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Best Practices at Worker Fingertips (Part 1)

December 27, 2001

How can project workers maximize output when they do not have all the inputs they need? What if the resources exist, but cannot be accessed efficiently? Doesn't this lead to wasted time and money? Sure it does, but solving the problem may appear a little difficult at first.

Many companies are finding that their corporate intranets can provide workers with easy access to important resources. We're not just talking about human resources policies here, we're talking about really useful information. These companies are using their intranets to centrally house "job aids" such as templates, guidance documents, examples, lesson learned reports, training, tutorials and other productivity-improving resources. Such a job-aid repository is a fast way to bring about return on investment. Compared to paper formats, online job aids can be easier to access, easier to update across the enterprise and easier to target to the user.

Here's a cautionary note, though. Just having such a repository does not automatically increase performance. I once had access to an impressive repository that was so massive and complex to navigate that I had to hire Sherpa guides before attempting access.

How do you create a repository with excellent usability and maximum value? The key is how much context the repository provides the worker. Users should be provided descriptions for their own project duties, while related downloads of templates, etc. are made available in corresponding locations.

Here are a couple examples that show how a context-rich job aid repository should work.

• Example 1: New Business Analyst, New Project
  A newly hired, inexperienced business analyst goes to the job aid repository and looks for her role name. She selects "Business Analyst" and then sees a page describing expectations of her role in each of the stages of a project. She accesses the area documenting general requirements early in the project. There is best practice how-to information and descriptions of how her duties are interdependent with others in the project. After reading this information, she downloads templates and other useful deliverable examples to make sure the quality of her work is high.
• Example 2: Team Leads and Subject Matter Expertise
  A team lead is new to the type of project to which he has currently been assigned, but he is well-rated as a team lead in the company. He accesses the repository under his role name and project stage. He then immediately finds a link to guides created by corporate subject matter experts on this type of project. He takes a short time to brief himself with the customized lessons learned and confidently begins his work. The repository also provides him with potential advisors to contact in the future.

Wouldn't you love to give your project workers access to something like this? You have the power to get one started.

Quick Guide: Establishing an Intranet Repository

• Support actions to establish such a repository, perhaps using existing resources. Utilize HTML, Lotus Notes or another platform that allows easy presentation of online context. Depending on your role in the organization, you may have the power to lead this effort yourself.
• Organize repositories by role (programmers, testers, analysts, team leads, etc.). Anything else becomes unwieldy and reduces the amount of time saved by users.
• Add content and context to the repositories, keeping in mind the needs of employee supervisors. Making their job easier makes your job easier.
• Design repositories, keeping in mind that they should minimize the amount of formal classroom training needed to get a team or worker properly prepared.
• Populate the repository quickly by locating existing resources in other departments and in the hands of experienced experts.
• Motivate experts to give up their precious intellectual capital through multiple methods of positive reinforcement. Also, make it a part of good performance evaluations to provide information to the repository.
• Spend initial efforts describing duties that are the most likely mishandled--ones causing budget overages, schedule overruns and/or quality inadequacies. This will produce larger financial returns and improved performance at a faster rate.
• Assign owner(s) to ensure material is updated.

There is a lot to building a context-sensitive job aid repository, but the benefits in reduced classroom training, faster mobilization of the project team, better quality faster and more consistently will make it worthwhile to take the leap.

In Part 2, we will look at common problems with existing repositories and what to do if your repository leaves a little to be desired.

What would you recommend be put into such a repository to improve worker performance? What has not worked for you? Let's talk in the Workforce Management discussion area.