PerformanceXpress May 2003

There are 45 distinct processes within 12 subsystems of a complete T&D systems view. These processes are sometimes formal, and sometimes not. They are either strategic or operationally critical, or they are not. They are either in control or they are not. And they either need tight process control, OR THEY DO NOT. We are not suggesting that EVERY system and process be in tight control. As always, it depends.

It depends on your situation. You need to gather the data, do the math, and decide what is broken and what is not, and where to strategically place your enterprise’s bets for greater returns in the short-, medium-, or long-term.

The 12 Subsystems that Make Up a T&D System
The T&D systems model can be viewed as an analog clock with each of the hours representing a major subsystem:

12 o’clock: Governance and Advisory System
…organizes the key stakeholders of the enterprise and formalizes the channels of communication with them. They provide the forum for T&D’s internal marketplace customers to provide advice, and give the organization’s executive-level leadership governing power over T&D strategies, tactics, and resource allocations.

1 o’clock: T&D Strategic Planning System
…uncovers exactly where key stake- and shareholders want their strategic bets placed. It also determines resource requirements and assesses the T&D organization’s ability to carry out plans.

2 o’clock: T&D Operations Planning and Management System
…provides day-to-day operations and management of the various T&D functions, including annual, quarterly, and monthly planning, budgeting, and accounting processes.

3 o’clock: T&D Cost/Benefits Measurement System
…provides the measures and reports for the metrics of the T&D system. It turns data into information and interprets and reports this to the T&D leadership, staff, and its key customers and stakeholders.

4 o’clock: T&D Systems and Processes Improvement Program and Project Management System
…provides the response to issues and trends from the metrics of the measurement system and provides order to the quality and process improvement efforts for both incremental-continuous improvement and radical-discontinuous improvement to T&D processes.

5 o’clock: T&D Product and Service Line Definition and Design System
…provides a system that defines the high-priority, critical T&D products and services that must be developed or acquired to support key customer strategies and tactics. Needs more description and less alphabet soup.

6 o’clock: T&D Product and Service Line Development/Acquisition System
…provides T&D by building new and/or buying or modifying existing products and services. Needs more description and less alphabet soup.

7 o’clock: T&D Product and Service Line Deployment System
…provides a deployment system that organizes and distributes products and services through traditional (and nontraditional) instructor-led, group-paced classroom delivery; self-paced delivery; structured, coached/mentored delivery; and computer-based/electronic delivery.

8 o’clock: T&D Marketing and Communications System
…provides a system that organizes and distributes information throughout the T&D marketplace to meet a variety of needs. Communication and marketing are not about selling all T&D to everyone (a “learning by chance approach”), but are designed to help customers make informed choices—“learning by design.”

9 o’clock: T&D Financial Asset Management System
…provides a system that tracks and monitors the fiscal obligations of the T&D enterprise and keeps them within predetermined budget levels.

10 o’clock: T&D Human and Environmental Asset Management System
…provides the asset management system to organize and manage the acquisition, development, assessment, and retention of the T&D staff and all of the supporting infrastructure (facilities, equipment, materials, and information) needed to develop and deploy T&D.

11 o’clock: T&D Research and Development System
…provides the capability to look into the near- and long-term future and to keep the T&D organization on the cutting edge is found within this system. It also “tests” emerging processes, methods, and technology to ensure that T&D is delivering increasingly improved performance at decreasing costs, with an ever-higher return on investment.

Summary
Processes don’t exist in a vacuum. One process’ outputs could be an input to another within the same system. Fixing one process may have an impact on one or many more. By viewing your training and development system as a series of 12 subsystems with many interconnected processes, you are in a better position to communicate internally about them, to audit them, and to identify all of the other inter-connected processes that may be impacted as you improve any “one” of your T&D operations.

This should allow you to better calculate your forecasted total improvement costs and total improvement returns. Without that view, your attempts at value add might inadvertently end up as a value deplete.

Guy W. Wallace, CPT, has been a consultant to government and industry since 1982. He has served 32 of the current Fortune 500 plus several non-US firms. His biography is listed in Marquis Who’s Who of America. Guy is the current president of the International Society for Performance Improvement. He may be reached at guy.wallace@eppic.biz.