The Future of “Training & Development” January 30, 2009
Posted by sallyboyd in Learning Management.Tags: Bob Pike
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This week I had the opportunity to hear Bob Pike speak in a group of less than one hundred. The form of the event was a “fire-side chat” and the topic was “Top 10 Questions Trainers Ask.” Instead of making it a presentation – the “Trainer’s Trainer” made it an open discussion. He gave each group a chance to come up with a couple of burning questions and then answered most of them.
One question was “Where do you see the Training Industry in 20 years?” His answer, or rather the discussion, directly addressed one of my pet peeves in business today. He answered the question by saying that we need to change our name to “Performance Improvement” or we might not exist as a profession in 20 years. He continued by mentioning the top three issues of training 20 years ago.
- How do you get manager buy-in?
- How do you ensure retention?
- I think the last one was: How do you deal with difficult participants?
Sound familiar? Of course, these are still the three big questions today.
Then he went on to explain that many people involved in T&D come into the field as a job assignment – perhaps they are a high potential employee needing to learn more about the company and T&D is a good place for that. They are in the position for a few years, learn what they need to manage the position, then move on to something else. The key point here is that in most T&D positions, we are simply ‘reinventing the wheel’ and not just once, but over and over.
This reinforces my complaint that the people “running” training should be training professionals. The difficulty here is that the training department is a good place to a) get an overview of the focus areas of the department/division/company and b) to meet and work with the employees and managers in the field. So what is the solution to using this great opportunity to develop future operations managers and executives?
Being a technical trainer has potential, but not as great as running the department. However, at one employer I worked for, they had a perfect position. This position had the responsibility of explaining the training programs to employees within an assigned region, of ensuring that employees worked through these programs and of working with HR and Management to help these employees advance into new roles. These people had to understand the training program, make presentations, meet with employees and management – all of the elements they should get out of the assignment for their personal growth, while enabling training management to focus on growing employees and improving performance.
Of course, the company still used the Training Management positions as growth positions as well. Whoever invented this role had a great idea – however they did not get the message on to HR and upper management. Maybe they were not Training Professionals themselves, and that possibility was not part of their thinking. Still it is something to think of for the future.
Every action has consequences. We know the consequences, and okay, the advantages, of using the training function as an executive training ground – what would be the consequences of using training leadership positions to grow the profession? I, for one, would love to find out!
“Age and Experience” January 23, 2009
Posted by sallyboyd in Lessons Learned, Management Development.add a comment
One of my dad’s favorite expressions was: “Age and Experience.” He would often say this to imply that as I got older, I would have more life experience and better understand the situations I found myself in. I quickly came up with the corollary that it was possible to gain the age without gaining the experience. I have recently discovered one such area in which my past experiences did not prepare me for the current situation.
Over the past couple of years, I have had opportunities to describe my past accomplishments – both for an internal promotional opportunity and more recently in a job search situation. I have learned that a great tool for this is a collection of brief “stories” that describe the situation or task at hand, the activities involved in resolving the situation or performing the task, and the results of those activities. These brief 3-5 line stories have different acronyms describing them, but the one I like best is STARs (as defined in my explanation).
I have spent the majority of my career in customer and sales support roles, and most of those years were before there were such metrics as those required for Service Level Agreements (SLAs). I usually referred to my “scheduling” as “interrupt-driven,” meaning I would receive a call (an interrupt), rush out and get the job done, then wait for the next call. Once I moved from a technical worker to management, it took a bit of effort to think in terms of projects and results.
I have found myself in a situation where I need to recall all those Situations and Tasks, and the Activities performed to resolve those situations and accomplish those tasks. I can do that pretty well, but I fall short in knowing the Results in terms of dollars and percentages. The reason for this is simple. I never thought in those terms for many years and I simply do not have the data.
Lessons Learned: So here is what I suggest for those of you at any stage of your career. Keep track of all those situations in which you performed well. Start a file of your “STARs,” and be sure you record the results of your actions. If you don’t know what they are, make the point to find out. That too will look good on your record.
