Do you know what your meeting software can do? Most large companies use a meeting software package already. If you are planning to offer virtual instructor-led training (VILT), first you will need to know some information about the virtual meeting software. Even if you frequently attend virtual meetings, you may not ever use the features that instructional designers exploit in order to make VILT more interactive. Most of the meeting products on the market offer the same basic features that are used to develop VILT interactions, but due to variations in licensing and IT decisions, they are not necessarily included or activated. The way the meeting organizer sets up the invite can also make a difference in what features will be available to attendees. It will be very helpful to your instructional designer if you can provide some information on the features they’ll be able to build into the training. Your training solution will include instructor notes about how to set up the classroom and coach students on how to use the tools for interactivities. If your instructional designer is not familiar with both the presenter’s view and the attendees’ view, it will be difficult to write instructions. A lot of features can be used to create interactivity. Some of the features you might be able to use include: Upload/download for handouts Two-way voice communication Chat (or Questions and Answers) Note-taking panel White boards On the fly polls Preloaded polls Stamping tool Raised hand Webcams Record and playback Typing tool Audio clips Video clips Breakout rooms You can help your instructional designer get up to speed on your company’s software by setting up a half-hour meeting with him or her in the training environment. Practice creating and responding to poll questions. What does the presenter see when attendees respond to the poll? Do the attendees see the results? Launch white boards and practice typing, stamping, and moving text around. Find out whether you can use the annotation tools on a PowerPoint slide. Use the instant messaging window to send questions and answers back and forth. Notice if there is a raise hand feature or a seat color feature. By spending a little time up front to learn about the virtual classroom, you can help to create the most interactive course possible and avoid having to remove interesting exercises that are not supported later. I’d love to hear from you. Please share your ideas: Which virtual meeting product do you use for training? Have you run into any glitches or anything unexpected with the meeting software? How were you able to work around them? Read more from Jeanne: To VILT, or Not to VILT?

During a recent 20-minute webinar, Steve Swink, Training Specialist for GP Strategies, highlighted some of the most current thinking around Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), a topic receiving much attention in both the academic and corporate worlds. When the question, "How does your organization leverage MOOCs?" was asked,  webinar attendees responded in a variety of ways. Conversations that sprung from Steve’s MOOCs discussion included topics revolving around: new employee onboarding,  leadership development training, self-directed learning environment and more. The word cloud below visualizes the trending keywords webinar attendees have been talking about since the MOOCs webinar. For background on the discussion, a recording of Steve Swink’s recent 20-minute webinar, Musing on MOOCs is available.

Each year, more corporations are turning to an outsourced learning model for enterprise learning. While the desire is for this to be a turnkey approach, many companies overlook the subject matter expert’s (SME’s) role in outsourced learning. This can lead to frustration on behalf of both organizations. What are the responsibilities of and optimal roles each person can play in the change? How do we prepare these individuals for the change? I recently hosted a 20-minute webinar highlighting some of the most current thinking and explored tools and techniques to leverage the capabilities of your SMEs to maximize their engagement, including: How can your SMEs help you drive your new learning model? How can you reduce the knowledge transfer to your partner organization? How can you manage review cycles within an SME’s current workload? When is the best time to engage an SME? During the session, a number of questions came up, and while we were able to address most of them, we weren’t able to get to all of them due to time. Below are those questions and my best answers. This is an ongoing conversation, and I encourage you to keep the questions coming in via the comments section at the bottom of this page. Q: What happens when analysis has more than one component (inform, define, practice, apply)? ­ A: Actually some of the best analyses have more than one component. These components can be combined into a single deliverable, or a blended learning solution can be created to provide the learner with a variety of experiences. When it pertains to SME engagement, we use this technique to quickly levelset what the learner needs to know to establish the curriculum map. Stay tuned for a webinar in November 2014 to discuss this approach to analysis. Q: What do we do if we don’t have SMEs available? A: GP Strategies has a large partner network of SMEs who can be brought into a project to support an organization. It’s important to have