Just the other day, Dick and I were having a hallway conversation about what it takes to be a good instructional designer.  He was telling me what Dr. John Gretes, chair of the Instructional Technology program at UNCC, would list as his top three "good designer" qualities.  It got me thinking about what my own list would be.  I told Dick I had a different list (he thought I was going to say something along the lines of you have to be slightly neurotic), but when it turned out to be a serious list, he invited me to guest blog about it.  Here they are: 1. A good instructional designer needs to be process-oriented.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the instructional design process works.  I have found that if something starts to go wrong during the course of a project, it can often be traced back to a step in the process that was cut short or skipped.  If you follow the process, your training will always be well-designed and effective.  Being process-oriented enables the process to support and channel your hard work and creativity, instead of being a mold that your work is required to follow. 2. Another important quality for a designer to have is a good attention to detail.  There are a million details a designer needs to keep track of on a daily basis, ranging from sub-tasks in a task analysis to using the client’s terminology appropriately.  A lot could get lost in the shuffle without a good handle on the fine points.  When is this quality most important?  I think it’s during content reviews.  An eye for consistency can make or break a QA cycle, and I think a good attention to detail breeds consistency. 3. The last requisite quality in my top three list is that a good instructional designer needs great writing skills.  It all boils down to excellent communication.  Your primary responsibility is to communicate clearly and effectively to learners, but before you can do that, you need to communicate effectively to your client, project manager, SMEs, designers, and developers through your writing.  The breadth of your writing output is vast as an instructional designer - you need to be able to write training content appropriate for your audience, but also analyses, design documents, and darn good emails.  The great thing about these qualities is that you don’t have to be born with them.  Sure, that would help, but I think they all can be learned, developed, and practiced over time. Beth Hughes is a Lead Instructional Designer at Handshaw, Inc. She takes projects through the entire process of instructional design and development, incorporating learning principles, instructional needs, and methodologies into the best learning solution for each client. Beth earned her M.Ed. in Instructional Systems Technology from UNCC.

The learning teams at Family Dollar have made a great decision and a great commitment to ISPI Charlotte to provide memberships for 18 or 20 of their employees. To welcome them into the chapter I offered a lunch and learn for them. Since they missed the introductory year of programs on Instructional Design, I did a session entitled, "Instructional Design:  How to Sell the Real Value." We had just over 20 people attend—must have been a good lunch.  There seems to be a common theme running through training departments in America. People still have confidence in Instructional Design principles, but making it work in today’s world of tight deadlines and last minute requests is a challenge.  We decided that it was a good idea to "pick your battles" and wait for the right project. By picking the right project, you can be sure to make a good example and show how the process really works at its best. I emphasized just three aspects of instructional design to begin selling the real, practical value of the process: 1. Do the proper amount of analysis, especially task analysis, to define the real behavioral outcomes at the beginning of the project. This helps build consensus among SMEs. 2. Conduct what we call a "Blueprint Meeting" as soon as you have a defined Measurement Strategy and Instructional Strategy with all SMEs, stakeholders, designers—everybody on the project team. This gets everybody on board with consensus building early in the project. 3. Conduct Formative Evaluation. Build a short prototype that exemplifies your Measurement and Instructional strategies and try it out with four to six learners to get their feedback and observe how well it works. Make revisions, complete the course, and then do a pilot with twelve to twenty learners in a more formal setting. Observe, get feedback, and make final revisions. We’ll be ready to welcome a bunch of new faces at ISPI Charlotte this year.  Thanks to Family Dollar for having me over for lunch. We’ll do it again sometime.

