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Task Analysis PaperJohn KucmierzEAC583 Fall 2011November 27, 2011Dr. Sophia StoneOverviewThe Instructional Design professional conducts many tasks associated with the ID process in their day to day work life but much of that day also includes tasks that are not associated with the ID process. This paper will discuss the tasks conducted by three ID professionals and role of project management tasks in their daily routine. Literary ReviewAinsworth (2009) describes task analysis as “one of the most useful tools for investigating human tasks and together with associated analysis techniques it provides considerable versatility, that enables analysts to investigate a wide range of issues on both new and existing systems (p. 1835). A task analysis of the Instructional Designer role allows an investigation into the tasks that not only drive their ID systems but impact their ability to conduct their jobs.The role of the instructional designer engages in a “process guided by systematic design models and principles focused on establishing and maintaining efficient and effective human performance” (Williams van Rooj, 2011, p. 141). The designer themselves are responsible for “carrying out and coordinating the planning work; competent in managing all aspects of the instructional design process” (Morrison, Ross & Kemp, 2007, p. 18). This process is usually structured in its make up with the instructional designer following a process such as the ADDIE model. Cowell, Hopkins, McWhorter, & Jorden (2006) describe the ‘ADDIE model’ as “an idiomatic term describing a systematic approach to training including the analysis, design, develop, implement, and evaluate phases” (p. 460). Each of these phases represents a district and important stage of the design process. While “most models of instructional design view project management as embedded within the instructional design process,” (Williams van Rooj, p. 140), the instructional designer in a corporate environment may find themselves playing the role of project manager beyond the structure of the project itself. Many of the tasks that the instructional designer encounters seem to be built around the managing of the resources, project stakeholders, and timelines which are not explicitly discussed in the ADDIE model. Time limitations and client expectations may alter the allocation of time spent on the ADDIE stages being replaced by project management tasks. Layng (2008) suggests that the tasks associated with both instructional design and project management follow a systems approach but a project management approach is not always followed in the ID process. Furthermore Knutson et al. (2006) indicate that “the knowledge area skills required to apply project management processes are distinctly different from those of an instructional designer.” In following the ADDIE model the instructional designer may be faced with aspects of the process that their education may not have provided for since “instructional design curriculum does not generally include formal courses in project management” (Williams van Rooj, 2008, p. 140). Today’s instructional designer needs the requisite instructional design & development knowledge and skills but also “project management skills, including the ability to lead a project team, estimate project requirements, and develop processes and standards for completion of educational/training product development projects” (p. 141).The time spent on actual design and implementation may not comprise the majority of an ID professional’s time in the corporate world. A study conducted by Cox and Osguthorpe indicated that instructional designers are spending a great deal of their time on project management, particularly in the management of client and other stakeholder expectations” (p. 142).Interviewee 1The first interviewee selected for this analysis paper was Susan Delp who is an independent Instructional Designer with her own consulting company, Positive Performance Partners, LLC.. The majority of Susan’s consulting business is through a contract relationship with The VLA Group, Inc., an instructional design firm located in New York City. Susan is considered a Sr. Instructional Designer by title when interacting with VLA Group’s clientele. The VLA group has 15 employees and contractors and is a main provider of instructional design services to a number of Fortune 500 companies including HP and KPMG, which is the main client that Susan with VLA for. Since KPMG is a business consultant themselves, Susan’s main focus is to build programs that support KMPG’s solutions for their clients. Much of Susan’s work is in the Assessment, Design, and Development stage with very little time spent in Implementation and Evaluation since the program she designs are handed off to KPMG’s staff to roll out with their clients.Prior to beginning her own firm in 2005, Ms. Delp worked as Training Manager with Eckerd Drug Company designing and implementing training programs for a 12 billion dollar drug store chain with over 3000 locations. While not formally schooled in Instructional Design, Susan learned by doing at Eckerd while also attending many workshops, and eventually being certified in the Mager program before the corporate office was shut down in 2005. Interviewee 2 & 3The second interview for the paper actually turned into two interviews with members of the Organizational Design team at AAA South. AAA South is service oriented company with over 3000 employees located across Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee. Their main focus is providing service to their subscription members in the form of auto rescue and repair, insurance, and Travel information. The Organizational Development division is tasked with providing training solutions for both soft and hard skills for the company. Much of their time is spent