candid conversations at the project onset about SME availability so that this can be considered in the scope. Remember that your SMEs have full-time jobs. Accurate assessments about their willingness and availability to support a training initiative are critical to a project’s success. Q: What are the biggest challenges you see working with SMEs? A: One of the biggest challenges of working with SMEs is also the biggest benefit: the passion they have for the subject matter. This rich experience and point of view make the difference between a good training and a great training. There are times when this passion can cause significant schedule challenges as SMEs write, re-write, and then write content again in an effort to capture their message. Clear definitions of roles and responsibilities as well as definitions about what is in scope during each phase of review are a critical path to success. Q: Should the SME even be involved in the wording of the script one is composing during the design phase? A: Script writing is one of the most challenging aspects of instructional design as you need to ensure that the content is written in a manner the learner can understand without having to replay the content again. While I often see SMEs want to write the script, this is often not the best use of their time. The end result is often verbose and complex based on their level of expertise. Additionally, it often will take an SME longer to write a script than it may take an instructional designer who is trained in script writing. A better solution is to have the SME present the content as if they were talking to a new employee. Record the session and then have the instructional designer play the content back to pull the key pieces of information into a script. Q: My company has SMEs who are used to having too much involvement. Can you suggest a good way to pull that back for an SME who is used to it? A: The key is to ensure that the SME understands their role. In the webinar, I mentioned their role focuses around direction, content, and review. Allow the SME to be more engaged in the first two phases so that they feel comfortable with the training solution that is being put together. After the analysis is complete, be sure to explain what is in scope and out of scope for each phase. At times, this takes a strong project manager to keep the reviews in line, but in time your SME will find a great benefit in the change in their role as they can maximize their impact in a minimal amount of time. Q: What should we do if we have too much content in the analysis phase? A: There is never too much content in analysis; it just doesn’t all need to be included in the training. During analysis, establish what content needs to remain as reference material, and refer to it in the training without specifically including the details. This is where the Inform, Define, Practice, and Apply approach can help you sift through that content and find the pieces that are critical to your training solution. Stay tuned for a webinar in November 2014 that will dive into that process. Miss the session? Click here to watch a recording of the webinar: Training Takes Time: The SME Commitment in Outsourced Training

For the fourth consecutive year, GP Strategies organized a team to participate in the 24 Hours of Booty Columbia ride on August 23 & 24, 2014. The weather started out cool and rainy, but that didn’t stop the participants from getting on their bikes and putting in hundreds of miles to show their support in the fight against cancer. By Sunday morning, the participants were treated to beautiful blue skies and a perfect day to continue their ride and celebrate the impact they have towards putting an end to this ugly disease. Also, for the first time ever at the 24 Hours of Booty Columbia event was an organized "Kids Ride & Ice Cream Party" Sunday morning to give the younger supporters a way to be included in the event and get involved in giving back. The representatives from the GP Strategies "Booty Loopers" team put in dozens of laps, both riding and running, and the team raised over $8,100 for the cause. Overall, the Columbia teams and riders raised more than $215,000 for the national and local charities, which include the LIVESTRONG® Foundation and the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults. It was great to be a part of such a fantastic team, helping to make in impact on the community. I look forward to next year! If you are interested in more information or to learn more about how you can support, please contact me at kwirth@gpstrategies.com.

Selling is evolving and sales productivity is facing multiple challenges. Complex changes are not only happening within companies, they are occurring from the customer standpoint as well.  Obstacles surrounding the sales process include new products, new processes, new strategies, heightening demands and higher expectations. In this video, Sales Enablement Principal Consultant Brian Lambert discusses four key factors that address the issue of sales productivity: Decrease ramp-up time. Get the right people in the right jobs. Reinforce the right behaviors. Understand the benefits of technology. In a recent webinar, Sales Enablement Principal Consultant Brian Lambert and Training Consultant Greg Renner shared real-world examples, providing insights on: Cross-Functional Teaming Challenges and Opportunities in Sales New Hire Training.

