Designing Training to Shorten Time to Proficiency E-Book

Raman K. Attri

• Herausgeber: Speed To Proficiency Research: S2Pro©
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 216

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

This book deals with solving a pressing organizational challenge of bringing employees up to speed faster. In the fast-paced business world, organizations need faster readiness of employees to handle the complex responsibilities of their jobs. The author conducted an extensive doctoral research study with 85 global experts across 66 project cases to explore the practices and strategies that were proven to reduce time to proficiency of employees in a range of organizations worldwide. 

This book provides the readers with a first-hand account of findings exclusively related to training and learning strategies, instructional methods, and curriculum design. This book delivers over 21 training and learning strategies across online learning, classroom instructions, and on-the-job learning. These strategies will allow training designers and learning specialists to design workplace training programs that hold the potential to shorten time to proficiency of employees. 

The book not only describes findings of the study and theoretical underpinnings, but it also provides practical guidance for implementation to equip corporate learning specialists, HR professionals, training leaders, performance consultants, and direct managers.

Chapter 1 of the book introduces the research study that was conducted and describes the sampling, participants, data collection and data analysis methodology. 
Chapter 2 introduces the concept and definition of accelerated proficiency and metrics such as time to proficiency and speed to proficiency. The chapter sets the premise for the business need that demands learning designers to explore methods to shorten time to proficiency of employees. 
Chapter 3 describes the result of proficiency curve analysis that revealed four possible trajectories to accelerate employee proficiency. 
Chapter 4 introduces the four key hurdles in the form of the inefficiencies of traditional training models that hamper the acceleration of proficiency. This chapter sets the stage what needs to be avoided when designing training meant to accelerate proficiency. 
Chapter 5 addresses the group of findings related to online or e-learning. A conceptual model is presented to describe five e-learning strategies with the great potential to accelerate proficiency in workplace skills. 
Chapter 6 focuses on findings grouped as the formal classroom or instructor-led instructional strategies. The chapter specifies five instructional strategies to design classroom training and deliver an enriched learning experience to put learners on an accelerated proficiency path. 
Chapter 7 explains the findings grouped as on-the-job learning or workplace learning strategies. The chapter describes three strategies for workplace learning design to leverage workplace opportunities and interventions which reported great potential to accelerate proficiency. The chapter presents a conceptual model of workplace learning strategies to guide the implementation of these strategies. 
Chapter 8 consolidate the strategies for online learning, classroom learning and workplace learning into a simple model for training design that holds the potential to create training that can contribute into shortening time to proficiency of the employees. 
Chapter 9 concludes the book with final thoughts on the role of training and learning strategies toward accelerating proficiency in the long run.

Leseprobe

DESIGNING TRAINING TO

SHORTEN TIME TO PROFICIENCY

ONLINE, CLASSROOM AND ON-THE-JOB LEARNING STRATEGIES FROM RESEARCH

Dr. Raman K. Attri

Speed To Proficiency Research: S2Pro© PublicationsSingapore

Copyrights © 2018 Speed To Proficiency Research: S2Pro©. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.  Write to the publisher/author for seeking explicit permission for any reproduction, inclusion or usage in another publication. Provide an appropriate reference/citation to this publication when posting brief excerpts or quotations from this text on social media channels.

ISBN:978-981-14-0633-1 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-981-14-0632-4 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-981-14-0645-4 (hardcover)

First published: 2019

Lead author: Raman K. Attri

Published by Speed To Proficiency Research: S2Pro©

Published at Singapore

Printed in the United States of America

National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data

Names: Attri, Raman K., 1973-

Title: Designing training to shorten time to proficiency : online, classroom and on-the-job learning strategies from research / Dr Raman K. Attri.

Description: 2nd edition. | Singapore : Speed To Proficiency Research, [2019] | Includes bibliographic references and index.

Identifiers: OCN 1085692434 | ISBN 978-981-14-0632-4 (paperback) | ISBN 978-981-14-0645-4 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-981-14-0633-1 (e-book)

Subject(s): LCSH: Core competencies. | Executive ability.