Motivation November 3, 2008
Posted by sallyboyd in Management Development.Tags: Management, Motivation, performance, performance reviews
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I recently had opportunity to comment on a discussion in which the answer revolved around motivation. This discussion was related to Performance Management on Berchelmann’s Blog, mostly in the comment section for the post. I commented on the fact that the performance review can be “abused” and can cause serious issues for employee motivation and performance.
Motivation has been much on my mind lately, and this discussion caused me to think a bit deeper on the topic. Corporations often confuse motivation with incentive. They are not the same. Giving someone a bonus or award may have a short term effect on motivation, but these incentives have to compete with all sorts of other motivational and de-motivational activities that are also going on. And sometimes an incentive might be demotivational.
I have spoken before of “Systems Theory” – that everything is connected. You can not ignore an employee, refuse them the tools they need, give them a review that “fits into the bell curve,” but give them a bonus and a raise and expect that to motivate the employee and produce good performance. While a younger employee might be motivated by money, eventually that issue resolves and more intrinsic (i.e. internal) issues rule motivation. Such things as respect, recognition, perhaps an increase in responsibilities, though that does not mean “double the workload” – as is often the case. Of course, in the extreme example above, you have also set this employee’s expectation that raises and bonuses are not related to performance.
Confucius said, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day…,” to which I would add that tomorrow he’ll ask you for another fish. And why should he bother learning to fish if you’re going to give him a fish anyway? To me this is the perfect example of “positive de-motivation.”
Companies may or may not realize that management is the prime source of motivation and de-motivation. In most cases, the focus for management and management training is operations. And while operations are obviously important, as the business world transitions more to a “Knowledge Worker” population, motivation and people factors become critically important as well. Managers need to be taught and given support in the people aspect of their jobs.
Management is hard. I have often compared the act of management to juggling (more so than herding cats, though that’s a good analogy too). Have you ever tried to juggle those little cloth squares? It’s tough! Management is like juggling several differently shaped items. Items such as budget, operations, P&L, people (and each is an individual), planning, reporting and often some work tasks as well. But people are not items – they are not something you can throw around like a juggler’s ball. Managers need to be worried about each person having assigned tasks, monitoring their performance (without micromanaging), supporting their needs, encouraging growth and career development and motivating them to do their best.
Few managers are good at “all of the above”. I’ve been blessed to work for a couple of these extraordinary managers – and I have tried really hard to be that kind of manager myself. However, this ability doesn’t come naturally for a lot of managers and companies do not help them grow in this direction. So when the economy tightens and positions are cut, the people left behind are de-motivated (they may have survived the RIF, but now they have twice or three times as much work to do) and their managers are at a loss as to how to re-motivate their employees. In addition, they know that as soon as things improve again, a lot of the employees will catch the “grass is greener on the other side” syndrome, and they will soon lose their experienced workers.
This is a time that companies need to provide insight and support to managers and employees through communication and training. Of course, the training department is the first to go, but there are plenty of vendors who can help. In all honesty, they should have thought of this before – but the cycle goes on. HR will start up the “recognitions programs” – and these are good, but in a lot of cases, the best that can be done is for the managers to recognize and appreciate the employees who are working hard and give them all the support they can. This should apply to upper management as well as line management, which is why motivation is hard. It’s “easier said than done.” Or perhaps I should say, “It’s like herding cats.”
Using Video for Training October 20, 2008
Posted by sallyboyd in Presentation, Technology.Tags: Video
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I recently had an opportunity to play a little with video — something I’ve discussed in this blog, but haven’t actually had the opportunity to implement until now.
A Learning Professional friend whose business focus is on video, invited me to create a video resume. It was a lot of fun, and I think the results came out quite well. This form of video is a talking head with slides. I have seen this used with corporate communications and those “required training” modules that focus on policy. The latter, however, are more often done with audio and slides, and the talking head is not visible.
The greatest challenge with the talking head video is to be able to look pleasant and not “stiff”. I’m not sure I completely sucseeded in mine — I don’t think I looked too stiff, but smiling and talking is difficult.
