SCAMPER is a tool used to generate ideas.  This approach was first suggested by Alex Osborn, a pioneer in the field of creativity.  Later, Bob Eberle created a mnemonic of the approach:

S ubstitute
C ombine
A dapt
M odify of magnify
P ut to other uses
E liminate or reduce
R everse or rearrange

How SCAMPER Works

Here’s how it works.  Suppose you are a designer of fine leather driving gloves.  You are approached by an investor to develop gloves for the professional golfer.  How can you take your basic driving glove and convert it to a professional golfer’s glove?  SCAMPER is one approach to help you generate ideas.  First isolate the topic you want to explore, and then apply each step to the topic and see what ideas are developed:

• What can be substituted in the design or materials?
• What can be combined in the design or materials?
• What can be adapted from another design?
• What can be modified from the current design or competitors’ design?
• What can be magnified from the current design or competitors’ design?
• What other uses can be put in place for the new design?
• What can be eliminated from the basic design or competitors’ design?
• What is the reverse of the basic design?
• Will rearranging the basic design create a professional golfer’s glove?

Summary

Creativity is necessary to stay alive in today’s business world.  Organizations will continue to be confronted by strategic challenges unmatched in business history.  Creative problem solving approaches, like SCAMPER, will help organizations successfully face these challenges.

By Shirley J. Caruso, M.A., Human Resource Development

Creating a dialogue is much more than simply having a conversation.  It means you are fully engaged with the other person, giving him or her your full attention, and paraphrasing to check for understanding.  It is being non-judgmental and open.

Assertive Communication

Assertive communication is based on the belief that you and others have the responsibility to ask for what you want or need.  Be sure the following assertion skills are in your communication toolbox:

1. Acknowledgment:  Let the other person know he or she was heard.  For example, in talking with an employee about a chronic tardiness problem, acknowledge the employee’s explanation:  “So it sound like you were late because your alarm clock didn’t go off this morning.”
2. Use “I” statements as opposed to “you” statements:  Instead of saying “you need to show up for work on time”, say “I need to be able to rely on you to be here by 8:30.”
3. Repetition:  Keep coming back to your statement of what you need or want.  “I understand you had a reason for being late.  I need to be able to rely on you to be here by 8:30.”
4. Validation:  Let the other person know you value them.  “Your work is excellent, and I enjoy working with you.  I need you to do whatever it takes to be here on time, and if you are going to be late, call me so I can get your phone covered.”

Giving Feedback without Blame or Finger-Pointing

Know the results you want to achieve.  Encourage change by looking for patterns.  What is the other person doing when the problem doesn’t happen?  Search for patterns in other settings, and apply them to this situation. Don’t ask, “Why do you have this problem?”  Fix situations, not people.

Receiving Feedback Without Becoming Defensive

Receiving feedback can be hurtful and demoralizing.  These tips will help you reframe it, so you can use it to help you and not upset you:

• Actively invite it.  This eliminates the unexpected aspect of it and enables you to be better prepared for what you may hear.  Remember, it’s better to hear it directly than have the other person talking behind your back.
• Listen to understand.  Assume the other person has good intentions for telling you.  his will help you to remain open and non-defensive.
• Ask questions.  This enables you to get specifics, focus on behaviors you can change, and guide the conversation to be useful to you, not a venting session for the other person.
• Assess validity and importance.  Ask yourself, “is this valid?  Is this important?”  Obviously, your response to something that is not valid or not important will be different than if it is valid and important.  Understanding the difference among disapproval, disagreement, and direction will help you disengage from subjective interpretation and focus on common goals.

Characteristics of effective teams include:

• well-defined goals and priorities
• Team goals override individual goals
• Cooperation, not competition
• Deal with conflict effectively
• Listen to varying points of view
• High level of morale
• Practice open and frequent communication

Characteristics of ineffective teams include:

• Cliques or subgroups
• Unequal distribution of resources
• Uneven participation levels
• Dysfunctional process
• Lack of creative problem solving
• Miscommunication
• Avoid conflict
• Domineering personality

Team Values

Before you can build a cohesive team, individual team members must understand their own team values.  When values are not in alignment, individuals feel uncomfortable and conflicted.  The more your values and behavior are in alignment, the less internal conflict you’ll feel.

Honesty, Trust, and Respect

Honesty, trust and respect are foundational values for most teams.  Emotional safety, credibility, dependability, and predictability are all characteristics of honesty, trust and respect.  Emotional safety means addressing problems as they happen, acknowledging your feelings, and taking others’ interests and concerns to heart and conveying that message to them.  Credibility means admitting you don’t know something, or not saying anything rather than stating half-truths.  Dependability means commitments are backed by actions, you make good on your promises, and you can put aside self-interest for the good of the team.  Predictability means clearly establishing and publicizing a system for responding to other team members.

Celebrating Diversity

We all have unique qualities that makes us who we are.  Diversity is defined as the state or instance of being different, having variety, or being dissimilar.  Celebrating diversity means:

• Valuing each team member for his or her uniqueness
• Appreciating different backgrounds, styles, values, and attitudes
• Fostering an environment in which every team member feels valued

Summary

Laying the groundwork for a team foundation means identifying the characteristics of effective and ineffective teams, understanding your own team values, incorporating honesty, trust, and respect, and celebrating diversity.

A learning organization is an institution or company that facilitates the learning of its members and also keeps on transforming itself. The main objective of a learning institution is to create a knowledgeable workforce by encouraging employees to share and exchange information. Modern organizations develop learning organizations in order to survive and prosper in today’s competitive business environment.

