Setting the Scene:

NCR Corporation, headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, is a global technology solutions and services company with 32,000 associates in 80 countries. We have five major business units and hundreds of job roles, each with distinct learning priorities.

Adding to this complexity is the fact that NCR has been going through a period of strategic transformation. Beginning in the early 1990’s the company began to reposition itself, moving away from its 100-year history as a provider of hardware and software products toward a new role as a provider of complete business solutions and services.

As a result of the scope of our business and the urgency and magnitude of this change, NCR management adopted a more prescriptive approach to associates’ professional development. To support this the company’s Global Learning division (a practice area in Human Resources) developed an interactive, online tool called “Curriculum Mapping” which balances the top-down, business driven priorities of the company with the bottom-up, development oriented interests of each associate.

NCR’s Curriculum Mapping was implemented in the context of our NCR University Online Campus. Introduced in the fall of 1997, NCRU, like many corporate university web sites of its day, provided internal users with a convenient, single-point-of-access to an extensive online course catalog, a registration system (LMS), and both NCR and third-party courses. The problem, from management’s standpoint, was that having associates “cherry-pick” courses from the online catalog was unlikely to result in the systematic development of the new skills NCR needed to meet the requirements of our new businesses.

To address this concern in early 1999 Global Learning developed a curriculum database and a web interface that can be tailored to the needs of each business unit and to the development objectives of each associate. Interestingly, our curriculum mapping concept has several features in common with the latest thinking on reusable learning objects. Curriculum maps are built on a hierarchy of courses and course sequences, both of which are reused in the higher level constructs. The strengths of this approach are described in more detail below.

Curriculum mapping has been adopted by all NCR business units and it is widely used by NCR’s most important internal audiences – our customer-facing associates around the world. Most important, it has had a clear and positive impact on the effectiveness of learning and associate performance at NCR.

Best Practice Description:

Curriculum mapping is based on the following conceptual hierarchy.

1. Map: an extended curriculum made up of sequences and courses
2. Sequence: a short, mini-curriculum made up of courses targeting a specific competence
3. Course: a single learning experience designed to build or enhance specific skills

NCR’s curriculum mapping system has two primary interfaces – a “front office” interface for our users and a “back office” interface for Learning staff. Using the back office interface, learning planners in each business unit and infrastructure group create sequences by selecting and ordering courses from the NCRU catalog. They then build maps by selecting and ordering sequences. These maps and sequences are stored in a central database and are retrieved according to selection criteria aligned to content or role taxonomies.

As noted in the previous section, the reuse of other planner’s sequences is a major tenet of the curriculum mapping philosophy. For example, many of NCR’s sales and service associates need to understand and apply the principles of project management. Rather than having learning planners in each business unit come up with their own sequences to address beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels of this competence, we have a single project management specialist who defines the necessary sequences. These sequences are then incorporated into curriculum maps that are used by associates throughout the corporation.

Like reusable learning objects, these reusable course sequences are maintained by a single owner and when they are updated the changes are immediately reflected in all the higher level maps in which they are used. [At this time slightly over half of all sequences (55%) are used in just one map. The rest are used in at least two different maps and 20 are used in 11 or more maps.]

On the NCRU Online Campus, each business unit and functional specialty has its own area, called an Institute. Within each institute is a customized interface to the curriculum mapping system. Although each Institute’s mapping interface is unique, all can be classified in one of two broad categories: 1) predefined maps and 2) ad hoc maps.

The predefined map interface is the simplest. Users identify their job role on one page and the system presents them with the standard curriculum for that role on the next page. User customization is possible through the deletion of courses already taken or which focus on skills already mastered. Predefined maps can also be augmented with other courses that the user and his or her manager feel are desirable.

The other major approach to curriculum mapping – the ad hoc approach – is used in divisions in which associates frequently wear many hats and have many shared responsibilities. In such cases the simple maxim of “one job – one curriculum” does not apply.

In the ad hoc approach users are asked not only about their job roles, but also what industries they work in, what solutions they represent, and what products or services they support. In these cases the system retrieves the sets of sequences that correspond to this more detailed input and users are allowed to order the sequences to best meet their individual learning objectives. To illustrate this last point, consider how two different associates might order the same set of sequences:

Map for Associate #1	Map for Associate #2
1. Industry training	1. Solution strategy
2. Sales training	2. Sales training
3. Solution strategy	3. Industry training
4. Solutions details	4. Project mgmt.
5. Project mgmt.	5. Solution details

In the ad hoc approach, like the predefined map method, users can delete and add specific courses to reflect their individual starting points and learning needs.