Classification: DDC 658.4--dc23

Speed To Proficiency Research: S2Pro©

A research and consulting forum

Singapore 560463

https://www.speedtoproficiency.com

[email protected]

To Rayan

21 must-know revelations from a large-scale research study on the classroom, online and on-the-job learning for training leaders of today’s business world

PREFACE

American scientist Edward Felten once said, “Innovation happens because there are people out there doing and trying a lot of different things.” I think that any innovation comes with skills possessed by people in the organizations. Without the well-equipped and skilled workforce, no company can dream of any innovation. It is crucial for the sustainable existence of any company to develop their employees’ knowledge, skills, and performance to the desired level. The business is not only changing at a high pace, but it is also becoming overly complex. The skills and knowledge acquired today become irrelevant or obsolete as early as tomorrow. In that kind of dynamics, it is indeed not viable for businesses to wait for months and years for their employees to become proficient in the critical skills required to support the business, customers, and competition.

During my 25 years of professional career in solving complex organizational problems, I have seen the need for “speeding” up the “time” as a universal need across all businesses. The speed with which innovations and technologies are changing our lives is incredible. By the time we adopt one technology, the next generation of the same technology is already knocking at the door. While serving as Senior Global Technical Training Manager at a 15-billion dollar semiconductor corporation, I saw that merely one day of delay in launching a product could cost a company millions of dollars. This business reality of cut-throat competition between global organizations is inevitable.

Now, part of that challenge is that organizations have been struggling to bring their employees up to speed on job-related skills and waiting for years for them to come up to the desired level of performance. Though they understand they must compress time to proficiency of employees, it appears that the training experts in most of the organizations are not able to put an effective or result-giving mechanism in place to accelerate the proficiency of employees. The biggest reason probably is the lack of proven knowledge-base to use, test and develop upon. In my humble opinion, this lack arises due to a weak linkage between practice and research.

In today’s business world, we see two set of training and learning leaders out there. The first category of leaders is who apparently do not have an answer (or do not have access to the right answer) how they go about equipping their employees with the required skills at a faster pace.The past learning research on such critical business issues does not make it to the desk of a training manager, who is likely not accustomed to reading through vast academic research literature out there. So even if some answers in some shape and form exist in previous research studies, managers do not generally get access to that knowledge easily and never get to apply it.

On the other hand, there is this second category of training leaders or experts who are well-connected to past scholarly research and able to apply some of those best practices in their contexts and see what works. Some of them seem to have found the answer to ‘speed of performance' through experimentation or project work. However, they face different types of constraints altogether which inhibit their findings going out of their walls. As business managers and training leaders, they are not allowed to publish (non-disclosure clauses, intellectual property, trade secrets, etc.). In fact, publishing anyhow is not part of their primary job responsibility or business goal. Generally speaking, they are also not trained to be researchers who could spend thousands of hours to conduct systematic research and produce research papers through the gruesome process of publishing with scholarly journals. Thus, these critical pieces of business know-how they generated during experimentations at organizations or during their primary job gets lost due to the logistics of all this.

It is reasonable to say that the linkage between learning research and the practitioners’ world is missing from two sides. First is the lack of transfer of knowledge about practically viable strategies from academic researchers back to the business leaders to try them out. Second is the lack of transfer of information about practical, proven strategies observed by business leaders back into academic researchers' hand to validate and disseminate widely. So as researchers, we do not know for sure what works in reality and what not, though there could be some theoretical and empirical evidence. That is probably the biggest reason why over 50 years of training and development research appears to have not been successful as yet to equip most organizations in getting a good handle on developing their employees up to the desired performance at a “speed” and find the answers to this problem of ‘speed to proficiency.'

I undertook this challenge during my doctorate research program at Southern Cross University Australia and conducted a massive practice-oriented, business-focused research to explore the business strategies (methods, techniques, processes, models) that have given proven results in successfully reducing time to proficiency in the organizations. This massive study included over 85 global experts from 7 countries who brought a range of successful strategies to shorten time to proficiency of their employees, shared their success stories via 66 start-to-end project cases and contributed their experience from over 50 different organizations. As I engaged further in in-depth conversations with these thought leaders, business leaders and professionals around the globe, several patterns of initial findings started emerging. Though the goal of the research study was to explore business-level strategies (training and non-training), the initial patterns on training strategies, curriculum design and instructional methods caught my attention. As a global training specialist, I was anxious to see and to validate my past experience in regards to what training and learning strategies were used by leading business leaders to shorten time to proficiency of their employees successfully. These initial findings were presented at some leading international conferences on training, learning, and education. This book has emerged out of the preliminary findings presented in those conferences.

