ASQ Education Division’s Workforce Development Brief

Guest editorialapplying Process Management to Workforce development

We can treat workforce development services as business processes and can plan and control them with the same successful methods.

What is Workforce development? defining the Field and identifying key Factors that affect it

This is the first installment of a six-part series that provides a framework for the field of workforce development and describes five drivers that affect its ability to educate and train workers for the current and future job market.

Workforce development in the Knowledge society

This article presents a multi-dimensional concept of 21st century workforce development highlighting characteristics of current higher education and its societal context and proposes the potential involvement of new stakeholders.

Workforce Development: Issues and Opportunities

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4011/is_200404/ai_n9366411/

Workforce Development Planning: Getting the “People Factor” Into Organisational Strategies and Plans

http://human-resources-management.suite101.com/article.cfm/workforce_development_planning

Best Practices in Training and Development

http://www.workforce.com/global/pdf_traindev10.php

A Push for Better Workforce Training

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/85751942.html

The Workforce Development Brief is provided for members of the Education Division two times per year. Articles generally should be 1,000-1,200 words in length and should be submitted to the editor, Deborah Hopen, at debhopen@nventure.com.

Basic training: How adults learn and How to Make Classes Work for them

This multi-part series covers the basics of adult learning theory and instructional design.

teaming up for Workforce success: asQ section and College Join Forces

How can a local ASQ Section not only help its members increase their knowledge and skills but also expand its reach into the local community?

linKs to otHer artiCles oF interest

The July 2010 issue launches This new publicaTion.

ASQ Education Division’s Workforce Development Brief

David Saunders

Guest Editorial

Applying Process Management to Workforce Development

It’s exciting to see ASQ’s Education Division expanding its presence in the field of workforce development by launching this new online brief, and I’m pleased to have been asked to write the guest editorial. Now the Division’s activities span the whole cycle of lifelong learning from K-12, through higher education, and into the adult workforce. With the Division’s focus on “Quality in Education,” modern workplaces offer a unique oppor-tunity to see the intersection between the effects of the educational process and applica-tion of quality concepts and tools.

The Role of Business ProcessesProcess management has served as a

mainstay in manufacturing for many years, where processes are flow-charted, con-trolled, and optimized. In recent years, this approach has been applied increasingly to many services as well. We can even treat workforce development services as busi-ness processes and can plan and control with the same successful methods.

Many workforce development profession-als think of their work as more of an “art” than a “science.” They sometimes rebel against the idea that their processes are repeatable and controllable. They say, “Every client is differ-ent; you can’t take a cookie-cutter approach.” Better trained and more experienced counsel-ors, however, can describe their way of doing things in detail, the rules of engagement they have personally developed over the years, and the techniques that work best for them. We can develop these descriptions into repeat-able processes that produce high quality results; and these results can be understood and packaged for large-scale application.

All the traditional activities associated with quality assurance, quality control, and improvement are applicable to workforce development processes. At ResCare, we use the ISO 9001 quality management standard as a foundation for our disciplined approach to managing workforce development processes. We ensure that all aspects of our service delivery are planned and carried out under controlled conditions.

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Our efforts to control workforce development pro-cesses begin with generating flow charts. We identify each step in the process, determining exactly how it is performed. For instance, when we were documenting how to conduct assessment interviews, which are part of our career assessment and employment planning process, we first determined what general interview questions counselors were asking, as well as what pro-gram-specific questions were used. We then documented those questions in an interview guide, which leads the career advisor and the job seeker through the steps of an assessment interview. The flow chart, coupled with the documented guide, provides a reliable means for ensuring consistent process operation and acceptable results—even in a process as seemingly nebulous as an interview.

We also evaluate potential failure modes for the pro-cess being documented and build in steps to prevent their occurrence. One example of a failure mode in the career assessment and employment planning process involves job seekers choosing to pursue training in a field in which they are interested, but for which job opportunities are limited. Once this issue was identified, we added steps for gathering and assessing labor market information, which helps job seekers obtain a better view of job prospects before undertaking training.

Although it goes beyond the scope of this article to discuss all the tools that are useful for managing work-force development processes, it’s worth mentioning a few additional approaches that are routinely associated with ISO 9001: identifying customer and employer require-ments; developing relevant policies, procedures, and work instructions; controlling documents of internal and exter-nal origin; implementing reliable measurement systems; gathering measurement data; and analyzing that data using graphs, charts, and statistical methods.

