Five Warning Signs That Your Training is Expendable

All training has a problem it is trying to solve and a customer it is trying to please. Whether you work with internal or external customers, have a mandate as to what to create, or simply design it yourself, ultimately someone is paying the costs to develop the training. They’re doing so because they expect the course to meet a business need. If it doesn’t, or if they’re not convinced that it does, your courseware, your budget, and potentially your job, could be expendable. Here are five common warning signs that you may be missing the mark.

1. Faster horses

In the training world we tend to be pretty good at asking our target audience for input on training needs. Unfortunately, we often stop there, check the analysis box, and move on to course design. This is not to say that audience opinion isn’t worthwhile, rather that it should not be the only or the deciding factor in what we build.  Henry Ford once said that if he had asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for faster horses. If the only data we collect is this type of “faster horses” input, the resulting course may make attendees happy, but it may not translate into business results. And the sponsor requesting the training may take their request elsewhere the next time around.

As an example, a technology client once requested an update to a software implementation course for technical consultants. The project sponsor had done some homework and came to the planning meeting with survey results from people who had taken the first version of the course. Though overall satisfaction scores were high, the suggestions for improvement were to focus more on product features and “how to” training. Based on this input, the sponsor was ready to completely redesign the materials.

It didn’t take much digging to realize that this was not what they needed at all. The target audience was made up of technically focused people who, not surprisingly, would want ever more detailed and technical content. However, talking with business owners and participants’ managers revealed a very different need. The business problem that the course was meant to solve was a lack of product adoption. And the underlying issue was not that the implementation consultants didn’t understand the product technically, but that they weren’t able to convey the value of cutting over from the legacy tool. Nor were they able to ask their customers the right questions to determine potential barriers to success and mitigate those barriers through simple configuration choices and targeted end-user training. Revisions to the course really needed to focus on consulting skills and common customer scenarios rather than software features and functions.

Participant input has its value but it should be considered within a broader context. Don’t be fooled by faster horses just because that’s what everyone seems to want. Figure out what’s really needed. It usually only takes a few extra questions to a few extra people. Often it only takes one and one: ask the business owner, “What problem is this course meant to solve?”

2. Documentation in drag

Documentation focuses on features and functions. Training focuses on audience and objectives. Both have their place and value. However, slapping objectives on the front of a user manual doesn’t turn documentation into training. Neither does segmenting a collection of “how-to’s” by audience. Sadly, I’ve seen both done many times over, sometimes because it’s quick and easy, and sometimes because a subject matter expert (SME) “designs” the course rather than an instructional designer.

Case in point: I once witnessed a team under intense time constraints working backwards through a design document. They started by creating a content outline based on what the SME knew best, and wrote the business objectives last to ensure that they would match the planned content. Not surprisingly, the completed course was poorly received, little value was perceived, and the sponsor was extremely reluctant to invest any more money in training.

Don’t waste participant’s time with documentation disguised as training. Don’t pad your training materials with step/action/result tables that could be better delivered via online help, a content management system, or a wiki. We live in the age of search; let people pull this type of content when they need it. Save your course time for complex ideas, for discovery, for skills that require practice and feedback, and for the exploration and discourse that is so essential when you need to affect people’s thinking or behavior.

3. Instructional design as spell check

Closely related to documentation in drag is instructional design as spell check. In each case, either the sponsor doesn’t understand or doesn’t value what you have to contribute. Instructional design as spell check typically sounds like this, “I know this content really well, so I’ll write the materials, and you do an instructional design pass at the end.”  This approach often results in the fire-hose effect: everything there is to know about the topic will get included in a “course” with little consideration of audience skills or needs.  If, as part of your design pass, you are able to slog through all the content and suggest some improvements, you’re likely in for a fight on every point. After SMEs have spent so much time capturing their knowledge on paper (often working well past business hours, as they usually have day jobs) they tend to be personally invested in the materials, and not terribly receptive to making changes.

If you get an instructional-design-as-spell-check request, resist the temptation to accommodate. You can’t retrofit design after the fact. Instead, if your client insists on having SMEs do the writing, suggest that you first collaborate on upfront analysis and design. Work with the client to clearly identify what they’re hoping to accomplish with the course. Deliver objectives, outline, activity plan, and templates. And then let them go to town adding the flesh to the bones. This gives the course a fighting chance of being focused and effective from the beginning and sets you up to further refine and optimize the course when your “instructional design pass” kicks in.