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]Dick Handshaw Family Dollar Presentation Instructional Design:  How to Sell the Real Value March 23, 2011

Dick Handshaw Instructional Design:  How to Sell the Real Value March 2011

I’ve spent countless hours during the past few weeks talking to SME after SME, staring at documentation, and willing the information I needed to complete my task analysis to arise out of nowhere and make itself known.  No surprise—that wasn’t happening.  Here’s why it was such a challenge:  The project is for a client who is implementing a new software application.  They need to train various users to complete their tasks in the system.  Since the system is in development there aren’t any users to observe or interview: Strike 1.  I talked to many line of business SMEs who understand exactly what each type of user does in the workflow, but they don’t know completely how they’ll be using the system to do it: Strike 2.  I also talked to some software developer SMEs who understand the functionality of the system, but not exactly the context in which it’ll be used: Strike 3.  So, I had a large (and very significant) gap in my analysis between what the user does, what the system does, and how the user does it in the system.  Here are the steps I recommend if you find yourself in a similar situation: 1. Conduct a gap analysis on your own work.  Clearly identify what information you need.  Take it from "Eh, there’s a big hole" to "I need to know how this user uses this system to do this task." 2. If the gap is in the details of your task analysis, try to have the highest level tasks/process firmly established before you look to fill the lower level gaps.  Run it by your line of business SMEs and get unofficial verbal approval that this level of analysis is correct.  This will provide you with a solid, organized base upon which to build as you gather more data. 3. Contact all of your project team members on the client’s side and SMEs that you have been in touch with to date.  Explain your information gap and ask who might be able to provide you with this information, and if any documentation exists that might fill the need. 4. Once your SMEs identify who has the information you need, it can’t hurt to ask them for an introduction, especially if you are an outside vendor.  Your new SME will be more likely to share information with you if they’ve heard about your need from someone they already have a relationship with. Following these steps with my task analysis led me to the gold mine of information I needed.  I found the person on the client’s side who was working on the use cases for quality assurance.  After a phone call with her, we realized we were working toward identifying the same level of tasks, and we built a partnership that allowed us to share information we found through other sources with each other.  Task analysis - done! Beth Hughes is a Lead Instructional Designer at Handshaw, Inc. She takes projects through the entire process of instructional design and development, incorporating learning principles, instructional needs, and methodologies into the best learning solution for each client. Beth earned her M.Ed. in Instructional Systems Technology from UNCC.

Last Tuesday, April 19th, I had the pleasure of working with members of the Piedmont ASTD Chapter in Winston-Salem, NC. I delivered a four hour workshop that afternoon titled, "Testing and Learner Validation." The testing portion consisted of hands-on skill building for the selection of testing instruments and the writing of better test questions. Test construction is a difficult and often over-looked part of Instructional Design. This session included two useful job aids which, with a little practice, can almost guarantee you will be developing tests that are valid and reliable. In the Learner Validation portion we learned how to plan for, conduct, and evaluate a Learner Tryout and a Field Test. Then we actually conducted a Learner Tryout in the session with a sample of an e-Learning course. Everyone in the room found needed revisions to the instruction, which they readily agreed were worth the time spent to know this information before they continued with more development. Most everyone in the workshop was familiar with Instructional Design practices, but interested in finding a few new methods to make their design better. We worked pretty hard and the time flew by. Thank you all for having me and for an engaging afternoon.

I have always admired the activity level of the Research Triangle Chapter of ASTD and the quality of their speakers. I recently attended a great workshop there led by Ruth Clark. So I was very gratified when they invited me to do a session titled, "SMEs—A Marriage For Better or Worse." I developed this topic about three years ago based on some research I did with some of my clients. In fact, it was one of my Raleigh clients, Susan Funderburk of NC State Employees’ Credit Union, who put the idea in my head. She complained that they were really having problems dealing with subject matter experts and wanted to know if I had any advice for how to make the process work better for all parties concerned. I created a short questionnaire and sent it around to a few other clients and also to my staff. My straightforward attempt at research revealed that we all had the same set of problems, and in fact, there were really just seven of them. I only had to draw on the best practices of project management and some performance consulting principles in use here at Handshaw for many years to address the seven problems. Since I developed that presentation in 2008, I have seen a growing interest in learning how to work with SMEs. Earlier this month I attended Darryl Sink’s excellent session at the 2011 ISPI Conference titled, "Subject-Matter Experts: Don’t Just Say, ‘Now Spill the Beans.’" One of RTA chapter’s own members, Tracy Hollister, also announced a study on working with SMEs done by her company TrainingIndustry.com with General Physics Corporation that will be released on May 21st. It does seem that interest in developing best practices for working with subject matter experts is on the increase. I’ll continue to revise my presentation as I learn more about working with SMEs. I will also add some concrete examples, at the suggestion of some kind person who took the time to fill out an evaluation Thursday. Thank you for that good idea. And finally, thank you to the three SMEs in attendance who allowed us to talk about you like you really weren’t there. You gave us a lot of great feedback. I hope we are all better equipped to work with you the next time you get assigned to work with one of us on project.