Recently Global Learning has added the capability to enable users to load their curriculum maps into online development plans that are maintained by our LMS. In these development plans users can indicate when they plan to take courses (which help the Learning staff manage demand) and the system records when courses are in progress and successfully completed. This step has enabled NCR’s Global Learning to provide online support of the complete learning cycle from development planning to learning engagement to skill mastery.

Presenting the Evidence:

From the back office or Learning staff standpoint, 44 learning planners across all business units and infrastructure groups (HR, F&A, IT Services, etc.) have created 838 sequences and 445 standard curriculum maps. Of the maps, 274 (62%) are organized to address products or solutions and 171 (38%) are designed for specific job roles.

From the user standpoint, 3,468 associates have created personal maps. (This total excludes Learning staff members and associates who are no longer with NCR.) These associates are in all five NCR business units and the major infrastructure divisions. Although the total number of current map users is a small portion of NCR’s total employee population, it represents a much higher percentage of the customer-facing sales and service personnel who are our highest priority audience.

Not surprisingly the largest number of map users (29%) are in the Financial Solutions Division where the top management endorsed the tool as the preferred mechanism for developing and monitoring professional development. In other divisions use of the tool is encouraged for selected customer-facing job roles and is optional for all others.

On average, users of the curriculum mapping system have created 2.16 maps. This is not surprising since many users build a primary map to improve their performance in their current job and then create additional maps to explore what they need to know for future career assignments. In addition, some users create maps aligned specifically to build their capabilities in horizontal areas that span the business units, like leadership, finance, and engineering.

User feedback about maps and the mapping process has been positive. About a year after we put the system into production we surveyed several groups of visitors to NCRU:

• Those who had created curriculum maps (127 - 53%),
• Those who had started but not finished the mapping process (180 - 47%), and
• Those who had visited an institute but had never gone to the mapping area (657 - 49%)

Most of those who had created maps said they found the maps useful (87%) and planned to use them to guide their development (76%). Of those who had started but not finished, 41% said they got to the point where they could view the standard map, but didn't continue customization because of time. [In this response group 55% said they were "just looking around" and 24% said they got what they needed.] Of those who had never gone to the mapping areas, 52% were not aware of the mapping process and 79% stated that now that they know about it they planned to use it in the future.

Rosa Zhang, an NCR Human Resources Manager in Beijing, China, was the 1,000th associate to create a curriculum map. Using the ad hoc, competency-based process offered in NCRU’s HR Institute, she included sequences for effective communications, focus on customers, creativity, linking HR to the business, global orientation, change agency, and performance management. When we interviewed her about her experience, Ms. Zhang reported:

“As a human resources consultant, NCRU is an excellent system to help me in supporting my internal clients to achieve their own professional career development goals. Secondly, as an NCR employee, NCRU is an excellent system to help myself to achieve my own professional career development, too. …I select[ed] my role at NCR, then [the] knowledge, techniques, and skills I should have in my current and future roles. Then the system showed me my curriculum map automatically, so, no problem!”

When asked if the map met her expectations as a guide to her future development, Ms. Zhang replied:

“Yes, definitely. My long term career goal is to become an experienced human resources consultant. The map showed exactly what I should have in knowledge, techniques, and skills - even more complete than what I could imagine. So this is for me [Chinese expression] - in English that means, ‘Everything.’”

Additional Information:

Here is a sample NCRU Curriculum Map for John Doe, a solutions sales specialist in the U.S. for the Retail Solutions Division.

Here are some additional comments from map users.

This kind of initiatives shows the interests of NCR for the development of their employees"

[from Human Resources, Caribbean and Latin America, 29 Oct 99]

"Great tool. I look forward to working in collaboration with my boss to adjust the map to support both my goals and the division's goals. This is a great way to frame the conversation about development. Thanks."

[from Teradata Solutions Group, Human Resources, United States, 26 Oct 99]

"I needed this map to look for upcoming courses that might be of benefit to the people I support within CS - I will be checking this on a monthly basis."

[from Worldwide Customer Services, Customer Engineer, Canada, 26 Oct 99]

"1) It's a friendly tool. It's easy to access and navigate. The instructions are clear and easy going. 2) The tool gives the participant the opportunity to know (or refresh) the competencies expected from their role ("This is what our company is expecting from you"). 3) I think the Curr. Map will have stronger impact in addittion to the CAS (the participant will "focus" on what he/she is really needing). 4) To make this happen (implement the actions defined) the supervisor should be strongly involved / commited (allowing time, resources and coaching)."

[from Human Resources, Caribbean and Latin America, 29 Oct 99]

"I had already completed my Master's Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University by the time your maps were set up. I did use them, and will continue to use them, to find out what the recommended training is past this point. I found the map interesting and useful for future, more advanced training. Courses were named which I didn't even know existed."

[from IT Services, Product Management, United States, 29 Oct 99]