In a conversation, Dr. Charles Jennings, a renowned business leader, mentioned that ‘formal training is just 10% of the overall equation.’ Exactly on those lines, my research study led to developing an overarching ‘model of accelerated proficiency’ in which training-related strategies formed a ‘small’ part of the process of accelerating proficiency of employees. Though training was a small part of the overall equation of accelerated proficiency, it had an indisputable role in developing the skills and performance of people, especially in new roles or new jobs. This book focuses on how training and learning strategies should be structured or implemented to contribute significantly toward shortening time to proficiency of employees. This book is written for business practitioners, training managers, training leaders, learning specialists and instructional designers to apply and test the methods/strategies mentioned in this book to build training programs that can potentially shorten time to proficiency of employees at the workplace.

Though small, this book adds an intriguing contribution to the existing knowledge base in the field of training, learning, instructional design, performance, and expertise. This book is an attempt to bring a ‘real’ business problem which has a tremendous impact on the bottom-line of the organizations. As researchers, when we realize there is a problem worth solving, we set to find the answers. Through this book, I encourage other researchers to investigate the strategies, methods, and approaches to accelerate time to proficiency of employees in a business context.

Raman K. Attri

January 2019

◊◊◊◊

‘The empirical fact about expertise (i.e., that it takes a long time) sets the stage for an effort at demonstrating the acceleration of the achievement of proficiency.’

 (Hoffman, Andrews & Feltovich 2012, p. 9)

CONTENTS

DESIGNING TRAINING TO SHORTEN TIME TO PROFICIENCY

PREFACE

ABOUT THE BOOK

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABBREVIATIONS

Chapter 1: Research Study: Strategies To Accelerate Time To Proficiency

1.1 The Research Study

1.2 Research Methodology

1.3 Research Outcomes

1.4 Training and Learning Strategies

1.5 How the Book is Organized

Chapter 2: Importance Of Shortening Employees’ Time To Proficiency

2.1 Proficiency or proficient workforce

2.2 Definition of new business metrics

2.3 Accelerated Proficiency

2.4 Need to Shorten Time to proficiency

Chapter 3: Four Trajectories To Accelerate Proficiency

3.1 Proficiency curve analysis

3.2 Trajectory #1: Accelerated Proficiency-Based Training

3.3 Trajectory #2: Accelerated On-the-Job Experience

3.4 Trajectory #3: Restructured Training Curriculum

3.5 Trajectory #4: Holistic Picture to Accelerate Proficiency

3.6 Simplified Representation of Four Phases

Chapter 4: Four Types Of Inefficiencies In Training Hamper Accelerated Proficiency

