I watched a Human Performance Technology webinar conducted by Dr. G. M. Bud Benscoter. He works for GMB Performance Group and has also authored books and taught HPT. He works in performance consulting and received his masters and PhD from Penn State.
Dr. Benscoter said the difference between ID and HPT is performance-based training. He observed that performance consulting is the application or profession of HPT. When creating a performance-based model, performance consultants must define and measure jobs by results not activity. Performance-based training teaches the employee what they have to do on the job, not what they have to know. Learning to think like a performance consultant means not reacting to training requests. He said the key to successful performance consulting is gaining senior’ management's commitment to the vision.
Dr. Benscoter had a good framework for developing performance-based objectives for training. They need to be connected to business goals, so start with job performance and work backwards. Ask: What is critical? What skills are needed? After that move on to: What do employees need to know to produce the behavior to drive performance? He said content is the last thing you talk about.
I found this presentation and the speaker’s perspective to be helpful as I work on my case analysis. I was glad to hear how HPT and change management are intertwined. This has been an observation and interest of mine, and Dr. Benscoter made a point to talk about the connection. As I listened, I thought performance consulting would be fascinating as a career, especially as an outside consultant where you could see many industries.
This webinar gave me a better understanding of HPT and how the theories we are studying are applied on the job. I watched the webinars by Dr. George Hanshaw and Chris Ross (blog posts on both forthcoming). The three speakers all emphasized the idea of continuing to ask why until you get to the root answer. Chris Ross and Dr. Benscoter both showed practical applications of Gilbert’s model. All three speakers emphasized using performance-based training, not content-based training. In class, we talked about and conducted a gap analysis. Dr. Benscoter said that gap analysis is the definition of performance consulting!