Dick Handshaw will present a half-day preconference workshop at the 2011 ASTD International Conference and Exposition.  His workshop "Training Request?  Ask Questions First" will be offered on Saturday, May 21st from 8:30 am - 12:00 noon.  The conference will be held from May 22nd - 25th, 2011 in Orlando, FL.  Handshaw’s workshop presents an effective process for partnering with clients to define the performance needs that will lead to business results.  During the workshop participants will participate in a re-framing exercise that allows them to become both consultant and client during a role-play.  The exercise equips participants with the skills needed to turn a training request into a performance consulting opportunity.  Participation in the workshop allows participants to discover their own abilities as a consultant and helps them to develop the confidence to use them. For more details or to register for this event visit:  www.astdconference.org.

The best part of the evolution of my job at Handshaw is that I get to spend a lot more time talking to people who are actually out there, daily keeping up with requests, and keeping the people in their organizations trained. For the most part they don’t complain a lot, but if you ask them what bothers them most about their jobs, they will tell you they don’t like being order takers. So you might ask, if not order taker, what do they want to be? The answer would most often be a strategic business partner. When I ask people why they are in this predicament, they reply with one of two things. Many of them may say they lack the skills to be a performance consultant along with all the other things they have to do in their jobs. Most of them would say they just don’t feel like it’s appropriate for them to be talking directly to the head of a line of business, or even if they do, they don’t feel it’s their place to tell them what to do. The first problem might not be that hard to resolve. We could probably give them some training with plenty of practice and feedback to build their consulting skills. The second problem is a little more difficult.  I’d like to take this opportunity to speak directly to those of you who find yourself in this situation.  Even if you build the skills, it will be difficult for trainers to act as strategic business partners if the culture, meaning your manager, won’t support an environment where consulting is accepted, encouraged, and rewarded. Don’t be too hard on your manager though if he or she doesn’t want to jump right in and support you. The transition will be time-consuming and there is definitely some risk involved.  You can save your manager a little angst by starting out slowly and working with one key client who is likely to support you and work with you.  Once you have a success or two to which you can point, you can begin to roll the process out further. Let me warn you of two pitfalls. Performance consulting is not offering your opinions to your clients and hoping they will take up your ideas. Performance consulting is asking the right questions, so your client will discover the correct solutions with you. And finally, avoid putting the title "Performance Consultant" on your business card, at least right away. Advertising the fact that you are a consultant doesn’t get the job done nearly as effectively as acting like one. Next week … more on Proactive and Reactive Consulting. 1 of 3 in series

The Robinsons begin their chapter on "Proactively Identifying Performance Consulting Opportunities" in the Second Edition of their book Performance Consulting with a quote from Wayne Gretzky.  It reads, "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been."  That’s the best answer I can think of for the question posed by my title. Now let’s think about what that means to people who have to provide learning solutions every day, on a budget, on a schedule. It means we have to pay more attention to developing relationships. We want to be brought to the table earlier and we want to participate on a strategic level. That means we will do far better if we seek to understand our client’s business, including his or her pains and opportunities, before a specific initiative or project arises. Building trust among individuals takes time, especially when there are risks at stake.  That’s why relationship building is so important. It’s not something you can put on a project schedule or assign a convenient due date. It’s an investment you make over time and it does pay off.  In their book, Jim and Dana Robinson go on to state that the purpose of the proactive discussion is "to deepen your knowledge of your client’s business and to strengthen your relationship with your client.   But you also have your antennae up to identify opportunities where you might add value when you have not been asked to be part of the project. " Mastering this simple skill alone will resolve most of the complaints I hear about being seen strictly as an order taker and having to use valuable corporate money and time developing learning solutions that we know will add little value. Beginning a methodical process of Proactive Performance Consulting will position you to be invited into opportunities earlier in the process.  It will also give you access to information you probably haven’t had in the past.  Lastly, you will have a greater and more informed voice in identifying solutions to problems, whether they are learning interventions or other types of interventions. Now about that simple skill; it really is easy, enjoyable, and interesting. Watch the Proactive Consulting Interview video on the Home page or find the link to it (and other videos) on the Resources tab.  You will see a 13 minute video role play showing one possible way to conduct this interview. If you are interested in a workshop on this skill, go to the Workshops tab and read the description for the Performance Partnering Workshop and then contact Sara Miller at sara.miller@handshaw.com. 2 of 3 in series