CEOs are continuing to look at bringing costs into alignment while at the same time looking for ways to grow their organization. As a result, a lot of activity continues within the sales team. Sales leaders are looking to increase the competitiveness of their sales team as the economy continues to slog along. One area under increased scrutiny is the onboarding process within client-facing teams. On one hand, the new hires need to perform quickly and hit their sales goals as fast as possible. On the other hand, the new hires need to understand what customers need and how to communicate the value of products and services. While this is an age-old problem, today’s solution to this challenge is anything but routine—especially when learning and sales leaders are struggling to justify the investments being made in new hire onboarding activities. Learning leaders often find they need to do a better job explaining how their activities clearly link to improved competitiveness at the point of sale. I recently hosted a webinar with Brian Lambert, sharing real-world examples and providing insights on these tough challenges. We specifically talked about what it takes to: Orchestrate a new hire onboarding process that decreases ramp-up time of new hires Understand how learning and sales leaders are taking a top-down and bottom-up approach to help new hires achieve more immediate sales results Define the often overlooked critical links within the process and how companies are looking to manage friction points in the process Get in front of the likely onboarding "mandates" from above, or from product groups or business units If you missed the webinar, a recording is now available: Cross-Functional Teaming Challenges and Opportunities in Sales New Hire Training But if you’re looking for the Reader’s Digest version, I wanted to offer a quick look at some of the key takeaways we offered. Think in terms of deploying a "service" that extends beyond creating isolated training courses Remember, your solutions must be integrated with operations, and you need to think that through before approaching sales leaders Be watchful of the pull towards "jumping to the solution"—many challenges need to be thought through first Don’t be afraid to look at the whole organization to align/enroll the support you need to be successful You will likely need to develop skills to think like an "architect" as well as a "plumber" During the session, a number of questions came up, and while we were able to address most of them, we weren’t able to get to all of them due to time. Below are those questions and my best answers. This is an ongoing conversation, and I encourage you to keep the questions coming in via the comments section at the bottom of this page. Q: Can you talk more about the concept of engagement? It means a variety of things, not just sales activities and achieving numbers. As a Sales L&D person, creating engagement or engaging environments is key. A: When organizations look to establish a go-forward strategy, it is crucial that they appropriately engage across the organization to validate the vision, understand the different mechanisms that need to be orchestrated in order to achieve the vision, and gain a commitment of the appropriate stakeholders that will be involved in the initiative. Q: What KPIs are determining success of your Sales New Hire Process? A: We often see reducing ramp-up time of sales new hires as a typical KPI of the Sales New Hire Process. Each organization typically has its own specific measures that define what constitutes being "ramped-up." That said, we often work with the organization to pinpoint the specific problem that they are experiencing related to their sales new hires. Zeroing in to the specific need enables us to then establish the go-forward vision and the desired business outcomes of this vision. Then we can work backward from these business outcomes. Q: What if the new hire is an experienced person; how do you ensure that they will fit into the company’s culture? A: It is certainly important to assess the dynamics of the company’s culture against the new hire experience and the desired outcomes of the new hire program. In many cases, an effective learning experience will accommodate experienced