Designing an Effective Certification Program
By Kaliym Islam

Your software company is considering creating a new revenue stream. The company has a 90% market share and management believes that it can leverage this position by charging its customers to become certified as power users of its suite of applications. The conventional thinking is that the internal service desk employees should also be certified so that they are better able to handle the calls that come in. Management wants the program up and running when the latest version of the software is released in nine months. Naturally the next step in the process is to call in the training department and have them use their training expertise to lead the development of the certification program, right?

Wrong. Developing an effective certification program is a business development process, not a training initiative. The endeavor should be led by a business manager, and accomplished using a business methodology.

Who Should Lead Certification Development?

Certification programs are extremely popular these days. Companies design them for a variety of reasons. Some businesses use certification as a means of qualifying employees for promotions or to validate that they can perform certain job functions. Others (as the example at the beginning of this article pointed out) are using certification as a means to generate additional revenue for their companies. Whatever the rationale for deciding to design (and offer) certification, at its root is a business driver that will dictate whether or not the program is effective. This truism is a compelling argument for the use of an accepted business strategy as a methodology, and for the project leadership to be a professional with experience in business processes.

Training professionals tend to come from a Human Resource of Education (non-business) background and educated in the Instructional System Design (ISD) process. ISD is a methodology that according to the Southern Illinois University Education Department "...basically focuses on how systems engineering can be applied toward the design of effective instruction." www.siue.edu. A training professional would be the perfect candidate to lead certification design (and ISD would be the right methodology) if the business driver of the initiative was simply to design effective instruction. The earlier examples of why companies undertake certification programs showed however this is not always the case. In order to design an "effective" certification program a methodology that can identify the true business requirements, quantify the business requirements, and produce a certification program that meets the business requirements must be used.

What Methodology should be Employed?

Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is an excellent candidate for such an undertaking. DFSS is a brand of Six Sigma that is used to design or re-design a product or service from the ground up. Two popular versions of DFSS (that can be applied to any business design process) are DMADV and IDOV. DMADV is an acronym that represents a five-phase process: Define, Measure, Analyze, Design and Verify. IDOV is an acronym that represents a four-phase process: Identify, Design, Optimize and Validate.

A third version of Design for Six Sigma is DMADDI. DMADDI is an acronym representing a six phase design process that is specifically tailored to the development of training programs and thus may be the best suited to support a certification initiative.

What is DMADDI?

DMADDI is a Six Sigma Model that has been called "the best of both worlds." In this iteration of Six Sigma, Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) and ISD are combined. The tools, techniques of Six Sigma that have proven successful at identifying business requirements are employed to identify and quantify the VOC and the VOB; and the tools, techniques, and methodologies of ISD that are designed to identify things such as learning objectives and instructional techniques are utilized for that end.

The DMADDI Process

Define

In the Define phase, we answer the question "What is important?" One of the first activities that take place in Define is to assemble a "business review team." This team, which is made up of project stakeholders, serves as a steering committee for the lifecycle of the project. They validate the business requirements of the project, and meet at the end of every project phase to ensure that the project is on target to meet those requirements.

Measure

Measure answers the question, "What targets do we need to meet?" This phase is where the business targets are identified (by the business review team.) Specific Six Sigma tools are used to convert the desires of business stakeholders into quantifiable targets. When this phase is complete, a tollgate review is used to validate that the specific business targets agree with the business case that was approved in define.

Analyze

"What needs to be learned?" is the question that Analyze addresses. This phase occurs much as it would with ISD with a few exceptions. A combination of Six Sigma and ISD tools are used to validate the topics that the course needs to cover. The work that occurs in Analyze is accomplished not by the business review team but by the actual project team that will be designing the training. At the end of this phase the project team presents its findings to the business review team at a tollgate review. This review ensures that the outcomes of Analyze compliment what was agreed to in define and measure. If the business review team finds that the outputs of Analyze contradict what was agreed to in define and measure, they can put the project on hold and assess if 1) the project scope needs to be redefined or 2) the analysis must be redone. In any event, this tollgate review ensures that the project does not deviate from the agreed upon scope.

Design

Design answers the question "How should we teach it?" As was the case with Analyze, the project team accomplishes the work in this phase. This crucial phase is where the instructional techniques, delivery mechanisms, activities, and exercises are put in place. At its conclusion, the project team must again present its findings to the business review team at a tollgate review.

Develop

"Does our prototype match our Design?" is what is validated in Develop. During this phase, the training program is constructed. Materials are created; the course is authored, etc. At the tollgate for this phase, the business review team ensures that the prototype that is developed matches the Design.

Implement

Implement is where the program is installed in a real world environment. At the conclusion of this phase, the business review team validates that the program has met both the business and instructional requirements. Since there have been ongoing formal evaluations at the end of every phase, the outcome should be a forgone conclusion.

A Final Thought

Certification programs are offered for a variety of reasons. Whatever the rationale, however, at some point in the process a judgment is going to be made about the success of the program. An unsuccessful program can have various implications ranging from embarrassment (to the company and the individuals involved) to career derailment and even financial disaster. It is therefore imperative that the "right" methodology and the "right" leadership are associated with the undertaking. DMADDI is a version of Design for Six Sigma that is specifically tailored to the design of training initiatives and thus the best alternative for designing an effective certification program. 

Reprinted from LTI Newsline