6

ALIGN Implementation

Your ALIGN Implementation efforts are aimed at making strategically aligned and collaborative decisions that identify transfer strategies for the solution, design implementation, and change management strategies to ensure successful execution and integration, as well as creating monitoring plans that keep pace with performance changes and alert you when adjustments are needed. With consensus of the solution selection criteria in hand, you can now agree on the solution recommendations with your stakeholders.

To ensure the long-term success and survival of the selected solution, you will collaboratively derive an implementation plan with your stakeholders. This includes planning how to manage the desired change in performance, designing transfer strategies that integrate the change into employees’ daily repertoire, designing implementation strategies to map the work flow that integrates the change into the organization, identifying performance measures that facilitate the ongoing assessment of the change, and establishing communication strategies for the life cycle of the change. Table 6-1 lists objectives to accomplish and activities to help you meet them.

Planning for Change Creation and Management

Any performance change designed and implemented in the organization has a direct effect on people. As such, change management strategies must take human response into account. For example, if you are introducing a change to the documentation of work expectations, how will this change affect job roles and responsibilities? How will introducing or altering standard operating procedures change the way employees use technology? How will it affect daily responsibilities? How will it affect employee morale?

When a change is introduced, employees often look to the leaders when assessing expectations of performance to provide direction, support, and role modeling. Are all leaders aligned and committed to the change? How do employees know? Are leaders modeling the change? Are they rewarding and recognizing the change in others? Can leaders speak to and champion the experience and remove barriers to support the effort required to sustain long-term change?

While leadership and management support is necessary, it is critical to establish ownership of the change at all levels in the organization, especially individual employees who experience the day-to-day consequences of the change. There are a handful of practices that you and the project team may engage in to facilitate the long-term integration and success of performance improvement solutions, including:

•   Designing transfer strategies—Purposefully consider how the solution will be applied, supported, and integrated into the daily routine of the workforce.

•   Designing implementation strategies—Purposefully plan solution implementation details, such as refining the scope of the project, securing commitment to resources, and crafting a deployment plan.

•   Identifying performance measures—Negotiate with your stakeholders what data will be collected to measure performance.

•   Monitoring the change in performance—With performance measures in hand, negotiate the details of a monitoring plan with your stakeholders.

•   Deriving a communication strategy—Don’t let your project “die on the vine”; collaboratively decide who will get project information, how often, and when.

Designing Transfer Strategies

Transfer strategies speak to the specific efforts made to ensure successful application and integration of the solution on the job. Burke and Hutchins (2008) surveyed performance improvement practitioners to determine successful strategies for implementing and integrating performance support solutions into the workplace. Practitioners noted that particular emphasis should be placed on the environment in which the solution will live. This aligns with industrial psychologist Thomas Gilbert’s thinking that the environment plays a bigger role than the individual in performance. Practitioners may apply this critical component by coordinating the delivery and implementation of the solution as close together as possible. For example, provide training to employees at the time they are going to be able to apply that training to the job. This may affect how training is rolled out (to whom and the order of training delivery).

Other successful transfer strategies rest within the training design and delivery phases, much of which is within your control. For example, you have a working knowledge and an appreciation for how the solution, the employee, and the environment will interact. You can apply this knowledge by accounting for environmental realities (such as time to use the solution on the job or reinforcement of desired behaviors on the job) in the design and delivery of the solution.

The implementation plan should also account for the time to transition from the old way to the new way, acknowledging that the performance of an employee will not change overnight. For example, you shouldn’t expect an employee to look and perform differently right after attending a training class. The performance will transform over time, so a transition plan will serve the expectations well.

There are a variety of transfer strategies that you may employ to foster successful implementation and sustainability of the solution. The strategy or strategies you select are grounded in the context of performance within the organization. In other words, you and your stakeholders will select transfer strategies that are best suited to the internal and external conditions of performance. The following are examples of transfer strategies for before, during, and after implementation:

•   Before Implementation:

        Prepare transfer environment to align with expected changes in performance (such as policies, procedures, and structures).

        Orient supervisors (and others) to the solution, expectations of performance, and shared accountability for results.

•   During Implementation:

        Build in time for practice and testing.

        Reinforcement and rewards.

        Provide regular feedback.

        Derive action plans for commitment.

        Provide support tools for using the solutions on the job (such as job aids and checklists).

        Maintain and communicate high expectations.

•   After Implementation:

        Measure and monitor changes in performance.

        Plan, coordinate, and facilitate regular stakeholder follow-ups.

        Incentivize stakeholders for continuous improvement.

        Coordinate coaching or other support during transition (such as learning support groups).

        Publicize and communicate progress and successes.

Table 6-3 provides some items to consider when designing for transfer, with corresponding sample transfer strategies that facilitate successful and sustainable implementation. While these questions are useful for any context, the sample transfer strategies you select collaboratively with your stakeholders will vary according to your performance context.

