Chapter 8: Step 8 Implement

Overview

"If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission."

ADMIRAL GRACE HOPPER

GOALS FOR STEP 8:

1. Make sure your pre-work is done.

2. Go live quietly .

3. Market constantly.

4. Attack your goals.

5. Stand up to the naysayers.

6. Start working on the next phase.

 

The time has come to see if you can deliver what you've promised . You've spent the past few months quietly researching , writing, and selling your project. It may have required effort, but there was likely little interference from the outside world. You were free to go about your work and craft your strategic plan while the company and your training staff continued with business as usual.

That freedom from scrutiny is officially over. With buy-in and a budget secured, you had better be ready to prove yourself. Now is your opportunity to come out of the shadows, to show management that the training department has reinvented itself as a contributing, business-focused member of the corporate community. You need to demonstrate that you can take your strategic plan off the page and make it happen; offering training that has a profound impact on the company's power to succeed.

You need big home runs right away. You need your courses to be scintillating, exciting, and easy to use. Don't make the mistake of assuming that things will fall into place or that people will cut you some slack in the beginning while you get your bearings. They will have their own preconceived notions about your capabilities. If you flop now, you will lose the backing and respect that you spent the past months fighting so hard to attain, and you will prove to those who doubted you that they were right.

Technology fails you only when you really need it, so be prepared for glitches. You'll encounter them, but have a plan in place to solve them and solve them quickly. The support of a great technology person on staff is most critical at this phase of the project. During our initial rollout, things went wrong at Rockwell Collins. Not everything, of course, but enough problems occurred for us to need Steve Junion's help. He managed technical glitches speedily so that those problems were minimized.