Project Management and Next Steps at HP

Project Management and Next Steps at HP

 Review

Training is the systematic process of providing employees with the competences knowledge skills and abilities that is required to do their current and future jobs. Hewlett-Packard’s (HP’s) Services division decided to focus more on external IT consulting. They want to outsource some part of task but Ron Kempf, director of project management conducted a need assessment to identify performance requirement and knowledge, skills, abilities needed to perform the task. They found 2,500 client focus project manager and supportive staff need to improve their skills to take competitive advantage. The selected employee are trained to achieve “project management professional” designation. It develops the skills and other competency required to lead and direct project. The certification impacts positively to the project manager work. The training is given by using HP’s knowledge management system, networking participation, e-learning, self-paced instruction and formal training conducted at “project management” university to focus on particular sectors to enhance their knowledge and skills

The training is conducted after analyzing the need assessment, they first identify who need training and what type of training is needed, and then they used appropriate training method.  The effectiveness of the training plan is measure by the performance of the employee. The HP Company boost their profit margin and keep project within the budget consistently after running the training program. The main concern of HP is that to obtain the competitive advantage over its rivals. They want to make their own strategy that’s help them in the future. The main concern of the HP is that all the companies are using same certification and competition is increasing. Their 20% trained employee will retire in 5 years so they want to initiative “next steps” in the company in order to ensure they will not lose their position in the market.(quoted from Lepak & Gowan, 2009)

Needs Assessment for Project Management Staff

Training is essential to all the employees to perform their job and responsibility more effectively. So to achieve competitive advantage the employee should be trained in their respective field with appropriate method. The need assessment is the first step of effective training process. It is systematical process to identify whether the employee have all the competencies to perform work or not. It analyze whether there is gaps exist between what employee be doing and what they are actually doing.

An effective training need assessment help to achieve the organization goal. The director management of HP company, Ron Kempf decided to run the need assessment to decide whether the employee have competencies according to the job or not. The primary advantage of need assessment is to analyze the gap of knowledge holding and actual knowledge to perform. There is gap between the knowledge they holding and actually needed to perform in the project, the 2500 projects manager and supportive staff around the world need a training to develop their skills. The company decided to train those manager to improve their performance.

The other role of need assessment is to identify the priorities and the importance. It determines who need training? And what type of training they need. What should be competencies they want to improve? The ESI international was chosen to give training to employees to develop their “project management professionals” skills. The other best things about need assessment is that it determine the method of training. The training method may be different according to the competencies that employee want to improve. Some of the method are on the job training, e-learning, procedural manual etc. the HP company decided to give training by using HP’s knowledge management system, networking participation, self-placed, instruction and formal training conducted at “project management” university to improve the project management skills and knowledge of their manager. Without performing need assessment we cannot determine which competencies is required to achieve organization goal. It is initial process of training program. without doing need assessment we cannot run the training program because if we do not know what skills need to improve of which employee, the training will not be effective and company cannot get benefit from running the training program so to ensure the effectiveness of training program and to enhance employee skills need assessment must be done at the beginning of training program.

HP Issues

The need assessment analysis shows that they are 2,500 project manager and supportive staff need a training to improve their skills. They need to develop professional competency in its workforce to deliver external IT consulting jobs in the market. They hire an ESI international agency to train the employee to receive the “project management professional” designation certified course in order to make their employee able to deliver needed technical support in the market. The training program help their employee to take competitive advantage over its rivals. Due to the effectiveness of the training the HP’s make their profit margin high and the project within the budget. The main issues of the HP Company is that all the competitors are now using same certified training management system.  To gets comparative advantage now the HP have to think differently. They think about to take “next steps “but before deciding next steps they have to do SWOT analysis of own company and other some competitor company to identify what is other company strength and their weakness in order to focus in training curricula to maximize competitive advantage in the same areas. The other concern of the HP Company is that their 20% of trained employee will retire in five years. In that situation it is difficult to take competitive advantage so have to make plan for future also. They have to train the new employee who has potential to do work. They should rotate the job because the other employee will get chance to work with them. The company must decide which employee need to train and how can training will occur in order to increase in performance of employee to contribute the organization goal.

The company have to perform Task analysis to find gaps between the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to perform work required to support objectives and the current knowledge, skills, abilities of the employees. The next steps should be targeted to reduce these gap.

Training Plan Creation

The training plan is process of the determining what type of training is needed, who will deliver the training and where and when the training plan should be apply to get effective result . The manager should be clear on the objective and goal of the organization before creating a new training plan. The training plan must specify the competencies that need to obtain at certain period of time. The training plan should be align with the organization goal. The effective training program begin with the need assessment, design, implementation and evaluation. The training plan is part of design which include following topics to guide training process more effectively.