Is this form of video good for training (especially technical training)? I don’t think so. I think it is good for corporate communications. I am also aware that the audio and slide form of training modules, followed immediately by a test, gains effectiveness by repetition. In other words, they are soon forgotten, but if you require the learner to re-take the “course” annually, for example, then the knowledge will eventually stick — or stick better, anyway.
I still feel that video can be very useful for even technical training. I think that filming a process in short segments and interspersing these videos into an eLearning module, or even in an Instructor Led class that perhaps does not have live equipment for training can be useful. One of the most effective eLearning modules I ever completed was a driving safety video that used video as one of several presentation formats to convey the learning material.
I am still a great fan of the informal video — especially using learners to create videos to share knowledge with their peers. However, there are times when you need a professional. Video can be expensive, but I do not believe it is unreasonable. This is a budgeting question that you need to plan for and balance with your other needs. Still it’s something to consider as another tool in your learning toolbox.
Modular Learning June 7, 2008
Posted by sallyboyd in Instructional Design.Tags: blended, learning, modular
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When I was working on my degree, I found a great site by Donald Clark called “A Time Capsule of Training and Learning.” There is a lot of fascinating information here starting with OJT (On-the-Job Training) and ending with “2000 and Beyond”. One of the elements of instructional design that has come to the fore in the last century is the need to break up your “presentation” style. This makes the learning more effective, and it makes the design more modular. In this case, the modules create a necessary flow and build on one another.
One of the ways that training design has evolved is to create “Blended Learning”. This usually consists of having learners work outside the classroom by reading or processing some sort of online learning, then classroom time can be devoted to activities and practice. However, the learner still needs to take the new knowledge and skill back to the work setting and use it for real behavioral change to take place. This has led to “Just-In-Time” training (JIT).
Several years ago, as a new manager, I found myself needing to complete some required training, which was fortunately available as an eLearning. There were three modules, which were very well done, though if I needed to stop and start, I had to restart at the beginning of a module. This eLearning, which should have taken a few hours to complete (as it did when I took it again several years later), took me three weeks to complete because I kept being interrupted.
With this in mind, I did a survey of the people I needed to create training for, to see what their reactions were to eLearning. Most people actually preferred to do eLearning to classroom training. Why? There were various reasons, but one was that they didn’t have time for classroom training. They also listed some of the issues they had with eLearning itself. These included: Not enough time, having to do it on their own time and lots of interruptions.
These several reasons have led me to conclude that we need to create learning that is both very modular and interruptible! The big reason is that there is such a limit on the time to train. Blended learning is our friend here. We can provide short reading or eLearning segments and then combine these with short face-to-face or synchronous online modules then follow up with OJT. The different modules will still build on one another, but the key is to make them short and interruptible. Does this affect the learner’s ability to retain the information? Possibly. I would say it depends on the learner and how they have learned to learn. In our “sound byte” world, we all have a bit of “attention deficit,” so we need to work with that to provide learning in the best way for learners to learn.
Michael Allen suggests that learning should be “Meaningful, Memorable and Motivational.” I fully agree. However, instead of 3 M’s, I recommend four. Learning also needs to be Modular.
(Nearly) FreeLearning with eLearning May 12, 2008
Posted by donminter in Learning Management, Technology.Tags: eLearning
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So, you want to set up an eLearning site, populate it, and get rich on the proceeds, but you don’t have any funds? Well, being the cheapskate that I am, I will show you some sites that just might help.
First off, you’re going to need a website. That means registering the name, and getting the space. Since you’re going to set up eLearning on it, you’ll need to get a Learning Management System up and running, as well. That means “root access” is required.
I’m not going to make your choice for you, but whomever you choose, you shouldn’t have to pay more than $20 per month until you get enough traffic (that means “money”) to afford increasing your bandwidth. All of the sites I looked at had plenty of storage. Some of the things to look out for are charges for everyday maintenance items like “$10 per reboot,” or “$20 for additional anything.” Find a site that gives you the space, gives you the bill, and leaves you alone. You should be able to get the package set up for less than $100, total, including registering the domain name, and three months’ payment (in advance).
