First Things Fast: People Development Rollout Performance People What is People Development? In an organization, this is a situation where the focus is on a particular group of people, position, job, or what the military calls "billets." This focus suggests that leadership is looking ahead, thinking strategically, recognizing the critical contributions that employees will make in the workplace of the future. Such leaders realize that the world is rapidly changing and that they must act today to assure that their people will be fit to contribute tomorrow. You'll know you're dealing with "people development" when you hear phrases like, "Our sales people are going to be expected to sell a whole new line of digital products and we must help them make their numbers in this new terrain." Insurance companies will not pay for long term psychodynamic therapy. We’re going to have to find a way to support and develop our member therapists to cope with these changes." "The turn of the century is coming. What can we do to be certain that our managers are ready?" "The managed care environment is altering the way we need to be perceiving nurses. What are those changes? What kinds of development and systems are appropriate to support them in their expanded responsibilities?" Strategies for handling people development To facilitate people development, you will help your customer identify the many opportunities for professional growth available to a group of people.Then priorities must be set amongst the rich options that have been defined. For continued success, what do they need to know? What skills do they need? Because there are many ways to conceive the future role of a nurse or systems analyst or mental health worker, this can be a tricky and political endeavor. Performance analysis, in this case, resembles a rollout, with an emphasis on defining the vision and direction, but it is targeted at a broader and strategic level.The effort will be dominated by casting a wide net and creating a process to involve colleagues in selecting directions and priorities. Table Here’s an abbreviated example. Let’s presume that you were asked to help determine what the engineer of the future might need to know and do. Don't forget alter this template to match your unique circumstances. Stages  Sources Possible Questions One Customer, client or sponsor Why are you focusing on the development of engineers NOW? What do you hope to accomplish by developing engineers? Are all engineers of equal interest or is one group the focus? What do you see as key skills for the future? What are the emergent challenges? Have you established an on line community that captures the ideas of thought leaders or enables collaboration between engineers,no matter their location? Two The Literature and Professional Associations What trends have they identified? Emergent skills? Perspectives? Emergent challenges? New technologies? Additional sources? Implications of worldwide outreach? Three Internal and external experts What trends do they see as most critical? Emergent skills? Perspectives? Emergent challenges? New technologies? From all these, what are the priorities that they associate with this organization and vertical market? Who are the people in this organization who already manifest some of these skills and perspectives? What explicit and tacit know-how is key? Are there any records of this knowledge? How is it maintained? How is it shared? Four Model engineers As someone who has been identified as possessing skills that are considered "model," what do you think they are referring to? What strikes people as model about how you do the work? What challenges are emerging? How have you acquired new skills and knowledge? What support did you receive from the organization? What needs to happen to assure that engineers are contemporary in their skills? What do you think you know and do that distinguished your approaches? Consider the list of possible directions. Which do you perceive as priorities? Why? Five Randomly Selected Engineers Here is a description of emerging challenges and competences. Do you see the value and benefit in these new roles and skills? Do you feel ready? Which do you perceive as most critical, given your view of the future? What do you think it will take to support your growth in these directions? Role for you? your supervisor? the larger organization? Rationale  Note how far the analyst goes in defining the engineer of the future. Professional associations are tapped. Benchmark organizations and published literature are also examined. This analyst must also talk to internal engineering executives and experts about what their people must know and also what new challenges loom. The emphasis here is on going far afield to define what's possible and then coming closer to home to identify priorities.     Tools for People Development Here are some questions for the customer who is eager to develop and strengthen the performance of a particular group of people. They are "tools" you can use for performance analysis. Review all the choices and then go back and select those that are likely to work in this case and with this person. Print the whole page or copy and paste the relevant questions into a document, then save it to your desktop or hard drive. What do you envision this group of people doing over the next five years? What will they do more of? less of? What shall I read to help me understand your vision? What professional associations and experts shall I consult? What challenges do you imagine this group of people will confront? How do you expect them to prioritize their work? What accomplishments should be most important to them? What changes in technology do you view as most significant? What changes in relationships do you see with customers? What changes in relationships do you see ith colleagues across the organization? What changes in relationships do you see in the work site? How are you collecting examples of desirable practice and thought leadership? How are you making that knowledge available to many? Do we have employees who are already that way? If so, what do you see them doing? As you talk about electronic learning, I can't help but wonder how your people will respond. Do you have a sense of their eagerness to move in this direction?