Situation

As Senior Lead of Propulsion University at Boeing, I saw that many of the division’s talent programs currently worked in isolation from each other, resulting in redundancy and wasted resources. Multiple teams developed their own training for the same problem, and didn’t measure their effectiveness. Our knowledge management practices and processes were disorganized or non-existent. And the strategy for developing and retaining key talent had not been centralized.

Task

First, I partnered with divisional executives and senior leaders as stakeholders, getting their buy-in and support to make significant organizational changes. Second, I created a standard process for analyzing performance problems around the organization, and for developing training that could fill these gaps. Third, I developed a divisional knowledge management strategy, which helped us begin to map out where key knowledge and skills were located in the organization, and how and when they were important. Finally, I integrated these processes into our division’s talent development strategy, which included introducing the concept of job role learning paths, certifications and succession planning into the ways our leaders developed their teams.

Results

The plan gave my executives the ability to track 200+ critically important engineering skills across the development of 800 engineering leaders in real time, making strategic shifts for future products much more efficient. The plan also reduced redundant training development, as teams now had to come to Propulsion University to analyze the problems they were solving. Finally, knowledge sharing was finally made a higher priority among previously siloed teams and organizations in the division.

  • Project Type: Change Management / Strategy
  • Skills Needed: Strategy Development and Execution, Executive engagement, talent and knowledge management
  • Customer: Boeing Propulsion Engineering Division
  • Team size managed: Large!