Shipshape

Training is an essential part of any business, but particularly so in the fast-moving world of IT. However, to get any real value out of it, a more carefully thought-out approach is necessary.

If the man on the Clapham omnibus described someone as competent,o in the fast-moving world of IT. However, to get any real value out of it, a more carefully thought-out approach is necessary. he'd be talking about a bit of a plodder, someone perfectly adequate at the task in hand but certainly not a high-flier. For Anthony Craig, however, there is no higher praise than bestowed competence, and no grail holier than its measurement and progress.

The putative gentleman from SW4 might claim that being knowledgeable is a higher state than merely competent. To call someone knowledgeable has no damning connotations, and knowledge itself has superseded data as the commodity which today's high-tech companies profess to deal in.

This view was presumably shared by a group of ex-Digital staffers, who set up a training company two years ago and christened it the Global Knowledge Network. The company now claims to be the world's largest independent IT training company. Anthony Craig, however, implies that the name is already out of date, which is unfortunate given he is the company's president and chief executive, but we will let that pass.

To Craig, knowledge is just the hop in a triple jump which leads to effective use of technology within a business. Universities, he scoffs, are full of knowledge, but what did they ever do for us (well there's the discovery of penicillin ... and nuclear fission ... the single-cell battery ... oh, and Unix - but apart from these)?

The skip and the jump in Craig's triple jump are capability - or, if you prefer, skill - and competence. A keen private pilot, he explains the difference thus: 'The knowledge of how you fly a plane can be learned from a book in an hour or two. But that doesn't put you behind a stick.

The skill or capability to fly a plane can be acquired in 25 hours, at the end of which you can probably fly your first solo.

'But you're not a safe pilot because you're not competent. It takes a further 50 hours to become competent, to learn what to do if the engine fails, the wings ice up, or your map blows out of the window (it happened to me once).'

Competence, in other words, means people's ability to apply the knowledge and skills they have acquired and use them to do something productive for the business which employs them. People can acquire a lot of these skills and knowledge through training. But training is only a means to an end - what manufacturing businesses call an input. The important thing for companies to take into account is the output, i.e. when the person actually does their job.

The failure to realise this accounts for much of the dissatisfaction felt by businesses over IT training, argues Craig. 'Companies spend lots of money on training and end up frustrated because they can't measure what they get for it.' According to Craig, this is because they only look at the input (training) and not the output (the resulting competence in getting the job done).

Craig's solution is to begin by looking at what the business wants to achieve through training - what it wants its people to be capable of doing, or what return it wants from their efforts. This will sound obvious to any systems analyst since this is precisely how you start when specifying a computer system. But, apparently, it comes as a revelation to Craig's blue chip clients.

'You can define the set of skills you need to develop a system and you can count the people and see what you've got to start with,' he says.

'You then make a map from one to the other and manage a process that gives an assured outcome. That's a new thing. It's amazing. People say we never had the tools to count the competencies.'

The process begins with a study on training requirements, answering questions such as what software the business is trying to deploy, how many people will have to use it, where they are, or what skills they already have.

Having defined where the business wants to go, the Global Knowledge Network method is to record the attributes in a database - counting the jobs and functions, determining what capabilities and skills must be applied where and so on.

This process will have identified the outputs (the skills and competencies required), so the next stage is to determine the inputs (the training necessary to teach these skills and competencies). This involves interviewing the staff and finding out what they already know. Just as the various jobs' attributes were defined and recorded, individual attributes receive the same treatment and are logged in a database. These may be users or technical staff or both, as appropriate.

If these two processes are done thoroughly, it should be possible to compare each staff member's skills and capabilities with the ideal that has been defined for their job. Then a programme can be devised to take them to the desired end - a kind of prescription unique to the individual.

For some, it could require no more than a self study CD-Rom to brush up their skills. For others, a long training programme might be required.

This is preferable to what Craig calls the sheep-dip method of training.

He explains: 'Some businesses say, "we've got a pre-defined notion of what everybody has to know, so we're going to use a sheep-dip to get everybody to come out the same way". That probably won't work, because by the time you've put them through it, the technology will have moved on and so will have your competitors.'

The key thing, says Craig, is to look at people's competencies, not just their skills. 'Someone might know what a function in a wordprocessor or a spreadsheet does, so they pass the skills test,' he says. 'But they don't actually know how to apply it to a business problem. When you do a competencies check, you can deal with the attributes of the skill - how is it applied, how is it generated, how to determine if it is actually there, how to improve it?'

The trap into which many businesses fall is to view training in terms of products instead of competencies. This, says Craig, is partly the fault of the IT suppliers themselves, who deliberately equate training with products as a means of selling more products.

Big software companies say they can pump out new technology faster than people can take it in, the biggest brake on sales being the inability of people to understand and implement it.

According to these companies, therefore, the greater the number of Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCPs), Certified NetWare Engineers and people with similar qualifications who are available for hire, the more software will be sold. This is essentially the same as having doctors' qualifications provided by the companies which sell x-ray machines or scalpels rather than by product-neutral universities and teaching hospitals.

Many businesses get sucked in without realising it. Often, chief information officers will put in NT, and then ask where they can find NT classes. 'Then they send some people off for NT training, whether they need it or not,' says Craig. Invariably, some of the people on the course will be wasting a large percentage of their time because they already know a good proportion of it. The employer is then effectively over-paying.

Some find it's not relevant to their job. Some say: "This is neat, I can become an MCP, hike my salary, and maybe go and get a job somewhere else."

'If you go into Microsoft's Web site and look at the MCP magazine, there is a very interesting article about how you can hike your salary and your job mobility. Now that's not what your employer had in mind when he/she sent you on the course.'

Craig's solution to the problem of expensively trained staff who develop itchy feet is to ensure that they only fit the boots provided by their current employer. 'Customers realise there aren't enough people, and as soon as they train them they have fed them to the job market.'

'One of the ways to prevent this is to design training programmes which are geared to the enterprise's purpose, not to the vendor's purpose, so they fail to enhance mobility. Employers can say to staff: "If you learn enough about, say, Microsoft to do your job in my enterprise, that's fine.

But I'm not going to pay for you to get an MCP qualification, because I don't need you to be one".'

Another part of the solution can be to run tailored courses in-house.

'Then after training, employees will know not only about the technology, but also something about the business processes the company is going to apply it to,' says Craig. 'So you can enhance employees' careers in the company, but avoid doing things that enhance their mobility.'

Instead of a vanilla qualification like an HND, a higher national diploma, or a product certification like an MCP, some big corporations are starting to create their own qualifications and certification programmes which will match their own needs better while being less saleable in the market.

Craig concedes though that many employees will smell a rat. 'So you have to look at the total compensation, made up partly of pay, benefits, the work environment, who you work with, how you are treated, the values of the company, and the appeal to the inner self of the person,' he says.

(It all starts sounding a bit Zen at this point, but we catch his drift).

There can also be resistance to the competence checking process itself.

'It often starts with the company's internal training department, because you are basically replacing a function which that department is supposed to be doing,' says Craig.

'But you don't find much resistance when you talk to the top human resources person or the chief information officer or chief executive because they are the ones who are funding the training department in the first place.

And the individual staff tend to be pretty honest about what they do and what they don't know because they want to learn more. They know IT moves pretty fast, and if you don't refresh yourself you get left behind.'

It is a lesson which their employers must learn as well, especially in high-tech businesses, including PC dealers and resellers.

Craig says: 'If you don't manage your intellectual capital well in today's competitive enterprise, you are going to lose to the guy who does,' he says. 'And nowhere is this more true than in the software and service companies because your assets have feet, and they can walk out the door.'