Setting instructional objectives:  The objective of training plan should be specific and clear. It is the description of competencies that need to be improve in training program. It is the core function of the training program. Without setting the objective of training program we cannot define what to get, how to get and on which time period. The competencies that need to improve should be clear for each employee. The objectives describe the purpose of the training program. The objective of the HP’s company is to train their manager to achieve the “project management professional” designation certified skills to deliver external IT consulting jobs in the market

 Lesson planning: Lesson plans provide a map of what should be done during each training session to achieve the objectives. It determines what is needed in every session in order to ensure all the employee will get the training effectively. The lesson plan include what will be trained how it will be trained and where training will happen for each session. A lesson plan is critical for success of any training. HP Company decide to train their 2,500 manager to improve their management skills through various format. The manager need to improve their project management skills.

Defining methodology of instruction: The capability of the individual employee is different from one another. Some people can learn by seeing, some people can learn through simulation and some people need to demonstrate to understand the training activities. So depending upon the target group the method to deliver training context should be different. The trainer can use different methodology to make training plan very much effective. The HP Company uses HP’s knowledge management system, networking participation, e-learning, self-placed instruction and formal training conducted at “project management” university in order to make training program much effective and interesting.

Defining training participants: The Company have to analyze who need the specific training. The employee who lack in competencies in order to perform the job effectively they should involve in the training program. After doing need assessment the company decide the group of employee who need, what type of training. The training must be given to the right group of people. The HP Company select 2500 manager who have high learning agility, self-efficacy and interest in training program. They need to improve their skills in order to perform work effectively.

Deciding location:  A convenient location is important for a successful training. Adequate space, enough light, good ventilation etc. are minimum requirements. It is important to select training venue where there is no sound disturbance. A off site location is always better than inside office to keep participants from routine distractions. The HP Company uses their own formal training center to give training to their manager. They need to train the worldwide workforce of company so they used networking participation channel and HP management system.

Training Plans: Large vs. Small Companies

HP Company is a large company who have thousands of people all around the world. To develop the training program for big company like HP, it is very much costly and time consuming. They have to make ensure that all the employee who doesn’t have all needed competencies, they should include in the training program. Depending upon the size of the company training course will be different. The small company has only a small number of the employee and the communication channel between them is always open. They know each other strengths and weaknesses well. Such that the manager will easily know who will need what type of training in what time. The resources available in the big and small company will be different. Most of the large companies have separate training department whose role is to assess training needs of their employees, design training courses, implement training courses, evaluate effectiveness of the course and re-design another level of training course depending upon organizational needs.  In the small company they may prefer on the job training and class room training. They will try to learn more from each other and the interaction is one of the learning method. In a small company mostly managers carry out all these tasks. The big company like HP can use their own training center and different online course that can be access through any part of the world. Where as in the small company they will learn from senior employee and probably they will outsourced to other training agency for the purpose of training.

Recommendations

            Recommendation 1 The HP Company uses various training methodology to develop necessary competencies of employee worldwide. Cross culture training may be necessary to address the problems in the workplaces. The culture is different in different country so training program also affect by the culture and values of society so they have to consider the culture factor during training program.

Recommendation 2 The need assessment analyze there are 2,500 manager which skills need to improve in order to perform well. The company decided to train all the manager who are in different part of globe. They uses HP management system and online training course to run the training but to train the 2500 employee it’s a very big challenge. Instead of giving training to all at once, they have to cluster the employee to train. They have to train the employee by dividing into 4 or 5 group to make training program more effective. Its help them to make balance between the work and training

Summary and Conclusions

The director project management Rom Kempf did a need assessment to determine what type of training is needed to their manager in order to achieve organization goal. They chose 2500 manager from all around the world who need “project management professionals” designation certified training. Kempf work with ESI International to provide training in various format to their employee. The training methods included using HP’s knowledge management system and networking of participants whereby they learn from each other, e-learning, self-paced instruction, and formal training. The training become very much effective and they get high profit margin. They are getting the competitive advantage over their rivals. But the competitors is increasing and they all are using same certified training course for their manager. The HP Company needs to decide “next steps” that make them difference from other company. They want to make new strategy that help them to retain their position in the market even after when 20% trained employee retire in 5 years.

The HP Company does a need assessment to measure the gap between the actual competencies and needed competencies of their employees, they design the training program and execute by using appropriate methods. They are able to train their employee what they supposed to train. They timely evaluate their training process and effectiveness of the training. The performance of employee is increasing so they are getting competitive advantage in the market.

References

Lepak, D., & Gowan, M. (2010).  Human resource management: Training and Development. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall

(2013, 8 18). Retrieved from www.education.vic.gov.au: http://www.education.vic.gov.au/training/employers/apprentices/Pages/what.aspx

(2013, 8 18). Retrieved from www.zeromillion.com: http://www.zeromillion.com/business/personnel/employee-training.html

(2013, 8 18). Retrieved from www.pmi.org: http://www.pmi.org/Certification/Project-Management-Professional-PMP.aspx

Development of human resources -- Part 2. (2013, 8 18). Retrieved from alumnus.caltech.edu: http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~rouda/T2_NA.html