Proactive Consulting Interview  Dick Handshaw demonstrates how to establish a consulting relationship that will lead to clear and measurable business results.

I think the thing I like best about ASTD conferences is the truly international flavor and what that can bring to the sessions. Now I’ve only been in one session so far, and that was my own pre-conference workshop, but it’s early yet. My workshop was a skill building session on how to reframe a training request into an opportunity for performance consulting. I did very little presenting because most of the session consisted of individual role plays. One participant would play a client with a training request and the other would play the performance consultant. Naturally, culture is a big factor in how the role play is conducted and in the kind of results achieved. Normally I’m talking corporate culture, but in this case, global culture was a big factor. We had an Asian client with a performance consultant from Mexico. We had Europeans, Scandinavians, and Asians, including Singapore and Thailand, and we had a representative from Kuwait.  We also covered every corner of America from Seattle to Florida to Texas to Maine—and I only had a couple dozen participants in my workshop.  It was striking how the different participants approached the basic rules of the role play based in part by their own regional or international culture. Some were cautious and polite, allowing everyone to save face and appear strong; others were more direct with a measured strategy. Some employed humor, others were tactful and complimentary. Most of them were successful in getting their clients to see the request from a different point of view, even those with clients who most stubbornly stuck to their point of view until the consultant questioned and cajoled his or her way through the role play. I was concerned how my strategy of employing role plays would work in such a diverse audience, but I shouldn’t have been. I never had to twist anyone’s arm to take the stage to do their role play, and we saw the most creative variety of approaches I have ever seen with this exercise. Even the feedback component was lively and so eclectic in its various points of view.  So allow me to thank all of you for your participation, your brilliance, your flexibility and above all for what I learned from each of you. What I now value most about the ASTD International Conference and Expo is the rich diversity of its participants. Thank you all.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to witness a bit of history in our profession. I attended the last public appearance of Dr. Donald Kirkpatrick at the 2011 ASTD Conference. Even people who are new to our profession can tell you what the four levels of evaluation are. According to Kirkpatrick, he never called them that himself. The remarkable proliferation of this process of evaluating learning programs was never really intentional on his part. He never promoted his process; it just took off on its own. It was truly a grass roots movement that was adopted not because it was sold or marketed, but because it was useful, and probably because it was simple and made so much sense. You don’t see that much anymore. Back in 1954, Kirkpatrick was a visionary. Today, he doesn’t think of himself as a legend or a guru. He says with a grin though, you can call me a genius if you want. Not only does he have a great sense of humor, but he is remarkably humble when talking about his accomplishments. He leaves us a legacy not only through his writing and his research, but also in his family. Always a dedicated father and family man, he has two sons, a daughter and a daughter-in-law who will be carrying on his work. Now he plans to watch from the sidelines—well not always from the sidelines, he says. He looks forward to spending more time with his wife of 60 years. You can also bet he’ll be watching his beloved Packers. His session featured a review of his process and his research, but it was mostly a personal farewell to all of us who benefit from his work and his remarkable career. In fact, it was mostly personal and at times quite emotional as well. Before I left the conference, I had the opportunity to thank him personally for his contributions. He picked up my name tag and studied it carefully, and then he studied my face as he shook my hand. I didn’t feel like just another person to him. In that moment, he made me feel like a colleague, although I really didn’t know him well. Millions of people in countries around the world have benefitted from your work, Dr. Kirkpatrick. We wish you a long and happy retirement, and maybe even another Super Bowl win for Green Bay.  By the way, Dr. Kirkpatrick retired at age 87. Now that’s commitment. 

