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As aging baby boomers look toward imminent retirement, the topic of leadership succession continues to take a prominent position on training agendas. Who are the organizational leaders and managers of tomorrow?  Training directors of both for-profit and nonprofit organizations have made this a topic a key concern of the new century.

In 2001, I was involved as a vendor in helping design a “leadership web portal” for Johnson Controls. Upper management had made a commitment to provide high-quality professional development to some 200 future leaders. Among the various offerings the Internet portal was designed to connect with were the Harvard Business School Publishing products. This is an unbeatable brand offering content that is second to none in quality. The complete offering of HBSP products is innovative and dynamic, consistent with their overall philosophy emphasizing self-analysis, systematic reflection, the use of a mentor, and access to management tools to facilitate practice.

TMR has done several reviews on Harvard e-learning offerings, and Bill Ellet’s piece provides good general information regarding Harvard Publishing online offerings. These various courses, tools, literature, and other resources should be used as part of a blended approach.

The Harvard eCourse, Stepping Up to Management, provides a solid introduction to management, with the final module providing the informational seeds and tools to evolve to the next stage: leadership training. Its audience is entry-level and middle managers. Price per user averages $65 to $95, which puts it in the middle range of typical online course pricing. Considering the quality of the content, the course provides good value.

In this review, I will address the course structure, comment on the content, and end with a critical analysis based on the high standards the Harvard brand aspires to.

Course structure
Harvard Publishing provided me with a cleanly designed web launch pad powered by a Docent Learning Management System.

This homepage contained access to various products mentioned in Ellet’s review, including Manage Mentor and the Case in Point Library for classroom trainers. The Stepping Up eCourse menu is straightforward and enables the learner to access, in any order, the eight modules, including a self-assessment:

• Understanding Your New Role
• Working Through Others
• Managing Performances
• Organizing Resources, Meetings, and Time
• Managing a Group
• Supporting Your Boss and Organization
• Networking with Colleagues
• Evolving as a Manager

Once in a module, the interface remains consistent throughout the eCourse (unless you click on the menu icon and return to the listing of the eight module titles).  The module’s top horizontal menu buttons provide access to what I call scaffolding steps of the learning experience: Overview, Foundations, Activity, Tools, Reflections, and Action Plan. The sidebar menu adapts uniquely to each step, displaying links specific to it.

The template’s center page area scrolls and allows plenty of space for pictures, text, and tables. The Foundations section includes “the essential conceptual and skill building material” and, where appropriate, links to an activity or tool.  The links and flow of the written narrative enable a learner to move linearly through each topic, learning step, and module. The learner may at anytime try his or her skill at an activity (an interactive exercise) or download a tool or reflection assignment. The interface and electronic layout are quite elegant and incorporate exceptional instructional design principles.

Each module is associated with an expert—a published author, professor, or private sector consultant. The Overview step occasionally starts with a slide show with audio narration.  This technique both establishes and personalizes the context. The learner is also expected to test his or her expectations, review learning objectives, and read a bio of the module expert. The Foundations section in the first module, Understanding Your Role, displays the didactic content and contains topics such as What It Means Being a Manager, Five Misconceptions of Managers, and Avoiding Typical Mistakes.

The course requires a significant amount of reading, but the simple scrolling layout makes this easier. One device that helps the reader is a grid format. In the discussion of Avoiding Typical Mistakes, for example, a three-column display shows the mistake, its consequence, and how to avoid it.

The Activity section—usually consisting of an audio narrated slide show—provides the primary interactive learning.  In these activities, the learner is placed in realistic scenarios. This experiential learning technique reinforces the material and allows users to test their understanding. The tools, reflection exercises, and requests for action planning also provide the opportunity for real world application and learning.

Harvard Publishing promotes the use of mentors, yet this asynchronous learning vehicle fails to adequately suggest mentor involvement and provide information on how to use a mentor and vice versa. Both mentors and learners would gain valuable knowledge from a module on how to facilitate the use of the tools (forms), reflections, and action plans. Increased use of scored assessments and specific assignments might accomplish this. There is a facilitator guide for the course, but it doesn’t provide the tight linkage and support I think is necessary for the mentoring.

Providing course pacing information could also improve the learner experience, especially considering the breadth of subject matter and the abundance of tools. Learners should be encouraged not to rush through the material—and perhaps even be required to take the eCourse over a period equal to that of a college semester (12 weeks). An instructor or mentoring guide could assist the mentor or coach by indicating when to use tool assignments and require reflection and how to make the assignments relevant to the new manager’s job—in other words, provide tools that help apply this material in a disciplined manner.

Another improvement would be greater investment in requiring learner decisions. The course’s use of multimedia and interactivity does not live up to the breadth and quality of the written content. For example, the case scenario exercises do not take advantage of computer branching techniques. Harvard Publishing understands the print business, but they appear hesitant to invest in the design of case-based scenarios and simulations to realize the full promise of computer-based instruction. The course’s interactivity can’t be characterized as much more than page turning, typically the Achilles’ heel of asynchronous courses.

Stepping Up to Management Interface      Ease of use      Holds user interest      Production quality      Interactivity      Documentation      Value of Content      Instructional Value      Value for the money      Rating