Use of computers in training C A R Harris and D J Flower In the past, project managers have been given a good grounding in the theory of their discipline, but effective application of practical the training in project-management techniques has been severely limited. Consequently, managers have gained experience of such techniques only in the ‘live’ situation, where mistakes can be very costly. However, the growth of powerful yet inexpensive computation presents the ideal The paper discusses how solution to this problem. computers can be used for programmed learning and for the simulation of real projects, which enables the student to perfect his technique at no financial risk. Keywords: training, computer computer-assisted learning
applications,
simulation,
project management techniques only in the ‘live’ situation. This is a crazy set of circumstances. An airline pilot would never be permitted to fly a particular aircraft without having spent many hours in a flight simulator; why then should a project manager be sent out onto a site without being allowed the chance to practise in a project simulator where it does not matter if he makes a f2M loss on the job? FACTORS
OF CHANGE
Three factors can stimulate a change: the shortcomings of the traditional approach, the availability of hardware and software and falling costs. Shortcomings
Until now, project managers have always received, via one method or another, a fairly good grounding in project-management techniques with the emphasis on theory. Examples presented by lecturers and tutors have usually been limited by the lack of time available in a busy curriculum, by the size of the blackboard, because they do not fit some model proposed by the lecturer, or by a combination of these. Consequently, the examples presented to students are usually artificial and trivial. There have been attempts in the past to supplement the students’ learning with pencil and paper simulation exercises. However, in order that the simulations are accomplished in not too long a time, they have lacked realism, and by virtue of the fact that there will be a human being or beings driving the simulation, they have been rather limited in what they can sensibly simulate. It is no surprise that there have been few simulation exercises to date. Consequently, project managers gain experience of
Training Fulmer,
Dept., Bucks,
Cement UK
Vo12 No 1 February
& Concrete
1984
Association,
Fulmer
Grange,
0263-7863/84/0100514)5
of traditional approach
Because of the difficulties involved in providing students with worthwhile exercises, the majority of students will have been subjected to didactic teaching methods, in other words, an approach very heavily biased towards lectures, which, in the main, provide one-way communication only. Modern philosophy suggests that students improve the quality of their understanding with experiential-styled learning, where they can interact with problems, tutors, references and other students. Methods should be devised whereby students can acquire such experience. Availability
of hardware
and software
It is an understatement to say that there has been a lot of change in the computer industry during the last decade. The scale of the continuing revolution has been breathtaking; what happened five years ago is already obsolete. A decade ago, the bulk of computing was conducted in batch mode with the user remote from the computer. This was because I/O devices, such as card-readers, paper-tape readers, line printers etc. were one-way
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Backing stare A 1r
CPU
Memory
Card reader
Figure 2. Microcomputer Paper tape reader
simple extension of programmed learning while the second is the use of simulation and games to provide experiential learning.
