Change Management

In the early 1990's, the VP of TRW's System's Division was strongly encouraging the use of continuous improvement processes (CIP) to improve the way employees performed their work. The goal was to increase customer satisfaction and thus increase the probability of continued business and growth. I was one of the division's process improvement agents at the time. If memory serves me, I was asked to write up a summary of the work my improvement team was doing so that others would be motivated to do the same. Below is what I wrote. I share this with you in fun so please have fun reading it.

Sener Learning Services is currently a D4 site. The goal of this project is to upgrade to the latest version of Drupal 6, add new features, edit exiting features.

The upgrade and redesign is completed. Just waiting on the graphics from the client.

When this project is finished, I will update this page.

When I help instructors move from the classroom to online, I start with what they know (learning theory 101). It is easier to move forward one-step-at-a-time versus leaping. The following don’t have to be done in the order they are listed.

What is cross-training? I used this term to describe a management approach I tried as a Project Business/Control Manager for TRW. A project business or control manager was responsible for managing the financial books of a government contract. The number staff in this office were often limited in order to keep total project costs down. The staff in these offices were typically delegated to specific business tasks, enabling each member of the staff to become very good at what they do.

As the Webmaster for the Instructional Resource Center at George Mason University, I designed, developed, and delivered two introductory workshops on online databases.

At the time these were created, faculty and staff were starting to see the advantages of putting data online via a database. GMU was not prepared to allow all faculty and staff to create database driven dynamic websites.

As a consultant for Work Smart, Inc., I performed a technology evaluation for a major health insurance company. Computer Output to Laser Disk (COLD) is a technology by which computer generated reports and documents (such as accounting reports and in-house generated invoices) are stored electronically. In 1993, the insurance company implemented a COLD system using an Optical Disk (OD) solution to replace their Computer Output to Microfilm (COM) operation.

The Vice President Information Technology for a major chemical company commissioned a study from Work Smart, Incorporated to conduct a concept study on the implementation and use of an electronic record and document management system (R&DMS) at the company's headquarters. The study would consist of the data collection, document analysis, and conceptual design/architecture phases of Work Smart’s methodology. There are two questions being answered in this study:

• Would a records and document management system (R&DMS) be of value to the company?

In brick-and-mortar higher education institutions, where online learning is a grass roots effort, the quality of the course is dependent upon the professor/instructor. In other words, online environments quite often mirror classroom environments. A good classroom environment often translates to a reasonable online experience as well. The professors who put as much energy into their ability to teach and create quality instructional strategies, as they do their research, quite often deliver a better learning experience.