Look BEYOND the training - if you want it to be successful
According to Robert Brinkerhoff, training events alone typically result in only 15% of transfer of learning to on the job behavior. So if you truly want your participants to be successful on the job, after training, you need to think beyond the training event itself.
There must be processes or systems in place that reinforce, monitor, encourage , or reward the performance of those things you consider to be critical on the job behaviors. We spend much of our time as trainers, worried about Level 1 and Level 2 outcomes (did the trainees like the training in the short-term and did the trainees leave with more knowledge than they came with) but not enough time on whether or not the trainees are implementing their new skills and knowledge on the job.
Before you start any training program, start with the end in mind, because the training will only contribute 15% to the success of your initiative. Be especially analytical of what you expect to see people doing differently on the job and how you expect them to be successful on the job. Very seldom will someone have the initiative or the time or the thorough understanding to be able to transfer what they learned in a class to their real work responsibilities.
The futility of tests
Sorry - no idea where this came from. Was forwarded on to us by a colleague. 
Quotable: Dr. Roth Tartell
Clearly, much of what the leader needs to do to increase employee engagement levels can be shaped through learning.
Learning professionals have a responsibility to their organizations to ensure that perspectives and approaches critical to successful engagement are built in to curricula, incorporated into developmental plans, and then included in the talent discussions that shape the future leaders of the organization.
Quotable: Dr. Roth Tartel is Learning and Development Manager - North America for GE Capital Real Estate
Delta Takes Training Evaluation to the 4th Degree
Delta flight operations training goes through level three evaluations for "everything we do," says Scott Nutter, Flight Operations General Manager, and level four evaluation by tying training data to operational performance and safety metrics.
As a result, Delta has received several awards including Travel Weekly's Magellan Award and being named to Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies in 2011.
Delta and Northwest merged more than three years ago and had a smooth integration of their training initiatives by keeping focused on these important level 3 and level 4 outcomes.
March / April 2012 Training Magazinep. 40
Are you still using 14th century teaching techniques?
Here is a great, short(ish) video from Ted.com describing how Stanford University offered an online course in Artificial Intelligence to over 160,000 students, in 9 countries. The speaker is Peter Norvig (one of the two instructors) and some of his insight regarding student motivation, the power and necessity o f collaboration and accountability are excellent.
One of their students commented at the end, “This felt like sitting in a bar, with a really smart friend, explaining something you haven’t grasped yet, but you know you are about to.”
Highly recommended: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang/en//id/1487
What you can learn about eLearning - from Engineers
Since 1980, The Society for Manufacturing Engineers – Education Foundation, has awarded over $31 million in grants, scholarships, and awards to high schoolers pursuing a degree in science, technology, engineering and math, more than any other professional engineering society.
Their website is a marvel of interactivity and engagement. It’s a wonderful model for e-learning as the ‘learner’ can pursue multiple topics and to multiple-depths, through their own decision making process. www.manufacturingiscool.com
In 20 years, trainers (that's us) will be MORE than necessary
We are always worrying about whether our profession will continue , what with the advent of e-Learning, m-Learning, social networking and the like. Well, don’t fret! The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) predicts the follow trends, as the global labor force approaches 3.5 billion in 2030. Based on current trends in population, education, and labor demand, the report projects that by 2020 the global economy could face the following hurdles:
38 million to 40 million fewer workers with tertiary education (college or postgraduate degrees) than employers will need, or 13 percent of the demand for such workers
45 million too few workers with secondary education in developing economies, or 15 percent of the demand for such workers
90 million to 95 million more low-skill workers (those without college training in advanced economies or without even secondary education in developing economies) than employers will need, or 11 percent oversupply of such workers
What does that mean for us? It means we will continue to have to train people who enter the workforce. They will need to come prepared. We will need to build curriculum and not just classes. We will need to build or revive our “corporate university” ideas, but start the learning at a much more elementary level.
It means, perhaps, that we have to broaden our focus from “training” to “education” to understand where our learners are coming from.
You can read the whole report here: http://tinyurl.com/cxyraq2 Fascinating, sobering…
Are you training for the job? Or training the person? Is there a difference?
Performance Support and Learning have the same objective: working smarter. The trade-off is whether you put the knowledge into the job (support) or into the performer’s head (learning).
So quoted: Gloria Gery
Does Size Matter?
Very often, when organizations move to virtual training, they think that the constraints of travel and space (learning space) are removed and it is now possible for a larger audience to take part in the training offering.
Not true! Compare these two simple visuals:
A circular table of 8 where everyone can see each other, hear each other and be involved with one another in an engaging and collaborative way.
