Evaluation is planned early in the cycle. This ensures ongoing evaluation from the implementation stage throughout the entire workplace initiative. It also assures interest groups that evaluation is important for improvement, continuity, and accountability.

Our programs and activities are positioned in the planning cycle to encourage collaboration throughout: before they begin, during their lifetimes, and after they are completed. Collaborating on curriculum development means that as educators we work with the stated interests of employees, union, and management to offer relevant workplace programs in a supportive learning environment. Collaboration keeps everyone involved. It creates and maintains interest and commitment from all parties, especially when dealing with difficult issues (such as conflicting goals).

Principles in workplace development

The cycle diagram and checklist are planning tools that remind us to pass through each stage of development. We also need principles to guide us, especially when making decisions in complex situations or when faced with conflict.

You've been working with an education committee in a small manufacturing firm throughout the planning of a workplace needs assessment. Collaboration is new for many members of the committee, who are used to working alone. With a lot of effort the committee has gained a sense of itself and its mission. An announcement for the workplace needs assessment has gone through many revisions, and the committee has agreed on its final form.

Just before the announcement is to go out, the president of the company decides without consultation to rewrite it. What is your response as a committee? Do you accept the president's rewrite, go through another revision, invite his input on a collaborative basis?

Principles help us frame the questions and see problems impersonally, and they guide us toward solutions.