ConclusionAs you read this first issue of the Education Division’s

new Workforce Development Brief, I know you’ll learn a great deal about how quality techniques can enhance the way we educate and train workers in every field. I hope you’ll find the articles not only informative, but also read-ily applicable and that you’ll start putting what you learn to use right away!

DaviD SaunDerS is the co-author of Four Days With Dr. Deming (now in its 10th printing), which describes in detail Dr. W. edwards Deming’s quality lectures. Saunders works at resCare, the nation’s leading provider of Workforce Development Services, which operates more than 100 One-Stop, TanF, and youth programs. Contact him at dsaunders@rescare.com for more information.

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Workforce development means many things to many people. Its definition depends on your point of view. If you are working for a government agency, it can involve special training programs or skill retraining that helps people rejoin the workforce. If you’re in education, it can involve technical training schools or accred-ited universities that prepare students for employment. If you are an employer, it can involve internal training that increases work-ers’ knowledge and skills. As Jacobs and Hawley learned in their 2009 study, “The Emergence of Workforce Development,” the definitions vary considerably, but each is legitimate within its own context.1

Jacobs and Hawley propose that a provider offers “...individuals with the oppor-tunity for sustainable livelihood and helps organizations achieve exemplary goals...” all within the societal context; however, this definition ignores one important question: Do we continue to train people for low-skill jobs because they provide a sustainable livelihood, or do we look at providing education and training that moves society forward?

For instance, I had the opportunity to work with a Caribbean island nation where the country’s efforts look beyond low-skill jobs, focusing on the economic future as the basis for workforce development pro-grams. My introduction to this point of view occurred while working with its govern-ment’s scholarships division, which examined the current workforce and the jobs that com-panies were creating. They determined what jobs had to be filled by expatriates because they could not be filled by local people, what jobs private industry was directing to the scholarship division or other ministries, and what industries were being attracted to the country. All these questions served as a foundation for that country’s workforce development program and focused their efforts on providing education and training that aligns with future work opportunities. This approach helps workforce development programs contribute to building a sustainable economy with sustainable jobs and preparing people to compete to obtain those jobs.

So, what types of programs did this pro-gram require to accomplish this vision? It

Thomas Berstene

Workforce Development: What Is It?

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needed every aspect that Jacobs and Hawley discussed in their treatise, as follows:

• Starting the effort by improving the nation’s educa-tion system and developing programs to teach the trades.

• Teaching people how to work and what it means to go to work every day.

• Providing cultural change that encourages every citizen to reach beyond the competencies he/she cur-rently possesses.Many other countries’ programs are used as bench-

marks, and Singapore’s is cited most often because its system is based on an examination of workforce prob-lems, a sound economic development plan, and education and training that fosters attainment of those goals.

On the other hand, the antithesis of this approach is found in my home state. The attorney general joined with the union of a national company, suing the business to stop it from closing an older unprofitable division, all in the name of keeping jobs. Many businesses have left this state because of its unfavorable environment, and we have lost 90% of our skilled workers. We don’t have a large enough job pool to sustain the workforce, and we don’t have a workforce to sustain the jobs.

Many factors contributed to this situation, but our poor workforce development planning is primarily at fault. Jacobs and Hawley also uncovered the following five factors that affect workforce development:

• Globalization

• Technology

• New economy

• Political change

• Demographic shiftsWhen local government and businesses are not

prepared to address these challenges, many jobs are lost—not just menial jobs, but skill- and knowledge-based jobs. We need to avoid overreacting when these five forces reshape our local economy and workforce. Instead, we need to rethink our strategies for building a sound future—one in which we find the balance needed to retain and increase available jobs. Planning for the future is the key to workforce development, and we need to pay attention to each of these five drivers. We need to learn to spot trends and adopt strategies that attract jobs back to the local economy. To do this, we need to work to identify what new and improved skills and knowledge are required so we can prepare our workforce to fill those jobs as they become available.

This also means that we must create a workforce that is flexible and has learned how to learn. We cannot train an entire workforce to be machinists without also train-ing it to be computer operators; these functions are no longer mutually exclusive. We must look at how the work is done today and how it will be done in the future. We need to ensure that workers are fully capable of perform-ing their jobs—as those jobs change in response to the five factors.

In the end, workforce development means many different things to many different people. Despite that reality, however, workforce development programs suc-ceed only when there is a coordinated effort among all stakeholders—educational institutions, workforce devel-opment programs, employers, and job seekers. To do this, we need to have a better handle on the five drivers that form the working environment and the workers them-selves. We need to plan for our future and that of our workers. Only then will we be able to establish the right programs and develop the right workforce.