A town-hall meeting in which a lot of people are in attendance, but only a few get to take the floor.
If YOU wanted your opinion heard, or you wanted to come away from the meeting having developed a relationship with the others in attendance, which meeting would you want to attend?
The circular table of 8 is the visual we need to keep in mind when designing for virtual delivery of training. Our learners are already hobbled by the fact that they cannot make eye contact with one another or read one another’s body language; but they CAN make connections with each other when there is a smaller group involved.
The real benefit of virtual delivery is that you can deliver the same topic as many times as you like, at any time that you like. So you can run 3 sessions, of 8 learners, in one week. This allows for more interaction and engagement among the learners. When the facilitator asks a question, it is quite obvious if 8 people have answered or 3 people have answered. When you poll them for their opinion, there is actually time to hear why people chose the answer they did – and allow for comparing and contrasting results.
With larger groups, we might undertake the same activities, but they will simply be ‘watched’ by some in attendance – it is not possible to involve everyone, in every activity, to the degree that they feel they are contributing to the content.
Smaller groups enhance learning outcomes, and virtual learning deliveries allow us to economically utilize smaller groups.
Be a kid again!
At The Training Doctor, we often get great training design ideas by focusing on the kid in all of us. Whether you are designing for classroom-based classes or online, you can get some great ideas from this website designed to help kids think more creatively: www.inventivekids.com.
It even has a link for Adults! For instance, we watched a speech about Divergent Thinking and Education by Sir Ken Robinson. He says that the current (K-12) education system was designed for a different age.
Education is organized like an industrialized organization – for instance we send kids through school according to their ‘date of manufacture,’ (birthdate). Schools are organized by bells, separated by function (subject), and put through education in ‘batches.’ Within schools, working with your peers to find an answer is called cheating – outside schools it’s called collaboration.
One of his interesting points is that ADHD is not really the ‘epidemic’ it is purported to be. He postulates it might be due to: Our children are living in the most intensely stimulating period in the history of the earth – they are being besieged with information everywhere they turn – from TV to computers to phones – and then we label them as deficient in some way when they get distracted.
Distracted from what, he asks? From the boring stuff delivered in the ‘standard educational system.’ He includes a map that shows that ADHD diagnoses increase as you travel East across the US. Interestingly, he also states that the increase in ADHD diagnoses correlates with the increase in standardized testing.
In addition to the interesting facts that he shares through his speech, you will be AMAZED at the e-learning / illustration / animation that accompanies the speech. It TRULY is a work of art. Check it out: http://tinyurl.com/7rupsn2
Where e-Learning went wrong (and how to fix it)
Tom Graunke, Founder and CEO, StormWindI From Training Magazine's Inside Training e-newsletter
I helped create e-Learning 1.0 and am here to tell you it has been a complete and miserable failure. This is a bold statement, I realize, so let me explain. At the time, it was edgy and innovative, this idea of using online resources to provide training to vast numbers of people spread out globally. The objective of e-Learning 1.0 was to replace classroom training that required travel with a more cost-effective worldwide deployable methodology. The promise was better learning retention.
We achieved the objective pretty easily but at a steep downside.
Jennifer Keohane
Jennifer Keohane is a business outreach librarian at the Simsbury Public Library in Simsbury Connecticut. In addition to a Masters in Library Science she also holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Marketing and International Business and has over 12 years of business experience. An enthusiastic promoter of library services, Jennifer enjoys teaching and is a certified School Library Media Specialist.
T/D: What kind of services can a library with a Business Resource Librarian provide? If a trainer comes to you and they need to start a new program, how can a business librarian help them?
Keohane: We can help by providing them with some solid books and tools. These are in the ‘how to’ department, you know ‘best practices’. We can help do a literature search. Many times when people are thrown a topic, they Google it and get all kinds of stuff but it’s not on topic. I know what a controlled language is; I know how to crack the code on how to find articles within the databases because they might use a terminology that isn’t one that we typically use as trainers or as in regular English. \
For instance, in The Library of Congress cataloguing, if you wanted to find all the cookbooks you would have to look under the term cookery. You can imagine, if you take that simple idea and expand it to some of the buzz words that are going on today, you’ve got to juggle around, squeeze and hunt to try to get articles that you know are out there.
A librarian can help with this, we can help shape your search strategy, so that you get better results. I encourage people, don’t bang your head against the wall, don’t spend a lot of time trying to find articles that you know are out there and failing. Give us a call, maybe I can suggest some terms or help refine the search strategy so that you get more targeted information.
