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September 28, 1998

Learn Leadership Online

Pensare's online project-management courses teach skills through simulations

By Jennifer Mateyaschuk

ou're a whiz with HTML and Java, so the CEO assigns you to a team charged with spearheading the company's electronic commerce initiative. But no one has shown team members how to draft a plan, develop a budget, and identify the people who have the skills needed for the project. Where do you learn to manage a project like this?

In the past, you'd get the skills on the job, or try to get into an expensive, time-consuming MBA program. But a new company is trying to teach employees leadership, management, and other skills while they remain on the job.

Pensare Inc., a 2-year-old training company, has developed technology that lets users take interactive classes over an intranet. The content for the courses was developed by professors from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, the University of Southern California's Annenberg Center for Communication, the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, and Harvard Business School Publishing.

Unlike most online courses, the Pensare programs use interactive simulations that can be customized for each company.

The courses are aimed at anyone, but Doug Donzelli, president and CEO of Pensare, says IT professionals will find them helpful because they need to understand the company's business and be able to communicate with their counterparts on the business side.

Users can take the courses at their own pace. In addition to watching lectures they download from the intranet, users take on different roles as they attempt to solve problems. Students can post their results from the course on the intranet for others to learn from and comment on. They can also write case studies about their real-life experiences.

Students cooperate on some projects. They are also directed to other employees who may be able to help them solve a problem. This helps students communicate with and learn from different people in the company.

"Learning over the intranet can be an isolating experience," Donzelli says. "Our platform brings in a collaborative aspect to training, which not only keeps the training interesting but helps a user retain the information that they learn."

Daniel Rasmus, a director at Giga Information Group, says the Pensare approach makes the courses more useful. "For long-term retention, there's a need to tie what's going on in the course to what the person is doing in real life," he says. "Pensare's attacking this problem by having collaboration over the intranet and by customizing the programs."

Unisys Corp. has been using Pensare's leadership course, which was developed by the University of Southern California. Users can present case studies or discuss how to fulfill objectives. "This program will help make our managers much more sensitive to what it takes to be a good manager and leader," says David Owens, VP of knowledge management for Unisys. "We want our employees to have an updated view of what management is like and motivate them to put these practices in operation."

Unisys doesn't set aside time during the day for its managers to take the courses, which is one problem with this kind of training. But Rasmus says companies are slowly realizing that they need to integrate education into their employees' daily routine. There may be a short-term loss of productivity, but online training is cheaper and easier than sending employees to a university to take courses. It's also the only way a company can offer the same course to its employees around the world.

Pensare plans to release more courses in association with the Wharton School and Harvard Business School Publishing this fall for managers and technical people. A course costs about $395 to $495 per user. Group licenses are available.

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