5

Organizational Needs: Determining Gaps and Aligning Solutions

Chris Garton and MJ Hall

Consider Jacob, a learning and development manager for an outdoor gear company. Jacob leads a team that helps deliver training in a customer service call center, providing support for a variety of outdoor products. In his quest to become the ultimate business learning advisor for his partners, he frequently researches and tries out new strategic tools to improve his efficiency and stay ahead of the game.

Making a Strategic Impact

Since a new CEO took ownership of the company two months ago, Jacob has seen numerous requests land on his plate. Under this new leadership, the company wants to roll out a comprehensive restructuring program that will drive better collaboration among siloed departments. Jacob and his team have been tasked with owning the leadership training program and ensuring the success of the new vision.

Knowing he has a challenging road ahead, Jacob starts by setting up a brainstorming session with leaders of departments across the company to come up with ideas. The group was able to provide numerous potential plans, and Jacob walks away from the meeting feeling a major sense of accomplishment. Unfortunately, by the next day, that positive feeling has quickly faded and dread has sunk in. He has no idea where to start.

Impact Effort Matrix

For anyone who has ever found themselves in a state of paralysis due to overload of information, fear not! Sometimes figuring out how to decide something is an even bigger obstacle than the decision itself, leaving us to waste valuable time simply identifying what to tackle first. There are many strategies and tools available to help solve this problem, but perhaps none are simpler to grasp and implement than the impact effort matrix (also known as an action priority matrix).

So how does it work? The basic premise is two axes—the vertical axis measures how much potential an idea has to make a big impact. The horizontal axis tracks the level of effort needed to turn the idea into reality (Figure 5-1). For anyone familiar with the principles of Six Sigma, this will be a familiar concept; for those familiar with design thinking, it is similar to the importance/difficulty matrix.

Figure 5-1. Impact Effort Matrix

The four quadrants in the matrix can be understood by their key components:

• Quick wins. High-impact and low-effort items that will bring a lot of bang for their buck.

• Major projects. Greater effort is needed to bring these concepts to life, but they provide a solid payoff in the end.

• Fill-in jobs. The items in this quadrant may be easy to do, but they won’t provide significant benefits.

• Thankless tasks. Don’t do these time-wasters.

Jacob is no stranger to finding the right tool for the job. So he quickly turns to the impact effort matrix to start plotting where the ideas from his brainstorming meeting should fall. By categorizing each idea, what originally seemed like a chaotic mix of concepts quickly becomes an orderly guide for strategic prioritization. Knowing he needs some quick wins to gain initial trust with the new CEO, Jacob leads his team and partners through a series of introductory collaboration workshops to get the ball rolling on the new vision. Now one step closer to becoming a true business learning advisor, Jacob begins planning the major projects that will take the team to the goal.

Eisenhower Matrix

A single tool is seldom sufficient to build something great or solve a complex problem. That certainly explains why toolboxes exist—so we can use a combination of the right ones for each job. A complement to the impact effort matrix is another tool that uses two axes to create four quadrants: the Eisenhower matrix (Figure 5-2).

Figure 5-2. Eisenhower Matrix

Also known as the urgent/important matrix, this tool was named after President and U.S. Army Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and was a key productivity strategy for him. In this matrix, one axis is dedicated to level of urgency, and the other focuses on importance. This results in four quadrants in which tasks can be grouped to help identify the right action to take for each one. A popular version titles each box as follows:

• Do. These tasks are both urgent and important—focus on them first.

• Decide. Items in this box are important to do but do not carry high urgency. Decide by scheduling a future time to accomplish these tasks.

• Delegate. Tasks found here aren’t vital but need to be accomplished quickly. Delegate them to others.

• Delete. The lower-right box is neither important nor urgent. Whenever possible, try to eliminate these items altogether.

All too frequently, leaders don’t even realize they’re spending their time focused on tasks in the wrong quadrant. These four simple boxes can help you make more strategic decisions about how to prioritize and be more effective.

Now that Jacob has determined the most vital ideas from his discussions with business partners to implement, he opens up his toolkit and realizes that pairing two tools may be advantageous for his current position. The impact effort matrix created a foundation that established the right areas to focus on and when to leverage them, but he won’t get very far with the idea unless he plans his route to the finish line. Keep in mind, in addition to this project, he still has his normal responsibilities, and the tasks and requests he needs to handle on a daily basis have certainly not slowed down.