Once your group has committed to the decisions, you can work out the design and delivery of the solution. Designing the solution is also a collaborative endeavor involving representatives from those who will affect or be affected by the solution on the job. Delivery of the solution may be the task of one person, a team, or a collaborative effort.

Designing Implementation Strategies

With your transfer strategies in hand, you can now move to planning the implementation of the selected solution. It is necessary to consider how and when the solution will be carried out, who will be responsible for what parts of carrying out the solution, how you might sequence the rollout of the solution, and other details that ensure successful and sustainable implementation of the solution. Details you may consider include:

•   Scope of the initiative work. Project scope tells you the boundaries of the work that will be (and will not be) performed. Scope includes identifying and documenting project details such as the project objectives, goals, phases and deliverables, timelines, budget, resources, and schedule. (Tip! Be a scope creep buster! Be sure to have your project team and stakeholders sign off on the project scope.)

•   Solution requirements. Solution requirements define the capabilities required to achieve the project goals and objectives. By defining solution requirements, you will gain an understanding of the best way to integrate the solution on the job while balancing both environmental and human requirements. These requirements bring to light the conditions necessary for successful and effective adoption and integration of your solution. Consider the environmental and human factors that may need to be altered so that your solution is aligned. What must be built, designed, modified, eliminated, or reduced to deliver the solution?

•   Commitment for resources. Resources are what’s necessary to carry out the project successfully, such as people, budget, or tools. Document the resources that will be required to carry the project from initiation through the life cycle of the project.

•   Solution design. Solution design includes the design, development, and testing of the solution. As with all other aspects of the process, solution design must be conducted collaboratively with your stakeholders (those who will affect and be affected by the solution) and must be designed in alignment with your solution requirements.

•   Deployment plan. Your deployment plan lays out the logistics of the project implementation. For example, who will receive the solution? How will it be received? When will it be received? For how long? What is your cascading plan? How, if at all, does the solution interact with existing priorities or projects?

It is very likely that your organization has many other critical projects in various life cycle stages right now. Some projects are just getting off the ground, while some are in the implementation phase. It is important for your stakeholders to not see this as just another fad or as a project that counteracts other initiatives. As such, you and your project team may consider the environment in which the solutions will live and how they may interact with that environment. Some other items to consider include:

•   How many recommendations can be managed at one time?

•   What, if any, are the organization’s competing priorities that may affect the solution’s execution?

•   What other organizational initiatives may be happening concurrently with your solutions?

•   How will the recommendations affect resource availability throughout the project life cycle?

•   What other solutions have been implemented in the past? What were the results? What were the lessons learned?

Next, you will engage your stakeholders in a conversation about the priority of executing the chosen solutions. It may be that the organization can handle implementing only one or two of the solutions at any one time, due to other factors that may affect the success of the solution, such as the timing, workloads of affected staff, or competing priorities. Use the following list as a guide to determine the prioritization, or cascading, of implementing the solutions.

•   First Priority:

        Critical organizational issues that offer the greatest impact to the highest alignment level

•   Second Priority:

        Solution(s) that alter existing organizational practices that can be quickly adopted and build momentum for solution(s) to follow

•   Third Priority:

        Improvements to work processes or procedures

•   Fourth Priority:

        Improvements to worker skills, capacities, engagement

Agreeing on Performance Measures

Before implementing your solution, it is wise to agree on the performance measures that will be used to monitor performance improvements over time. Don’t wait for the solution to be in place for a while before determining your monitoring and evaluation plan! In each of the prior stages of the strategic alignment process, you obtained information about what performance measures would be appropriate for assessing employee performance after the solution is in place (both from the perception of stakeholders and tangible results at various levels). This information may be organized according to the four alignment levels. Table 6-4 provides an example of results at each alignment level and sample performance measures.

Monitoring Performance Change

Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) can provide a systemic and systematic framework that aligns decisions, results, activities, and resources so that performance data is responsive and provides a clear recipe for improving performance (Guerra-López 2008). Such alignment sets the stage for relevant and ongoing performance feedback, which sheds light on the progress an organization is making toward (or away from) its vision and related measurable objectives. Thus, this ongoing feedback obtained through a well-designed (that is, well-aligned) monitoring and evaluation system is a fundamental element of continuous improvement.

In the last half-century, learning and development has turned to monitoring and evaluation as a means of supporting continuous improvement, although its progress has been slow (Wang and Spitzer 2005). One explanation may be that current evaluation approaches measure the effects of a single solution with results reported at the individual employee level, at one point in time. This approach does not account for the complexity of organizations and the ability to detect, influence, and report impact at the organizational level. A holistic perspective is required, one that integrates the M&E process into a broader organizational performance system, and looks beyond the solution’s most immediate effects (Guerra-López 2010; Wang and Spitzer 2005). This systemic view gives you the ability to detect patterns from the data to understand internal and external factors for change, and subsequently select appropriate courses of action (Grieves 2003). If this type of integration is achieved, L&D can become a proactive partner in supporting evidenced-based decision making that results in continuous performance improvement.

