Blog

The end of each year provides an opportunity for reflection on the past and preparation for the future. 2009 was quite a year – filled with new challenges and opportunities. But through it all, lessons were learned as people began to navigate through a changed business environment. In our series of Blogs “2009 Reflections,” we will be sharing interviews with Five Star team members who tell what they learned in 2009 and what they are preparing for in 2010.

In this blog post we will be sharing our recent interview with Rick Wagner.

Rick Wagner
Director, Client Services

What has ’09 taught you?
’09 has taught me that we are still finding new ways to apply technology to improve training and performance support. Advancements in video, social media, and online help systems have increased the opportunities to provide employees with the information they need in the format that works best for them.

What is the one big lesson that you learned this year?
In tough economic times the importance of strong relationships with clients, internal teams, and partners becomes that much more vital. The challenge of being even more efficient and finding new ways to achieve our clients’ goals has been hard work, but it has also been very rewarding.

What is your biggest personal accomplishment?
On a personal level, I am very excited that my youngest is now potty trained. Eleven years and four children later, there is no more diaper changing in the Wagner house!

Another big accomplishment was the development of an eCommerce site for the Western Pennsylvania Habitat for Humanity’s largest fundraiser. Five Star helped the Habitat for Humanity raise over $60,000!

What do you believe is Five Star’s biggest accomplishment this year?
From a Client Services standpoint; we were able to add new clients locally and nationally in a tough economic climate.

How are you going to transfer what you learned in 2009 to 2010?
I think 2009 challenged us to really be creative and to do more with less. I hope to continue to challenge myself, our internal team, and our clients to find new and better ways to solve problems. I am very optimistic about 2010!

What do you hope to learn in 2010?
I would like to explore tangible ways to help people perform better at their job and share information with others using social media and other technologies. I think we have only scratched the surface of applying these strategies to workplace performance.

Final thoughts
Is it really 2010 already?

Below is video from our recent webinar on “6 Best Practices for Gaining End-user Adoption of New Technology.” In this video Dave Colaizzi discusses the value of change management, change communications, training, and performance support in gaining end-user adoption of new technology.

Below is video from our recent webinar on “6 Best Practices for Gaining End-user Adoption of New Technology.” In this video Dave Colaizzi discusses strategies for setting clear expectations and measuring success in the process of rolling out new technology.

The adoption of new software or technology may be difficult, especially when end-user expectations surrounding it are high or left unmet. How can those designing and implementing new software and technology best bridge the gap between the reality of what the software can/will do and end-user wants, needs, and expectations?

The road to linking reality to end-user expectations begins with a systematic assessment of needs and the documentation of software requirements. In this blog post, we will discuss three techniques that we have employed to help our clients understand end-user needs and identify requirements:

• Exploration meetings with stakeholders and targeted end-users.
  Focused meetings to observe, ask questions, and listen to your key stakeholders about what they like or dislike about performing a task or process.
• Assessment of the intended deployment environment.
  Asking questions about how the software or technology will be used and where it will be hosted is critical to gaining a clear picture of future limitations and requirements. For example, ask questions like:
  • Who will help the user when they run into a usability issue?
  • What are the corporate standards and guidelines?
  • What is the culture of the target audience?
  • What applications have had successes with the target audience in the past?
  • What features do target users look for and like in other applications?
  • How will the software or application modify the process of executing work?
  • Are there bandwidth limitations?
  • Can custom programs be installed on user computers?
  • Is support for certain software platforms required or prohibited?
• Use Cases, mockups, and prototypes.
  • A Use Case is one of the most helpful methods of exposing functional requirements. But one word of caution: as you build them be sure to exclude technical jargon and the inner workings of the software.
  • A Mockup, or a rough visual layout of the user interface, enables end-users to experience the software or application before it is completely developed. By gathering feedback, it is possible to assess how the software is able to meet, or fail to meet, end-user expectations. Also, end-users can reveal their stylistic preferences that may be difficult to capture otherwise. Below is an example of a mock-up created by one of our developers using Microsoft’s newest tool, Expression Blend™.

• Lastly, Prototypes, either partially or fully functional, can be very helpful in determining usability. A prototype will give you an accurate depiction of how well end-users believe the program will meet their objectives. You can incorporate their feedback into future iterations of the software before the program is fully built.

These three techniques are some of the many that can be employed in order to best bridge the gap between the reality of what the software can/will do and end-user wants, needs, and expectations. By taking the time to listen and educate your stakeholders and end-users, the likelihood of a successful integration of new software or technology will greatly increase.

Leaders desire to build and people want to work in high-performance organizations, because high-performance organizations execute strategy to achieve measurable results. However, research shows that only 15% of organizations can be classified as high performance.  Yet, the good news is that all organizations have the potential for high performance. The question is, how can that potential be realized?

So, what is the relationship between strategy execution and high performance? The optimization and integration of each of the Five Key Drivers of High Performance™ is essential to achieving and sustaining high-performance organization that execute strategy. As leaders and workforces embark on the journey of creating a high-performance organization, a strategy to optimize and integrate each of the Five Key Drivers must be in place. This strategy must define the long-term direction, priorities, and goals of an organization. During the process of defining the strategy, leaders must evaluate their organizational move through the lens of the Five Key Drivers, which provides the framework for enabling organizations to execute against their business strategy.

Successful execution of a well-defined business strategy, one that is framed around the optimization and integration of the Five Key Drivers, leads to high performance.

Is your organization executing the kind of strategy that leads to high performance?