cdu – school of information technology hit342 lecture 11 - slide 1 enterprise it management...

CDU – School of Information TechnologyHIT342

Lecture 11 - Slide 1

Enterprise IT Management

Managing Human Capital Introduction. Definitions. Organizational learning. Human capital

management. Resource management. Workforce planning. Effective recruitment. Workload management. Competencies.

IT Training Market. The Internet changes

everything. eLearning. Educating the Customer. Educating the Partners. Implementing eLearning. Selection of training

providers. Team training. Conclusion.



Managing Human Capital Introduction

Training and education services for IT staff on the products and technologies implemented in their environment are a key factor to the effectiveness and productivity of companies' business applications.

The success of business applications depends on a triad of software and hardware IT products, support services and training.

Buying patterns and preferences of end-user customers are critical to the long-term success of technology vendors and independent training companies selling these services.




A large opportunity for training providers exists in the market for training on applications. Sixty-three percent of all training delivered to organizations from external providers is applications-related. This includes training for desktop applications, workgroup applications and data centre-based applications.

Training providers that develop application-centric training should seize this opportunity to create course offerings delivered by Internet-based means, which are under-utilized. Employee preferences for learning are shifting to more technology-based means.




Training providers that want to capitalize on the benefits of Internet-delivered training must provide incentives to organizations & the student population.

The classical means of delivery, such as classroom-based instruction, are still the most used. Training providers can leverage Internet-based training by marketing the availability & ensuring the ease of use and effectiveness of this delivery means. Training providers can increase the visibility of Internet-based training by providing sample product tutorial either in the product or on the product Web site with links to full-blown Internet-based product training.



Managing Human Capital Definitions

Resource management is a strategy, process and role that maps enterprise demand for IT to enterprise supply of services, people, skills and competencies. It forms the linchpin between upstream demand and downstream supply, and helps enterprises identify and allocate resources, teams and competencies to services and projects.




Competencies are individual and organizational traits and characteristics that predict superior performance. Competencies do not equate to skills, which tend to be demonstrable and delivered through training. Rather, they represent a unique synthesis of knowledge, experience, learning, proficiency, skills and behaviours.

Traditionally, IS organizations have focused on technical skills. Demand for business agility requires that they broaden their portfolio to include business, technology and behavioural competencies.




Leadership represents the role and the quality of setting and conveying mission, purpose and change.

In an organization designed for agility, leadership focuses less on command and control and more on coaching, influence, persuasion and empowerment, often among people and partners who are geographically separated.



Managing Human Capital Organizational Learning

Accelerating Development and Learning - any business worthy of a good reputation knows that development and learning feed human capital, which feeds intellectual stimulation, which feeds business innovation.

As business speed and scope change, the workforce must keep its intellectual toolbox in sync with where the business, market and careers are headed.



Managing Human Capital Organizational Learning

To accelerate organizational learning and development, businesses can use competency management tools to identify, assess and forecast key bases of knowledge and competencies. In so doing, they essentially create a road map that helps people see how they fare in certain competency classes, what they need to learn for their roles and what kind of experiences they should pursue.

From a business perspective, competency tools help leaders and managers identify and fill gaps between what they have and what they need.



Managing Human Capital Human Capital Management

Human Capital Management (HCM) is the broadest of these terms. HCM is the overall management of people as key resources of the enterprise and includes three focus areas:

Workforce acquisition.

Workforce management.

Workforce optimization.

HCM is enterprise-wide in scope and reach. Therefore, every employee, manager and business unit plays a role in effective HCM.



Managing Human Capital Resource Management

As business becomes knowledge-intensive, choosing the right people at the right time for the right reasons increases in importance. Resource management is a powerful platform for achieving that coordination.

Simply put, resource management maps the business need for IT to fulfilment through people, service providers and other parties. At its broadest, it embraces external scanning, business sensing, business and technology strategies, relationship management, skill management, knowledge management, reassignment, career paths, recruitment, external sourcing and learning programs.




Resource management has several benefits.

1. It coordinates opportunities as projects accelerate and people seek new assignments and learning, thus helping enterprises compete for talent.

2. It detects knowledge gaps and bottlenecks, thus creating a tool for assessing and mitigating risk.

3. Finally, it provides organizational intelligence to map ventures and projects on the demand side to people, assignments and external sources on the supply side.




Numerous barriers to effective resource management exist, including:

Uncontrolled, un-prioritised demand flowing into the IS organization from multiple, unmonitored sources.

Weak governance, architecture & leadership that fails to define the business value to be delivered.

“Buddy systems” that allow project leaders to pick their favourite people for project teams.

The absence of immediate or tangible benefits from workforce planning.

Human resource organizations that do not take on the challenge of true human capital management.




The role of the CIO in resource management includes:

Invest in resource management as a continuing process, not as a project or a one-time event.