4. Rabid eLearning

Rabid eLearning is what happens when the wonderful rapid eLearning tools (such as Connect, Articulate, and Captivate) fall into the wrong hands. Hour upon hour of content gets cranked out and thrown onto a web site because it can be, rather than because it should be.

I have seen an example where a client pushed over 30 one-hour “pre-work” modules to their reseller channel prior to a two-day event. The goal was laudable: minimize time “out of the field.” But the execution was painfully off-base: hour after hour of PowerPoint recordings with SME voiceovers. No interaction. No knowledge checks. No unified search functionality. Just a mandate to a captive audience: be sure to view all of these before you arrive. Putting aside for a moment the myriad design flaws, how did this serve the goal? How could it be possible that a nearly two-fold investment of time to pre-work vs. time on site would reduce opportunity loss? When exactly were the resellers expected to view all this content, anyway? On the plane?

Any number of different design and delivery choices would have yielded better results, including tacking an extra day onto the event. For instance, they could have tried:

• Breaking the content into much smaller pieces (2 minutes on each discrete topic vs. 1 hour covering all the deltas to a named feature set)
• Providing unified search functionality across all of the materials
• Including some simple interactions to break up the mind-numbing monotony
• Letting users “pull” specific content when it’s relevant rather than trying to “push” the superset to all attendees with a hard (and artificial) deadline for completion
• Leveraging social technologies: at minimum, the ability to rank and comment on each item, and to filter by most viewed, most popular, etc.

Rapid eLearning tools offer a fast, inexpensive way to create content. When used for good, this can be very powerful. Unfortunately, because they are so fast and easy to use, they can result in a glut of poorly designed courses of little real value. To avoid this, the focus needs to be on what is effective rather than what is expedient.


5. Cadillac vs. Chevy


Finally, the biggest warning sign that your training is expendable is the “Cadillac vs. Chevy” discussion. Cadillac vs. Chevy is a polite way of saying, “why does this cost so much?” It sounds something like this, “This is great, you’ve really put some thought into this design, but it looks like you’re giving me a Cadillac when my budget only allows for a Chevy. Can’t we simplify this and still get the same results?” Seems reasonable. Clients should at all times demand value for their investment, and in times of budget contraction, even more so. However, what this often translates to is, “Give me what you just showed me for less money.” Do not engage at this level. It is a slippery slope that you will never survive. If you simply start discounting, you set yourself (and your margins) up for failure on two levels:

1. Clients will expect you to offer a similar discount on any new work.
2. Clients will still expect this work to have the Cadillac quality for the Chevy price point.

Does this seem a bit over-stated?  Perhaps it is. But you will never hear the “Cadillac vs. Chevy” analogy because the client wants you to up-level the course into a Cadillac. If your client starts talking about the primary driver for course design in terms of budget then it’s time to steer the conversation back in one of two directing: trade-offs or business goals. In terms of trade-offs, the point you want to very gently make is: less money gets you less product. Be prepared to offer choices in ways to reduce scope: less content coverage, fewer review cycles, simpler media components, etc. Your job is to be accommodating to what is likely very real budget constraints, without devaluing your services in the process.

In terms of business goals, your goal is to remind your client of the context for the course, and explore the cost repercussions of doing nothing. (But note that this needs to be an honest exploration, not just a “sales” tactic. Be prepared to walk away if there is not a real need.) What problem is the course trying to solve? What is the value of solving that problem? If the value doesn’t justify the cost, then likely the course is not the correct solution. Suggest they rethink their priorities or approach. However, if the value does justify the cost, then you have a compelling reason to do it right.

Business drivers drive training

If these warning signs sound familiar, it may be that your customer is either not seeing or not receiving value from your training. It’s time to step back and reassess the relationship and how you can increase both the perceived and real value of the services you are providing. You likely need to change the focus of the conversation, and you may need to change the participants of the conversation as well. Elevate the discussion to a higher, more strategic level within the organization, and talk to the people who think in terms of business goals.

Successful training bears results like “increased sales by 5%”, “improved adoption by 10%”, or “decreased time to competency by 30%”, any of which are business objectives that easily justify a budget. Though it can be challenging to prove that you’ve delivered this kind of value, you’ll never get there if you don’t know what the business goal is in the first place. Define the business objective with your customer from the beginning and keep your training laser focused on delivering it.

~ posted by Beth Chmielowski on 28 Sep 09
   tagged as: business of learning, design

 

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