Workplace Engineering

MarsEdit Bookmarklet: “”

(Via .)

Wrote this piece for my local Toastmaster Club Newsletter

Sometimes it takes me a while to realize that I’m into something good. I joined Toastmasters in 2006 when I’d moved out to Texas as a way of getting to know people in my new home town of Frisco. This was the second city we had lived in since moving out from England and I’d decided that I wanted to integrate my family a little more than we had done before in Richmond, Virginia. Unfortunately, after three meetings, and joining up, I didn’t return for another nine months. My job kept me on the road all the time and I was never in Frisco on a Thursday night.

While I was away something amazing happened. The people who had given their maiden speeches at the same time as me were now pretty accomplished speakers. I resolved to make a better effort, and while my travel still meant my attendance was sporadic, I began to progress. Along the way I gained responsibility for a major corporate campus construction and relocation project and realized that Toastmaster training could help my team with their presentation skills, so we chartered a new club, Capital One, in Plano. Recently, I joined Flight Safety International to lead an organizational change project for courseware production and distribution. Noticing a similar need to improve leadership and public speaking skills, We chartered a club there also. I am currently the Treasurer and Secretary.

We all get different things out of Toastmasters. For me it has been an opportunity to meet and help people build their confidence. Hal Colvin brought me along to Park Central in the Fall of 2009 it has become more to my own personal development. Park Central has given me the opportunity to see the kind of speaker I could be. Now I’m hooked on getting to the next level. It took me three years to get my CC. I’ve completed 8 of the ACB speeches in six months and now I’m going all the way!

I’ve just written a new article for The Network, a commercial real estate trade magazine for professionals in the DFW area. Here it is:

The traditional view of “chalk and talk” educational facilities is increasingly out of touch with today’s reality – what today’s students need and where they need it. Progressive organizations within the area are challenging the traditional view of education and training in/with state-of-the-art facilities that truly support the needs of today’s learner.

Sixty years of generational change and considerable advances in (pedagogical and adult) learning theory has resulted in increased demands for training that simulates the environment or activities that the learner will encounter after training. Learners, especially adults, expect to be able to apply their newfound skills immediately in the work environment.

Training in Flight

Nowhere is this more prevalent than in aviation. Several flight-training companies have chosen to locate learning centers in the Metroplex. Facilities such as FlightSafety International’s expanding center next to DFW airport are used to train pilot and maintenance crews in how to operate highly sophisticated aircraft using advanced training and simulation systems (including eerily accurate full motion flight simulators). Center manager, Dan MacLellan says that the learning environment is so effective that, “An experienced pilot can become fully qualified to operate a fast business jet without setting foot in the actual aircraft.”

Capital Idea

Closer to earth, local corporations increasingly find that educational investments should involve creating environments that allow the workforce to develop/maintain skills and practice for situations they are likely to face in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Capital One Financial Corporation (which has been recognized by Training magazine as one of the top companies in the nation for employer-sponsored workforce training and development practices) houses a state-of-the-art facility inside its Plano Town Center (featured in photo). It includes more than 20 training and conference rooms and a variety of support technologies.

The center enables the Fortune 500 company to provide all of the training benefits employees typically receive from third-party providers in the comfort and convenience of their own facility and at a lower cost. “Our associates appreciate that they can receive world-class training right here.,” says Dan Mortensen, Senior Vice President, Corporate Real Estate, Capital One. “The ability to provide our award-winning training and development offerings in our Plano facility also reduces costs for the business, so it really benefits everyone.”

Tour a local college or university and you may see the rows of desks facing a chalkboard and stacks of books in libraries replaced by environments that encourage collaborative or cooperative learning and help students learn information literacy. Today’s student doesn’t need to work to find information anymore. The “Google generation” must instead make sense of the overwhelming sea of data available at the click of a mouse.

Environmental Changes

To meet the need for information literacy and collaborative learning, new classroom environments, such as the Steelcase Learning LabTM contain multiple projectors across walls, mobile white boards, collaborative table layouts and access to the Internet. These environments facilitate learning that meets the demands of today’s business. Richland College has five of these labs and is planning to add more, and more colleges are following suit. More and more it is an analytically driven world, and the benefits of employee retention and improved performance in these collaborative environments have been clearly established.

