Trainer’s Notebook

We’ve heard lots of good feedback on the American Society for Training & Development’s Puget Sound Chapter “Fundamentals of Training” series. First, people felt it did cover the fundamentals. Second, we were very lucky to get a double-handful of really experienced trainers and training managers to put it together - so they had a wealth of recent real-life experience to draw on in giving examples, horror stories, humorous anecdotes about disasters avoided, patches of quicksand, frustrations.
Third, we filled the thing up. Easily. There is a big demand for this information, especially delivered in a context where people can network with other trainers. So we’re off and running and as often as we want to offer this we’ll likely have a measure of success.
The professional association for trainers, afterall, SHOULD offer training on how to be a more effective trainer:
- conduct effective training needs analyses
- design training effectively
- choose the right mix of training methodologies to keep the interest of all the myriad types of learners in an organization
- deliver the training and measure results
Our next effort, over and above running “Fundamentals of Training” again, will be to offer a program on “Training Technologies.” This is a bit of a niche market right now, but it’s the direction everyone is heading - toward a blend (blended delivery) of live face-to-face training and training delivered online. Webonaurs, asynchronous delivery, learning sites and podcasts are coming. The only question is how soon YOU will jump aboard.

I was talking with my friend Matt Brown over dinner last week, and I told him there was a continuing shift from live delivery of training to online. He looked at me in disbelief and said: “Wasn’t that a fad. Isn’t online training all over?” No. It’s not all over, and the ASTD’s research supports the need for more trainers to “get their books” in the practical skills and tricks of delivering online training, and a blend of live and online.

Online training includes
1) stuff you e-mail the students ahead of live sessions, like pre-reading
2) files you’ve posted online for them to study, sometimes including self-tests
3) webconferences via Microsoft’s LiveMeeting, WebEx, Collaborix, or other channels
4) online learning sites including instructor-student interaction, student-student interaction, group projects, testing, grading
5) providing post-live-session enrichment and refresher content

…just as a few examples. The savvy trainer will be learning both how to choose the medium to match the particular need, but how to get projects budgeted, budgets approved, project management, content management, and reporting the results back to the sponsor: did people really learn something, and what’s the value to the organization.

ASTD’s research* on training delivery methods:
Delivery Method: 2004 2005 (projected)
Live Instructor-Led 68.08% 64.06% - 1.8%
Online Instructor-Led 3.79% 4.98% + 1.21%
Remote Instructor-Led 1.96% 2.45% + .49%
Self-Paced Online 16.31% 18.29% + 2.98%
Self-Paced Digital Non-Networked 2.53% 3.46% + .93%
Self-Paced Print 2.35% 2.03% - .23%
No, Matt, I’d say online training isn’t just a fad.

*ASTD 2005 State of the Industry Annual Review of Trends in Workplace Learning and Performance

It’s emblematic of films and advertising that there has to be a music bed in the background. Try to think of “Mission Impossible” or a James Bond film without the music: energetic, results-oriented, irresistable. We recently recommended using “Mission Incredible” for a theme in a presentation about a very difficult and important systems reorganization. The client can put a CD on to play some MI music before the presentation begins, spend lots of time during the presentation praising and recognizing over 50 members of the team who’ve been working on various elements for over 3 months. When the systems integration is complete the organization will begin to save $$ millions per year. The theme even lends itself to humor. In recommending they attach a bit of Hollywood excitement to geek glitz-up their project I thought they’d have reservations, or that some of the older managers wouldn’t go for it. Turns out it was universally popular, especially among people who remembered the original TV show. MI originated in the early 60’s when thinking TV was the norm. There was little violence, the music was hip, the good guys were pure, and their cleverness always got the desired result. There’s a value-set we’d all like to see more of!