Reference

1. r. l. Jacobs and J. D. Hawley, “The emergence of ‘Workforce Development’: Definition, Conceptual Boundaries, and implecations,” r. Maclean and D. Wilson, eds., International Handbook of Edcuation for the Changing World of Work, 1, pp. 2537-2552, 2009.

THOMaS BerSTene is the founder and president of Workforce Planning associates, inc. (WFPa). He has more than 20 years of work experience in the area of quality and organizational assessments. Berstene worked for aetna as an education evaluator and was a commissioned officer in the u.S. Coast Guard where was a founding member of the Leadership Development Center. He can be reached at tberstene@workforceplanning.com.

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Workforce development, an educational role now associated primarily with com-munity colleges, is not yet a familiar phrase throughout higher education. Should work-force development be a priority for four-year colleges and universities, too? How does workforce development relate to quality improvement in higher education?

A speech by Jamie Merisotis, president of the Lumina Foundation for Education, to attendees at a 2009 governor’s confer-ence on higher education highlighted the magnitude and complexity of challenges in postsecondary education and the need to engage multiple stakeholders to address those challenges. According to Merisotis, the funda-mental purpose of the Lumina Foundation’s goal to improve college access and graduation rates is to share the power of postsecondary education as broadly as possible, working “to improve American higher education and, thereby, enhance our collective well-being as a nation.”1 Such language creates powerful images: the speech suggests an ideal in which all Americans have a stake in improving the quality of higher education. Conversely, it also suggests that higher education could play a

greater societal role, ideally improving condi-tions for all, through more effective workforce development.

This article presents a multi-dimensional concept of 21st century workforce develop-ment highlighting characteristics of current higher education and its societal context and proposes the potential involvement of new stakeholders. In recent decades, America’s demographics have shifted and global mar-kets emerged. Perhaps the most important underlying factor enabling these and other redefining trends has been the influence of new technology, such as the Internet and other communications capabilities. Since mid-20th century, new information processing technologies have transformed the educa-tional landscape2 as well as the workplace. From a business perspective, Peter Drucker describes the rise of new types of workers and an “emerging knowledge society.”3 In education, Merriam and Caffarella describe the connection between adult learning and contemporary society in terms of three dimensions of the socio-cultural context shap-ing today’s world: demographics, the global economy, and technology.4

Sandra L. Kortesoja

Workforce Development in the Knowledge Society

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Workforce Development Brief vol. 1, no. 16

In terms of demographics and economic forces, con-nections between higher education and contemporary society are relatively well studied. Especially at the state and local levels, current economic conditions have encouraged government interest in promoting post-secondary education programs to support workforce requirements and economic development. Community colleges play a vital role in providing access to higher education for many students who would not have the opportunity to enroll as full-time students in more selective four-year residential colleges. Although com-munity colleges offer two-year programs designed to culminate either in an industry-focused associate’s degree leading to employment in that industry or in transfer to complete a bachelor’s degree before enter-ing the workforce, minority students are often unwilling or unable to make even a two-year commitment. Based on National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data from the 1999 National Household Education Survey, career-oriented, nontraditional-age, postsecond-ary students choose credential programs over isolated noncredit courses elected outside of a degree or cer-tification program.5 Yet, community college students may start in noncredit basic education or skills-related courses rather than enrolling in a credential program. According to a 2007 Lumina Foundation report, “Return to Learning: Adults’ Success in College is Key to America’s Future,” such students may get lost in a “hidden college” of noncredit courses without a clear path to earning a degree. Both access to higher education and improv-ing graduation rates are still important policy goals.

In addition to demographics and economics, tech-nology also influences the connection between higher education and contemporary society. New technologies are enabling the university as a center of knowledge to evolve into new forms in both subtle and more readily apparent ways. Through Internet capabilities, universi-ties and workplaces alike have become global learning communities—although global communities without coherent central authority for data collection to enable systematic future research.6 At the same time, patterns of delayed or part-time enrollment, or “stopping-out” of college, have increased the proportion of nontraditional students in postsecondary education. Among undergradu-ates, these enrollment patterns combine with the current longer time-to-graduation for full-time students (e.g., more than four years to complete a bachelor’s degree) to blur the distinction between traditional age and non-traditional age students. From a student perspective, technology-enabled online distance-learning providers may represent a more affordable postsecondary alter-native to residential campuses. In an age where mass media advertisement and news delivery modes bombard students with short sound bites of information, creating

deeper understanding of concepts and context is more challenging both in the classroom and online, but an essential workforce development component in a knowl-edge society.