4.1 What is Wrong with a Typical Traditional Training Model

4.2 Inefficiency #1: Curriculum-Related inefficiencies

4.3 Inefficiency #2: Skill-related IneFficiencies

4.4 Inefficiency #3: Support-related Inefficiencies

4.5 Inefficiency #4: Outcome-related Inefficiencies

4.6 Handling Inefficiencies of Traditional Training ModelS

Chapter 5: Five E-Learning Strategies To Accelerate Proficiency

5.1 Role of e-learning in Accelerating Proficiency

5.2 Conceptual Model of E-learning strategies

5.3 Strategy #1: Experience-rich and multi-technology mix

5.4 Strategy #2: Time-spaced microlearning content

5.5 Strategy #3: Scenario-based contextualization of e-learning

5.6 Strategy #4: On-demand electronic performance support systems

5.7 Strategy #5: Optimally sequenced e-learning path

5.8 Summary of Recommendations

Chapter 6: Five Instructional Strategies To Accelerate Proficiency

6.1 Role of Classroom Training to Accelerate Proficiency

6.2 Conceptual Model of Instructional Strategies

6.3 Strategy #1: Segmentation of Critical Tasks

6.4 Strategy #2: Self-guided Pre-work/ Preparation

6.5 Strategy #3: Contextualize Learning with Scenarios

6.6 Strategy #4: Emotional Loading/ Emotional Involvement

6.7 Strategy #5: Spaced Distributed Chunked Interventions

6.8 Summary of Recommendations

Chapter 7: Three Workplace Learning Design Strategies To Accelerate Proficiency

7.1 Role of Workplace Learning to Accelerate Proficiency

7.2 Moving Away from Traditional training to workplace learning

7.3 Model of Workplace Learning for Accelerating Proficiency

7.4 Strategy #1: Manufacture and Structure On-the-job Experiences

7.5 Strategy #2: Sequence the Activities and Experiences in a lean learning path

7.6 Strategy #3. Deploy Performance Support Systems and Resources

7.7 Summary of Recommendations

Chapter 8: A Training Design Model For Accelerated Proficiency

8.1 Summary of Strategies: Online, classroom and Workplace Learning

8.2 A Full Picture of Training Design for Accelerated Proficiency

8.3 Proficiency For a Job Role, Not Tasks

Chapter 9: Accelerating Proficiency Is Beyond Designing Training

9.1 Putting Training In Perspective: Skill Acquisition Versus Attaining Proficiency

9.2 Solutions to Accelerated proficiency are beyond merely training

9.3 Critical Role of Training is Undeniable

9.4 Model of Speed To Proficiency: Total Proficiency Eco-System

RELEVANT PUBLICATIONS BY THE AUTHOR

REFERENCES

INDEX

ABOUT THE BOOK

This book deals with solving a pressing organizational challenge of bringing employees up to speed faster. In the fast-paced business world, organizations need faster readiness of employees to handle the complex responsibilities of their jobs. The author conducted an extensive doctoral research study with 85 global experts across 66 project cases to explore the practices and strategies that were proven to reduce time to proficiency of employees in a range of organizations worldwide.

This book provides the readers with a first-hand account of findings exclusively related to training and learning strategies, instructional methods, and curriculum design. This book delivers over 21 training and learning strategies across online learning, classroom instructions, and on-the-job learning. These strategies will allow training designers and learning specialists to design workplace training programs that hold the potential to shorten time to proficiency of employees.

The book not only describes findings of the study and theoretical underpinnings, but it also provides practical guidance for implementation to equip corporate learning specialists, HR professionals, training leaders, performance consultants, and direct managers.

Chapter 1 of the book introduces the research study that was conducted and describes the sampling, participants, data collection and data analysis methodology.

Chapter 2 introduces the concept and definition of accelerated proficiency and metrics such as time to proficiency and speed to proficiency. The chapter sets the premise for the business need that demands learning designers to explore methods to shorten time to proficiency of employees.

Chapter 3 describes the result of proficiency curve analysis that revealed four possible trajectories to accelerate employee proficiency.

Chapter 4 introduces the four key hurdles in the form of the inefficiencies of traditional training models that hamper the acceleration of proficiency. This chapter sets the stage what needs to be avoided when designing training meant to accelerate proficiency.

Chapter 5 addresses the group of findings related to online or e-learning. A conceptual model is presented to describe five e-learning strategies with the great potential to accelerate proficiency in workplace skills.

Chapter 6 focuses on findings grouped as the formal classroom or instructor-led instructional strategies. The chapter specifies five instructional strategies to design classroom training and deliver an enriched learning experience to put learners on an accelerated proficiency path.

Chapter 7 explains the findings grouped as on-the-job learning or workplace learning strategies. The chapter describes three strategies for workplace learning design to leverage workplace opportunities and interventions which reported great potential to accelerate proficiency. The chapter presents a conceptual model of workplace learning strategies to guide the implementation of these strategies.

Chapter 8 consolidate the strategies for online learning, classroom learning and workplace learning into a simple model for training design that holds the potential to create training that can contribute into shortening time to proficiency of the employees.

Chapter 9 concludes the book with final thoughts on the role of training and learning strategies toward accelerating proficiency in the long run.

◊◊◊◊

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Raman K Attri is a corporate business researcher, learning strategist, and management consultant with a strong zeal to enable people to unravel human learning and performance. He specializes in providing the competitive and strategic value to the organizations by accelerating time-to-proficiency of employees through well-researched models. He holds a doctorate in business from Southern Cross University, Australia. His international professional career spanned over 25 years across a range of disciplines such as scientific research, systems engineering, management consulting, training operations, professional teaching, and learning design. A strong proponent of learning as the core of human success, he provides advisory on accelerated learning techniques which earned him over 60 educational credentials including doctorate degrees, three masters’ degrees and tens of international certifications. Despite physical disability since childhood, he leveraged it to learn, research and test a range of “how to methods” to accelerate the rate of personal learning and professional performance at the workplace. He has published his methods in scholarly journals, blogs, books, and conferences. He also runs a non-profit consulting forum focused on researching strategies to accelerate speed to proficiency.

◊◊◊◊

ABBREVIATIONS

ALA

Action Learning Activities

CTS

Critical-to-success

EPSS

Electronic performance support systems

HPT

Human Performance Technology

HRD

Human resource development

ILT

Instructor-led training

JIT

Just-in-time

LMS

Learning Management System

OJT

On-the-job training

PSS

Performance Support Systems

ROI

Return on Investment

TTP

Time to Proficiency

Chapter 1

RESEARCH STUDY: STRATEGIES TO ACCELERATE TIME TO PROFICIENCY

This book is based on the findings of an intensive 5-years long study conducted by the author as part of the doctoral program between the year 2014 to 2018. The research study addressed a much larger question on business practices and strategies to accelerate time to proficiency in organizational settings (Attri 2018). The study is referred to as “the TTP study” (time to proficiency study) henceforth.

