Moving from Instructional Technology to Human Performance Technology 
in the Nuclear Power Industry
William H. Lowthert, Ph.D.
AIP Associates
home page: WWW.alwaysimproving.com
©William H. Lowthert 1996

Consider the changes we made from 1978 to 1988 through the creation of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) and the National Academy for Nuclear Training. We implemented performance-based training including the Training Systems Design approach. Instructors no longer taught only what they knew. They used systematic processes to analyze, design and develop training. Evaluation and self-assessment of training became routine activities. By the early 80's we were using tools and methods that none of us had even heard of a few years earlier.

We are beginning revolutionary changes all over again. There are many new tools that training professionals are using to improve organizational and individual performance. The training profession is at the beginning of a period of rapid change. It is moving from instructional technology with its emphasis upon the systematic approach to training into human performance technology. The systematic approach to training is only one of many tools that human performance technologists apply to correct performance problems and to improve organizational performance.

In 1994 Training Magazine presented an article that cautioned,

An effective trainer has to evolve into a performance consultant, no longer as concerned about training per se as about the performance of the company and its individual contributors (Filipczak, 1994).

In its 1994 recommendations for human performance improvement the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations reported

Even though the nuclear industry has modified procedures, enhanced training, and improved equipment performance, the contribution of the human element has become more prominent. The key to continuing progress is to further improve the performance of people at all levels (INPO 1994, p. 11).

The International Society for Performance Improvement defines human performance technology as

A set of methods and processes for solving problems and realizing opportunities relating to the performance of people (NSPI, 1993).

Harold Stolovitch, an expert on human performance technology, describes human performance technology as

An engineering approach to attaining desired accomplishments from human performers through the most effective methods available (Stolovitch and Keeps, 1992).

Les Moller, a professor at the Pennsylvania State University, suggests that people perform in accordance with the performance technology equation:

Performance = Knowledge + Skill + Opportunity + Effort + Motivation

Unfortunately when we think of ourselves as "trainers" we deal with knowledge and skill. The remaining three factors are addressed separately or regretfully not addressed at all.

As we become human performance technologists, we begin to address all the factors of the equation during our "analysis", "design", "development", "implementation", and "evaluation" stages. Yes the old familiar names can remain, but they take on an exciting new meaning as we move from instructional technology to performance technology.

Human Performance Technology as practiced in the nuclear industry should include:

• Performance Goals: setting and rewarding clear, measurable performance goals that emphasize product over process.
• Performance Analysis: identifying the causes of human error or detractors from outstanding human performance using systematic research and analysis approaches.
• Root Cause Analysis: applying investigative methods to unravel complex situations to determine root causes of performance problems, identify associated causal factors, check for generic implications of an event, determine if an event is recurrent, and to recommend corrective actions.
• Human Performance Support: controlling and modifying the work environment, work process, tools, and procedures to support outstanding human performance.
• Human Resource Management: applying human resources within complex systems such that people succeed, performance improves, and human error decreases.
• Organizational Development: focus on assuring healthy interpersonal and inter-work group relationships and helping work groups initiate and manage change.
• Employee Development: learning from experience, mentoring, and feedback that prepare an employee for future challenges.
• Career Development: aligns individual employee development with future organizational human resource needs to achieve an optimal match of individual and organizational needs; includes succession planning.
• Motivation Incentives: providing reasons for employees to perform that include financial rewards, opportunities for personal satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment, personal recognition, and visible organizational accomplishment.
• Performance Feedback: direct, accurate, constructive comparison between the expected performance and the actual individual or organizational performance.
• Teambuilding: organizing workers into teams, granting the teams substantial authority, creating teams that cross functional and organizational boundaries, supporting the growth and development of teams, providing team recognition.
• Education: learning focused upon preparation for the future.

• Training: learning focused upon the competency needed for employees to perform their current job now and in the foreseeable future.
• Self Assessment: internally motivated and managed evaluation by the people in an organization that is systematic and effective in identifying strengths, weaknesses, business opportunities, and challenges in existing business processes.