Now that you have a site provider selected, you need to come up with a catchy name. Go to Whois to find a name that isn’t in use. It may take some time. “freelearning.com” won’t be available until December of this year, and may be extended at that time. I wouldn’t suggest it, anyway, since you want to make money on this venture (or not). But making enough to get it paid for wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Some tips on getting website names:
- It should be as short as possible.
- It should be able to be pronounced.
- It shouldn’t contain punctuation.
- It should be “dot com” not “dot net,” or some other extension.
- It must be untaken.
A good way to do the above is to make up a word that is not being used. I happen to have “colorbration.com” which I hope to eventually turn into my online photography site, if I ever get the time.
Now you have selected a provider, and found a catchy website name. The provider should be able to help you set up the site and assign the name to it. You’ll probably have to edit the NameServer entries, but most sites help you with this. Usually, though, you’ll need to be able to read and follow directions.
Now, you have a site, but nothing on it. You’ll need content. I’m going to suggest a freeware (gnu license) LMS. Go to Ilias. This website has a SCORM-certified LMS for free. In addition, there are both SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 versions available. There is also a support forum. If you speak German, you’re at an advantage, but most of the documentation and forums are in English. This download will give you the building blocks you need to get you started.
Ilias has a lot of information on setting it up on a Linux server. I would suggest any Linux version you are familiar with, but if you have a choice, I did it on a Debian Etch server, myself. Follow the directions, and you’re off.
Once you’re done with the previous step, don’t forget to set up a mail server, as well, for email communications.
Now for the good news: Everything to this point can be contracted out to a “Server side” person. For $100 to $400 you should be able to find someone to get the whole she-bang up and running for you. Ta-daaa! That’s the easy way.
Well, you’ve now got a website with a catchy name, and a new LMS that you’ll need to play with for a few days or weeks to really get the feel of. What’s next? Content, of course!
You need to start writing content for your empty site. I suggest you go to OpenOffice.org and download their package. In addition, from the Ilias site, there is a link for an OpenOffice.org extension to allow you to set up content directly, using OpenOffice.org. This extension is called eLAIX, and information, as well as a link to the publishing site, can be found here.
Anyway, now you have everything you need to set up a bare-bones site for eLearning. You can go to my test site at Don’s Test Site to take it for a spin, if you like. I’ve only got a couple of courses up, right now, but you can see how easy it is to use, and how full-featured it is. Sign up for a free user (student) account, and give it a go.
Learning Systems May 7, 2008
Posted by sallyboyd in Learning Management.Tags: Learning Systems, Management, Management Involvement, Motivation
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I am a firm believer in “Systems Theory” which suggests that our environment consists of complex systems. In these systems, a change in one area can have an effect (positive or negative) in a totally different and completely unexpected area. There are a lot of new discussions in the learning field regarding new ways of helping people to gain knowledge. You hear less about “Learning Organizations” and more about “Learning Environments.” You hear a lot about collaboration and informal learning. You hear these things at conferences and read about them in the learning literature, but do you see much of them in the corporate world?
Corporations are practical entities that move slowly into new territory – trying out the trend de jour is not always the best idea. However, work has evolved from the linear Industrial Age to the complex systems of the Information Age, and as the new discussions suggest, it is time that learning make this evolution also.
There are a lot of pieces to the learning puzzle, and yet I think we are still looking at it in two dimensions instead of three. The Learning Environment consists of the knowledge to be learned, the media and methods through which it is delivered, the catalogs of knowledge available (which could also be a search engine, or a social event), lists of knowledge needed (or competencies) and tools for tracking knowledge acquired. Even with adding in all the people required to create and manage the learning function, this is still a two dimensional environment.
A learning system needs to include mechanisms to ensure that management (operations and line management) is involved and supportive of learning and development for their people. This is more than simply “aligning” with business. A learning system should require management participation, not just the ticking off of courses completed, or signing the expense report, but actual participation in defining needs, motivating learners and feeding back results. Because managers are extremely busy, and their jobs have so many elements to them that it is like herding cats, this mechanism needs to be made as easy and “user friendly” as possible to ensure involvement.