providing training programs for the software programs that the sales force uses to sell their insurance programs. These programs are mostly online self-directed learning. The soft skills programs are mostly focused on sales techniques, time management, and other programs that support the sales force. Recently the company merged with another regional AAA organization doubling their size. While the companies have decided for the time being to leave their duplicate functions running concurrent, they may choose to begin consolidating functions in the future putting the current Organizational Development department’s future in question. The first choice for the interview was Edwin Nolan, PhD, Managing Director, Learning & Organizational Development at AAA South. Ed has overseen the training function at AAA South for the last 3 years. Mr. Nolan holds a PhD in Psychology and has over 24 years of experience in instructional design recently serving as Sr. Director, Training & Development for Eckerd Drug Company for over 20 years. While Mr. Nolan’s main responsibility is leading the training & development function, a staff of eight in total, his own expertise and instructional design focus is management development training. He is directly responsible for the design and development of programs targeted at the executive and middle management levels of employees. While Ed has a wealth of knowledge around the ID function, it was realized during the interview that Ed’s day to day tasks are focused on the administration of running the Organizational Development department and not on the instructional design function as it used to be. While Ed provided much insight into the structure and inner workings of AAA South, he recommended interviewing another of his staff, Susie Mosko, who was much closer to the ID process in his department. Susie Mosko, Director, Program Development, reports directly to Ed Nolan and has served in her current position with AAA South for the last 3.5 years. Ms. Mosko holds a Masters in Organizational Development and has been in the instructional design profession for over 7 years. She previously held instructional design positions with Developmental Dimensions International and several consulting firms. Ms. Mosko leads a team of four professionals focused on designing technical training that supports the company’s many internal software systems. Data Collection MethodologyIn the process of interviewing the candidates two main methods were utilized to obtain information about the interviewee and their companies. Swanson (2007) states that there are several general data collection methods used in the analysis process. They include interviews, questionnaires, observations, and organizational records (p.107). Since each method provides its own unique perspective for the analysis it would be ideal to use each one but the limitations encountered only allowed for the use of two methods. LocationThe first limitation was location. Since all of the interviewees were located in Clearwater, Florida, it was decided to opt for telephone interviews but not observations since they would not be possible. The interviews would need to be conducted over the phone which requires more planning. Swanson cites 10 steps to preparing for the phone interview (p.111), but since my interview group was small (three), were personally known to me, and had scheduled specific times to talk, a number of the steps, such as hiring interviewers and pilot testing final questionnaires were skipped. Interview QuestionsThe type of interview chosen was a Combination (structured and unstructured) in that a list of predetermined questions were prepared that would be asked of each interviewee but also allow for questioning on specific concepts and side-tracks that may occur during the actual interview. The interview length was set at one hour which was acceptable to the interviewees given their busy schedules. The interviews were each conducted in one sitting and required very little follow up except for the sending of some work related documents. The questions asked in the interview were:What is your full title?What is your educational background?Can you provide demographics about your company?Total sizeSize of your departmentWho you supportDo you have a current job description you can share?How do your day-to-day activities differ from your official job description in terms of the types of tasks you do and the time spent on activities?What kind of tasks would you say makes up your typical day/week?Do your types of task differ over the course of the year?If you had to divide your time up into percentage of time taken on each of the below tasks?Procedural (step by step) ____%System (process & integration) ____%Knowledge (informational) ____%What are your top 3 on-the-job responsibilities?What are your goals and strategies for accomplishing the tasks they you are responsible for.What challenges do you face in accomplishing your tasks?What technological support do you receive?What level of management support do you receive?Is there a difference between the type of tasks that you were hired to conduct and the type that make up the majority of your time?Do you think that the educational system prepares learners for this type of work adequately?Are there any suggestions for students that you think would better prepare them for the realities of the work?Busy SchedulesThe second limitation in the data collection was time. Each interview was set up through a series of emails with the individuals in which time and dates were established. This scheduling proved to be difficult due to the busy schedules of the individuals and needed to reschedule several times. While questionnaires provide a way to collect large amounts of data and are more objective than interviews (p.113), given the interviewees hectic schedules, it was decided not to utilize