participants and look to leverage their skills in support of other less experienced new hires. Another key element often resides in the level of participation from the sales managers/leaders who are often in the best position to aptly leverage their experience while passing along the culture. Q: What does "own" actually mean when it comes to training? A: When we look at the end-to-end initiative, "owning" refers to the idea that all stakeholders are committed to the vision of the program and take an active role in the shared definition of success. For example, if the new program includes a component where sales managers need to provide some level of support to help enabling performance for new hires, the VP of Sales should own these responsibilities in addition to the key design points of the new hire training itself. Q: Do you have any examples of successful sales new hire training that you can share? A: We recently designed an end-to-end new hire training program that targeted reducing ramp-up time for new sales associates for a global financial services operation. We are currently working on defining a comprehensive new hire training program for the sales associates for a major US department store retailer.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are currently receiving a lot of attention in both the academic and corporate worlds. Through the use of MOOCs, organizations are not only trying to involve everyone within the company, but they are trying to anticipate the future of learning. During a recent 20-minute webinar, Steve Swink, Training Specialist for GP Strategies, highlighted some of the most current thinking around MOOCs. The topics included: different varieties of MOOCs, ways MOOCs can be leveraged in a corporate environment and lessons to be taken from MOOCs as you grow and adapt your learning arsenal. Following the webinar and heightened interest in Massive Open Online Courses, GP Strategies took the conversation to Twitter to answer questions, engage with followers and further shed light on MOOCs. The following are the highlights from our recent #CorpMOOCs tweet chat. Welcome! We’ve had great discussions this year around #CorpMOOCs and are excited to take the conversation to Twitter today w/ @SteveSwinkTN. — GP Strategies Corp (@gpcorp) September 17, 2014 Q1: Can you explain what #MOOC is and how they fit into today’s global organization? @SteveSwinkTN #CorpMOOCs — GP Strategies Corp (@gpcorp) September 17, 2014 To see how Steve responded to the question, visit here. Q2: What are the Pros and Cons of #MOOCs in the corporate world? @SteveSwinkTN #CorpMOOCs — GP Strategies Corp (@gpcorp) September 17, 2014 #CorpMoocs - Corp MOOCs are great for global orgs. Can scale massively, & provide consistent cloud-based learning across an enterprise. — Darin Hartley (@soc_net_writer) September 17, 2014 Click here to see what Steve Swink believes are the Pros and Cons of MOOCs in the corporate workspace. Q3: How do you see #MOOCs fitting into the corporate environment? @SteveSwinkTN #CorpMOOCs — GP Strategies Corp (@gpcorp) September 17, 2014 To see how folks on Twitter answered to this question, visit here. Q4: Is there a type of learner who is more successful using a #MOOC? @SteveSwinkTN #CorpMOOCs — GP Strategies Corp (@gpcorp) September 17, 2014 To see which kind of learners thrive through the use of MOOCs, click here. Q5: What topics are best suited for a #MOOC environment? @SteveSwinkTN #CorpMOOCs — GP Strategies Corp (@gpcorp) September 17, 2014 Click here to see what topics Steve Swink thinks are best for MOOCs. Q6: Are #MOOCs synchronous, asynchronous, or both? @SteveSwinkTN #CorpMOOCs — GP Strategies Corp (@gpcorp) September 17, 2014 Which category do MOOCs fall under? Find out here. Q7: How do you see #MOOCs evolving in the future? @SteveSwinkTN #CorpMOOCs — GP Strategies Corp (@gpcorp) September 17, 2014 A7: Hopefully will morph into an individualized, prescriptive & synergistic environment. What thought do YOU have - hype or hope? #CorpMOOCs — Steve Swink (@SteveSwinkTN) September 17, 2014 To view the whole conversation please visit here. The full webinar "Musing on MOOCs" along with the slide deck and link to Q&A follow up are available for download in our Webinar Archive.

