JUST-IN-TIME, JUST ENOUGH, JUST BARELY...
Steve's paper was very thought provoking, and prompted me to reevaluate some of my beliefs and the strength with which they are held. Perhaps the biggest single "diversity issue" that stands out in my mind is the differing viewpoints between education and training. Picture also where today's graduate will be working within five to ten years.
Though the service industry is rapidly growing in the United States, let's use a good "capitalistic" example that still is relevant and directly applies to the emerging nations of the Pacific Rim, for example, manufacturing and marketing of today's PCs (or tomorrow's "intelligent" PDAs or Newtons):
Just-in-time manufacturing is becoming the norm. Parts are delivered just when needed, production runs on the production lines are very short, as models rapidly change due to competition, technology, and innovation. Product life-cycles, from conception through obsolescence, are measured in months, not years. Products are highly customizable, using technologies such as expandable busses, etc. Assembly jobs are more and more focused on configuring the "production line or system" for these short, custom production runs, and managing the customization efforts--not performing the same repetitive actions on the same products for indeterminate periods of time.
Marketing and distribution are changing also. Just-in-time distribution is the norm, as companies try to avoid overstocking products that will depreciate 25-50% in a matter of months--if not become totally obsolete. Fewer products are displayed or warehoused, and custom-ordering (with rapid delivery) is becoming the norm, not the exception. Again, there's short product life-cycles with new products constantly being introduced. Sales jobs are primarily consultative in nature, matching the customer's needs with the features and benefits of this dynamic product line, and selecting the options that customize the product to the unique customer requirements--not demonstrating the same old products to all prospective customers. The customer service (and value added, and thereby profit margins) comes from custom solutions rather than commodity products that compete primarily based upon price.
Now picture the company's perspective. In industry, "time is money." Typically the company will pay two or three times for any learning that occurs: (1) for developing or purchasing the materials, equipment, and classrooms necessary and providing the learning opportunity; (2) the learner's salary while they're away from the job; and (3) the corresponding loss of productivity while the learning was taking place. In industry, relevant knowledge is very valuable, yet very volatile. Today's knowledge will quickly be out-dated, totally obsolete, or irrelevant. Learning is a constant, and a constant expense that must be cost-controlled as does every other facet of the organization. Adaptability and rapid response can be as critical as research and development. Yet, you can quantify the results of a new product's sales, or a new assembly line's production. How do you quantify the value of learning, or providing learning opportunities? How do you balance this "investment in the future" (which is the best possible interpretation of the expense of training) which is impossible to quantify, with other business concerns such as investing in new production equipment?
There's not enough money to try two alternative approaches just to see which one works best. Training is paid for by profit, and there's never enough (at least if there's stockholders involved). There's no way to repeatedly use "control groups" to objectively evaluate the impact of a specific training event, since the need is critical and the cost of non-performance is unacceptable (at least in many cases). "Get it out, get it to everyone, and get on to the next challenge!" We can't afford to keep evaluating and refining a design--instead our goal is to revise it only once (and then, hopefully, minor) before shipping. A major revision is a major cost, and is perceived as a major mistake. Each revision is just more profit "down the drain."
Consider IBM, as one example or case study. Not very many years ago (late 1980-1992), IBM prided itself that the company invested more in employee training, per year, per capita, than most public school systems did per student. How many of these trained people no longer work for IBM? How much profit did IBM invest in them, before it divested itself of them? How many of them now work for the competition? Of those who still work for them, how much of that training that was provided only a few years ago is now obsolete? Where is IBM in relation to the market today? We can't directly relate their position in the marketplace to their previous or current training commitment, but we can certainly ask "What was the total return on IBM's training investment?"
To those of us providing training in industry, the crisis is already here (T.H. Bell documented it years ago). We look to technology to help us address it today. We need technologies such as just-in-time training, EPSSs, CBT, distance learning, etc. We look toward as scientific a method of predicting success as possible. We need to know what instructional strategy or technique works reliably in a given set of circumstances, not necessarily the optimum solution. We need to choose the most cost-effective solution from among alternative solutions, most all the time. We need reliable effectiveness, efficiency, and predictable risk. We need results at the lowest possible cost. Hopefully ITForum can also serve the diversity of practitioners in industry, not just educators or academia.