To summarize, effective workforce development requires broader systems thinking and collaboration where individuals as well as organizations are stakehold-ers. For example, in engineering and other technical fields, both theoretical knowledge and practical experi-ence play a role in quality assurance. In the workplace, interpreting and applying new discoveries to solve problems is more feasible with a broad base of experi-ence and knowledge. However, technology-enabled information overload creates special challenges for technical degree programs, which require mastering an extensive body of prerequisite material as a foundation for more specialized areas of study (making incorpo-ration of new knowledge into the curriculum more difficult to accomplish as time goes on). Providing a high quality education that will be of value later in the workplace to both the student and the nation is an expanded interpretation of workforce development. Yet, an ideal program for student success would seem-ingly combine adequate education to provide a solid fundamental knowledge with skills for lifelong learning and for adapting to changing circumstances as organiza-tional and industry structures respond to globalization.

References

1Jamie Merisotis, “engaging Multiple Stakeholders to ensure College access and Success for all,” speech to the Governor’s Conference on Higher education, State College, Pa, March 2009, published in Quality Approaches in Higher Education, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 18-23.

2James J. Duderstadt, Daniel e. atkins, and Douglas van Houweling, Higher Education in the Digital Age: Technology Issues and Strategies for American Colleges and Universities, american Council on education and Praeger Publishers, 2002.

3Peter F. Drucker, “The age of Social Transformation,” Atlantic Monthly, nov. 1994, pp. 53-80.

4Sharon B. Merriam, and rosemary S. Caffarella, Learning in Adulthood: A Comprehensive Guide, 2nd ed., Jossey-Bass, 1999.

5Sandra L. Kortesoja, “Postsecondary Choices of nontraditional-age Students: non-Credit Courses or a Credential Program?” The Review of Higher Education, Fall 2009, pp. 37-65.

6For more discussion of future research directions, see pp. 135-138 in Sandra Kortesoja, Workplace Priorities and Postsecondary Education: The Value of Credential Programs to Nontraditional Age Students, vDM verlag Dr. Mueller, 2009.

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SanDra L. KOrTeSOJa, PH.D., Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary education, university of Michigan, is an independent consultant whose background includes organizational behavior and management experience both in higher education and in private enterprise. She also holds Master of information and Library Studies (MiLS), Master of Business administration (MBa), and Bachelor of arts (economics) degrees from the university of Michigan. Contact her at slzkort@umich.edu.

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You’ve been asked to conduct a training session. No problem. You know your topic cold. You’ll just whip up some Microsoft® PowerPoint® slides, tell your audience every-thing you know about this topic, and slip in a few jokes, right? If you’re a subject-matter expert, that’s probably the process you’re planning, but it’s not the approach that is likely to produce the best learning results. So, let’s do a quick review of what we know about adult learning.

Learning is actually a fairly complex activ-ity, and over the past four decades the field of adult learning has benefited from studies in other disciplines on motivation, perception, cognition, and behavior. Essentially, effec-tive training engages and motivates learners, facilitates the transfer of information from short-term to long-term memory, and in some cases, brings about new behavior. This article reviews some of the key factors affecting adult learning.

Myths About Adult Learning

• Training Myth One: If I tell someone about something, they’ll absorb the

information. That’s not necessarily true. Some learners will absorb information just fine from a traditional lecture; many others won’t. Individuals have different prefer-ences for how they like to learn. Some learn well by listening, some through discussion; others through visual informa-tion such as graphs, charts, and movies; and still others through actually doing something, such as manipulating objects. These differences aren’t a matter of the

learner’s capability; we all can learn through each of these mechanisms. Instead, they are a matter of personal preference, which has a strong connection with engagement and attention span. The more complex a topic, the more important it is to engage the learner fully. Plus, in any typical workplace class, there are likely to be a mix of preferred approaches among the participants.

• Training Myth Two: I have to be funny and charismatic to be a successful trainer. Of course, most people appreci-ate a little wit and some sign that you’re human, but you don’t have to be Chris Rock or Ellen Degeneres to succeed as a

Margaret Murphy

Basic TrainingHow Adults Learn and How to Make Classes Work for Them

ASQ Education Division’s Workforce Development Brief

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trainer. You do have to engage your learners by cov-ering topics that are useful to them, designing your materials effectively, and creating a classroom atmo-sphere that’s conducive to learning.