T/D: That is such valuable information for trainers. What type of businesses do you see using the resource libraries or the resources at the library? Is there a typical kind of business?
Keohane: Traditionally I see many consultants. I see many people that are in service businesses because we’ve got a wide range of services here. People in the service industry like to come to the library. I work with businesses of all types and sizes.
T/D: Do you have any last tidbits you’d like to share with trainers on how they can utilize their local library in their training efforts?
Keohane: Yes, I think one of the first things they should do is go in and talk to the people at the reference desk at their local library. Find out who they are. You may be surprised at some of the skills sets of the people that are sitting behind the desk. In our library alone, I have a business background, we have a librarian who’s got her law degree and works full time at a law library and then works part-time here; we have someone that comes from the UCONN Health Center; someone who comes from a school setting. There are a lot of different skills sets. Librarians are very much a second career, kind of career move. So there’s possibly those who have expertise in areas that you might be able to tap into.I think people should ask what we have and how they might obtain the information..
If you don’t want to walk into a library, check out the library’s webpage. As libraries we’ve really tried to get as much of our information out there, online, to make us a 24/7 kind of information access. That being said, many libraries also have 24/7 contracted reference service. You can actually chat with a librarian 24/7. You might check to see if your library has that option. It’s a great resource to have all hours of the day or night, to be able to talk via email to a real librarian and have someone working on your question even when physically your own public library might be closed.
Are you still using 14th century teaching techniques?
Here is a great, short(ish) video from Ted.com describing how Stanford University offered an online course in Artificial Intelligence to over 160,000 students, in 9 countries. The speaker is Peter Norvig (one of the two instructors) and some of his insights regarding student motivation, the power (necessity for) of collaboration and accountability are excellent.
One of their students commented at the end, “This felt like sitting in a bar, with a really smart friend, explaining something you haven’t grasped yet, but you know you are about to.”
Highly recommended:http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang/en//id/1487
The Training Doctor begins its 22nd year!
June marks the start of The Training Doctor's 22nd year of providing customized instructional design services. My. how times have changed...When TD first started:
We used overhead transparencies and color printers were not invented. If you wanted to really jazz up your overheads you’d color them in with markers!
The internet had barely been invented – and we surely were not teaching people “online”
Training was done in person, when you got enough people to hold a class
Trainers flew here and there to go where the students were
We wore suits when we taught (we wore suits when we went to work!)
If we wanted to bring our computer with us on a trip, we, uh, didn’t. How would you travel with a 15 pound machine?
Cell phones were called “car phones” and looked just like the phone on the wall in your kitchen – only it was attached to the console of your car! Really RICH people had one the size of a shoe that they could take anywhere
What do YOU remember from 20 years ago? Add a comment!
Fabulous use of animation to enhance a presentation
We recently watched a speech about Divergent Thinking and Education by Sir Ken Robinson. He says that the current (K-12) education system was designed for a different age.
Education is organized like an industrialized organization – for instance we send kids through school according to their ‘date of manufacture,’ (birthdate). Schools are organized by bells, separated by function (subject), and put through education in ‘batches.’
Within schools, working with your peers to find an answer is called cheating – outside schools it’s called collaboration.
One of his interesting points is that ADHD is not really the ‘epidemic’ it is purported to be. He postulates it might be due to:
Our children are living in the most intensely stimulating period in the history of the earth – they are being besieged with information everywhere they turn – from TV to computers to phones – and then we label them as deficient in some way when they get distracted.
Distracted from what, he asks? From the boring stuff delivered in the ‘standard educational system.’ He includes a map that shows that ADHD diagnoses increase as you travel East across the US. Interestingly, he also states that the increase in ADHD diagnoses correlates with the increase in standardized testing.I
In addition to the interesting facts that he shares through his speech, you will be AMAZED at the e-learning / illustration / animation that accompanies the speech. It TRULY is a work of art. Check it out: http://tinyurl.com/7rupsn2
People Need to be Working Smarter
We recently came upon an article written by Jay Cross, the guru of Informal Learning and were shocked (and excited!) to read: “I rarely use the word learning these days. Business managers hear learning and think schooling and don’t want to invest a dime in it. I’m tired of having doors slammed in my face, so I now talk about Working Smarter. I’ve yet to meet a manager who didn’t want her organization to work smarter (even though learning is a major component of doing so).”
Read about his other changes in perspective here.
Live It, Learn It
One of the basic design tenets subscribed to by The Training Doctor is Live it, Learn it. It’s an easy way to remember that adults are experiential learners and benefit more from having a learning experience than from being “taught.”