In 1994 the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations reported that an emphasis on human performance improvements is a key attribute of those plants that excel at safety, reliability, and economic performance. (INPO 1994, p. 12)

Research at the Pennsylvania State University supported the INPO conclusion. It identified a relationship between better nuclear plant performance and the implementation levels of several high performance work practices that are advocated by human performance technologists. Implementation levels of the work practice as reported by the plant manager were compared to the plant's actual capacity factor and to the plant's nuclear safety performance as indicated by their SALP rating. (Lowthert, 1996)

This research suggests that by organizing workers into teams, granting the teams substantial authority, creating teams that cross functional and organizational boundaries, making workers partners in decision making, and reducing levels of management some nuclear power plants have been able to obtain better nuclear safety ratings. The relationship between implementation of work practices and safety performance was greater for team related work practices.

There is a relationship between workers assuming an unconventional role in their work and higher capacity factors. Better performing plants tend to have higher implementation levels of these practices: workers being actively involved in continuously improving their work process, redefining their jobs, being involved in problem solving, selecting new technology, modifying their product or service, meeting with internal customers, and modifying their work processes to correct quality, production, safety, or other procedures (Lowthert, 1996).

You may hear Human Performance Technology called by another name. All the authors writing on the subject seem to be creating new titles in the hope that their title will make them famous. I have used the generic term, Human Performance Technology. Regardless of the title assigned, remember the training profession is changing. We are moving rapidly from instructional technology to human performance technology.

As training professionals we must expand our abilities and our activities. We must look for opportunities. Line managers must expect more from their training organizations. Knowledge and skill improvements are not enough to meet our performance challenges.

Carr, C. & Totzke, L. (1995, May/June). The long and winding path from instructional design to performance technology. Performance & Instruction. Washington DC: International Society for Performance Improvement.

Carr, C. & Totzke, L. (1995, September). The long and winding path from instructional design to performance technology. Performance & Instruction. Washington DC: International Society for Performance Improvement.

Filipczak, B. (1994, June). The training manager in the 90's. Training Magazine.

INPO. (1992). Reducing the occurrence of plant events through improved human performance, SOER 92-1. Atlanta GA: Institute of Nuclear Power Operations

INPO. (1994). Recommendations for human performance improvements in the U.S. nuclear utility industry. Atlanta GA: Institute of Nuclear Power Operations

INPO. (1995). Excellence in human performance (preliminary). Atlanta GA: Institute of Nuclear Power Operations

Lowthert,W.H. (1996). The relationship between the implementation of high performance work practices and nuclear power plant performance.  Doctoral dissertation, The Pennsylvania State University. (On-line).  Available: www.alwaysimproving.com 

Lowthert,W.H. (1996).  High Performance Work Practices and Nuclear Plant Performance (On-line). Available: www.alwaysimproving.com

NSPI. (1993). Performance technology produces results (Videotape). Washington DC: International Society for Performance Improvement.

Paradies, M., Unger, L., Haas, P., & Terranova, M. (1993b). Development of the NRC's human performance investigative process (HPIP): Investigator's manual (NUREG/CR-5455 SI-92-101 Vol. 2). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Rothwell, W.J. (1995). Trainers face new challenges as human performance consultants. The Changing Times, ASTD Nittany Valley Chapter Newsletter 1(2).

Rothwell, W.J. (1996, manuscript). Beyond training: enhancing human performance. New York: AMACOM. (pre-publication manuscript)

Stolovitch, H.D. & Keeps, E.J. (1992). Handbook of human performance technology. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

About Bill Lowthert
email to Bill Lowthert at BillisImproving@aol.com
http://www.alwaysimproving.com/

APA reference citation: Lowthert, W. (1996). Moving from instructional technology to human performance technology in the nuclear power industry (On-line). Available: www.alwaysimproving.com