• Training Myth Three: More is better. Passion for a topic is generally a wonderful quality to have in a trainer—the enthusiasm tends to be contagious…unless your love of the topic compels you to blather on about details that bore the living daylights out of the learners. (“I thought everyone would find the history of punctuation riveting.”) Also, even when a topic is of interest to learners, humans can process only a limited amount of information in one sitting. Carefully culling out content until you’re left with just the information that’s most important to the learners can improve your training greatly.

• Training Myth Four: If I receive high ratings from the participants, then my training session was a success. Good connections between the participants and the trainer definitely can help facilitate learning. Evaluations are also used frequently to make future hiring decisions and, therefore, are not unimportant; however, the “smile sheets” only give an indication of the participants’ feelings about the training—they are not evidence that the participants actually have learned. Additional measures—tests, exercises, work projects, observations of changed thinking and/or behaviors, or post-training (e.g., one month later) sur-veys—are needed to measure actual learning.

• Donald Kirkpatrick explored this area in his 1975 book, Evaluating Training Programs, where he described four measures, as follows:

• Reaction of student—what they thought and felt about the training.

• Learning—the resulting increase in knowledge or capability.

• Behavior—extent of behavior and capability improve-ment and implementation/application.

• Results—the effects on the business or environment resulting from the trainee’s performance.Although it is beyond the scope of this article to dig

into each of these approaches deeply, it’s easy to see that student reactions are far from the only—or even the best way—to measure effectiveness.

How We Process Information and Transfer Learning to Long-Term Memory

The brain monitors incoming information and rapidly decides what information should get our attention. Some estimate that we discard about 98% of all incoming mes-sages.1 One of the reasons for this is the limited capacity of short-term or “working” memory, to organize and retain

incoming information. Numerous factors affect learner ability to take in new information. One factor is how information is visually organized. The use of color, graph-ics, formatting, and white space in the presentation of visual information can help learners to process and orga-nize new information. Once information is in working memory, the next challenge is to transfer it to long-term memory. For simple memorization, repetition can be effective. For retention of more complex information, active engagement with the material is the best approach. Jean Piaget, renowned Swiss philosopher, spoke of the importance of “meaningfulness”—the extent to which the new information can be related to existing information already stored in long-term memory. Here are some tips to facilitate absorption and retention of information.

• Design classroom activities that will allow learners to connect new learning with existing knowledge, inter-act in some way with the new information, and find a meaningful application of the new information.

• Organize learning into short, digestible chunks.

• Pace lecture and other activities to give learners time to process incoming information. Some suggest no more than 10 minutes of lecture, followed by two minutes of reflection or discussion.

• Include only sensory inputs (e.g., visuals, sound) that are relevant to the learning. Irrelevant input can create cognitive overload. Use animation effects in PowerPoint judiciously; too many flying bullet points actually detract from learning.

• Use color and graphics to help learners organize infor-mation quickly.

• Cover only one topic per PowerPoint slide or over-head and follow the 6 x 6 rule: maximum of six bullet points with no more than six words per line. Include charts and graphs where appropriate.

What Adults Want in a Training SessionAdults want all of the dimensions below when they

are trained:

• Relevance. Adults typically have busy lives and are generally goal oriented. They want training that is directly relevant to their lives.

• Respect. Adults expect trainers to treat them as peers. If they feel patronized or disrespected, they may feel hostile toward the trainer and tune out the message.

• Engagement. Adults want involvement in their learning. They generally prefer interactive activities, discussions, and problem-solving scenarios. Most find a two-hour PowerPoint lecture mind-numbingly dull and will usually transport themselves elsewhere men-tally or start playing with their Blackberries.

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• Motivation. They want to know that the training provides some benefit to them. State and reiterate the potential benefits of the training to the participants to remind them what’s in it for them.Note: This is the first segment of a multi-issue column

on basic tips for workforce development educators/trainers. It is based on an article originally published in “Educators World” in the April 2009 issue of The Journal for Quality and Participation.

Reference:

1. Donna W. Tileston, What Every Teacher Should Know About Learning, Memory, and the Brain, Corwin Press, 2004.

MarGareT MurPHy has more than 15 years of experience training adults in both the private sector and higher education. She holds a bachelor’s degree in China studies, a master’s degree in education from new york university, and a certificate in the design and development of distance education. She is the co-author of aSTD infoline: Trainer for Day. Her e-mail address is mmurphy@bellevuecollege.edu.

