S2Pro© Model of Speed To Proficiency

The trustworthiness of a study’s findings in terms of its credibility, authenticity, reliability, validity, generalizability, and acceptability depends on who participated, how it was conducted, how data was gathered, how data was analyzed, how conclusions were drawn and how it was tested or validated.  The model we developed in this research is highly credible and valuable in multitude of business scenarios due to highly rigorous and systematic research approaches applied throughout the study. 

Who participated in the study

Industry thought leaders, business practitioners, learning specialists, and performance consultants who had the unquestionable authority and in-depth knowledge of various aspects of workforce performance challenge such as speed to proficiency, accelerated proficiency, accelerated performance, time to proficiency or similar areas. 

• 85 interviews with project leaders
• 66 start-to-end bounded project cases (detailed case studies/success stories) on specific issue of time to proficiency
• Only those project cases were included that demonstrated the results in terms of reduction of time to proficiency
• 63 project documents collected
• Cases from 10 economic sectors covering 20 business sectors and 27 industry groups
• Spanned across 15 generic job roles involving 15 primary skills, 5 complexity levels of jobs/skills

What approach adopted

A qualitative research approach to build a “rich understanding” of the issue with the goal to find ‘what works’ was used in this study. Project leaders were interviewed in-depth and were asked to detail a project case from start to end covering five major segments typical of any improvement-driven project on the lines of DMAIC concept: 

(1) Define: business challenge or problem of time-to-proficiency to be solved 

(2) Measure: description of the previous solution in place (if any) to reduce time-to-proficiency and previous results 

(3) Analyze: issues or challenges with the previous solution and root cause of the problem 

(4) Implement: description of the new solutions or strategies implemented to reduce time-to-proficiency (Implement); and 

(5) Control: the results in terms of reduction in time-to-proficiency (quantitative, qualitative or anecdotal results)

How data was analyzed

Data were analysed using two powerful data analysis methods most commonly used in scholarly qualitative research studies: thematic analysis and matrix analysis to identify the themes and patterns in the data. 

Thematic analysis was used to identify similar and contrast patterns with reference to the other project variables and contextual elements. The major patterns are noted and clustered into themes. Themes are combined into overarching themes based on relationships and conceptual similarities. Several data analysis tools like concept mapping were used to integrate several perspectives of data analysis into the final model. 

Themes and data of bounded project cases was arranged in the form of a matrix or a table of columns and rows to arrange the data in one place). Matrix analysis was then used to perform within-case analysis and cross-case analysis to compare the practices used among project cases across various contexts to understand the dynamics of the project cases within itself and then across the project cases by stacking rows of data from other project cases.

The result was: 

• Hundreds of patterns identified in the data
• Patterns categorized to form 46 solid recurring themes in the data
• 46 themes were combined into 11 overarching themes to explain research questions
• 2 overarching themes explained the characteristics of job-role proficiency and accelerated proficiency

• 3 overarching themes described the magnitude and scale of time-to-proficiency business problem, business drivers for accelerating proficiency and business benefits of reduced time-to-proficiency
• 6 overarching themes represented the business practices employed by almost all the organisations unquestionably to reduce time-to-proficiency
• 24 strategies were identified which were invariably used in various contexts/settings across all the project cases with reasonably high repeatability
• A conceptual model emerged from recurring association, analyzing the interactions/presence of themes in various contexts and validation of themes with the overall project stories. 

What outcomes

Two power-packed, practice-oriented, fully guided tools evolved out of this research: 

• A two-level hierarchical framework (6/24 framework of strategies) consisting of six practices and twenty-four strategies for practitioners
• A powerful “speed to proficiency” model explaining interactions and connections among 6 business practices and representing how projects with are typically executed and managed in organizations successfully to reduce time to proficiency.

How trustworthy it is

Rigorous methodologies were applied to ensure quality of data as well as quality of the data analysis, more specifically 3 major aspects to meet rigor standards set by academics: (1)  Objectivity / confirmability; (2) Reliability / dependability / auditability; (3) Internal validity / credibility / authenticity. These included: 

• A large sample of participants, cases and organizations
• Data triangulation by cross-referencing of project leaders’ interview with the documents and internet sources
• Data analysis triangulation using multiple tools like concept mapping, thematic analysis and matrix analysis
• Prevalence analysis of themes across the projects and computing prevalence scores
• Verification and review of findings by selected willing participants
• Controlled researcher’s bias through reflexivity, notes, challenge and self-questioning

How generalizable are findings

Deemed largely applicable across various contexts, settings and industries:

• Large sample size of covering all the 10 economic sectors and 27 industry groups with 85 participants made the model representative of business challenges of slow speed to proficiency in several contexts 
• Peer review of the models by highly renowned business leaders and top notch academic researchers confirmed high degree of fittingness of the model in their context
• Expert focus group consisting of highly experienced practitioners confirmed the high degree of generalizability and transferability across several otherbroad contexts
• Highly enriched recommendations specified by the model and its rich description increased its utilization and instant application.