In my organization, especially our department, we use
the D-I-K-A model almost daily as our regulations can change very quickly. Our
federal regulations can change anywhere from one a month to several years. We must
be diligent with our policies and federal guidelines to be in line with the
department of Education.
DATA: this is a representation of reality but it can
be flawed. We may not have all the data or it may be outdated so we need to
make sure that all the data we have is correct. My director and I are
constantly checking to make sure that all our policies are in place, our procedures
are clear and concise and we are following the federal regulations completely.
We have a quality assurance person who works multiple reports to ensure that we
are paying our students within the federal guide lines. Occasionally we come
across a regulation that has changed but we may still have outdated data.
INFORMATION: this represents the data that can provide
clues and/or news that may be relevant for our job. We must make sure that we
are relying on relevant information for any problems we may face within
financial aid. When we face a problem with information we must assess the situation.
How will this affect our students? How will it affect our department? Our organization?
Recently, we came across a regulation on repeat courses. The regulation states
that a student can repeat a previously passed course (D or better is passing)
one time. Any failure or withdrawal doesn’t count against the student. One part
of the regulation contradicts another sentence and this is where it got tricky
for us. I read the regulation the way it was explained to me but my director,
the manager and the counselor read the regulation to mean that a student cannot
repeat the course because he had already taken the course 3 times. This is when
my director and I agreed to email the Training director for our region. I
explained the situation and gave him examples and he told me that I was indeed
correct. This was a good exercise to ensure that we are keeping up with our
regulations and we can pass that information on to our counselors.
KNOWLEDGE: this represents the framework for organizing
the relationships between pieces of information. We have two types of knowledge
at work here; tacit knowledge which is like the mental framework that lays just
under the surface, it helps guide our decisions. Then you have explicit
knowledge where you put models, formulas and rules are put into play. Tacit and
explicit knowledge go hand in hand and good managers need to be ready to use
both. The repeat courses policy is tacit knowledge for me because I work the
repeat courses report before the start of each term. I know the regs backward
and forward. Because there was a question on understanding the regs we had to
rely on our explicit knowledge (using the rule of thumb) to ensure we are
correct in our processes.
ACTION: this represents the decisions made based on
knowledge. In financial aid we are required to take corrective action from time
to time, especially when there is an update we may not have been aware of.
Usually when the regulations come out each academic year, they will label it
with a NEW label or a caution symbol but sometimes they aren’t labeled and we
don’t realize it until we are underway in the academic year. With knowledge,
comes the responsibility of taking action when needed and required. As soon as
we got the answer regarding the repeat courses, I updated the policy to be more
clear and concise so that there is no confusion on what the regulation is explaining.
With the D-I-K-A model, it is important to get
feedback during each phase to ensure that we are on the right track. With the
ACTION phase, you are putting into work all the other phases, the data
collected, information we have, the knowledge used to make the model must
effective.
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