So, Jacob begins listing the main deliverables from the collaboration initiative and places them in the appropriate boxes of the Eisenhower matrix. He finds that many fall into the “decide” category, which is an ideal location to focus on. Using proactive measures to keep important items on track will ensure he doesn’t end up with all tasks becoming urgent.

Next, Jacob pulls out his to-do list of tasks that were not included in the scope of the project and plots those across the Eisenhower matrix. The resulting view provides a cohesive direction allowing Jacob to place an appropriate level of focus on each task and ultimately deliver a successful training product that’s aligned with the company’s new vision.

Optimal Strategic Zone

As you reflect on how these tools can help increase effectiveness in your own space, there’s one additional model that should always be included in your thought processes and decisions. Steven J. Stowell’s optimal strategic zone concept reflects the idea that there are certain times when there is true advantage to foresight, thorough planning, and strategic review. But in other situations, a routine job just needs to get done—simple as that.

Finding yourself over-strategizing day-to-day items is not only exhausting; it’s a waste of time. On the other hand, under-strategizing a key initiative that can bring real value may leave you in a position where failures were avoidable, and a great idea ends up in the dustbin due to poor planning. In the space between these two extremes lies a sweet spot known as the optimal strategic zone (Figure 5-3).

This model presents the same measures we have seen before: importance-impact and energy-effort. Although they’re used in a different way, it is not difficult to see a common thread between the concepts presented in this section. If you use these threads with the right tools, you’ll find they create an incredibly strong fabric to enhance your decision-making process.

Figure 5-3. Optimal Strategic Zone

Assessing Needs

Developing solutions to satisfy organizational needs is one of the primary roles business learning advisors play. However, while most think these solutions are always focused on learning, the role is actually about collaboratively working with others in the enterprise to understand the organization. From that perspective they then strategically look for the best solution for the root cause for each identified need—and that is not always a learning solution.

According to ATD’s 2018 report Needs Assessments: Design and Execution for Success, “Needs assessments are an important part of organizational efforts to improve the overall business.” ATD defines and differentiates between needs assessments and training needs assessments in this way:

ATD found that approximately 56 percent of organizations conduct needs assessments—but when they did, 68 percent thought the assessments were highly or very highly effective: “The top three challenges associated with needs assessments were stakeholders already believing they know the needs (70 percent), the extensive time required to conduct the needs assessment (50 percent), and getting buy-in from others such as business leaders (44 percent).”

Based on the types of needs they identify, the approaches TD professionals can use will range widely—from transactional to extremely strategic. There are also many different tools and techniques for each of these approaches that come from a variety of fields, including quality management disciplines (such as Agile, Lean, and Hoshin Kanri) and design thinking and human performance improvement. In a survey of the members attending a Forum Lab on using tools and techniques to be more strategic, the following tools were identified:

• 4 Disciplines of Execution

• 5 Moments of Need

• A3 Problem Solving

• Action Mapping With Cathy Moore

• ADKAR Change Model (awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, reinforcement)

• Agile and Minimum Viable Product

• Applied Systems Thinking (from Peter Senge)

• Baldrige Organizational Profile

• Concept Maps

• Design Thinking

• Edgar Schein’s Organizational Culture

• Gilbert’s Grid

• Hedgehog Concept for Organizational Focus

• Hoshin Kanri

• HPI (human performance improvement)

• Iceberg Model for Systems Thinking

• Learning Organization Maturity Model (with Josh Bersin)

• Mager’s Front-End Analysis

• MDMP (military decision-making process)

• OKR (objectives and key results)

• Predictive Analytics

• Situational Leadership

• Strategic Thinking Manifesto

• Strategic Leadership Model (from the Center for Creative Leadership)

• The Six Boxes

• Thinker Toys

• Voice of the Customer.

Regardless of the tool or technique, according to Roger Kaufman and Ingrid Guerra-López (2013), “Differentiating between want and needs is crucial, and doing so from the beginning saves time, money, and endless amounts of frustration.” Another vital suggestion is using a variety of tools to collect data in different ways. Many experts recommend triangulating the data.