I
Figure 1. Traditional ‘mainframe’ architecture
communicators (see Figure 1). The peripheral devices themselves limited useful interaction with a program. There was little to be gained from having a computer operating in ‘batch mode’ run a simulation program rather than a group of people doing it manually. However, by the mid1970s, a significant shift had taken place; terminals were more prevalent and users could interact with the computer via a screen and keyboard. Turnaround had changed from hours to seconds. The late 1970s saw the great microcomputer boom and its simplification of the traditional architecture approach (see Figure 2). Further, the development of the microchip brought with it an immense increase in the availability of mainboard memory, which, some reports have suggested, has been doubling each year over the last five years (see Figure 3). Therefore, the storage space required for a simulation program is now available, and simulation programs are being written (e.g. Plato, Lucca*, etc.). Reduction
of costs
While mainstore memory has increased, the cost of storing a bit has plummeted, as shown in Figure 3. The implication is either that the price of memory devices has remained static throughout the period or that smaller and more robust systems have been developed which require neither elaborate environmental control nor so many people to care for them, so that in real terms they cost less to operate. COMPUTER
architecture
COMPUTER-ASSISTED LEARNING
PROGRAMMED
This is an obvious extension of programmed learning, where the medium is a computer terminal instead of a book. Text may be loaded into the computer and presented to the student as required. The student is prompted by questions and, depending upon his answers, may or may not be admitted to the next level of the subject being studied. In addition, should the student be unable to answer the questions, it is possible to provide supplementary text explaining the correct answers and to assist his learning with a different set of questions to be answered thereafter. Student progress and tutor feedback Although this technique comes under the heading of self-paced learning, there are several important advances with a computer-based system. First, the rate of progress of a student through a program can be controlled, perhaps limiting him to certain segments of the subject in specific periods of time. Thus, if a number of students are accessing the program and proceeding at moderately different rates, the tutor can prevent one or several students from surging too far ahead. So, the learning is self-paced but within a rigid framework. Second, the tutor can obtain both overt and covert information concerning the progress of each student at a level of detail only this mode of learning can provide. This could be combined with a standard analysis for each student of strengths and weaknesses within the subject under study. With this information, the tutor may choose to give the student extra assistance in his
INVOLVEMENT
The aforementioned factors have had an influence on the computer involvement in training. Using computer simulation of a project, a manager can try out his ideas with some degree of realism but without the reality of the consequences of his decisions. It will offer him the chance to try again. The term ‘computer-assisted learning’ (CAL) can mean many things. For the purpose of this paper, two main interpretations will be considered; the first is a 1970
* A computer-based Cement & Concrete
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project-management Association.
game
developed
at the
1972
1974
1976
1978
1980
1982
Figure 3. Cost (a) and general availability (b) of mainstore memory (RAM)
Project Management
weaker areas. Further, a tutor may assess his group of students collectively, perhaps also having at instant recall the performance of previous groups of students. Devices The increase in availability of touch-sensitive screens and of conversion kits to make ordinary screens touch-sensitive facilitates the use of computers in teaching. The student does not need to be able to type to answer questions: he merely touches the options presented on the screen. A problem for casual users of systems is that they become frustrated and intolerant of a system when they have mistyped an instruction and the system does not do what they want. The use of touch-sensitive devices reduces their potential rejection of the system. Experiential learning Following the arguments set out above, students need some experiential learning in addition to the didactic learning they have already received. The advance of computers has made possible realistic games based on simulation to provide the student with the opportunity to practise his skills. Expense of programs Hooper’ pointed out that when language laboratories became available, everybody assumed that teachers would write their own material but they did not. They did not have the time. The same is likely to be true in the case of writing good simulation programs. Further, a simulation program is likely to be very large and will take a very large number of man hours to write; although hardware is cheap, the human resources necessary to write software are not. Writing simulation programs is thus very expensive. Interactive and user-friendly To be of optimum value from the learning point of view, a game or simulation needs to be interactive. In other words, the player has to be able to alter and change some or all of the game’s parameters in order to ‘control’ the project, and he must be able to do this at almost any time during the simulation. Further, there must be a degree of help from the program itself. For example, if the computer is waiting for a command and the player cannot think of what to input, advice should be forthcoming via the screen in the form of either details of where he can obtain assistance or a summary of the commands available and what they will do. It is important that this help is available only when called for. To display continually the available options would quickly annoy an experienced player. Models and randomization Part of preparing a simulation is the implicit requirement to produce a model of the situation to be simulated. The selection of the model is not trivial and must be thoroughly researched prior to being installed in the simulation. Assumptions taken in selecting the