Once you establish a proactive interviewing routine and develop a true consulting relationship with your client, you may no longer need the skills of conducting a reframing meeting. However, most of us are going to come across the need for this type of meeting more often than we would like. The purpose of the reframing meeting is simple. You need to change your client’s focus from solutions to defining business results and defining required performance outcomes. While the purpose is pretty straightforward, the actual skills required to achieve the desired outcome require practice and can be challenging. One difficulty of this meeting is that your client brings a pre-conceived solution to the meeting and is expecting to tell you what he or she thinks is needed.  Your client may expect you to dutifully "take the order."  Perhaps the biggest difficulty in conducting this interview is that you also may enter the meeting with your own pre-conceived solution. In either case, we call this "solution jumping" and it is to be strictly avoided in this meeting. The next step from this meeting should be to agree to gather some data or conduct some analysis to have better information with which to make a decision about problem definition and solutions. The workshop that I just conducted for the ASTD International Conference and Expo focused on eight principles for conducting a reframing meeting. You can find those Reframing Principles by clicking on the Resources tab. You can also view a short role play video called Reframing Meeting on the Home page or by clicking the Resources tab. 3 of 3 in series

Reframing Meeting Dick Handshaw demonstrates how to reframe a client’s request.

I was having lunch with a colleague last week and we started talking about the state of instructional design skills in the learning profession today.  To say that this colleague and I go back a ways is an understatement.  She was my company’s third or fourth client back in 1986 or ’87—I can’t even remember exactly.  When we met she was new to training and I was new to the consulting business. My colleague described to me the way many learning projects begin with a SME providing a pile of content and then stating, "Build me a learning program."  I agreed and added that too many people carrying cards saying they are instructional designers have become nothing more than organizers of content.  I’m not saying that this is all they know how to do, or that this is what they want to do, but it seems to be happening because of time constraints.  Sometimes designers say they only have time for organizing content.  According to my colleague, this has led to what they call the "spray and pray approach."  This is where you spray some content around and pray that it helps.  She told me about another common problem that occurs "when we do poor contracting with our business partners which can result in improperly defined projects, thus causing lots of rework, or what I call ‘spin and swirl.’" My friend manages an internal group for a large corporation and I have a small consulting company but we have essentially the same mission.  She has clients to please and budgets and timelines to meet and so do we.  Instructional design is the systematic approach we use to handle the work and meet the deadlines.  What I have seen as I visit local professional associations and clients is that there has been an erosion of the skill and efficiency with which people leverage instructional design to keep projects on track and meet clients’ needs in a way that drives business results.  Every Instructional Designer at Handshaw has learned how to do a task analysis that truly identifies best practices and how to write performance objectives that truly measure the desired performance that will meet business needs. It just doesn’t come from going to school; it comes from actual practice and the use of a proven process. I hope I get a few comments from my readers on this one. My colleague and I think we have seen gradual erosion in the effective practice of instructional design in the last few years. What do you think?

When you’re trying to get good at something, I’ve always believed you should go learn from the best people you can find. So two weeks ago, I went to the Charlotte ISPI chapter meeting to hear Margo Murray talk about mentoring. She pretty much wrote the book on mentoring, so that’s about as good as it gets. The next day I had to reluctantly miss her workshop on mentoring because I was scheduled to see Harold Stolovitch do his famous "Tellin’ Ain’t Trainin’" workshop for the Research Triangle Area ASTD chapter in Morrisville, NC. Again, it doesn’t get much better than that. I heard that Harold has sold the most training books of anyone in the business. He says he didn’t know that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is true. What makes both of these individuals great is that they have great content that has been developed over years of their own practice and research.  They design the workshops and present their material well and they also deliver their sessions with a good sense of humor and entertainment value. The medium, being good workshop presenters, often times is the message.  My apologies to Marshall McLuhan, author of the seminal work, "The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects," 1967. Two weeks ago I got to learn from two of the best, and this week, I have the opportunity to go and be the presenter myself. I’m traveling to one of my favorite clients—yes, I say that about all of them—to do my "Performance Partnership" workshop and 90 minute session on "Instructional Design - Selling the Real Value."  But my learning really won’t stop, because I won’t be doing all of the talking. Harold wouldn’t like that. I’ll be doing a lot of listening to my clients and that’s the very best part of my job. Next week I’ll be doing the Instructional Design session again for another one of my favorite clients—I told you I’d say that—right here in Charlotte. If any of my other favorite clients happen to be reading this and you’d like to see me in your town, just call us up and ask.