The real key here is motivation. There are a lot of ways to motivate employees, but the greatest motivator and de-motivator is management. That is why any learning system needs to include management.
So the idea of a learning system, much like our work systems, is evolving – both in reality and all the discussion of trends; and in my mind as well. I don’t have the answers to this scenario… yet. I think what I’m looking for here is a tool (or combination of tools). Obviously we can utilize our Competency, Learning, and Evaluation management systems for providing, and gathering information, but there needs to be involvement from HR, and other types of motivation for the managers to get involved. I’m thinking through this idea and the best way to present it – discussion is welcome!
SCORM May 1, 2008
Posted by donminter in Instructional Design, Technology.Tags: SCORM
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The more people I talk to about SCORM, the more I am amazed at how little is known about it. As a technical type of person, I’m becoming more and more familiar with it, every day. I am by no means an expert, but I’d like to talk a bit about it.
Introduction to SCORM
First off, SCORM only applies to eLearning. While this is a true statement, it is also misleading. If you use SCORM principles on your non-eLearning courses, you can also take advantage of SCORM’s benefits, but SCORM is specifically for eLearning. This will become more clear as you learn more about SCORM.
You can find a complete breakdown on SCORM on the official website by clicking the SCORM link on the banner at the top. SCORM stands for Sharable Content Object Resource Model. The words themselves are fairly straight-forward, but let me explain it a little.
Sharable Content means that this international standard sets the rules by which course developers, course management systems, and course delivery systems can use content. If everyone plays by the same rules, then content written by any person can be shared on any system and can be tracked by any database, as long as they are all “conformant” with the SCORM standards.
Object Resource Model is basically the format the course data will take. This model is based on eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML), which is an ASCII-based system similar to what is used to display web pages in a browser. The browser system is HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language). If you click “view” then “source” on the Internet Explorer menu, you can see the ASCII used to display this page. You’ll notice it is nothing but characters you can type on your keyboard, which is basically what ASCII is. Any and all systems can read ASCII, so SCORM content is not Linux, Windows, Apple, or any other system. It is completely cross-platform.
The latest standard as of this writing is SCORM 2004, 3rd Edition, Version 1. I’m not going in to all the previous versions, but this is later than SCORM 1.2 or any other “Version” you’ve heard about. This version was released in November of 2007, and will probably be the last edition of SCORM 2004. The navigation rules, which tells the course player how to move through the course, are still in flux, but the rest of the standard is pretty much done except for some tweaking.
The Package
A SCORM package is a compressed “zip” file. This is what any SCORM-conformant course authoring system is going to write when told to write a course as a SCORM object. This zip file is going to be uploaded into a SCORM-conformant Learning Management System (LMS). Most LMS’s are also the “Run Time Environment” (RTE) as well. So, the “player” is the Run Time Environment, but usually, a browser such as Internet Explorer is used to implement the RTE.
The package must be completely stand-alone. Everything you need for that course must be in the package. This is where things get interesting. I have been using the word “course,” but it really isn’t accurate. A SCORM package is any stand-alone learning module. The name for the module can be “Lesson,” “Chapter,” “Bob,” or anything else you want to call it. It can be an entire University course, or it can be a simple exercise or quiz. The SCORM model is very malleable. I’m going to call it a “course,” but be aware that it will probably be just a small part of an entire learning experience.
The course designer should try to keep packages somewhat small. The entire idea is to be able to cut and paste SCORM packages to build complete learning experiences. If you make the packages too large, then they can’t readily be shared. If you make them too small, then you’re going to have too large a “catalog” for people to look through when making decisions. Somewhere closer to the small end is where you’ll want to be. I would suggest that pretty much any time you would change headings on your course material (such as a textbook), you should make a new SCORM object. Definitely don’t do more than a “chapter” as a SCORM package.
The Run Time Environment
The RTE is usually implemented using a standard browser, as I said above. The LMS is going to keep track of what the RTE is doing, as well as track all the data the RTE is going to need, as well as store the data for the RTE. You can see that the LMS and the RTE are going to be somewhat hard to separate, which is why they are usually bundled as a single system. In actuality, an LMS is the RTE and a Content Management System and a Student Tracking system all rolled into one package.
