HPT Personal Inventory
My current definition of Human Performance Technology (HPT) is similar to how I defined it in week 1. HPT is a broad field that analyzes overall performance of an organization from a macro to micro level. The models in HPT bring in pieces from other disciplines, such as Human Resources, Instructional Design, Organizational Psychology, and Process Design. By understanding how all of the pieces work together, someone implementing HPT can diagnose root causes of poor performance and suggest the most appropriate solutions to improve those issues.
In this course, I gained a greater understanding of looking at the big picture. So often, we can get excited about creating a training or learning experience and using that to solve the problem at hand that we don’t look up to make sure that training is the best solution. Oftentimes, there are multiple other root issues that training won’t address. Having the background knowledge and experience to feel confident suggestion other solutions is something I will take into my future endeavors.
In the book, Training Ain’t Performance (Stolovitch, 2004), there is a list of competencies for human performance consultants. Using this list, I have identified areas of strength and areas that I can improve on.
Strengths:
- Focused on client need: In my work as an orthotist, my main goal has been to improve life for my patients. This mindset carries over into my HPT and instructional design work.
- Principled yet flexible: I am able to focus on the main goal while being open to multiple ways to get there. The idea of being flexible with others and constraints as they present themselves is something that I have had to do in my personal and professional career.
- Conduct performance gap analysis: I perform gap analyses on an almost daily basis. With the patients I see clinically, I determine where they are currently and where they would like to be based on their goals. In the education I develop, I also perform gap analyses to help determine the best interventions.
- Sequence performance improvement interventions and strategies: This plays to my engineering background and my experience in leadership. I have written sequences for work/time studies, patient improvement plans, and sequenced learning plans for adult learners.
- Organized, rigorous, and prudent: As a researcher, I tend to let the data and evidence speak for itself. I have written and delivered educational talks based on research data and like to lead with objective information to help drive changes in how people think, feel, and act. This is a skill I can take into my future to help organizations make changes based on objective information.
Areas for Improvement
- Cause-cautions, not solution-oriented: As an engineer, my training and experience has been rooted in problem solving and finding solutions. This idea of not always being focused on training as a solution is one that I will need to be intentional about moving forward.
- Sensitive of the need to verify perceptions: I tend to move quickly and decisively, so slowing down to double/triple check interpretations is not an easy or intuitive task for me. I will need to make sure that I build in pauses in my workflow to check with others before proceeding.
- Promote performance consulting and human performance improvement as a major approach to achieving desired results in organizations: This is a skill that I am currently growing, but that has ample room for me to improve in. Prior to this course, I had ideas about solutions other than training; however, this course put words and models to my previous thoughts. Because the HPT field is new to me, this will take practice to be able to confidently promote to organizations.
- Evaluate performance improvement interventions: Evaluating interventions is something that I have not done a lot of, so I am looking forward to gaining skills in that area as I continue to implement the evaluation process.
- Plan, manage, and monitor performance improvement implementation plan: This is an area that I do not have a lot of experience doing, and am working on adding to my repertoire. I feel that I have the foundational skills and knowledge to execute plans but need to experience to continue building.
The skills I learned in this class will help me in the future by focusing on the big picture and not leaning on just training or education to solve performance gaps. While I don’t feel like HPT is my future career path, my strengths and interests align most with the Selector-Designer-Developer-Implementer role. This is a role that will fit in any sector that I move into. The foundational knowledge, skills and experience I gained from this class will help me see the bigger picture and feel more confident analyzing the system as a whole before providing interventions.
Stolovitch, H., & Keeps, E. (2004). Training Ain’t Performance. American Society for Training and Development