Essentially, when considering the delivery options available to you, always ask “is there a way to have the participants experience this concept rather than just learn about it?”
Here are some examples culled from TD designs for our clients:
In order to explain how a printed circuit board is conceived (from design) and produced (through QA) a Lego simulation was created that required the class participants to conceive, produce and QC their own circuit board.
To explain team formation (forming, norming, storming and performing) learners were put in to teams and given 30 minutes to complete a scavenger hunt. The debrief was a series of open-ended questions asking the learners to explain how their team approached the task and comparing each team’s process and outcomes to the others.
To teach surveying skills, the participants spent 1 hour in the classroom learning about the various pieces of surveying equipment and how to record readings. They then spent the next 3 hours on the grounds of the training facilities practicing surveying, in small groups, with a job aid and an instructor standing by as coach.
In a recent Training Magazine article, Bob Pike wrote of an activity he designed for trainers, to help them better understand how people learn. Throughout a two-day workshop he had his participants learn a fairly achievable skill: Juggling. By the end of the two-day event they were expected to pass a juggling “test” with a minimum passing score. You can read about their success and outcomes here.
It is quite interesting to read how some people quit before even beginning, some were motivated to be the best they could be – but not to help their co-workers, and the effect of extrinsic motivation.
James Kirkpatrick
Jim Kirkpatrick has developed and managed a career development centre since 1995, worked on strategic planning teams and consulted with organizations all across the world in topics on evaluation, teambuilding coaching and leadership. Jim conducts workshops in the Kirkpatrick Four Levels Business Partnership and his newest topic is Training on Trial, which is also the title of his most recent book.
T/D: Jim, the title of your book is very compelling. Give us some more background on why training is on trial.
Kirkpatrick: My father, Don Kirkpatrick, invented Four Levels, 50 years ago. I was recently looking at a quote that said, “Training managers had better be about the business of demonstrating their value before the day of reckoning arrives.” I shared this quote with him and I said, “Dad have you ever heard of this?” He said, “No” I said, “Are you sure? He said, “No, it sounds really, really timely!” I said, “Well you wrote it!” He said, “Really?” I said, “Yeah and you even published it, I am reading from the ASTD Journal. He said, “I still don’t remember.” I said, “You published it in 1959.”
That’s why I wrote the book because he’s talking 50 years ago, about the day of reckoning, that we need to be creating and demonstrating our value, and we still have not taken that seriously enough. We still believe that we get a free pass, as training people. We believe that we earn our keep by filling up classrooms and that we should be seen by the business as being valued for that. The day of reckoning is here, the free pass is over. We need to be not only creating value in the business, becoming business partners rather than training professionals, but we also need to be able to demonstrate that value.
This book is really a kind of wake-up call. The good news is, there has never been a better opportunity to make an impact. We talk about ‘wet cement.’ The cement is now wet with the current economic situation the way it is. Executives and Business Managers are looking for any kind of help to get an edge. It’s our great opportunity, so that’s why I wrote the book.
T/D: Before we get into the gist of the book, and hopefully some strategies you’re going to supply to us, how do you think we, as trainers, got trapped here - you said your father wrote this statement in 1959 and we haven’t changed a bit, really.
Kirkpatrick: You know, I really agree. There is research from 1975 that says 15% of what people are learning in formal training is applied to the job. Jim and Dana Robinson revisited that study 30 years later and it was still 15%. We are in cahoots because business says: would you please provide training? We say - okay. We don’t say - what are the needs, what will success look like to you?
T/D: So do you think we’ve propagated that role of being a service instead of a leader in a company?
Kirkpatrick: I think so.
T/D: We’re not reaching out to them, proactively and saying - what can we do for you as the training department?
Kirkpatrick: Exactly. We may try but we give up too easy. We don’t know how to make a business case. Training, in and of itself, is of very little value to business; it’s the execution. It’s about - are they doing what it is that they learned? And if not, what’s the point other than ‘check/mark training’? We’ve all been in cahoots together, it’s “us” as training versus “them” in business. We need to figure out how to become better partners with them. We talk about it, but people really don’t know how to do it.
T/D: So tell us how to do it. There is no seat for us at the table so first we have to shoulder our way in, right? You must have strategies in the book?
Kirkpatrick: That’s exactly right. How do you shoulder your way in? There is research that says 70% of training failure comes from the environment after training. In that people don’t get to use what they learned. Or the reinforcement and accountability is not there.
T/D: My most frequent experience is management doesn’t know what we train their workers on, so they don’t know how to reinforce it, they don’t know what to reinforce.