Once you have clarity on the needs, and are sure that they are not wants, it’s imperative to isolate the factors and separate the gaps you can close with training or learning experiences from the ones that require environmental changes, additional resources, or other nontraining solutions. From that point, you can leverage tools and techniques to delve deeper into analyzing the specific training needs.

As part of the Forum Labs and case studies, members of the Forum share tools and techniques with one another using zing rounds, carousels, and taped recordings. We captured some of the recent cases on identifying gaps and aligning solutions to business goals to include in this book. We gathered data from members sharing in an informal small group, discussions and reflections from participants in the groups, and teach-back stories participants developed.

Elaine Biech’s Tools for Gathering Data

According to ATD research, the top challenge to a successful needs assessment is stakeholders believing they already know the organization’s needs. Kaufman and Guerra-López (2013) agree, stating that business learning advisors need to minimize this challenge by focusing on asking the right questions: “Asking and answering the right questions is what’s going to make you a successful talent development professional.”

Elaine Biech, an icon in the talent area, has spent her life helping talent development professionals improve their practice. One of the most generous ways she does this is writing and publishing her ideas, practical tools, and techniques. Many of her tools provide excellent questions to ask to learn more about the current state and needs of the organization. Most of the tools we discuss here are from her book Thriving Through Change: A Leader’s Practical Guide to Change Mastery (2007), and others are available as free downloads on the ATD website. During the Forum Lab, Jill Carter and Mark Lemon of Intermountain Healthcare shared how they use some of these assessments.

These tools follow Biech’s six-step change process:

1. Challenge the current state.

2. Harmonize and align leadership.

3. Activate commitment.

4. Nurture and formalize a design.

4. Guide implementation.

6. Evaluate and institutionalize change.

Why Is It Important?

Whether you call these tools scans, surveys, assessments, or diagnostics, they serve the same purpose: helping leaders understand the current status and needs of the employees (therefore, gaining empathy with their perspectives). When an organization sets a goal, it is always about change. Learning is about changing knowledge, skills, and behaviors, especially in what we know and can do as individuals and organizations.

Carter and Lemon provided details for several ready-to-use tools for change readiness, including the following from Biech’s book (worksheet numbers provided; Figure 5-4).

Figure 5-4. Elaine Biech’s Change Readiness Tool

When Are These Assessments Used?

These tools are designed to help change leaders and change agents efficiently move organizations through change. They typically get the most attention with organization-level changes, but can also be used for individual lines of business and departments. The tool you use depends on the change step you are focusing on. The assumption with many of the assessments is that they document important information that can then be shared with whoever needs it to initiate or implement change.

For example, if an organization were to implement a restructuring effort, the Biech organizational change readiness audit would be useful for gathering qualitative information from stakeholders regarding actions that have been successful in the past and what actions may be necessary to achieve a successful change in the future. Regarding this same restructuring effort, Biech’s change readiness predictor tool may be used to gather quantitative data from key stakeholders about what factors are needed to bring about successful change in the organization. Using these tools creates a holistic database of the qualitative and quantitative data gathered throughout the entire organization. Finally, it is important to identify employee expectations regarding a change, and the change management employee expectations tool may be used for this purpose. It is important to weigh in with employees on the front end, through the transformation process, and finally at the end to ensure they have the information to support the change and to help others support the change. Figure 5-5 uses examples from healthcare showing why, when, and how some of the tools might be used.

What Is the Process?

In Thriving Through Change, Biech provides a self-explanatory toolkit covering a variety of topics related to change, such as expectations and readiness. The key to success, however, is to use them to gain information from your employees and stakeholders. According to Biech, these questions serve as a guide—she never uses the same question twice, always customizing them for the unique audience.

Forum presenters Carter and Lemon suggest that you can compile qualitative and quantitative data from multiple tools and groups to guide impactful conversations about the change prior to determining the change process. This creates a more holistic approach to gathering data prior to developing the strategy for the change.

Figure 5-5. Example Uses of Elaine Biech’s Change Tools in Healthcare

Caution! What Do I Need to Watch Out For?