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Teaming Up for Workforce SuccessASQ Section and College Join Forces

In 2008, the Seattle Section’s Education Committee asked a question that led to a highly successful partnership with the Continuing Education Business and Professional Program at Bellevue Community College (BCC and now known as now Bellevue College): “How can a local ASQ Section not only help its members increase their knowledge and skills but also expand its reach into the local community?”

The section tackled the project by form-ing a committee comprised of section leaders and members from area organizations, as well as representatives from local higher educa-tion institutions. The committee identified the need for current and future workers in the region to have access to a practical statistics course that would improve decision making in all roles in the workplace. Margaret Murphy, director of BCC’s continuing education busi-ness program, participated on the committee as well as joining section activities, including serving as a panelist at a section meeting. Her direct involvement forged a bond that resulted in developing the class, “Introduction to Statistics: A Practical Approach.”

Ardith Beitel, who served as the Seattle Section’s Education Chair for this project, noted that working with BCC expanded the section’s reach outside its traditional bound-aries, “BCC has been rated as Washington’s top community college for many years. Its mailing list includes many people who have never heard of ASQ. By working with BCC, we extended our reach—and our contribution—to the community at large. This was an ideal way to take the knowledge and skills of our members and put them to use in a practical, but easy to implement, way.”

ASQ members were a valuable regional resource as they had both the skills and on-the-job knowledge to develop the cur-riculum and teach the course in partnership with BCC, collaboratively filling a gap for local organizations. Unlike traditional statis-tics classes taught in the math department, this class focused on developing a deep understanding of statistical basics and their applications. The emphasis was on providing real-life examples and ensuring that partici-pants can put what they learn to use in their regular jobs.

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“Participating in our local ASQ section yielded big dividends for us. We tapped into a pool of prospective instructors ideal for continuing education—instructors with documented expertise coupled with experience. Participants in the statistics class that was designed and taught by ASQ members expressed appreciation for the opportunity to learn not only statistical concepts but their practical application as well,” commented Murphy.

Class participants came from a variety of backgrounds and included members of manufacturing, service, government, and non-profit organizations. The course description included information that explains the applicability of statistics to non-operational roles, such as human resources. Participants frequently raised ques-tions about how to apply what they learned to situations outside the normal cases used in introductory statistics courses. The curriculum specifically included examples that related to these functions, as well as operations, so that everyone involved could see how statistics helps improve decision-making in all roles. The course met for four hours on three consecutive Saturdays, making it convenient for people who couldn’t get away from their regular jobs and didn’t have the time to attend a regular academic class.

Two Seattle Section members, Laura Gregg and Deborah Hopen, developed the instructional design and also served as instructors. “Our goal was to cover the basics of statistics in a way that showed its value as a decision-making tool,” Gregg reports. “We wanted students to leave the course excited about statistics, not mumbling about having suffered through another dread-ful math class.”

BCC’s catalogue contained this course description: “Gain an overview of the purpose and use of statistics: basic terminology, types of data, ways to describe data sets, and use of simple statistics to draw conclusions with confidence. Learn to summarize, compare, and present data. This is not a math class; it is designed to improve analysis and decision-making capabilities. The calculations covered require only basic computational skills—using functions that are available on most inexpensive calculators.”

The course focused on how these statistical approaches are used to analyze data in a way that gener-ates an understanding of the associated process/situation. It was designed for those with limited or no experience with statistics or to serve as a refresher for those who had a previous statistics course but were not comfortable applying what they learned.

The three sessions covered the following topics: terminology, data types, measures of central tendency, measures of variation, overview on distributions, how to work with the normal distribution, a bit about the binomial distribution, and a discussion about the Poisson distribution. The following learning objectives were estab-lished for the course:

• Explain the difference between populations and sam-ples and define the terms associated with both types of data sets.

• Differentiate between the two types of data: discrete (attribute) and continuous (variables) and learn how to analyze each type.

• Become familiar with the underlying distributions associated with discrete and continuous data.

• Compare data sets and determine if they represent the same or differing situations.The course has been conducted several times

with great success. In addition to its availability as a public course, it also can be presented to local orga-nizations that want to bring it in house. Participants’ comments were favorable, noting that they really did learn techniques to improve their work performance and their organizations’ results. The partnership is viewed as a success for ASQ, BCC, as well as work-ers and organizations in the community.