Expect the process to forward plan 12 to 24 months for upstream demand and downstream supply.

Define resource management as the primary filter through which requests for new hiring, roles, assignments, knowledge & competencies must flow.

Protect the resource management process through governance, funding, maintenance and staffing.



Managing Human Capital Workforce Planning

Workforce planning provides a decision making framework for preparing people for the right role at the right time for the right reasons. It is the core of effective workforce sourcing, development & recruitment decisions.

Workforce planning identifies business drivers, articulates the role of IT & the organization, defines principles for using internal vs. external resources, & identifies required competencies. Workforce planning calls for well informed forecasts of organizational competencies, knowledge and skills, & sets the framework for learning programs, training & development.



Managing Human Capital Workforce Planning

The role of the CIO in workforce planning includes:

Identify the organizational purpose, competencies, pivotal roles & knowledge of the IS organization for today & the future.

Analyse the benefits, risks & spending patterns associated with developing pivotal roles & competencies internally or filling them externally.

Gauge the state of workforce planning by monitoring how frequently the IS organization must respond to surprises & to urgent requests.



Managing Human Capital Effective Recruitment

Businesses need two to four months to fill many critical IT positions, even in a favourable hiring climate. Many businesses lament the difficulty of finding qualified staff, but the problem often is not the finding of talent, but rather businesses’ outdated employment processes, practices and assumptions.

For example, is recruitment tethered to manual processes? How many approvals are required, and why? Can current staff members move quickly into new and open positions? Is compensation reasonable and appropriate?



Managing Human Capital Effective Recruitment The role of the CIO in recruitment includes:

Assume that the current recruitment approach will fall short of what's needed in a changing market.

Define the core competencies that the IS organization must provide, & make them the focus for recruitment.

Define which processes are linked to high-speed recruitment, including skill & knowledge forecasting, backfill, resource management, HR relationship management & sharing resources.

Take stock of the organization's appeal. Identify the programs that can increase the appeal of the business.



Managing Human Capital Workload Management

Once IT professionals accept a position and come on board, the real test begins for managers.

Sadly, many businesses are so accustomed to trimmed budgets and understaffing that they are resigned to doing little to manage or recalibrate workloads.

CIOs must be prepared to step back and redesign workloads using such instruments as service-level agreements, charge-back schemes, enterprise architecture, and selective consolidation and centralization of IT functions.



Managing Human Capital Workload Management

The role of the CIO in workload management includes:

Redefine work expectations by setting reasonable (while aggressive) work demands, providing scheduling flexibility and instituting sane work hours.

Anticipate worker backlash when people work long hours without fair compensation or without seeing a reasonable end.

Pursue flexible assignment and deployment of people.

Design teams to harness cross-functional disciplines and increase organizational learning.



Managing Human Capital Competencies

A competency is a characteristic/set of characteristics that differentiate superior performance in a job or role. Top performers do not do more of the same things, they do different things more often, more thoroughly & in a wider variety of situations. Competency definition is the foundation of a high performance culture.

Individual competencies help people perform their roles more effectively, more productively and with consistently high performance.

Organizational competencies, which set the tone for the organization, help CIOs & IT leaders determine what they should excel in, what they should take on and what they should shed.



Managing Human Capital Competencies

Dynamic business environments need people who can anticipate and understand the value of all members of the IT service-delivery value chain: vendors, service providers, employees, contractors and other parties.

CIOs, process leaders and IT managers all must raise the bar of leadership: They must support distributed decision making, equip their people to make decisions with higher levels of risk, and build a diverse and versatile workforce. Moreover, they must identify active leaders who have not only the drive, but also the business, industry and process insight to galvanize high performance around them. In this environment behavioural competencies are very important.



Managing Human Capital IT Training Market

The IT education and training services market has been a mature and fragmented but relatively stable market for many years now, with little innovation. It has neither been fast moving nor quickly changing. The two major segments for many decades have been instructor-led training (ILT) and computer-based training (CBT).

The main change has been in content where there is always a “hot” technology that everyone wants and needs to learn. For example current “hot” technologies include Cisco, business-to-business (B2B) marketplace software, web services, and wireless networking.



Managing Human Capital IT Training Market

Partnering is an alternative, often quicker, way to obtain capabilities that are missing from an organization. It allows companies to go to market faster — especially when targeting new channels of distribution.

Current trends include partnering with universities and colleges as a channel for services and creating corporate universities for companies in an outsourcing deal.

The key factor limiting the efficiency and flexibility of ILT and CBT is the physical location of the educational content — the location of the instructor in the former case and the location of the computer software in the latter.



Managing Human Capital The Internet Changes Everything

As with most businesses, Internet technology & access greatly changes the dynamics of IT education & training services businesses.