During the lifecycle of a system simulation training project, there are three times when subject matter expert input is essential: During task analysis, unless you’ve managed to procure the elusive "expert performer," where you need SME input to help you understand what learners need to be able to do on the job.  During the content review cycles, where you need SME input to help you make sure you’ve gotten it all correct. During the early stages of production, when you’re capturing the system screen shots. The first two are well-known as necessary SME touch points, but I’ve recently learned that the third touch point, if you can secure the SME availability and participation to make it happen, can be a key contributor to the success of your project.  There’s a definite gap to bridge during the screen capture stage of a system simulation project.  You’ve documented your tasks, developed objectives and a design for the course, and maybe even built a prototype.  Your new challenge is to take the higher-level tasks and objectives you’ve identified, and actually teach the learner something.  Putting the learner aside for a moment - how do you know what to click and type and navigate to in the system?  Yes, there’s probably documentation for that, but you’ll really strike gold if you’re able to get the SMEs to participate in a system walk-through with you while you capture the screens. Here’s what you’ll get: A fail-proof process - When an expert is walking you through the process as you capture it, you’ll have a high level of confidence that you’re getting it right. An all-access pass to conceptual expertise - You’ll pick up valuable tidbits like, "You might want to tell the learner that if they forget to click Save here, they’ll lose hours worth of work." A review/revision process you can brag about - What could make a review/revision cycle more efficient than having the SME reviewers walk you through each lesson up front?  So, when it comes time to make your case for justifying a request for additional SME time, remind your client that you’ll likely be able to significantly reduce the percentage of re-work during revisions.  Major revisions, such as process changes, should be next to none since you’ll have up-front guidance.  Additionally, the amount of revisions should be reduced since you’ve already gathered important points from the SME.  Of course, that results in time and money saved. Beth Hughes is a Senior Instructional Designer at Handshaw, Inc. She takes projects through the entire process of instructional design and development, incorporating learning principles, instructional needs, and methodologies into the best learning solution for each client. Beth earned her M.Ed. in Instructional Systems Technology from UNCC.

It appears as if Charlotte, NC just isn’t hot enough for me in July, because I’m leaving here for a few trips.  Next week I’ll visit the local chapter of ASTD in Jacksonville, FL and the following week, I’m visiting a client and a potential client in Memphis, TN. Although instructional systems design has been around since World War Two, people still need to know when to use it, how to use it, and how to convince their management and clients when to use it. My session on "Instructional Design - Selling the Real Value" continues to be popular. So, I’ll be having lunch with the Jacksonville ASTD chapter and discussing instructional design with them on the 21st of July. On Monday the 25th of July I’ll be flying to Memphis to do two workshops. I’ll be doing the full-day Performance Partnering Workshop with Hilton Hotels on Tuesday. This workshop is quickly becoming my favorite. The workshop is heavily based on the work of Jim and Dana Robinson and my experience learning from them over the past fifteen years prior to their retirement. The morning session deals with the proactive consulting interview and the afternoon session deals with the reactive reframing meeting. Eighty percent of the workshop uses role plays to practice these interviews, which each employ eight principles to help clients focus more on results and outcomes rather than solutions and activities. I like it because I never know what to expect from the role plays, but they are always fascinating. On the 26th I’ll be visiting one of our long-time clients, First Tennessee Bank, to deliver another full-day workshop "Learning Analysis?  You Can’t Afford Not To."  This session is adapted from the Results-Based Instructional Design Series, which I have been practicing and perfecting since 1987. Good design hasn’t changed drastically in the last 30 years, even though delivery methods and technology have advanced rapidly. I’ll work with my friends at First Tennessee on audience analysis, learning culture analysis and task analysis. The entire afternoon session will be devoted to practicing efficient development of task analysis using actual project deliverables. Of course, I hope a considerable portion of the evening will be spent enjoying some good ribs at the Rendezvous. I love Memphis.

