Challenge
The Facility Workforce Career Academy (FWCA) Training Group within the National Park Service Historic Preservation Training Center (HPTC) was growing quickly to accommodate increased requests for skills-based training. Leadership and Managers were used to leveraging their personal connections to request work from members of the training team. As a result, the overtaxed Training Administrator had limited understanding of requests, level of effort, or resourcing needs, and there was little accountability for project progress, development methods, or deadlines. Training announcements handled by a related office were taking 10 days to get posted.
My Role
I was serving in a promotional detail as the FWCA Training Administrator. The HPTC Training Director tasked me to seek efficiencies and professionalize training for the FWCA Training Group.
Action(s)
I designed a semi-automated formal FWCA Project Intake Process to improve the bottleneck and accountability for the increased number of projects and team members. The new process funneled all requests through a form that presented different intake questions depending on category of request (e.g., course setup, training announcement, training development vs. live support). Each type of request also shared supporting documents that team members would need (e.g., class roster template, course request questions, 508 compliance checklist).
I applied change management principles to introduce, train and reinforce various parties to the new process to make it sustainable.
The submitted form automatically populated a New Request card in the FWCA Microsoft Project Planner with submitted details and triggered a review/assign email to the TA. Subsequent processes set requirements for assigning the request, notifying team members, completing requests and closing them out. Data and progress were enhanced by MS Planner tags, comments, checklists to support transparency across projects.
Result(s)
The current Training Administrator quickly implemented the accountability tool and data and was able to report up to leadership immediately on progress, resource needs/blocks, as well as hold team members accountable for deadlines. This was critical as two new remote members joined the team to handle communications and video. Turnaround time for training announcements immediately dropped from 10 days to 2 days or less as requirements were gathered through the form and delivered/documented.
Training requests became easier to evaluate and expectations set for requestors up front with language and supports in the form. Requestors appreciated being part of the pilot process and applauded the new efficiency/transparency of the intake process. Moreover, analysis questions posed in various categories of the form helped requestors understand and be prepared for the training development process. Based on this success, I was asked to review and develop new standard operating procedures.
Project Link(s):