questionnaires since it could not be guaranteed that the interviewees would have time to accomplish this. Instead it was decided to utilize the last of Swanson’s data collection methods; organizational records by asking for follow-up information in the interview. This information would be used to “corroborate and expand work behavior protocol” by providing insight into the way the companies categorize and describe the work processes (p. 119). This process was accomplished by asking the individuals for any records they could share about their positions, including job descriptions, examples of work, or company demographics. Information was also gathered by visiting their respective company web-sites. AnalysisIn conducting the interviews it became clear that much of the tasks carried out by the three ID professionals were more system and knowledge based over procedural in nature. Swanson describes the three ways to categorize tasks in an analysis as procedural; system, or knowledge. A procedural task deals with “work performed in a series of steps and substeps” (Swanson, p.164). A systems task tends to deal with considering the bigger picture of a process or series of processes A knowledge task analysis addresses “non-visible work expertise that centers on people-idea and people-people workplace expertise” (p. 218). In reviewing each of the interviewee’s work day activities, it was clear that much of their day focused more on project management task which tend to fall into the system or knowledge area. One challenge of describing the interview goals and asking specific questions was the lack of universal understanding of the terms. Each of the candidates required explanation of the definitions of procedural, system, and knowledge and how they applied. In each case some interpretation was needed to properly analyze their tasks. Ed NolanThe interview with Ed Nolan was conducted over the course of an hour and included much information about how he operates his department. Ed is in charge of the entire training & development function at AAA South. Ed provided a copy of his job description (see Appendix A) which indicated that the majority of his time is spent on oversight and direction. Ed indicated that his responsibilities are changing with the recent merger and expressed some frustration over the lack of clarity on how the outcome of the merger will impact his team and his day to day duties. Ed indicated that he spends very little time on procedural tasks and mainly focuses on systems and knowledge tasks. He mentioned that he rarely does design work now; he is still close to the process while focusing on managing the division and its resources. A typical day for Ed is spent attending meetings and responding to emails. The meetings are mainly individual meeting s with his team listing to updates and reports and approving workflow initiatives. Ed lends his vast ID expertise to the process in these meetings helping to guide the direct reports in their efforts. Ed travels about 40% of the time to other locations meeting with the department heads to ensure that the needs of the business are being met. Ed indicates that much of his job duties may be changing now due to the merger and the impact of combing the departments over time.Susie MoskoThe interview with Susie Mosko was conducted over the course of an hour and focused on both the interview questions and a discussion about the frustrations in carrying out her job responsibilities in her current environment. Much of her time is spent not as her job description details (see Appendix A) but rather in managing the roadblocks put in place by company and stakeholder limitations. Susie’s job description shows the majority of her time spent on leading and directing the ADDIE production of training programs at AAA South. This system of training production actually encompasses two separate systems; the production of online training programs by her staff, and the production of soft skill classroom training programs by herself.Susie manages a team of four ID professionals whose expertise is eLearning. While well versed in online training, Susie indicates that she spends about 40% of her time designing and implementing classroom programs which focus on instill more knowledge based training such as leadership development, coaching for results, and manager candidate training. The expectations from her boss and the company are that both systems are successfully accomplished under Susie’s direct reports are focused on providing more online procedural type training such as software implementation training and specific how-to training. Susie’s frustrations come from having to manage the expectations of her stakeholders, her boss, and her group with a limited amount of time in the day to accomplish everything.When asked how she would divide up her time in terms of procedural, system, and knowledge, Susie indicated that she would say 80% of her time is spent on system and knowledge tasks. The 20% that she considered procedural were tasks such as completing expense reports, filling out standard reports and documenting meetings. The rest of her time, Susie described as deciding which meeting she should go to. Susie described much of her time is spent in meetings with her staff (both individual and as a team) going over the progress of projects and helping trouble shoot issues. These meetings require knowledge of the process of design and expertise to help troubleshoot. As the director for the group she is required to have a working knowledge of the entire online training system which includes not only her department’s learning management system but the IT groups servers and capabilities. Some of the meetings that she attends are with her boss, the Managing Director who she described as a forward thinking leader who wants the group to focus much of their efforts, including Susie’s