1.1 THE RESEARCH STUDY

Research background

Past research studies on workplace training and learning suggested that there was a range of training and learning strategies to enhance training outcomes and make learning more effective, including enhancing training transfer to the workplace. Some of those research studies also provide strategies to accelerate skill acquisition. However, there is a very limited amount of research efforts to develop a holistic framework to guide the design and delivery of training at the workplace with a goal to reduce time to proficiency in business organizations. The fair but pressing question that emerges is: How can time to proficiency of the workforce be shortened? What are the strategies or practices that work? How should training and learning be structured to hasten the path to proficiency? This gap was the central area of focus of the research study titled “Modelling Accelerated Proficiency in Organisations: Practices and Strategies to Shorten Time-to-Proficiency of the Workforce” conducted by the author at Southern Cross Univerity (Attri 2018).

The TTP study addressed a critical challenge in modern organizations: the workforce generally takes a significant amount of time to reach full proficiency in several job roles, which in turn puts the market and financial pressures on organizations. This study aimed to explore practices and strategies that have successfully reduced time to proficiency of the workforce in large multinational organizations, and develop a model based on them.

This study takes forward the conceptualization of accelerated proficiency and accelerated expertise proposed in experimental research studies conducted by Hoffman (Hoffman et al. 2008, 2009, 2014; Hoffman, Andrews & Feltovich 2012; Hoffman & Andrews 2012; Hoffman, Andrews, et al. 2010; Hoffman, Feltovich, et al. 2010) and Fadde (Fadde & Klein 2010, 2012; Fadde 2007, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c, 2012, 2013, 2016) during the last decade in training and work settings. In their studies, they have identified several theoretical issues and gaps. In particular, gaps such as lack of a good understanding of the concept and process of accelerated proficiency the needs for accelerating proficiency and methods to accelerate the proficiency served to propose research questions in this research study toward accelerating proficiency in the organizational and workplace domain.

Research questions

The central research question of this study was: How can organizations accelerate time to proficiency of employees in the workplace? The TTP study addressed three aspects: the meaning of accelerated proficiency, as seen by business leaders; the business factors driving the need for a shorter time to proficiency and benefits accrued from it; and practices and strategies to shorten time to proficiency of the workforce.

1.2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Approach

The business problem of accelerating proficiency is relatively new, and it needs to be understood in its natural settings. Additionally, mechanisms and strategies to accelerate proficiency of the workforce may vary from one organization to another and may even vary among different jobs within the same organization, making it a highly contextual complex phenomenon. It was important to know why some strategies worked in one context and not in others. Therefore, an exploratory qualitative research approach was used to understand ‘how things work in particular contexts’ (Mason 2002).

The principal research question was to explore the strategies in terms of “what works” and has been proven to work successfully concerning shortening time to proficiency.

Participants

The TTP study design involved purposive sampling and criteria-driven sampling because only a limited number of experts were expected to possess “know-how” in the area of accelerated proficiency. Professional databases (e.g., social media, ASTD, ISPI, LinkedIn and other conference references) were used to find the potential experts suiting the research goals. The most important criteria for the recruitment of the participants in this study was that participant must have specific experience in reducing time to proficiency of the workforce in organizations.

A systematic criterion was applied to validate the relevant experience of the potential participants. This included evidence of leading at least one project related to accelerated proficiency or time to proficiency, explicitly in written media (e.g., industry reports, interviews, company newsletters, conference presentations, webinars, books, journal or magazine article authorship, white papers, blog posts, etc.); recognitions earned (e.g., industry awards, nominations, etc.) or association/affiliation with a society, forum, client, company or organization whose charter related to accelerated proficiency; employment or association with the organizations or companies known to have run projects specific to accelerated time to proficiency; self-acclaimed experience on a project or consulting achievement related to accelerated proficiency or time to proficiency in the media (e.g., a LinkedIn resume, internet profiles, academic CVs, responses to research questionnaires, personal communication, etc.).