Thank you to everyone from ASTD Jacksonville for such a good turn out last week. There were 63 people in attendance, including me, for a lunch meeting on selling the value of instructional design. That’s a good turnout for a hot day in July—hey, the high in Jacksonville was 5 degrees cooler than the high in Charlotte that day. It appears the good turnout was because of the topic, of course. It seems that instructional design topics are the most requested topics for their chapter right now. I find this particularly interesting because one of the hottest topics at conferences in the late 90s and early 2000s foretold the death of instructional design because it was obsolete and no longer relevant. Here we are, nearly a decade later, and it is not only a hot topic in Jacksonville, but just about everywhere I go. One of the things I have noticed over the last thirty years is that technology and delivery systems are constantly changing, but good design, tied to outcomes and results, remains constant. Unfortunately, many of the eLearning programs I see today closely resemble the sound slide shows that were so popular when I was in graduate school in the late 70s. Those programs were merely a vehicle for delivering content—one way. How different is that from many eLearning programs today? Harold Stolovitch laments that we "train people declaratively and then expect them to perform procedurally."  If we identify the appropriate level of learned capability in our objectives and make the learning and measurement match that level, our learners will be able to perform appropriately. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like good instructional design to me. I also get very excited about the prospect of delivering performance support and learning with mobile devices. They offer a promising new technology that is available to so many learners right when they need it most. And that gets to the importance of context that Tony O’Driscoll is always talking about. The ability to get answers when you need them so they can immediately be applied to work process will lead to better learning and less time spent in classrooms. As I see it, the key to making all this new technology work is the same as it was thirty years ago—good instructional design.   

Dick Handshaw explains to a July 2011 Learning Analysis workshop audience how to get started with a Task Analysis in their organization.

A few weeks ago I worked with two training organizations in Memphis, TN.  I delivered the Performance Partnering workshop on Tuesday to Hilton Worldwide and presented the first workshop in the Results-Based Instructional Design Series on Analysis for First Tennessee Bank. I’ve delivered the performance partnering workshop for over 100 individuals now and the one constant is that I never really know what’s going to happen. Most of the class consists of role play scenarios and the participants get to choose their own scenario.  I never know what’s going to happen next, but I have found a few trends. Some people tend to fall back on what they have always done and don’t always take advantage of the eight principles used to conduct and evaluate each of the role play scenarios. Others tend to follow the new instruction more. In all cases, I am always intrigued by the various conversations and the often creative ways the participants use to reframe a client training request or to structure a proactive interview to learn more about a client’s business unit. The next day I was with a longtime, wonderful client, First Tennessee Bank. I had about 18 people who were really interested in task analysis, partly because of the important role the task analysis played in a recent project we are just finishing with them.  I’m finding a renewed interest in task analysis everywhere I go.  People used to skip task analysis because they didn’t have time for it and now they want to learn how to do it more efficiently for the very same reason—they don’t have a lot of time to waste.  With Memphis being the polite Southern city that it is, I’ve received no less than seven thank you email messages from the two organizations. One of the Analysis participants said, "Your way helps to clarify knowledge, process, what needs to come first and what some may be able to test out of." I’ve always tried to focus on practical solutions that people can really use. At least one person agrees, "It was an excellent workshop that provided a practical method that we can use immediately." And here’s the kind of comment I always like to hear, "I learned a lot of new information and I’m putting it right to use on my next project." From a work perspective Memphis was a very successful trip. On a personal note it was outstanding. I had barbecue for three meals in a row and got to watch the duck walk at the Peabody over a cool drink with some great clients. It doesn’t get any better than that. And, Memphis is the undisputed barbecue capital of the world—even better than North Carolina.