Examine the tools you plan to use and consider those who will be experiencing change. Biech provides a proactive set of questions you can ask to explore what employees need before the change begins. Use what is appropriate from these resources, and then use the other questions as needed. Additionally, set expectations for what will be done with the data and what will be happening as a result. Be intentional about managing employee expectations regarding the change to ensure they have enough information to understand it.

Investigative Report Organizational Scan

Another tool for gathering data to gain a deeper understanding of the organization is the investigative report organizational scan from Needs Assessment Basics, 2nd edition (2016). This was shared as part of a gallery walk featuring posters of other tools not discussed in the Forum Lab. The investigative report organizational scan is a fun way to gather data and informally but intentionally keep tabs on the organization. The goal is to look at the current environment with a fresh set of eyes and a different perspective.

Why Is It Important?

As business learning advisors, our role is much more expansive than simply designing and delivering training. The talent development profession needs to see and understand the entire organizational system to effectively address current competencies and future capabilities.

What Is the Process?

This is a framework that imitates the investigative processes and questions used by a news reporter for a big story. Figure 5-6 lists several actions and how to accomplish them.

Figure 5-6. Investigative Report Organizational Scan Tool

When and Where Is It Used?

Because this is a technique to take the pulse of the organization, it is recommended that you use it all the time. However, to give it power, summarize your general findings monthly or at least quarterly and use them for planning. For a specific project, the process needs to be more regimented and over a shorter timeframe.

Impact Map

The impact map—adapted from the work of Robert Brinkerhoff—is a tool that directly links a service, product, or experience to a result, which creates a line of sight and, consequently, alignment between the two. At the highest levels, this can link a strategy, product, or service design to the results. It can then demonstrate how the new knowledge improved the desired behaviors and how those behaviors affected key job results and organizational goals. At the Forum Lab, this technique was presented by Taylor Harlin, an experienced user from Johnsonville. Figure 5-7 presents the standard impact map tool.

Figure 5-7. Impact Map

Why Is It Important?

During the lab, Harlin shared how the tool helped his organization with alignment and commitment to behavior change. As part of the discussion, he gathered ideas from others on the tool’s pros and cons. The tool is designed to show the relevance between a course of action and the business goals and objectives. It is important to create alignment and visibility to show how any event, activity, or strategy will improve business performance to demonstrate value, but also to ensure customers are getting what they need and want.

In a learning environment, the impact map helps participants understand how the knowledge should influence themselves, their teams, and the organization, while also reinforcing why learning is important. In other words, it provides what Simon Sinek calls “the Big Why.” It also helps the learning program designers ensure they are providing the right content to address the need. Cory Bouck (2013), author of Lens of Leadership: Being the Leader Others Want to Follow, refers to the impact map as part of the talent professional’s “ultimate tool kit.”

When and Where Is It Used?

The impact map can also be used for many things outside L&D, including product and service design. When used as part of the learning solution, it can be leveraged during the “needs” part of the ADDIE process. It is useful for visually representing the needs assessment because it links the desired organizational improvements to the learning experience being designed. It can also be used by learners and their managers as pre-work to clarify why the course is important to their and the organization’s success. Additionally, it can be used to measure impact evaluation; for example, after a specified period of time (such as three to six months), the L&D team could follow up with a learner and their manager to evaluate change in behavior and how this has affected the team’s and organization’s results.

An impact map has three functions that can be applied within three lenses. It can be used for learning experience design, learning application, evaluation, and course relevance, as well as looking at a specific learning experience (course, e-learning, job shadow, and developmental assignment), a specific program or group of courses, or the entire learning and development strategy.

If you were designing a course, program, or L&D strategy, the tool would flow from the right to the left. Beginning with the goals set by the organization, you could determine what key job results would be needed to deliver on them. From there you could determine what skills, attitudes, and behaviors are needed to achieve the results to deliver on the organization’s goals. Once you know what skills, attitudes, and behaviors are needed, you could perform a gap assessment to understand what training is needed from L&D. This then directly ties the development to the organization’s goals.

For Harlin’s organization, the impact map is used as a discussion tool before a learning experience between a coach (manager) and a member to clarify why and how what they learn will be applied on the job. This ensures that both sides are clear on how application will affect performance.

What Is the Process?