The physical delivery has been separated from the intangible information content &, therefore, location &, in some cases, time are not factors in delivering service. Consequently, instructors can teach to more students over the Internet (eLearning) than when physically limited to the number of seats in a classroom, & training software can be accessed at anytime the user chooses from anywhere there is a telephone connection & an Internet-enabled device.



Managing Human Capital eLearning

The battle for "mind share" to maintain and enhance customer relationships is an ongoing dilemma for businesses. Customers and partners are constantly searching for knowledge about products and services. However, businesses must often weigh how much money to invest in advertising and marketing programs for customers and partners, compared to training for associates who deal directly with customers.

eLearning is a simple way to enhance the knowledge of employees, customers and partners.




eLearning (or Internet-based learning) can be used to provide the training & development of specific skills or expertise for work, & builds workforce competencies & expertise for personal, workforce & organizational development. eLearning should enable the individual to select the time & place of learning activities; & combine stand-alone courses, curricula design & the ability for employees to access a relevant learning "morsel" just-in-time during their other work.




eLearning training providers need to market their offerings based on the attributes of quality, richness and cost, and in such a way as to promote the virtues of instructor-led e-learning.

Quality and richness can be enhanced by the expanded media capabilities of Internet technologies. Leveraging the elimination of travel costs and the potential for larger class size can enhance cost of training. Physical classroom size and geographic locations do not restrict eLearning courses. Internet technologies (such as instant messaging) make it possible to manage larger numbers of students.



Managing Human Capital Educating the Customer

The primary reasons for using eLearning with customers are: 1) increasing sales value (for example, services) and 2) building loyalty after the sale.

In business-to-business and business-to-consumer scenarios, customers are exercising more due diligence prior to making a purchase. Surfing a vendor's Web site has become a popular way of gathering information; however, customers often want more than specification sheets. This is where creative enterprises have begun to add information about products and services to help educate the prospective buyer.



Managing Human Capital Educating the Partners

Educating partners is often a critical part of a product launch and is as important as training your own salespeople. Partner education has often followed the same process as that of sales: the focus was on classroom-led instruction. eLearning has changed that by allowing online instruction via virtual classrooms and self-paced courses followed by certification exams. After passing an exam, the individual is authorized to sell the new product covered in that eLearning course.

Cisco's Partner Education Network uses eLearning almost exclusively to train its vast network of partners. This is due to the large number of partners it has and to the high number of product updates it releases each year.



Managing Human Capital Implementing eLearning

Businesses should leverage eLearning internally first (especially for sales and customer support), and then build the capabilities and capacity to extend it externally, where there is clear value.

Learning content management systems can allow internally focused content to be repackaged with a minimal amount of rework. However, for those who are new to eLearning content, it is better to have an outsourcer help with the initial customization work, while organizing an eLearning-focused content development team. Web design specialists are good to use as outsourcers for customizing content.



Managing Human Capital Selection of Training Providers

The top three criteria for selecting external IT training companies are related to recommendations of peers, personal experience or the reputation of the company. Least important are recommendations from vendors or the ability for the student to acquire certification.

Training providers need marketing and awareness campaigns that influence potential customers along these factors. However, since recommendations by word-of-mouth, actual experience and an established track record, these preferences may be significant barriers for new companies that do not have an established record of performance. Reference accounts and customer success stories are a way to build the requisite track record.



Managing Human Capital Selection of Training Providers

The key attributes in selecting an eLearning training provider are as follows:

Quality of learning experience (quality and technical accuracy of written and graphic materials).

Richness of learning experience (use of multimedia documents and communications media)

Cost of e-learning courses.

The overall training experience is the most important attribute.



Managing Human Capital Team Teaching

Managers should focus training on two goals:

1. Instill into team members the principles and techniques for effective virtual work practices.

2. Ensure that contract employees are fully indoctrinated on the critical issue of knowledge transfer, whereby specific aspects of service deliverables, technologies and other unique information are systematically transferred to the external service provider partner organization.



Managing Human Capital Team Teaching

Internal and external team members should attend joint online training sessions that focus on topics such as:

Interpersonal skills Planning Working across international boundaries Process skills Negotiating and dispute-resolution skills Knowledge-transfer processes

Team leaders should receive leadership-development training that covers issues of cultural and language differences, and coordinating work across time zones.



Managing Human Capital Conclusion

Businesses need to be able to:

Identify key employees and their competencies and knowledge — invest in their optimal work assignments, education and well being.

Acknowledge the prevalence and value of collaborative work — redesign work assignments, work processes, performance measures and rewards to align with work changes.

Assess employee values and their work/life needs — evaluate the disparities between enterprise practices and employee values and needs.

cdu – school of information technology hit342 lecture 11 - slide 1 enterprise it management...

Documents

internetbased training

training market

team training

independent training

applicationcentric training

human capital management

technologybased means

internetbased means