ICELW 2008 Keynote Speaker
Gary J. Dickelman, EPSScentral LLC.

Keynote Abstract: "Achieving Competency at the Speed of Work"
Through the years the notion of “performance support” has gained acceptance, based on the work of Gloria Gery and her groundbreaking work “Electronic Performance Support Systems” published in the early 1990s. It is more relevant than ever as today workers touch 5 – 12 enterprise computer systems in the course of their day. These systems remain difficult to use, disparate in design and function, and place a high-cost cognitive burden on the performer. Add to this that the speed of work is brisk and relentless as business rules change at the drop of a hat for companies to remain competitive. Finally, organizational loyalties are a thing of the past, as careers have become sequences of jobs based on individual needs. All this means that workers cannot quickly and efficiently perform their tasks around systems, processes and procedures, and the result is that organizational competency is routinely compromised. Training workers in advance misses the fact that 83% of what workers need to perform is acquired on the job, does nothing to reduce the many hours workers spend looking for critical information, and overlooks the fact that much critical information in is the minds of a few.

This session will explore the techniques, technologies and realities of enabling worker competency at the speed of work while removing complexity, capturing organizational memory, making organizational memory explicit and accessible and, generally, providing knowledge and tools at the time of need. The talk will feature an overview of the latest and greatest technologies and methods for gathering quality metrics for knowledge workers, determining task distributions by risk and complexity, capturing organizational memory, building enterprise applications without writing computer code and further applying technology to reshape the work environment so that performance is achieved on day one and time-to-competency is reduces to the speed of work. The session will include a number of recent case studies.

About Gary J. Dickelman
Gary J. Dickelman is President & CEO of EPSScentral LLC. He is a thought leader in performance-centered design, applying knowledge management, human factors engineering, learning technology, and business process engineering to creating systems that human beings can actually use. He is the author/editor of EPSS Revisited, a contributing author of Using Computers in Human Resources and The Instructional Technology Handbook. He has authored numerous industry articles, plus he serves on the faculties of George Mason University and Boise State University. For eleven years EPSScentral has sponsored the Performance-Centered Design Awards where organizations are recognized for the latest and greatest technologies and solutions in the field, providing Dickelman with a unique perspective on the state of the practice. In his spare time Gary plays tuba and percussion and writes for Drum Corps World magazine.