Section 1
Overview of the Training and Development
Process
Page 5 GAO-04-546G Guide for Strategic Training and Development Efforts
DRAFT
performance planning processes. Front-end analysis can help ensure that
training and development efforts are not initiated in an ad hoc,
uncoordinated manner, but rather are strategically focused on improving
performance toward the agency’s goals and are put forward with the
agency’s organizational culture firmly in mind. To make certain that their
strategic and annual performance planning processes adequately reflect
current ideas, policies, and practices in the field, agencies should consider
the viewpoints of human capital professionals, agency managers,
employees, employee unions, and other critical stakeholders in partnership
with agency leadership in addressing training and development efforts.
Part of this process must include determining what skills and competencies
are needed in order to meet current, emerging, and future transformation
challenges and assessing any gaps in current skills and competencies. It is
important to note that not all such gaps will be addressed through training
and development strategies, or through training and development
strategies alone. Rather, strategies involving training and development are
but one of the means available to agency leaders to help transform their
cultures and operations. At times, for example, training may complement
job or process redesign, but in other instances, agencies may identify hiring
or other sourcing decisions as the solution.
In addition, agencies should integrate the need for continuous life-long
learning and incorporate employees’ development goals into their planning
processes. Planning allows agencies to establish priorities and determine
how training and development investments, along with other human capital
strategies, can best be leveraged to improve performance. In addition to
planning how training and development strategies are expected to
contribute to results, agencies should set forth how the training and
development program’s contributions to achieving results will be
measured. Each agency needs to ensure that it has the flexibility and
capability to quickly incorporate strategic and tactical changes into training
and development efforts when needed. As the pace of change continues to
accelerate, agencies face changes in their missions and goals, as well as
changes in how they do business, with whom they work, and the roles that
they play in achieving results. Planning and preparing an integrated
approach, including training and development efforts, is key to positioning
federal agencies to be able to address current problems and meet emerging
demands.
Design/Development
Well-designed training and development programs are linked to agency
goals and to the organizational, occupational, and individual skills and