The RTE has very few things it can do, and everything it does has to be sent via an “ECMAScript” compatible language. Usually, this means “JavaScript,” but Adobe Flash’s “ActionScript” can do the job as well. But those are the nuts-and-bolts that we really don’t need to know much about. Basically, the user sees the RTE, and when the user clicks on something, the RTE does it for him.
For example, the user sees a “menu” on his RTE. This menu was given to the RTE by the LMS. Usually, the user has to sign in to the LMS. So, the LMS launches the RTE, and shows the “menu” that has been defined for that user. Users have different “permissions.” A user can be a student, a course author, an instructor, a course administrator, or just about anything else you would like. The sign in tells the LMS what this user needs to see, and the LMS sends this to the RTE for display.
When the user clicks on something, the RTE sends the information back to the LMS or does the command itself. For example, loading up a course for viewing would require contact with the LMS, but showing the next page in a SCORM package is handled by the RTE without LMS communication.
There are specific tracking commands that are sent by the RTE to the LMS, such as “course complete” or “test score,” but how these are structured and sent are not our worry. That’s for the RTE and LMS writers to worry about. If you’re interested, it is all available in a free download from ADLnet.
These communications are fairly transparent to the user. Just so it happens, it really doesn’t matter how it happens. The LMS keeps track of this and allows the administration to keep track of the courses.
Conformance
There are three levels one can have as a SCORM product. The first is a “SCORM adopter.” This means that you plan to meet SCORM standards, but haven’t yet completed your testing successfully. The second level is “SCORM conformant.” This means that you have used the ADL test suite (available free at the link at the top) to test your product, and passed all tests. The last level is “SCORM certified.” This is really no different, material-wise, than “conformant,” but a third party has certified your conformance. There are only a few places that are allowed to “certify” conformance, and they, too, are listed at the link at the top.
If you are implementing an eLearning system, then you would be well-advised to get only SCORM-certified systems. SCORM-conformant systems are just as acceptable, but they do not have the third-party guarantee of conformance that the certified systems have. It really comes down to trust and accountability. Theoretically, there is zero difference between conformant and certified, but “certified” has been verified by an independent group.
The term “SCORM compliant” is frowned upon and considered incorrect usage, but you’ll probably still see it. “SCORM conformant” is the preferred verbiage. I don’t really know the reason for this, but anyone who can get the government, business, and academia to all agree on anything can be given some leeway when it comes to unimportant details like this.
The Benefits
SCORM allows you to write content and then use it anywhere. It is never out of date. It is never obsolete. You never find you have to completely re-write something because MicroSoft came out with a new operating system. The first volume of the documentation talks about the “-ilities.” Although important, I won’t cover them here (they’re everywhere already), but suffice it to say that these SCORM objectives, once met, allow you to write once, use forever, find when you need, and basically stop duplicating effort or wasting time.
Conclusion
SCORM is a standard. If a standard is not used, it is worthless. As an example, by modern measure, all of the “six pound cannons” used by Napoleon, Wellington, and Bluecher at Waterloo had different weight cannon balls. There was not a standard “pound” at the time. Imagine if there were no standard for gasoline – Ford gas stations could not be used to fill up Oldsmobile cars.
SCORM’s details are more for the developers of the tools and us tech-weenies. If you are responsible for course creation, course materials, or plan to implement any type of distance learning, it would be beneficial to insure all of your tools are “SCORM certified” before you purchase them.
You should also start looking at your courses for “completeness” within sub-units. If you think a section could be used again, elsewhere, then you would be well-advised to make a SCORM package of that section. Remember, though, that all resources for a package must be contained within that package. This might mean some duplication if you make your packages too large, but will make your resource library unmanageable if you make them too small.
SCORM is useful and is already being implemented world-wide. Like any tool, it can be used or misused. Also, like any kind of development, a little forethought before beginning is your best bet for utilizing this tool to its most beneficial extent.
