Session Review: Creating a Learning and Developmental Strategy Map – Dofasco Case Study

(May 3)

Summary: In this session, Tracy and Theresa presented their first attempt at a Strategy Map in order to align the Dofasco Learning and Development organization with the corporate goals and objectives. This map serves as a communication tool to inform employees about their place and contribution to the larger corporate picture. It also serves as a feedback mechanism for process improvement. The key objective was to demonstrate the value of the Learning and Development organization, whose customers are an internal audience. They suggest a Balanced Scorecard in order to track metrics, and recommend that we measure what matters. They indicated that the 4 themes that require alignment and measurement in a Balanced Scorecard include: guiding principles, customer perspective, internal process perspective, and learning and growth perspective

The presenters mentioned that Dofasco, as company of about 6,800 employees, was now in a merger situation and would be absorbed into an organization of over 300,000 employees. The strategy map was developed for Dofasco, and the presenters didn’t know how it would play out in the new organization. Because of the current state of flux, the Learning and Development Strategy Map was not linked to corporate objectives or goals, as none were available. So, the current focus is on defining and measuring the value proposition provided by the learning department.

Ang’s thoughts:
I had the chance to chat with Theresa at the end of the session and she was very kind in addressing my questions. Kudos to Theresa and Tracy for proactively developing the map, as it will be easier to have something to react to once the merger is finalized and skills, tools, processes, etc. need to be consolidated – better than starting from scratch in the new organization. We discussed the challenge for Learning/HR departments to align with corporate objectives and establish the measurements of impacts – well document in the industry research and literature. They mentioned that a lack of data impedes credit being given to the learning/HR departments for their contribution to corporate successes and, again, the literature indicates that there is uncertainty as to what to measure or how to measure it to show value.

From this, I am able to take away their process for developing their strategy map and scorecard. Communication is key, as is alignment not only with corporate goals and objectives, but also with various functional groups to ensure that they are all pulling in the same direction.

One thing I need to mention, as I noticed it also in the Cirque du Soleil keynote and discussed it with Theresa. Learning departments seem to be intentionally moving away from the word ‘Training’ as an identifier of what they do – and have adopted the departmental names of ‘Learning’ and ‘Development’. This may seem inconsequential to some, but it really strikes a cord with me, as I think of focus is placed in very difference places when one refers to training and one refers to learning.

Submitted by: Angela van Barneveld