Richard’s Educational Technology Blog

In his paper Skill sets for the human performance technologist , Stolovitch lays out the sixteen essential skills necessary for an effective HP technologist. These skills can be broken down into two areas, basic technical skills (analysis, observation, evaluation, etc.), and basic people skills (management, organization communication, interpersonal, etc.). While I agree with the skills layed out by Stolovitch, I’m not sure that they apply more to HPT than any area of instructional design. If I were to hire an educational technologist, or a learning scientist, I would still want them to be able to “plan, manage, and monitor” projects, and “communicate effectively in visual, oral, and written form”. In fact, I would urge that we all accept these skills as a working foundation in whatever area of specialization we choose.


Stolovitch & Keeps :: 16 Skill Sets

1. Determine projects appropriate for HPT
2. Conduct needs assessment/front-end analysis
3. Assess performer characteristics
4. Analyze the structural characteristics of jobs, tasks, and content.
5. Write statements of HPT intervention outcomes
6. Analyze the characteristics of a setting (learning/working environment)
7. Sequence performance intervention outcomes.
8. Specify performance improvement strategies.
9. Determine the resources (media, money, people) appropriate to the performance improvement activities and create all components
10. Sequence performance improvement activities appropriate to the performance improvement activities and create all components.
11. Evaluate HPT intervention
12. Create HPT intervention, implementation, monitoring, and maintenance plan
13. Plan, manage, and monitor HPT projects
14. Communicate effectively in visual, oral, and written form.
15. Demonstrate appropriate interpersonal, group process, and consulting behavior
16. Promote HPT as a major approach to achieve desired HP results in an organization

At the same time, however, it is important to realize that while these skills are useful as a guideline for identifying the ideal HP technologist, they are not not all encompassing. According to William Rothwell, the sixteen steps do not provide “sufficient guidance to training and development professionals who wish to transform themselves in to HPE specialists”. Rothwell suggests a new model which specifies roles of a Human Performance Technologist in 4 key environments…

• Organizational environment (outside the organization)
• Work environment (inside the organization)
• Work (transformation processes)
• Workers (people performing work)

(For more information, see Beyond Training and Development: State-Of-The-Art Strategies for Enhancing Human Performance by William J. Rothwell)

Another important issue to realize is that, while the sixteen steps are effective in describing the HP technologist, they do not provide help when determining the most appropriate HP interventions. This is addressed in the Handbook of Human Performance Technology.

“…it is possible to identify the initial set of skills necessary for conducting a performance analysis. Determining appropriate interventions is not so simple, however. For example, expertise in instructional systems design is adequate knowledge if training or education is the only intervention used. If, however, performance analysis indicates the possible applicability of dozens of hundreds of different interventions, it quickly becomes apparent that no one person will posses the expertise needed to design, implement, and evaluate them all.”

(for more information, see Handbook of Human Performance Technology : Improving Individual and Organizational Performance Worldwide, edited by Harold D. Stolovitch and Erica J. Keeps)

In summary, I would suggest that we all adopt the sixteen steps in every area of instructional design while at the same time realizing that they are not the only necessary qualifications for HPT.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 15th, 2004 at 8:36 am and is filed under Educational Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.