soft-skill training programs, to be put online for better accessibility. Susie is required to translate this vision into action while understanding that the companies IT resources suffer from limited bandwidth and their own lack of vision. Her ID direct reports often tell her “don’t make me do this” in regards to handing out projects that they know will be limited by the IT constraints. In designing her department projects, Susie admits to utilizing the ADDIE model fairly strictly. Since most of her department’s projects are focused on technical training for in-house systems, almost all of the systems are designed from scratch. Much time is spent in the analysis phase identifying current skill levels and assessing skill levels needed for the software or hardware. Since the processes are internal the analysis focuses on internal workplace expertise verses outside or literature reviews. Often times, the training design is being concurrently with the design of the software so the process may need to revert back to analysis stages when significant changes are made to the systems. While frustrating for the designer, Allen (2006) notes that the ADDIE model allows for the “flexibility that developers need to have to enter or reenter the various stages of the process as necessary” (p. 435). Susie’s own analysis process is more consistent and focuses much of the time on analyzing internal gaps and external review of literature for expertise and possible solutions. She is forced to squeeze this research in when not in meetings. The number of projects for her team and herself continue to grow with the merger and she is struggling to meet the needs of the company in a time where no one wants to say no to a request.Susie described her day as filling up more and more with project management activities. She indicated that the percentage of her time troubleshooting IT issues and managing the expectations of her boss and others has been eating up more of her day with each passing month. She struggles daily to maintain the training program development along with her other growing responsibilities. When asked about preparing someone for this career, she said that she was not sure how to prepare. Most of the people she hired had their Master’s in ID and experience with development at other companies. In order to be able to delegate some of her tasks, she has started to teach her people project management skills to help them better manage themselves. Susan DelpThe interview with Susan Delp was conducted over the phone and lasted 80 minutes. Susan is extremely busy and had to reschedule the meeting finally conducting it interview while in her car driving to a client meeting. Susan’s role of consultant makes her responsibilities different than from Susie or Ed in that she is hired for very specific parts of an overall project. Susan does not have an official job description but did provide a step by step overview of how she interacts with the company she works with and the client. Susan’s percentage of procedural tasks is around 30% with the rest falling in system and knowledge tasks.Susan develops training courses for her client’s Learning & Development group. The company she contract’s for, The VLA Group, are responsible for all the national and global training for their main client KPMG. Most of the courses she develops are taught at Training Universities that are held around the country approximately 5 times a year. The Training Universities are a week long training session that 1 to 2 thousand people attend.When she is on a contract assignment, Susan’s main contact with the client is a Subject Matter Professional (SMP) which she deals with directly on each aspect of the project until completion. Since KPMG is a consulting group themselves, the SMP is the KPMG representative who is in direct contact with their customer and provides all of the information to Susan for the project. Susan is not allowed to have contact with the SMP’s customer so she must interview the SMP for all information in order to complete the process. The SMP is goes to the to the client site and observes the client at work conducting observational task analysis. The SMP then relates all of this back to Susan during their initial stages. Susan must bring herself up to speed on the client’s customer’s process quickly and integrate that information into the design process.Susan indicated that she follows the ADDIE model closely for her development. Since she is working for a client that has provided the specifications of the need, much of the analysis process has already been conducted. Susan focuses on gathering information about the client’s customer in order to inform the design and development stages. All of this information is collected into a master training design document. This document is a 60 page overview of the entire training scope of work and the expected outcomes that is created and agreed upon before moving to the development stages. Susan indicates that rarely is involved in the implementation and evaluation stages A typical day for Susan starts with conference calls which include status updates with both the agency and the client. She indicated that the Subject Matter Professional (SMP) that she deals with has recently turned over and the new SMP is not very trusting. This means that she spends twice as much time on the phone verifying progress and explaining decisions that she has made in the design process. When she is in the initial stages of the analysis process, she spends a great deal of her time on the phone interviewing the SMP about the process since she is not allowed into the natural environment of the client. Another part of Susan’s day is spent planning out the project. Each project is allocated around six months to completion of her portion. In that time she must coordinate her interviews, reports and the large training design