PowerTrain develops solutions that facilitate our clients’ ability to collect, aggregate, develop, and share institutional knowledge.
We have a long history of working effectively with subject matter experts to:
- Identify and create knowledge objects.
- Present this information in various formats, including video, web-based training, and facilitated training.
- Support the ability to incorporate newly gained knowledge into individual performance.
- Provide opportunities for knowledge users to add value to knowledge objects by providing real-world perspectives.
Example: CHCO Council’s knowledge management
The Chief Human Capital Office (CHCO) Council realized the need to develop a “one-stop” shop website for HR professionals across the Federal sector.
As a solution, we helped the Council focus its resources on building a robust community of practice.
As part of the solution, PowerTrain built a knowledge portal that addresses the talent development requirements of all tiers of HR professionals. This website provides central access to career guidance, development, and resources designed to foster a consistently high level of technical, consulting, business, and professional competency.
The important topics we considered
This project required PowerTrain to consider the needs of all HR professionals across the Federal sector. Most projects are developed within the boundaries of a single organizational structure; few address needs across the Federal government. As such, it was important to ensure that a rapid yet comprehensive front-end analysis gather requirements from stakeholders within the Office of Personnel Management, as well as HR leaders and practitioners from as many Federal agencies as possible. Our years of experience developing customized human resource solutions for the Federal sector were invaluable as we gathered this data and used it to inform our agile design and development processes.
After gathering resources, the next challenge was to determine how best to organize the resources. Having developed dozens of active communities of practice, PowerTrain has extensive experience bringing order to the collection of knowledge assets.
Working with the CHCO Council, we recommended a competency-driven organization of knowledge resources to support HR talent development. To accomplish this, PowerTrain developed a knowledge repository that allows users to filter resources offered through HRU by relevant career factors, including HR role and technical specialty area.
What we ended up with
Since its initial launch, HRU’s knowledge repository continues to grow and currently includes over 100 web-based resources. HR professionals can determine where they are on the HR career path, assess their skills, and determine which competencies to focus their talent development energies on. Furthermore, this organization helps HR leaders and supervisors meet the talent development needs of their teams by providing access to these practical resources. To make the vetted HR resources available to more agencies, PowerTrain established cross-domain communication.
This groundbreaking HR systems solution allows users from a government agency to enroll in training from their own agency’s learning management system (LMS). The LMS discreetly accesses HRU’s knowledge repository, making HRU resources available seamlessly while recording the talent development efforts in the user’s LMS, supporting each agency’s strategic talent development efforts. PowerTrain worked with the subject matter experts to develop creative ways to link competencies with HR roles and then to connect each role to the HR professional framework, which serves as the foundation for talent development.
The comprehensive suite of customized tools includes the:
- Customized Self-Assessment Tool
- Individual Development Plan (IDP) Tool
- Career Maps and Critical Development Activities
- Dynamic Message Board
- Resource Center
- Manager’s Corner
- Registered User Database
- Knowledge Repository
Our agile project process
An important aspect of this project and many of our projects is the use of an agile solution development process. This process allows PowerTrain to rapidly develop and deploy baseline functionality and grant access to users. This results in actual users accessing the system faster. We then gather user and stakeholder feedback in order to inform the development of additional functionality. Using this methodology, the following resources were released in rapid succession:
- The Manager’s Corner, which houses the HR development features filtered from the database to provide supervisors with quick access to information specific to performance management.
- The HRU Campus, which features accredited college courses to broaden the scope of learning options on HRU and promote the goal of becoming the Federal government’s “one-stop” source for HR career development.
- An interactive Resource Center that provides links to HR jobs, and a host of other useful tools and references for the professionals and HR practitioners interested in finding out more about the Federal government’s HR opportunities, as well as for those HR professionals looking for ways to enhance their knowledge and productivity.
Hard work brings positive results
As a direct result of PowerTrain’s collaborative efforts with the CHCO Council to create HRU, the Office of Employee Services, which began managing HRU.gov in October 2012, has awarded PowerTrain several follow-on projects to promote Federal human capital management strategies, plans, and practices, including the development of the:
- Strategic Workforce Planning Online Resource Center that combines the resources of three communities of practice: Best Practices, Work Life/Wellness, and a Virtual Innovation Lab.
- Human Capital Framework (HCF) Online Resource Center that showcases several innovative tools to demonstrate how the Federal HR systems work together as an adaptive complex system that is affected constantly and continuously by both internal and external environmental factors.
- Mentoring Hub that provides an interactive tool to support the efforts of mentors and protégés.
- Performance University and Career Center provides unique tools and features designed specifically for managers.
One of the goals of HRU is to continuously engage the Federal HR workforce using social media public relations strategies to increase awareness and build relationships vital to their human capital planning strategy. To ensure that HRU would be connected with social media, PowerTrain’s programmers exceeded original specifications by making the website fully compatible with devices running on the Apple iOS and Google Android mobile operating systems. PowerTrain also implemented design elements geared to these platforms, including short and candid video clips from the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, the HRU Provost and Executive Director of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council, and many of the other agency and department CHCOs. This social touch engages HR professionals and provides access to industry leaders. To keep users apprised of the new features being implemented and added to HRU, PowerTrain integrated popular social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter
One of the most important aspects of this project is the cost savings HRU helps the Federal government achieve. HRU has shown quantifiable results, as it has provided HR program support in recruiting, marketing, training, and development for the 15,000+ registered users.
HRU has saved the Federal government over $25 million through the reduction of training duplication. PowerTrain performed this project on a firm fixed-price task order. The total cost of this effort was $578,954. Based on the current cost savings to the Federal government, the ratio of savings to cost is 43:1, and this ratio is still growing!
HRU is also the recipient of the 2012 Deloitte Public Sector Innovation Award for the 21st Century, and the CHCO Council received the 2012 Training Officers Consortium’s Distinguished Service Award for human capital management in recognition of its innovative work on HRU.