Kirkpatrick: Right, and then when it fails, the training gets worse and we happily pass it off saying ‘they’re not coaching,’ and ‘they’re not’ etc.; but it is our responsibility to go and help them do just that. So other than showing them research, is to ask them to fund one impact study and be able to show the power of your work. For instance I did it with L’Oreal in Paris. They were having trouble being respected by the business. We picked out one high impact program, ran the gamut, made sure the support was there, reinforcement, the managers knew their role, collected data, collected chain of evidence all along the way. We had a corporate jury and the training people went before the L ‘Oreal corporate jury, who are the senior partners, and showed them the power of the training. They called me 6 months later and said, “Will you help us prioritize the requests we are getting from the business?”
T/D: This is a brilliant strategy! Is it the training department that needs to recognize this and take the initiative to ingratiate themselves to the upper echelon of management? Or is it upper management “inviting” us, saying – you’ve got to prove your worth or you’ve got to get out of here?
Kirkpatrick: It’s both. The business is saying more and more “you need to demonstrate your value.” They are charging us with a crime or whatever you want to call it: ‘costs exceeding value.’ Honestly the biggest sell that I find is in convincing the training people that their job extends beyond, design, develop and deliver.
T/D: Yes. You’re going to love this; my analogy for trainers is that we are like flight attendants: “Bye bye, good luck, we’ll never see you again”
Kirkpatrick: The Four Levels of Evaluation has been whittled down to, smile sheets, tests, and hope for the best. People say - we never get to level 3, never get to level 4, we’re too busy doing our training. I say all you’re doing is putting a bulls-eye on your back saying – “Look how much we’re costing you by pulling people out of training.” So all we’re doing is saying when budget time comes, “We are fair game,” because all we are doing is costing, and we’re not demonstrating our value. We need to. The day of reckoning is here.
T/D: This is great Jim. Thank you for taking the time to “talk” with us.
How to A.C.C.C.E. Your Synchronous Design
More and more organizations are moving their learning events to synchronous delivery platforms. And more and more we see a lack of success in that arena because too often the platform is used as a presentation platform; in other words, the learning is really a one-way communication.
At The Training Doctor, we use the acronym A.C.C.C.E. (pronounced ACE) to ensure our synchronous designs are interactive and engaging. Here is what you can do to ensure that yours are as well:
A = Active
The learners should be active participants in the learning process, not passive recipients of information. In order to keep them active, use the variety of tools that are available in any synchronous platform: chat, feedback tools, polling, etc.
C = Create Content
Rather than simply deliver content, have the participants create the content with you. For example, instead of saying “There are two types of feedback: Reinforcing and Developmental,” and then going on to define or describe each; say “There are two types of feedback: Reinforcing and Developmental – using the text tool, give me an example of what each would sound like, by writing a sentence on the whiteboard in the appropriate area.”
C = Contribute to Lessons
It is impossible to create a synchronous class without making it part of a blend to some degree. Think “before” and “after” assignments and ensure your learners’ independent work links to the course content. For example, prior to a lesson on service standards, assign the learners to investigate whether their company has a list of service standards and, if so, to bring one example to class to share with the rest of the participants.
C = Collaborate
The final C stands for collaborate. One of the best features of a synchronous platform is the ability for learners to collaborate. One of the best learning strategies for adults is utilizing collaboration (collaboration enhances critical thinking skills). However, non-stop collaboration can turn in to a frenzy of participatory activities without a real connection to the content or one’s fellow learners. Choose collaborative activities carefully and ensure you allow enough time to for true collaboration to occur (and not simply discussion or comparison).
E = Engaging
Finally, E stands for Engaging. Most people are visual learners, yet the synchronous environment forces auditory delivery of information (that way that people LEAST prefer to take in information). In order to counter the auditory overload, ensure your slides are colorful, include visuals, and are dynamic (for instance, instead of displaying a slide with 5 bullet points, have each bullet build individually). You can further maximize the dynamics by asking participants to write on the screen / whiteboard which will add color and variety as well.
We risk losing or alienating our audience when they are not constantly part of the learning process. By following the A.C.C.C.E. method of synchronous design you can ensure that your learners are engaged visually, auditory and cognitively throughout your learning event.
Technical Writer salary - small gains in 6 years
We came up on this factoid in one of our 2003 newsletters:
According to a recent survey (March 2003) by Business 2.0 magazine, the average salary for a technical writer in America is $52,875.00. Just out of curiosity we looked up “today’s salary” at Glassdoor.com – which was updated 27 May – and found the national average to now be $57,000.
By the way, Business 2.0 no longer exists; it was bought by CNNMoney in 2007.