document which needs approval to proceed with the rest of the process. This training design document can take up to two weeks to complete and requires much knowledge of the client and the ID process. While much of this document creation collaboration is conducted on the phone or through email, Susan must travel at times to the SMP location to interview them or check in.While a good amount of time is spent on the analysis and design stages, Susan indicated that the development of the program takes the bulk of her time which can be difficult with multiple programs being worked on at the same time. Since much of her day is conference calls or interviews, it can be difficult to find time to actually develop a class. Changes in schedules or interrupting calls can detract from these activities which involve marrying her ID expertise with the client demands and deadlines.While Susan does not have a degree in Instructional Design, she indicated that much of what she knows about the ADDIE process she learned from her mentors and from doing herself. She credits her project management skills for keeping her on schedule and admits that some days she spends more time tending to the needs of the SMP than on actually designing and developing, especially if the SMP and she have never worked together before. ConclusionsWhile the two main interviewees are very different in their education and responsibilities both are tasked in their jobs with managing the ADDIE process for training projects while constrained with limitations on their time brought on by trying to manage the other factors in the project. Increasingly, it seems that project management skills are necessary for ID professionals to not only plan out their actual projects but also to manage the external forces that impact their work time. The current job description for Susie Mosko’s position indicates a minimum of a Master’s degree in educational psychology, organizational development or instructional design preferred. While these programs tend to be disciplined under the Psychology or Education departments, Williams van Rooj (2007) indicates that project management “beyond the processes provided by instructional design models, is not a good fit with the values, beliefs and shared assumptions of the discipline (and sub-disciplines) of Education prevalent in the U.S.” (p.156).Susie indicated that they would not consider someone straight out of graduate school because of they would be missing the ‘education’ they receive by working in the field for a few years. This ‘education’ included the project management skills and also the interpersonal and team aspects that are often missing in new graduates. A study by Larson and Lockee (2007) indicates the potential value of “alumni follow-up, employer canvassing, and practitioner surveys to identify the job demands of a corporate environment and to develop educational practices that aligns with those demands” (p.21).For individuals looking to be successful in the ID field they may want to supplement their education with Project Management classes as their discovery that the realities of the day-to-day tasks are filled with much more than simply designing and developing training programs. ReferencesAinsworth, A.. (2009). A task analysis of the task analysis process. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 53: 1835-1838.Larson, M. & Lockee, B.. (2007). Preparing instructional designers for different career environments: A case study. Education Tech Research Dev, 57, 1-24.Layng, J.. (1997). "Parallels between project management and instructional design". Performance improvement. International Society for Performance Improvement, 36(6),?p. 16.Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., & Kemp, J. E. (2007). Designing effective instruction. (5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: J. Wiley.Swanson, R. (2007). “Analysis for improving performance: Tools for diagnosing and documenting workplace expertise.” (2nd Ed.) San Francisco, CA, Berrett-Koehler. Williams van Rooij, S. (2011). “Instructional design and project management: complementary or divergent?”. Education Tech Research Dev, 59, 139–158.Appendix A – Position Responsibilities% of Time SpentEd Nolan Position Responsibilities20Responsible for developing and achieving an overall organizational learning and development strategy which supports the Club’s business plans, aligns with the corporate strategy, corporate culture and Human Resources strategy and practices.20Works with business unit leaders to conduct learning and development needs analysis and define strategic learning & development goals. Translates those goals into clear development objectives and tactics, including the identification of specific skill sets and training needs, particularly as it relates to multi-incumbent positions.20Identifies, designs and implements leadership development architecture to develop all leaders and to secure a pipeline of future company leaders.15Motivates staff of Training and OD professionals and monitors and evaluates staff performance and development initiatives.10Develops and tracks key metrics to evaluate learning and development effectiveness, as measured against business goals. 10Develops and implements databases to track learning and developmental data. Researches and implements innovative learning delivery approaches and establishes standards for implementation.5Perform other duties as necessary.100%Total% of Time SpentSusie Mosko Position Responsibilities60%Lead and direct the design, development, implementation and evaluation of training programs and learning activities using a variety of media.25%Analyze business objectives against employee and leader knowledge and skills needs.10%Provide leadership to staff5%Performs other duties as necessary.100%Total ................
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