What's in my head today?

I still feel bad about the lateness of my submission for last month’s Learning Circuits Big Question, so I’d better get the current one up nice and early in the month. You can find #LCBQ here: http://learningcircuits.blogspot.com/.

The prevalence of mobile data in smart phones, laptops, tablets and other mobile devices means that every day we become more accustomed to being able to locate information and have our questions answered immediately. Honestly, I struggle to remember what we did before everyone was contactable at a moment’s notice. Obviously, work still got done, but I can barely remember the time when calling the office while you were out meant finding a public phone.

Our ability to locate required (and simply “nice to have”) information, as well as completely useless/unreliable information, at a moment’s notice has helped drive the assumption that everything should be available at the time it’s needed. That view can cause problems for trainers, instructional designers and those of us charged with managing the learning function. When the expectation of an immediate, quick “fix” runs up against the learning professional’s traditionally cautious approach to needs assessment and content creation, tension is almost guaranteed.

Managing the dual expectations of having something available ASAP while also providing a solution that meets the genuine needs of the work group can be likened to walking the hire wire without a net. Take a step in the wrong direction and unpleasant consequences will follow. There are a number of strategies we can use to help prepare our organisation for these situations in advance, and which can aid our development of options and solutions at short notice. First, though, we should consider a couple of points of caution:

1. Don’t assume that training is the answer. When most people think about learning needs they start to think about formal training – that is, courses, whether traditional group training in a room or online modules that can be completed individually. In previous blog posts, we’ve discussed how ineffective these types of interventions can be when they are not properly utilised and supported. If only 20% of what most people learn about how to do their jobs is learned from formal training, you can bet that forcing people to attend or complete courses that have no relation to the core need that must be addressed will not have a positive impact. Don’t waste people’s time (and your organisation’s time) by rolling out training simply because someone is demanding that something be done.

2. Even if some kind of training is reasonable, don’t assume the stakeholder in question has identified the right solution. Even in cases where you agree that there is a learning gap that some form of training intervention can address, you need to be sure you’ve identified the core need, not just some symptom of a deeper issue. For example, it would be a shame (to say the least) to roll out the world’s greatest time management course to help people manage their time better in order to achieve their targets only to find later than a bottle-neck in the flow of information of material elsewhere is the real cause of the performance gap.

So, with those two points out of the way, let’s look at some practical things we can do. The best way to meet requests for some kind of action at short notice is to encourage an environment where good learning practices are built into the work that is done. Doing so will certainly help head off many requests for formal assistance. Here, we’re talking about the kind of things we looked at when we discussed what’s become known as “social learning.”

As we’ve discussed previously, and as Jay Cross and the members of the Internet Time Alliance and other thought leaders continue to show, formal training courses play a minor role in the working knowledge of most of us. They are important for bringing novices up to speed and can be useful for helping people navigate new practices and systems, but organisations are much better served when they encourage a more natural form of ongoing learning, and cater for this in the work environment. Social tools such as expertise locators (use to identify the right person to ask when a question comes up), wikis, blogs, discussion groups, etc. are all excellent resources for learning at the point of need. At the moment, at TSAEP, we’re taking our old manuals and guides that are produced in PDF format and converting them to pages on the intranet. Many of these resources will be set up as wikis, so people can update them at a moment’s notice and so they grow and adapt as the business does. Locking information away in PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, etc. simply shuts out users who need quick access to important information to support their performance. Using items such as manuals and guides as the basis of a searchable, user-friendly performer support portal is my top tip for heading off many requests for immediate assistance from the learning and development team. Supporting these resources with good graphics, podcasts, videos, discussion groups, blogs, etc. provides organisations with the opportunity to capture and capitalise on the wealth of knowledge that resides within. Think of how much time and money your organisation may be able to save if a focus on chasing the expert from outside the company were to be transformed into a focus on capturing and making the most of the expertise of those who already work for you.

Another strategy for minimising the chance of short-term, emergency requests for training interventions is something that simply flows naturally from the approach discussed above. If learning is seen as the responsibility of the learning and development team, then of course people are going to look to them any time a need is perceived. Learning (and teaching) is a responsibility everyone should share – from the top of the organisational chart to the bottom. When you nurture an environment where people share their best practices and ideas, and where these things can be discussed openly, you are on the path to making the most of the incredible potential of the workforce within the organisation. Those who abdicate responsibility for learning to the L&D team are simply going to fall further and further behind those who take a more realistic and natural view, where learning is simply another aspect of their day-to-day work.

Still, even with these strategies and supports in place, any organisation is going to come across a situation where someone, whether it be a senior manager, a team leader, member or a subject matter expert, sees a performance gap and calls for some kind of training or additional support. In these cases, the traditional ADDIE model can be found wanting for the time it takes to step through the stages that come before implementation, and for the formality of many of the processes within. You’re likely to need to short-circuit the formal processes and develop a quick and effective way to identify the core needs that need addressing. However you do this, it’s likely to revolve around discussion with those who know the tasks in question and gathering some kind of data to support the argument that a gap exists and that it can be addressed through some form of training. This topic would take another blog post or two (it could just about fill a book, though it wouldn’t be the most gripping read), so I’m not going to go into detail here. Suffice to say that maintaining a positive relationship with as many of the team leaders and managers in the operational part of your organisation will certainly make your job easier, here and elsewhere, in many ways.

After the needs in question are identified, recognise that, as Jay Cross puts it, everything these days is in “perpetual beta.” Work up your material to the point where it conveys the skills and knowledge needed and where it is professionally presented and fit for purpose. Don’t chase perfection, because it’s more likely your information will be out of date by the time you have it ready. Certainly don’t waste time hunting down pretty graphics that serve no purpose other than looking nice – make sure the graphics you do use contribute to the content in a meaningful way. The work of Richard Mayer & Roxana Moreno, Ruth Colvin Clark, and Jane Bozarth can help you here.

It’s also important to remember that learning is not a once-off event bounded by unrelated “work stuff.” Make sure you plan whatever your intervention is so that it includes direct application immediately in the workplace. Show people what they need and no more – just-in-case training simply muddies the waters and clutters heads. Finally, make sure support is available on the job when the inevitable questions arise. Compile a FAQ, publish a wiki, use blogs where they can add value – and note which people can be relied upon to provide accurate information when answers can be found nowhere else. Record podcasts and videos where they add value as well - most people much prefer their information in a format other than pages of text.

So, in summary, it’s not realistic to aim for an environment where no short-notice training requests arise – ever. We can, however, encourage an environment (a “Workscape”, in Jay Cross’ terminology) where learning is catered for within the day-to-day functions that make up people’s jobs. This will certainly help reduce the number of requests that should be coming in to the learning and development team. Such an environment is really the only way an organisation can become adaptable and flexible enough to thrive in the face of increasing change – and the increasing speed of change.

Having nurtured an environment where learning=work and work=learning (thanks, Harold Jarche and Clark Quinn), when short-term requests do come in, we need to be able to investigate and verify performance gaps that learning can address as quickly as possible. Open and honest relationships with line managers and subject matter experts involved in the day-to-day work of your organisation will help speed this process. Involving these people in the design of the information and resources that you plan to use to address the needs identified will also help ensure key front-line stakeholders are on board with you from the start. Work up your content until the messages you need to convey are clear and unambiguous as possible, and the presentation is professional. Finally, plan to support the learning when your people return to their desks. Viewing learning as discrete instances of formal courses bordered by work is one of the key reasons that formal training has been so ineffective in helping people come to grips with the requirements of their jobs.