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1984
model must be clearly stated, as must the limitations that will constrain it. Taking the selection of the right model to its extreme, if in a flight simulator the model was wrong, or being wrongly applied, then all the pilots having completed their simulator training just might, on flying real aircraft, all fail to land their aircraft properly or might land with the wheels two feet below the runway. Model validation is a time-consuming task, particularly when the model is built around empirical data on which some assumptions have already been based. Once a model has been satisfactorily installed, it may be used to simulate real events. A player must not be able to predict with certainty that a particular event will take place when, in reality, the occurrence of that event may be considerably less than certain. Clearly, then, the probability model of the event itself needs to be carefully considered, and the generator of the random numbers that will determine whether the event takes place or not must also be investigated to ascertain the true independence of the random numbers. The ‘game’ should never repeat itself entirely; after all, real events never repeat themselves exactly. So, a player on one day repeating exactly his input of a previous day may not achieve the same outputs. Further, the ‘game’ should be able to support different players at the same time where each player is treated independently from his neighbour. Windowless site hut A simulation will produce a game that is played as if the player was sitting in a windowless office. All the information for the player is provided through the user documentation and the terminal screen. User documentation User documents can be divided into two groups. The first comprises the documents necessary for the player to operate the computer and the simulation program, while the second is the documentation necessary for the player to play the game. The operating instructions should be brief and to the point without numerous cross-references to some other part of the instructions or some comprehensive manual. A great deal of immediate help can be provided in a succinct form within the program itself, but a player will still need to be told how to switch on. If these instructions can be confined to one side of a single sheet of paper, so much the better. The second group of user documents are those that a player would have to hand if he were about to begin a real project. Further, he should have had time to study them and, as far as possible, they should be presented and laid out exactly as one would expect to see them in real life: from lavish brochures to backs of cigarette packets. Project independence With the cost of producing software (which could be more than X10 per line in the final version of the program), it is sensible to create a simulation program
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that is independent of the project it is to represent; otherwise, the application of the program will be very narrow and the experience provided will be limited. Personal attitudes Kolb’, in the early part of the 197Os, described four categories of people involved with management. They are, in order of occurrence within management levels: the converger, the accommodator, the assimilator and the diverger. It would be expected that the attitude to CAL will differ from group to group. The converger is, traditionally, an establishment person. He is the most commonly found of the four and will accept CAL as an appropriate method of learning, providing it is, in his own and in other people’s eyes, respectable. He usually performs best in conventional situations, is interested in the practical application of ideas and comes from a physical science or engineering background. as the converger is the Not as frequent accommodator, and, as his title implies, he is one of life’s obligers. He is most happy to use CAL as a medium and accept it. His great strength is in getting things done, carrying out plans and performing experiments involving new experiences. He is more adaptable than people in other categories and often takes greater risks. The assimilator stands back from CAL to assess it in all its facets. It is possible he will question deeply and aciduously the philosophy of this approach to learning and may even rebel against and reject CAL. Alternatively, he may discover it is to his taste and of great benefit. He enjoys research and development work, attaches much importance to logical and precise theories, excels in instructive reasoning and usually has a mathematical or scientific background. The last and smallest group, the divergers, tend to be creative and imaginative. The diverger is good at is more generating ideas, is often nonconformist, emotional and has a background in the arts or humanities. He is likely to view CAL as an exciting new medium and will want to participate fully. A recent poll at the Cement & Concrete Association’s Training Centre carried out with the members of the training staff shows that 47% were convergers, 22% accommodators, 19% divergers and 12% assimilators. The message is clear. In order for CAL methods to be used to the full, they must be seen to be respectable, otherwise a high proportion of the trainers themselves are likely to reject CAL methods. TRAINING USES CAL can be used in both training courses and in actual work. Training course: controlled (syndicated) work The use of CAL in training can take several forms. In the first, students are divided into groups who then work together to reach decisions about how to respond to problems presented to them by the game. This is a controlled situation because the individuals within the group require guidance to begin their work and will
