This blog has been a long time coming. There are plenty of websites, blogs, and newsletters out there that serve as great resources for those of us in corporate learning and talent development. Most of these are focused on pretty big topics, like choosing an enterprise learning management system, rolling out global training initiatives, designing training for the next generation of information workers, etc. While I love reading about that stuff, I think there’s an unfulfilled need for practical guidance that can make an immediate, actionable impact on the daily working lives of my fellow training directors, instructional designers, corporate trainers, HR specialists, and others in corporate learning. This blog aims to be the resource that fills that hole, providing tools, tips, techniques, and advice that I hope will help you do a better job today and tomorrow.
On that note, I think a good way to kick things off is by quickly describing my point of view when it comes to training. Quite simply, it goes like this: Learn > Practice > Do. In this paradigm, learning is what happens in the mind and is a bit hard to measure, practice is how you put the learning into action in an environment where perfection is not the goal, and do is the final result that is measurable.
There’s a lot you can do with this. Say you need to create a workshop on project management and are going to meet with the primary subject matter expert who will provide the content (we’ll skip the beginning of the story where you did your due diligence to determine that training was, in fact, the answer to the business problem you are addressing). Most subject matter experts jump right in with “Here’s what these folks need to learn.” Surprisingly, they don’t think to start with “Here’s what people need to be able to do better after this training” but that’s exactly where you should begin (you are the training expert after all, so it’s good they need your help – it’s nice to have a job). Thus, your conversation for kicking off this project management workshop should go something like this:
- DO: What must people do/do better after this workshop?
- Sample Answer: They must scope projects appropriately within the given constraints.
- LEARN: What do people need to know? (Followup question: Can they study some of this on their own before the workshop?)
- Sample Answer: They need to know about the triple constraint, work breakdown structures, network diagrams, and the critical path.
- PRACTICE: What must people work on during the workshop?
- Sample answer: The must put together sample work breakdown structures and network diagrams for a series of given case studies and discuss their choices.
There’s a ton you can do with this simple philosophy. Beth Chmielowski over at VMG wrote a great post a while back with some similar thinking that I highly recommend you check out.
I hope this helps!
-=J=-
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