To support this growth to strategic partner, a continuous improvement approach to performance improvement may be applied. A business unit that is strategically aligned applies four key dimensions to its work:

•   They gather evidence. While fundamental to responsible decision making, the most neglected aspect of decision making in the literature is intelligence gathering (Eisenhardt 1998; Nutt 2007). Decision making begins when stakeholders see a triggering trend (for example, declining revenues or sales) or event (for example, a threat to unionize) as significant, prompting steps to obtain intelligence (Nutt 2007). Decision makers are often inundated with signals from customers, employees, shareholders, attorneys, competitors, regulators, and suppliers. Finding which trends or events are worthy of priority attention can be an overwhelmingly challenging proposition. A strategically aligned partner gathers evidence to identify gaps in performance and uses that evidence to make decisions about the weights of performance challenges or opportunities that are continually presented on the job.

•   They monitor evidence. Monitoring integrates measurement and tracking: measuring what matters and tracking its progress. Continual improvement depends on knowing where you are headed, and constantly monitoring your course to get you from where you are to where you want to be (Guerra-López 2007). You do this by asking the right questions, continually collecting useful data, and then using that information to make sound decisions about required changes and which current programs to sustain. With this continuous and proactive approach, organizations focus on their performance targets and align efforts toward these goals, creating value for the organization.

•   They use evidence. One of the critical contributions of monitoring and evaluation is the feedback that it provides. The feedback loop represents the reiterative nature of tracking and adjusting. Open communication of the evaluation process, findings, and recommendations directly influences the change process. Lack of information promotes a sense of anxiety and resistance, particularly when individuals begin to make their own stories about what is going on and what will happen in the future. This feedback is provided by monitoring facilitates an ongoing dialogue with stakeholders in which we can empower them to have performance data readily accessible to those affected. Providing consistent feedback about performance is part of a broader, more effective communication system. If developed appropriately, it will allow leaders and employees to track, manage, and sometimes forecast performance at opportune times. In this sense, it is very much like monitoring the vital signs of the organization.

•   They learn from evidence. The benefit of continual improvement can have great payoffs in any endeavor. The ideal process is one that can be controlled to define and then maintain quality, and to adjust at the earliest sign that something is not acceptable. While quality control measures keep things on track, all parts of the organization are encouraged to look, in a coordinated fashion, for ways to improve the enterprise by adjusting design specifications and altering the various processes to include any new improved features and changing that which will not deliver measurable success. Decisions regarding adjustments or change tactics are made daily. Pound (1995) warns these subtle day-to-day decisions are where we are most susceptible to organizational failure. Daily decisions may include: “Is the rate of progress obtained consistent with the rate of progress planned?” “How has the solution affected individual areas and the system?” “Is the solution and its results sustainable?” “Why or why not?” Ongoing performance data are required to inform these adjustment decisions. L&D functions seeking the ultimate level of continuous improvement identify means of developing systematic processes grounded in systemic views and gain the opportunity to effectively and efficiently monitor progress, and therefore, alignment to the organization.

The value of monitoring is not in using it as a means of control or to stifle creativity or innovation. Wells, Moorman, and Werner (2007) demonstrated that employees have a positive response to monitoring activities when reasons for the activity are understood and trusted as means for development. Gruman and Saks (2011) argue that including employees in the development of goals supports employee engagement, which leads to desired performance with both the employee and the organization as benefactors. Such practices allow employees to situate their goals within the organizational context and welcome a collaborative monitoring design.

The process of monitoring does not imply you forgo a summative confirmation and celebration of ultimate results. With the direction to continuously monitor progress, organizations are encouraged to identify milestone opportunities that acknowledge improvements and time to reflect on what worked well that should be repeated and what improvements should be made for the future. “Progress, milestones reached (or not reached), action plans for reaching desired goals, etc. should be consistently and accurately communicated throughout the organization” (Guerra-López 2008). A discussion on where you’ve been, a description and acknowledgment of the efforts that have led to the progress, and how you will continue to move forward to achieve your goal is recommended at specified intervals.

Establishing Communication Strategies

Throughout the project, you facilitated participation from your stakeholders, determining and calibrating performance expectations, weighting and prioritizing performance gaps, and deriving solutions that were aligned to the performance gaps. You maintained superior communication throughout, and it’s not time to stop now.

Your ongoing communication makes the case for why the change in performance is required. You are articulating the need for the change, demonstrating faith that the organization can and will achieve its goals, and describing the picture of what individual and shared benefits will come from the change.

This communication takes on many forms. It may be in the form of a status report that communicates the current status of the solution, identifies significant accomplishments, or describes the activity or scheduled projects that are underway. Or it may be a project plan to communicate the tasks, owners, and status along the way.

ALIGN Implementation Checklist

Use the checklist below to ensure you have covered all elements necessary for successful demonstration of your stage three efforts.