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later themselves regulate, within an implicit guideline, the mode of their work together. A tutor can impose restrictions on their interactions with the terminal, and, on certain decisions, the group might even leave the terminal for a lengthy debate. No recommendation is provided here about optimum group size, but, clearly, it will need to be rather small, perhaps consisting of three or four individuals. If it is any larger, they cannot all see the screen and some students will not contribute to the group. If the group is smaller, it is no longer useful. Training course: self paced The alternative mode of training using CAL is an open, ‘uncontrolled’, self-paced arrangement. Students work principally on their own and have only an occasional interchange with a tutor or with fellow students. The student chooses his own time to use the simulation game and also the length of time he will devote to it. This system of operation demands considerable flexibility of all resources (tutors, operations staff, computer terminals etc.). The principal benefits of this mode of training are that the student achieves a much greater understanding of the problems while the tutor is more aware of the student’s capabilities than would be the case in the controlled system. Work situation: simple parallel 1 Simple parallelism is a term used to describe a person, in a work situation, practising a management technique, which may or may not be computer-based, via a simulation game. This is an area in which games have an important role to play; they permit a person to acquire confidence in using the technique before needing to use it in a real environment. It is also possible to extend this concept to compare the relative merits of several competing management solutions and/or computer-based solutions. By making such comparative trials using a simulation game, a company should have more confidence in purchasing a particular system for their project. Work situation: simple parallel 2 Simple parallel 2 involves the use of a simulation game as a strategic project simulator. Should a company have a particularly difficult project ahead or a project in which no-one has had any previous experience, management may use a simulation of the project to compare different construction strategies, to highlight pitfalls, etc. This situation would be akin to the simulators used by NASA in preparing its astronauts for the first lunar landing. Clearly, particular attention has to be paid to the model of the project to be simulated. Work situation: complex parallel The power of modern computers is frequently harnessed by companies to provide management systems where no such system existed before. The impact upon the staff of companies into which such
Project Management
computer-based systems have been introduced has been studied from several viewpoints, principally the effect of man-computer dialogue3,4 and the social impact of computers on the workplace. An important facet of the introduction of computer-based management systems is that they should be evolutionary in nature. If a complex and powerful system is introduced where no such system existed before, it is likely that it will be rejected by the users. However, if the system introduced reflects the present level of understanding of the users involved and at a later stage extra elements are added when the users are ready for it or request it, the system is likely to be well received and used. The user must always feel that he is master of the system and that he can exploit it. If the situation is the other way around, there exists a high risk of system rejection. Successful implementation and subsequent use of a system often depends upon the support provided. Most successful systems have been supported by ‘local experts’ - noncomputer-based staff who have taken a particular, personal interest in the system and who are on hand to help the occasional user who might experience difficulties. Occasional users are happier discussing their problems with this ‘expert’ than a distant person in the DP department whom they hardly know. Computer-based simulation games can help the implementation of systems by providing a medium in which users can gain familiarity, advance their understanding and discover how to exploit the system.
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REFERENCES Houper, R ‘Implications for education: opportunities responses’ and presented at Education by Computer Conf. Bradford Uni., UK (January 1979) Kolb, D A On management and the learning process MIT Sloan School Working Paper 652 - 73 (1973) Eason, K D ‘Dialogue design implications of task allocation between man and computer’ presented at Man-computer communication : ergonomics and the design of computer dialogues Con? Loughborough
Uni. UK (1979) Eason, K D ‘Understanding Comput. J. Vol 19 No 1
the naive computer user’
Chris Harris graduated from Plymouth Polytechnic, UK. He was first employed by the Cement and Concrete Association, UK, in 1971 carrying out project evaluation work. In 1973, he began lecturing at the Association’s training centre, specializing in statistics, computing and operational research. He has held external lectureships at Leeds University and East Be&s College and is engaged in research with computer-assisted learning methods. He is a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, a licentiate of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and a member of the Operational Research Society and the Concrete Society. David Flower graduated from Churchill College, Cambridge, UK, and then obtained MA and PhD degrees from Columbia University, New York, USA. Before joining the Cement and Concrete Association, he was employed by Scion as a senior analyst1 programmer engaged for part of the time in projects involving simulation. He is at present developing various suites of programs, one of which is LUCCA.
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