A 3D animation has many factors that can alter its complexity. In this blog post, we will take a behind-the-scenes look at how 3D animation is created, including: creation of the environment, application of textures, creation of the object, application of textures to the object, animation and rendering.   Creation of the Environment The first step in 3D animation is to create the environment. To create an environment, create your objects using basic shapes assembled together. In the example shown below, you can see that steel coils, a stop sign, and pipes and other parts of the infastructure were added to the environment that will be needed during the final animation. This process can take up to a week to produce depending on the complexity. Application of Textures The next step is to apply the textures. This is where all the objects in the environment begin to take shape. Logos, colors, textures, and writing can be added at this phase, as shown in the graphic below. This typically takes 1-2 days to produce. Creation of the Object Next, the equipment is created in a manner similarly to the way the environment was created, as shown in the graphic below. This also can take a week to produce depending on the complexity. Application of Textures to the Object Next, the textures are applied to the object, in this case the forklift as shown below. This is where the writing and additional textures and colors can be added. This typically takes 1-2 days to produce. Animation The next phase of the process is animation. Animation is where you create the movement in the graphic by changing what is happening on the screen in small increments. Across the bottom of the screen you can see a timeline. The animator specifies what the screen will look like at each of those points, and the software fills in the small gaps. Rendering The final step in the process is rendering. This is when the computer takes control and creates the animation in still frames. GP Strategies has a render farm, a group of interconnected computers that are dedicated to rendering, that operates 24 hours a day/7 days a week to complete animation tasks. Once the computer is finished, the still images are assembled into the video file and implemented in the module. This can take anywhere from a few hours to several days depending on the complexity and size of the animation. The graphic below shows rendering in process. And the final result is a video file ready to be embedded in your next eLearning module. A huge thank you to our Digital Creative Lead, Adam Roman, for the behind-the-scenes tour. For more information on creating eLearning modules with 3D animation, please review the recorded webinar Designing SAFE Instruction: The Use of 3D Animation for Safety Training or contact Sheri Weppel to continue the conversation.

It’s old news that the shrinking labor pool, caused by the looming retirement of Baby Boomers, will present significant challenges for businesses in the near future. One could even say businesses are on the verge of experiencing a seismic tremor. Some have taken precautions by adding automation capability, others have begun documenting the entire "tribal knowledge" that resides in the minds of those soon to retire, and still others are embracing solutions leveraging the global labor now possible through the Internet. Can high-performance teams play a role in helping solve this dilemma? Imagine a new world that embraces a paradigm in which you, as a business leader, can institute new processes and mindsets that improve your operational capability and increase your capacity. The automotive assembly line model is highly adaptable and has served business well for a long time. Revolutionary at its beginning, this sequential flow manifests itself not only in manufacturing, but also in other support functions such as accounting, project management, and training development. In this model, each person adds value to a product or transaction as it passes his or her workstation in a predetermined linear sequence. At some time or another, most businesses have experienced a crisis generally manifested by a time-commitment constraint or last-minute, client-directed change. These crises often require a team of people to come together to "resolve issues." These intense periods of time are disruptive to the planned workday as well as family and social schedules. Employees rise to the challenge and overcome these events time and time again, but at what cost? That new world I hinted at earlier can help overcome these challenges and build extra capacity, but doing so requires a different operating model and mindset. Consider the differences between building an automobile and an airplane. With an automobile assembly line, each workstation along the line adds some kind of value (for example, installing the front seats - 8 bolts) before proceeding to the next workstation where more value (for example, adding the front doors = 12 bolts) will be added. This process repeats until a car is driven off the assembly line. Now let’s look at how an airplane is built. The airplane is stationary for major parts of its assembly. When the cockpit is added, multiple teams of electricians and mechanics are involved to connect the controls to the hydraulics, avionics, and electric systems throughout the cabin. When the landing gear is added, again hardware needs to be attached to the mainframe, the hydraulics systems need to be connected, electronics need to be attached to operate the hydraulics, etc. The point is that teams with a specific role (specialists) are working in the same location at the same time. This requires communication, cooperation, and coordination. Now let’s take a quick trip backwards to consider applying this kind of approach to solving specific business problem, before we move forward. During WWII "Tiger Teams," ad hoc teams, were created to address specific business problems (crises). Each team member was carefully selected based on a particular skill he or she possessed. These teams were sanctioned at the highest levels of the organization and were chartered with necessary authority to accomplish their mission. This is an early example of a high-performance team leveraged to solve a specific business problem. However, because these were ad hoc teams, they were dismantled when the problem was resolved. This high-performance team concept was not cemented into the organizational structure. Now moving forward, consider the possibilities of inculcating this type of approach directly into your organizational structure as a normal way of doing business. The "problems" you solve are defined as the normal work projects and services. In this world, individuals are assigned specific responsibilities that bring one perspective to the problem that needs three to five perspectives to adequately solve the problem at a given milestone. All perspectives are brought together at critical "build" moments to exercise. This access to a larger brain trust enhances quality, resolves challenges, and cross-pollinates ideas. This approach embraces the notion that "good ideas" and "solutions" come faster and better, and can drive greater consistency across the organization with a synergy that comes from a high-performance team environment where individual perspectives and insights are valued. This is a key concept because it requires a change—in mindset for many organizations. Can you describe examples where you have experienced or observed the benefits of high-performance teams in action? Was this an ad hoc team or was it instituted in the organizational structure?