There are several approaches that can be used. Employees can fill in the map with their coach, which enables good conversations about what they’ll get out of the class. This can then be shared with the organization development and learning team so they know what participants are focused on and can ensure enough time is spent on the right content. After the class, the coach and the member can have regular discussions about the impact map and actions they are taking to ensure the intended impact is achieved.

You can also use a completed impact map to evaluate the effectiveness of a learning experience by assigning levels of evaluation to each column. Skills and knowledge can be evaluated to check for Level 2 evaluation; on-the-job application achieves a Level 3 evaluation, pending validation of application; and the change in the selected results can achieve a Level 4 and potentially Level 5 evaluation.

Another recommended use is to determine the relevancy of the current content in alignment with top business goals. To do this, begin by looking at the organizational goals on the right and working left toward the skills and knowledge.

Caution! What Do I Need to Watch Out for?

According to Harlin, when implementing a new tool like an impact map, leadership buy-in may be a challenge because it is a collaborative effort with managers. Another challenge is educating the organization, and specifically the managers using the tool. While it looks simple on paper, employees and their managers can get stuck if they don’t know how to use it. Once the impact map process is in place, the toughest part is ensuring accountability to use it consistently for course and program design.

Accountability for use and follow-up conversations are imperative to sustaining the plan and process. Additionally, process discipline is needed to ensure you are evaluating the programs and courses to see if a change in organizational goals is still met by the knowledge and skills to prove experiential relevancy. The most common issue occurs when participants leave class and, despite spending the time to develop their map, never look at it again, especially if their performance coach or manager doesn’t hold them accountable. When this happens, the business impact will not be achieved, which means the return on investment won’t be achieved.

During a discussion session with senior learning leaders at the Forum Lab, some members mentioned that they changed the column labels. In other words, the tool provides a framework for aligning learning goals to business outcomes, which organizations can adapt to better fit their needs as long as the tool’s original intent is not lost.

McKinsey 7-S Model

The McKinsey 7-S framework is used for organizational analysis and design, and was presented by Susana Sipes from Grainger during the Forum Lab. The foundational premise is that organizations are most effective when seven internal elements are aligned and reinforce one another: strategy, structure, systems, style, staff, skills, and shared values.

The framework defines these seven as either hard or soft S’s. The hard S’s are the more tangible aspects that can easily be identified as the what in an organization:

• Strategy. The organization’s approach for achieving goals and objectives for moving into the future.

• Structure. How a company is organized to drive accountability, including direct reporting lines and decision-making authority.

• Systems. The platforms and processes that support the business and how work gets done from an operational standpoint.

In contrast, the soft S’s are driven more by culture—the who and how of the organization:

• Staff. Employees, their capabilities and compensation, and how they are attracted and hired.

• Skills. Capabilities within the organization to meet current and future goals and objectives.

• Style. The culture of the organization and how people work.

• Shared values. How an organization defines its purpose and what drives meaning.

This framework ensures a comprehensive view of the magnitude of interdependencies that are often overlooked when deciding on change initiatives.

The McKinsey 7-S framework provides a structure to analyze the current state of the organization at the most strategic level. The results include identifying interdependencies, gaps, and the effect of a change. The addition of the softer parts of the organization—shared values, skills, style, and staff—provides a full picture of the broader organizational ecosystem. Most important, shared values are at the center of the framework. However, it does have its limitations; one of which is that it provides only the current state. To close gaps, one must resort to other tools and techniques.

When and Where Is It Used?

Completing the 7-S framework is not an easy task. It requires a team with a strategic understanding of the organization and access to the necessary data.

There are various uses for the framework. First and foremost is to get a clear description of the current state of the organization to serve as a profile for ensuring that everyone understands the ecosystem. It is also useful for identifying the root of performance issues within an organization, assessing or monitoring changes when performing role alignment or structure changes, and implementing new strategies that require a focus on people management instead of process and technology.

While the framework provides a structured framework for the elements to consider, there are varying approaches for how to access and document the data and assess the alignment between the elements. Additionally, there are no tactics for consistent identification of each of the seven S’s. However, there are websites, such as mindtools.com, that provide a list of questions to ask about each S.

