I’ve known ConradGottfredson and Bob Mosher for a number of years now, and have long respectedtheir work. Owing to their current employment situation, they’ve naturallypromoted performance support (PS), and that’s to their credit. To that end,they’ve recently released a new book on the topic, InnovativePerformance Support. Not surprisingly, it is pretty darn good.
One of the problems inimplementing performance support is the design of performance supportresources, and this book has the most structure I’ve seen in a non-proprietaryformat. While it’s still more heuristic than algorithmic (which may be inherentto the state of the field) it has more specifics than I’ve seen before. Thereare guidelines for content as well as visual design.
The Human Performance Technologyapproach to identifying workplace performance problems isn’t new, but it is notwidely known. This book has considerable detail about both the importance andprocess of a detailed analysis. The process leads the reader throughidentifying points and types of information needs as a structured guide to theanalysis. The book also practices what it preaches: there are flow-chartsdocumenting how you build flow-charts to document workplace processes!
The book starts on theright foot, with the business case: why you should be looking at performancesupport instead of just courses. In addition, the book addresses the socialpicture, strategy, and the business case. In each area, the book isappropriately thorough in coverage. An addition I’m particularly excited to seediscusses the value of a systematic approach to content, including developingin a flexible manner as well as single sourcing and models.
The book isn’t withoutflaws; it doesn’t quite address the situation where business processes arechanging faster, and the effort to document them in detail may betime-consuming enough that they may have changed by the time you’ve finished. Ithink there are some oversimplifications of the initial concepts, and while the opportunity provided by social-network solutions is covered,it’s in a separate chapter instead of integrated and identified as a conceptualcomponent in the first chapter. And although there are examples,the book could use a few more screen shots to make concrete the abstractconcepts in the diagrams. Still, these problems do not undermine thesubstantive contribution.
Overall, this book is agreat introduction to the concepts, processes, and benefits of performancesupport. This is a book that should be read, kept to hand, and used.I’m glad to see that it’s available, and hope that it’s part of the renaissanceof performance support that we’re seeing through the eLearning Guild’s Performance Support Symposium.