Have you ever experienced a crisis situation at work where a looming deadline caused you to alter your work plans, your family activities, or your social schedule? Of course you have. What was it about how you handled the disruption, that crisis, which helped you succeed? Did you do anything differently other than putting in more time? Did you have a more focused breakdown of the work or a more focused task delegation, considered new perspectives, stopped a circular decision-making process, or something else? From necessity is born innovation. From crisis is born resilience. Politicians say, "Never waste a crisis." My questions for you are, "Why wait for a crisis? Why not artificially create one?" When I discuss the idea of "artificial crisis," it is generally followed by uncomfortable laughing at the audacity to even suggest this. But given time to reflect on the idea, people begin to agree that they could be more innovated and resilient if they were able to focus on a problem for a period of time. A crisis will bring that focus. Would you be more interested if I told you that in the process of exercising artificial crisis, you can increase capacity at the same time? Let me be clear, I am not asking you as a CEO to impose a management style that brings you some kind of masochistic power pleasure. I am encouraging you to inject "artificial crisis" events and milestones into your program/project plan that are designed to leverage your collective brain trust, which will accelerate value and rapidly advance a project. Consider a project using an "airplane" build model (see blog entitled "Can Process and Mindset Improve Capability and Increase Capacity?). This project traditionally takes six weeks to reach a particular milestone. However, by using the value acceleration technique, the team can reach this milestone in a fraction of the time, assuming the right planning and the right team mindset. You may be saying, "But I have three priority programs ongoing, and all my people are committed and focused on their responsibilities for the next six weeks. I don’t have the time to do what you are suggesting." If you can find a way to accelerate each of your programs by embracing this new process and mindset, would you do it? We have all participated in a project crisis in which we worked long and hard to meet a particular deadline. How much was your program advanced at these times compared to the program planned timeline prior to the crisis? Don’t wait for the weekend or the long evenings; build this focused process into the "normal" way of doing work. By building value acceleration events into your programs/projects, you will be creating new, untapped capacity with the same workforce. Let’s do the math. Let’s keep it simple and assume one person per project. Now compare. Traditional Program Planned Approach - Baseline: 3 projects x6 weeks (30 workdays) to complete 18 project workweeks (90 workdays) Value Acceleration Approach: Now, build into your plan 2 workweeks for value acceleration in which your "airplane" teams spend about 3 days of focused attention on each project (no interruptions or distractions allowed including other meetings). This approach results in advancing the projects 4 weeks each (20 workdays times 3 projects equals 60 days). 3 projects x3.3 value acceleration workdays per project 10 total workdays (rounding up) Assume the 10 workdays invested in value acceleration save 4 weeks of time for each project (when using the "airplane build" model, I have observed many times far greater advancements). Four workweeks (20 workdays) times 3 projects equals a savings of 60 days. This is building additional capacity with process improvements not by investing in automation or other strategies. In full disclosure, you can’t simply schedule a value acceleration event and make it successful. It needs to be planned. Participants will need some advance reading materials. The event may need to be scheduled off-site. You will likely need to "whiteboard" approaches, ideas, and action steps. You will need ground rules and a facilitator to keep the meeting moving. You may need breakout groups to work on specific activities. I invite you to provide your thoughts, insights, and ideas on the types of things you would have to do or plan in your line of business to maximize your value acceleration event.