Some progressive DFW school districts are also challenging the traditional notion of educational facilities for K-12. The Frisco ISD Career and Technical Education (CTE), for example, houses multi-media and video production facilities, a simulated courtroom environment and restaurant-quality kitchens together with student-staffed fine dining open to the public by appointment. Remarkably, in addition to a diploma, media students can earn recognized certifications in industry standard software platforms.

World-class training companies, businesses and educational institutions continue to challenge the traditional notions of educational environments, and there is opportunity for real estate professionals to create and modify facilities to meet the demands made possible by these new ideas.

You can upload it here:

Educational Facilities Article Nov 2009.pdf

Been having a discussion this week with a couple of Certified Project Managers about the difference between Project Management and successfully managing projects. One of my biggest frustrations is the idea that following the PMBOK will result in a successful project outcome.

Being knowledgeable and certified will not necessarily result in a well managed project. I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked for some project management luminaries, including David Trench and Bernard Ainsworth. Looking back, they clearly understood that the core of managing projects is simply a slight variation of Peter Drucker’s roles of management:

- A start and a finish,

- Setting Objectives,

- Organizing,

- Motivating and Communicating,

- Measuring and

- Developing People

Managing a project successfully requires understanding the first bullet and fulfilling the remaining ones effectively and efficiently. The most sophisticated work-breakdown structure or GANT chart only has value when completed in the pursuit of Drucker’s roles of management…oh…..and a completely unwavering commitment to get the job done!

One of the things I’ve learned about this blogging lark is that it is much harder to keep it going than you might think. After that initial frisson, it’s pretty hard to stay organized, keep pumping out posts (even harder for them to be any good, as anyone who has read this blog has found out).

I’ve come to the conclusion that this site isn’t meeting my needs, so I’m going to disappear back into my cave for a bit and figure out how to reorganize it. I’ll probably change the name too. Workplace Engineering is way too stuffy.

Interesting note from Web Worker Daily

Workplace Trends: The End of Cubicle Dwelling?: “While outsourcing isn’t new, the rapid increase in the number of remote workers is. According to WorldatWork, ‘the number of employee telecommuters in the U.S. increased 39 percent, from 12.4 million in 2006 to 17.2 million in 2008.’ Businesses are actively seeking to embrace remote working as it lowers overheads — see Simon’s post on GigaOM Pro, ‘Enabling the Web Working Revolution’ (subscription required). Anecdotally, I seem to see more and more people working remotely from home offices and coffee shops.”

(Via WebWorkerDaily.)

How 18th Century Technology Could Down an Airliner | Autopia | Wired.com: “The air speed indicators on the doomed plane included a Pitot tube, named for Henri Pitot, the French engineer who in 1732 created an instrument that could measure the velocity of a fluid. Grossly oversimplified, airspeed is determined by measuring the difference between ram air pressure coming into the Pitot tube and static air pressure at altitude. If anything blocks a Pitot tube or static port, the measurement will be inaccurate and jeopardize the safety of the flight. “

(Via .)

Management Rev Ed by Peter F. Drucker

rating: 4 of 5 stars
It took me until my late thirties to rediscover Drucker. I’m listening to this on my commute to work in the mornings…the unabridged version is 19 hours long and is great to get me through my morning drive.



Drucker is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand management and his early works (whether updated or not) are absolutely pertinent and he really boils the fluff down to key learnings that cut to the core of what management is e.g. a managers fundamental role is to:



1 - Set Objectives



2 - Organize



3 - Motivate and Comunicate



4 - Measurement



5 - Develop People



Just an incredible reference and guide!








View all my reviews.

Interesting post on alliances in Harvard Business Blog How to Strike Effective Alliances and Partnerships. Mainly directed towards major corporate alliances, but I thought the eight I’s in We apply equally to any strategic relationship with a vendor partner too:

Individual excellence.

Importance.

Interdependence.

Investment.

Information.

Integration.

Institutionalization.

Integrity.

(Via HarvardBusiness.org.)

This made me laugh…

Hit ‘Em with a Hammer (and Other Presentation Tips): “never have a large coffee, a prune Danish, and a bran muffin before delivering an hour-long presentation. “

I’m intending to deliver my next presentation in a coat closet too. Then the cats will be impressed that the dog is standing in line outside for my standing room only event.