Advantages of Learning Organizations

There are a variety of advantages that are associated with learning organizations. Learning organizations create a culture that supports continual employee and help employees learn from experiment and experience. Learning organizations allow every employee to contribute to learning.  An organization benefits through learning organizations because it has the potential to remain competitive through maintaining high levels of innovation, flexibility and agility. Involvement of employees helps them to gain personal satisfaction and better knowledge of customer needs.  Employees are better equipped to respond to external pressure and the organization’s business image is enhanced because employees are more customer-oriented.

Challenges of Learning Organizations

Although there are many benefits gained by learning organizations, they are not without challenges.  Employees need to adopt a learning culture and teamwork which can be hard to instill in an employee who does not find learning beneficial to him or does not share the same vision. Management should encourage learning that would not only be beneficial to the company but to individuals as well. Learning is also hard for large organizations because of the complex organizational structures that make communication, internal knowledge sharing and inter-employee relationships weak.

Learning Organization Theories

Peter Senge  illustrates that modern learning organizations should exhibit five characteristics.  These are shared vision (leaders cultivate a shared vision among people throughout the organization, as well as with stakeholders), mental models (leaders surface and challenge mental models which hinder open communication and learning in themselves and others), systems thinking (leaders foster practices, processes, and relationships that make systems thinking a normal approach to innovation and problem solving), personal mastery (leaders promote the intrinsic and extrinsic benefits of personal mastery, recognizing areas of needed growth, and being disciplined about those improvements), and team learning (leaders ensure an atmosphere where people feel safe to express their ideas and feedback across functions and levels, to harness and deeper synergy from team leaning) (Senge, 1990).  Senge argues that many management problems encountered in organizations are a result of leaders who fail to see the organization as a dynamic process, and instead of focusing on it as a whole they tend to breakdown systems into individual units. Senge says that cause and effect are the best practices in organizations such that when faced with a problem the first approach involves looking for solutions.

Team learning theory is another important characteristic that suggests that learning organizations can only create and develop a team with a common goal. Senge believes that there is a noticeable growth and better results when members learn together. Team learning produces transformational leaders who believe that a higher level of thinking cannot be achieved individually. Team learning allows member to notice in advance the patterns of interaction that would undermine learning (Senge, 1990).

Summary

Learning organizations are significant in the modern world where technology and competition call for better service delivery. Learning organizations have the potential to offer better services and have better employees who are knowledgeable and skilled and can respond well to change.

References

Senge, P.M. 1990. The Fifth Discipline Field book: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization. London: Century Business.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7_-nfb3f1s

Donald Kirkpatrick’s four levels of evaluation are designed as a sequence of ways to evaluate training programs:

Level 1 – Reaction

The participants’ immediate reactions to a course can be measured in this level.  This level of evaluation obtains the opinions, feelings, and perspectives of the learner regarding a training program.

Level 2 – Learning

This level tests participants to determine what they have learned.  This level of evaluation demonstrates which principles, facts, skills, and attitudes were obtained from training.   The test questions must be linked to the training objectives.  This approach generally involves a pre-and-post test.

Level 3 – Behavior

Examines behavior changes back on the job as a result of training.  This is usually conducted at intervals after training and requires an established data baseline.

Level 4 – Business Results or Impact

Determines the effects of learning on the organization.  Over 60% of HRD departments fail to conduct this type of evaluation.  However, given the current economic climate, Level 4 evaluation is becoming more and more important as HRD departments are required to demonstrate accountability and how they are adding value to the organization.

As a way of helping determine the feasibility of a result or impact evaluation, program designers would want to answer the following questions:

Do learners value the knowledge, skills, and attitudes being taught?  Do they feel confident to use the knowledge and/or skills?

Do managers of learners coach, reinforce, and model the skills being taught?  Does the organization reward the use of the knowledge, skills, or attitudes? Do they eliminate task interferences?  Is organizational feedback provided?

By Shirley J. Caruso, M.A., Human Resource Development

This video discusses the events that take place during the Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate phases of the ADDIE Instructional Design Model.  For more information on the ADDIE Model, please click the following link:

http://www.eadulteducation.org/adult-learning/the-addie-instructional-design-process/

This video provides a brief overview of the Analysis Phase of the ADDIE Instructional Design Model.  Click here to learn more about conducting an instructional analysis http://www.eadulteducation.org/adult-learning/conducting-an-instructional-analysis/

Different Types of Web-Based Training

Different types of web-based training can be used in different circumstances and conditions. Facilitated online learning is a type of web-based training where there is a facilitator who guides learners and provides them with support during the training course. This type of training is usually used at universities. Self-paced, web-based learning includes formal lessons which are delivered at a pace determined by the learner. There is no facilitator to guide the learning process. Online tutorials consist of documents that are available on the Internet which can be downloaded and read by the learners. Web-based electronic performance support systems teach material through visual simulation rather than written material. It is similar to an online tutorial except that the material is shown rather than written.

Some Advantages of Web-Based Training

Web-based training allows employees to learn new things at their own pace and convenience. Employees can access training programs from anywhere in the world. With the help of web-based training, organizations can train their employees with minimal cost and lost work time.

Some Disadvantages of Web-Based Training

The only interaction that is taking place is through the computer. As humans, we feel more comfortable when we are in the company of people and it also enhances our learning, as others ask questions which might answer things for us. Developing web-based training takes time, technical requirements, and expert knowledge.

By Shirley J. Caruso, M.A., Human Resource Development

Sharing knowledge will only be meaningful if it is made within certain limits, as not all knowledge is useful for every individual. Sharing and distribution of knowledge involves cultural and individual limitation such as power and trust, with which the knowledge is shared.

Organizations should also implement practices to enhance the sharing of knowledge. Information and communication technology, such as intranet,  promotes knowledge sharing.

By Shirley J. Caruso, M.A., Human Resource Development