Among the 371 potential participants identified using the above criteria, 85 project leaders and business leaders finally participated in the study. These participants consisted of global training experts and business professionals with proven project experience in shortening time to proficiency of employees, in various capacities such as project leader, project owner, project designer or project team member (henceforth collectively termed as ‘project leaders’). The participants hailed from 7 different countries, with 77% of the participants from the USA. The participants belonged to 24 different industries, with the majority of the participants being CEOs, consultants, or an equivalent. The mean number of years of experience was more than 20 years, and the majority of the participants had more than 11 years of experience. Most of the project leaders were highly educated, with 35% holding doctoral degrees and 39% holding master’s degrees. The distribution profile of the participants is shown in table 1.

Table 1: The distribution profile of the study participants

Participant’s country

USA

66

77%

Australia

5

6%

Netherlands

5

6%

UK

4

5%

Singapore

3

4%

UAE

1

1%

Philippines

1

1%

Total

85

100%

Participant’s current industry

Professional training & coaching

18

20%

Management consulting

13

15%

Education management

7

8%

Computer software

6

7%

Higher education

6

7%

Semiconductors

6

7%

Research

5

6%

E-learning

5

6%

Information technology & services

3

4%

Oil & energy

2

2%

Financial services

2

2%

Oil & energy

1

1%

Military

1

1%

Broadcast media

1

1%

Public relations & communications

1

1%

Electrical/Electronic manufacturing

1

1%

Education technology

1

1%

Banking

1

1%

Management consulting

1

1%

Internet

1

1%

Human resources

1

1%

Information services

1

1%

Unknown

1

1%

Total

85

100%

Participant’s current position/title

President/CEO/MD/Founder

27

32%

Researcher/Scientist/Academician/Author

13

15%

Consultant

12

13%

Program/Training manager

10

12%

Director/VP

9

11%

Trainer/Facilitator / Instructional designer

6

7%

CLO/CKO

5

6%

Leadership/HRD specialist

2

2%

Retired

1

1%

Total

85

100%

Participant’s education

Doctorate

29

35%

Masters

34

39%

Bachelors

16

19%

No information

6

7%

Total

85

100%

Participant’s experience range (in years)

0 to 10

3

4%

11 to 20

24

27%

21 to 30

22

26%

31 to 40

24

29%

41 to 50

7

8%

Unknown

5

6%

Total

85

100%

Sampling unit

The “what works” philosophy also guided this research study to use bounded project cases as a sampling unit. Bounded project case is a case (i.e., a success story of a phenomenon in a bounded context) which has a defined start and end (i.e., a project), and it is bounded (i.e., its boundaries are defined in terms of scope) (Merriam & Tisdell 2016; Miles, Huberman & Saldana 2014; Turner & Müller 2003). The goal of the data collection was to gather and understand successful project cases (what worked). This would provide insights into the need for shortening time to proficiency. It would also reveal strategies employed by business leaders in achieving it, as well as indicate results attained out of deploying such strategies. This sampling unit specified a constraint that the participant must be a project leader, project owner, project designer or some senior project team member who had the rich and first-hand details of all aspects of the project.

A total of 66 successful project cases, along with 50 associated project case documents were collected. The collected project cases were categorized in four broad categories of contextual variables (1) Sectors: Economic, business or industry; (2) Nature of the job role; (3) Critical-to-success (CTS) skills: primary skills for the job; and (4) Complexity levels: the complexity of the skill or the job role or both. These project cases spanned across 10 economic sectors, 21 business sectors, and 30 industry groups, covering 15 different types of jobs, 16 different critical-to-success skills involved in those jobs and 5 levels of complexity, as shown in table 2.

Table 2: The distribution profile of project cases analyzed in the study

Business sector classification of the project case

(Thomas-Reuters Business Classification system)

Technology Equipment

12

18%

Energy - Fossil Fuels

8

12%

Banking & Investment Services

6

9%

Pharmaceuticals & Medical Research

4

6%

Healthcare Services

4

6%

Software & IT Services

3

5%

Government / Military

3

5%

Industrial & Commercial Services

3

5%

Industrial Goods

3

5%

Insurance

3

5%

Automobiles & Auto Parts

2

3%

Telecommunications Services

2

3%

Cyclical Consumer Services

2

3%

Mineral Resources

2

3%

Retailers

2

3%

Food & Beverages

2

3%

Transportation

1

2%

Sports

1

2%

Utilities

1

2%

Chemicals

1

2%

Real Estate

1

2%

Total

66

100%

The primary job role of employees

Technical or Engineering

22

33%

Sales - Non-Technical

9

14%

Scientific or Development

6

9%