are often two categories of students / users. I had someone come to me and complain about one individual who was providing them some GIS training and they praised another trainer. Both trainers were very competent with regards to their knowledge and understanding of our GIS. The difference turned out to be that one taught all the different ways that a user could perform a given function. He thought that by doing so he was making the user aware of all the options so the user could choose the method that worked best for his situation. The other trainer kept it very simple and only taught the user one way to perform each function. This particular user was overwhelmed by options and needed simply to be shown one way to perform his job within GIS. Other users however want to know all their options so they can play around and settle on a method that works best for them. Bottom line is to know your audience. Start basic and abbreviated and then later provide more in-depth training to those who want or need it.”
Southern Union Co. – New England Division What an insight this provides; especially how simple it is compared to our normal asset management of things. This requires graphical based input rather than textual input. “Field crews think graphically and are not good at translating the data into textual forms.”
Portland General Electric "you have to realize the difference between instruction and training. Instruction is the ACT of presenting the material. Training is the ART of assuring that the audience gets it. This is through repetition and observation as opposed to merely presenting the material.”
The realities of today’s “hurry up and get it in!” mindset goes right against what we know as real issues being faced by our employees and their respective understanding of new technology tools and information. While most of us have done cost / benefit analysis where labor costs and savings are part of the equation, little has been done to quantify the time, money and schedule costs that occur when we do not implement systems effectively the first time, or ever for that matter. As the adage goes “We don’t have money to do it right the first time but we always have money to do it again” holds so true for those of us who are trying to implement major systems that affect many employees. The companies mentioned above have attacked many valid issues and have given all of us some great advice on designing systems via “prototyping”, how to conduct training classes, the benefits of resistance, building customized products / tools for individuals or groups, etc. As John McCoy, TXU, is quoted as saying ... “Training is the ART of assuring that the audience gets it”. Most, if not all of us, have been taught in a class room with one course guide, one general set of instructions, and one tool / system to use. As this paper has emphasized, we come to a new system from several different perspectives. All of our fellow employees have not been involved with the design of a GIS/IT system nor can they given the work of the enterprise. Those of us that are part of design and implementation teams need to keep the differences of individuals in mind as we design and implement systems. Perhaps getting support from Human Resources is a means to getting support of upper management to try some other methods of training. Prototyping in the field, more thoroughly analyzing actual work processes and improvements with innovative employee “change agents”, helping those employees who prefer “hands on” experience verses classroom, going to the employees by geographic location, etc., are examples of shifting the paradigm from our traditional ways. In a competitive world, how competently we use the tools we have will help us excel in the market place. Conclusion “Dick and Jane” will always learn differently. That is the way we were made. What we as IT tool developers, change agents, implementers and trainers need to do is look at is the way we develop and implement the new software and hardware tools within our respective organizations. Training is an “ART”. We need to find ways to optimize our implementation of systems whereby Dick and Jane embrace the “ART” and they, in turn, make our new GIS/IT solutions successful. By the way ... has anyone seen Spot? References Gardner,Howard,Seven Intelligences of Howard Gardner,www.tier.net/schools/stw/seven.htm The Kolbe Concept®, from the following websites: www.gcisolutions.com/gcisolutionskolbe.html www.kipawa.com/kolbe/david.htm Pangan, Daniel A., GITA Annual Conference Proceedings, 2000, Managing Change in a Business Environment Weber, Stan P., GITA Annual Conference Proceedings, 2000, The Last Frontier for GIS Data Weber, Stan P., GITA Annual Conference Proceedings, 2001, Getting Difficult People to Successfully Deploy Difficult Technology | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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