I was recently emailed a link to an article about when to say "no" to a training request. Okay, we all realize that not all training requests are a good expenditure of our time or our organization’s money, but is saying "no" to a client ever a good idea? Back in the mid 1990s I was attending a meeting at PNC Bank, where my client Tom LaBonte had just taken over as Director of Training. He told his new team of 125 people that, "The training department at PNC was doing too much training." I was not the only one puzzled at his statement. That was shortly before Tom introduced me to Jim and Dana Robinson of Partners in Change, and that was about the time I learned to see things differently. Their research tells them that 80% of all performance problems have nothing to do with training.  So, while it is certainly true that we should not develop training for every training request, in my opinion there is never a good time to say "no." What happens when we say no to a client who has come to us with a training request, whether it is valid or not, is that we risk the destruction of a trusted partnering relationship. In order to be seen as a trusted partner, we need to acknowledge the client’s concern every time he or she approaches us with a training request.  Another problem I had with the article is that in one scenario, the author immediately went away and developed a proposal for—guess what?—a two day workshop. There was little evidence in the article that detailed questions had been asked or that any analysis was done. In fact, the proposal was delivered the next day. Before the class was ever implemented, it was shortened to a day, then to a half-day and finally to an hour. Disappointed and perplexed, the author refused to conduct the workshop until he had the proper time to deliver the proper results, which he eventually did. The fact that the client repeatedly shortened and minimized the quickly and independently designed class may indicate there was a lack of trust in the consulting relationship. So what should you do when you suspect you are hearing a training request for a performance problem that either does not need training or involves far more than training to resolve? Well, don’t say "no," but start by acknowledging the client’s concern. Try to shift the conversation to outcomes and business results and away from activities. A successful result of this conversation should be agreement on a shared goal between you and your client. The goal should be stated more in terms of outcomes than activities. And finally, rather than sleuthing around on your own without the client’s knowledge, gain permission from the client at the end of your meeting to gather any other analysis data that will help you make an informed decision on how to proceed next.  Schedule another meeting to share your findings, let your data speak for itself, and you will both likely arrive at a better solution that may or may not include training, that is based on real results. Click on the Resources tab to and click on "Reframing Principles" to see the eight principles for Reframing  a Training Request, or click "Reframing Meeting" to see a sample video showing how to reframe a training request.

In last week’s blog we discussed whether it was ever appropriate to say no to a training request. I think we can all agree that there are a lot of training requests that should never be acted upon, but that saying "no" to a client can damage the trusted partnering relationship. While this is a good strategy for not damaging that relationship, how do we build a trusted partnering relationship in the first place? The answer to this question is easier than you think. It just isn’t fast! It takes time, but it can be an enjoyable and rewarding process.  The Robinson’s call this process Proactive Consulting. It is proactive because you are initiating contact with your client rather than waiting for your client to contact you. The first step is probably the hardest. You have to get that first meeting when there really is no pressing need to get together. The whole point of the meeting is to talk to your client about his or her business when there is no agenda. Again, you should focus on desired business results for the coming year. You may also ask questions about challenges both internally and externally. You should keep the meeting short—thirty minutes over a cup of coffee is good, certainly no more than an hour. Once you get your client to expect these meetings on a regular basis, you will no longer be surprised by a new initiative when it finally makes its way to you as a training request. You will also develop a different relationship with your client, as a true partner rather than an order taker. This will make it easier to ask good questions about the initiative in order to qualify it as a valid training request. You will also have an opportunity to investigate non-training interventions that may support the desired performance. One last thing you must keep in mind as you begin your proactive consulting meetings is to correctly identify the "true client." You may have to work your way up through influencers to the true client, but eventually you have to take your interest and your questions to the person who truly owns the line of business you are supporting. Ask yourself, who writes the check to create whatever solutions are developed and put in place, or who is responsible if goals aren’t met, and you will be able to identify your "true client." Visit the Resources tab and click "Proactive Principles" for the eight principles of Proactive Consulting and click "Proactive Consulting Interview" to see a video of a sample Proactive Consulting Interview.