There are some cautions when using. While it can be used to outline at any level, it must be started at the senior-most organizational level. If the framework is used at the lower levels as an alignment tool it must “feed into” the Level 1 version. It could be useful to use the McKinsey 7-S framework in conjunction with the structural tension model, which focuses on the tension between the current reality and future goals and vision with some adaptation (Fritz 2011).

The McKinsey 7-S framework is helpful for talent professionals on two levels: First it produces a clear profile for the organization, which provides an understanding of the business system. Second, because it identifies current gaps in skills, staffing, and future capabilities, it can inform the learning strategy.

Because it is only internally focused, the group must have another process or tool to gather and use external data. One simple tool suggested by Sipes is the SWOT analysis (Figure 5-8).

Figure 5-8. SWOT Analysis

Implementing SWOT Analysis

SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) is an analytical technique that enables the user to gain an awareness of the organization’s current internal capability and an assessment of external forces that can positively or negatively affect the organization in a desired end state.

The SWOT analysis is important because it is an objective analysis of current factors, systems, processes, products, and services in the organization. The information is used to identify the current competitive state and includes:

• internal aspects that are working well (strengths) and contributing to successful results

• internal aspects that are not working well and can be improved upon (weaknesses)

• external forces (opportunities) that may have a positive influence and are potential sources of strengths

• external forces (threats) that may have a negative influence and serve as a catalyst for performance improvement.

Completing the SWOT analysis is a collaborative process to which employees representing all facets of the organization can contribute. Large groups can use a digital survey, while small groups can use sticky notes on a poster. The responses to the following four questions should be backed by data and trackable to a source:

• What are the current strengths for the organization? (What are the internal successes?)

• What are the current weaknesses for the organization? (What are the major challenges?)

• What current and future external opportunities exist—including trends and changes in technologies, policies, economics, and demographics—that can affect the organization? Look at the strengths to see if they open up any opportunities. Alternatively, look at weaknesses and determine if eliminating them could open new opportunities to be competitive.

• What are the current and future threats that could affect the organization, including competition from others and the trends and changes listed in the third step?

Because each of the questions will result in a list, the list may need to be grouped into categories using tools such as affinity clustering, then sorted by priority or impact.

A SWOT can be used at the organizational, department, or team level, or anywhere in between. However, it is important to be clear on the level for use as well as the desired end state. While the SWOT is useful in conjunction with the McKinsey 7-S framework at the strategic level, it is also a stand-alone tool that can be used as part of any analysis. This makes it a go-to tool for the business learning advisor.

Summary

As business learning advisors, we make decisions all the time—some are quick and easy, while others are difficult and complex. However, understanding our options and how we make decisions is critical. In our role to help the organization stay competitive, our specialty is creating an environment for building capabilities across the organization. This starts with understanding the entire organizational system and assessing needs across the ecosystem (such as organizational needs and gaps). These needs can be related to building capabilities, but they could also be related to the design of the job, resources, communications, and so on. A variety of tools from many disciplines can help you make the best decisions.

Once we are confident that the need is related to training or learning either through upskilling or new skills and behaviors, we can dig even deeper into what specific training is needed, and how and when to deliver it, using our deep understanding of learning theory to provide solutions. Again, there are many tools.

When you are called on to assess needs or close a gap, what tools are in your portfolio? As we discovered in this lab, there are many tools and techniques to choose from. What are your criteria for deciding which tool or technique to use? Is it the time or cost involved? Is the decision based on ease of use or the number of resources available? Or do you choose the tool that provides the most robust information? Or is the decision simply based on familiarity?

One of the easiest ways to learn about new tools and techniques is benchmarking other companies. Understanding what tools are available and how they are used to keep a pulse on internal capability within the organization provides useful insights.

Key Takeaways

To be strategic in our role as business learning advisors, learning professionals must have an understanding of the entire organization and how it operates as a system.

There are many tools and techniques to choose from for assessing needs, both at the systems level and the capability-building level. Using multiple tools and triangulating the information generally provides a clearer picture.

Most tools and techniques require discipline to use and accountability to sustain.

Questions for Reflection and Further Action

1. Does your organization have an intentional strategy for continually building and upgrading capabilities?

2. What tools for assessing the organization and training needs are in your portfolio?

3. How do you decide which tool to use?

4. Which of the tools from this chapter could you use to gain a deeper understanding of the current capability of your organization?