October 13th, 2011, 5:15 pm
written by Dr. Paul Elliott, President – Exemplary Performance
Over twenty-five years ago I was a young consultant with a PhD in instructional design and computer-assisted instruction [that’s what e-learning was called in pre-historic times]. I was engaged by the largest manufacturing company in the world to explore how to up-skill their workforce to address new manufacturing technologies such as robotics, laser welding, etc. We started the project by benchmarking current best practices in technical training and visited many sites, including the Johnson Space Flight Center. One of the ‘visits’ was to attend the Job Aids Workshop, affectionately known as JAWS, being offered by Dr. Joe Harless. Those two days changed my life forever! I suddenly realized that the human brain was not always the best place to store information, especially if the information was complex, used infrequently, had ‘high consequence of error’ and was often changed or updated. I also learned that ‘doing things’ [tasks] didn’t matter if no accomplishments resulted. Dr. Harless continued to shape my thinking in dramatic ways. His approach to curriculum design and development, the Accomplishment-Based Curriculum Development system, facilitated ‘lean learning’ and what I now refer to as context-intensive design. Using this approach typically reduces time to competence by 20% to 30% or more. I am so excited to have these workshops available. Has Dr. Harless shaped your way of thinking? Tell us about it.
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Many of my friends know how strongly I feel about the quality of the Harless methodology. Harless teaches powerful evidence-base techniques that few even know about, much less know how to apply.
I personally felt that it was a black day for the field of performance technology when Saba pulled the Harless workshops from the open market. I was saddened by the thought that many of my uninitiated friends would not have the opportunity to experience what I had experienced because of Harless—enlightenment… and more.
To paraphrase M. Adler, many workshops inform (teach that something is the case) . Others enlighten (inform plus teach what it is all about, why it is the case, what its connections are with other facts, in what respects it is the same [generalize] or different [discriminate], and so on). A very few do all that AND graduate accomplished performers, able to apply what they’ve learned to a wide variety of real world situations as if they were seasoned experts—which is what Harless workshops do.
This is truly a day for serious performance consultants to rejoice. Paul is going to teach these workshops to his clients. We can only hope that he will someday make them open to the public (a side note to Paul: Sooner is better that later!)
If you are fortunate to be working for a large company (one that can afford it) and would like to know more about these workshops, let me know. I’d be happy to show you the materials and tell you of my experience learning, teaching, and applying them.
The ABCD process/methodology works! It allows clarity and simplicity to any ultra-complex project and profound results. Great news, Paul!
Joe Harless’ methodology, simplest in its pure form, has been reprocessed until it is unrecognizable. Kudos to Dr. Elliott for enabling some fortunate few to access the original work. For an organization that needs its workforces to “take a leap”, this is a great first step.
Joe amazing toolkits and workshops influenced my work in a number of ways, including, but not limited to his:
- shift to accomplishments (work outputs) over behavior
- distinctions between job aids and training-to-recall, and
- systematic, evidence-based approaches to learning and performance.