D Foster Associates

I participated in a great session last week at NELA by Saul Carliner. You can read some of my notes on the talk at the NELA Blog.

It got me thinking about some work I did in the past with a large Seattle based software company. The focus was on training with their field sales and channel sales teams and how they could use Pocket PCs (PPC) and the (then about to be launched) Pocket PC cell phone edition.

Initially, we researched how these tools could be used for mobile learning, but by the end of the project it was obvious that the most effective use of the tool was for more instant support and knowledge sharing.

All of the field sales people had laptops, which were much more useful as their primary training platform. If a sales person wanted to train on anything that would take longer than 2-5 minutes they would use their laptop, not the tiny screen of the PPC.

The key demand was for instant access to timely information. When a sales person was on the road at an account, what they wanted was to be able to look up pertinent info in the parking lot prior to the meeting. This was not the time for a 10-minute training session, but was the perfect time to reinforce prior learning and present a refresher on the sales process or a checklist of the key 3 – 5 selling points to remember for the meeting.

Sales people also wanted to be able to get any other relevant client information such as their past licenses, competitive information, and some of the best selling points that were relevant for that specific customer or industry. Additionally, if a client asked them a question they did not know the answer to, they wanted to be able to either look it up immediately to get the answer, or be able to post questions to an expert as they were leaving the account so they could respond to their client as soon as possible.

These are all very good ways to use a PPC or any small handheld device. They are very effective when used as part of larger blended learning program but focused more on very small training reinforcements and performance support. Leave the heavy lifting to the laptops, desktops and classrooms.

As part of an ongoing project I have with the New England Learning Association (NELA) the new NELA Blog was launched today.  The goal of the project is to extend the interaction and learning of the NELA community by creating ongoing discussions and involvement that occurs both before, during and after the events take place.  As part of this project I will be moderating and hosting the blog.

One of the bit issues that Allan Cole, the Founder and Executive Director of NELA had when discussing the goals of the blog was how to make it not just turn into a re-hash of everything else that is available on the web with a cut and paste of links to other blogs.  We came up with three key concepts.

1. Take advantage of NELA’s live events, but extend them by creating discussion before, during and after the event.  This will be done by posting questions or resources for members to read prior to a talk, and then by generating discussion after the talk to gather member’s thoughts and examples of how they will implement what they learned from the talk in their own projects.
2. Rather than just sharing press releases from NELA’s partners, the focus will be on getting partners or members to share real-life lessons learned from a project, or even their biggest mistake or wrong assumption and how they would avoid that in the future.
3. Take advantage of NELA’s global connections to help members learn about what is happening in the eLearning industry around the globe.  By fostering these connections members will get information and feedback not just from their local peers, but also from people with a different global perspective.

Allan and I feel that this will make the blog unique and more importantly a valuable resource to NELA members.

So, stay tuned, it is bound to provide some interesting feedback and lessons learned as it evolves.

As I promised, I wanted to continue to talk about Training goals. I was working on a current project talking to an associate about her experience with a large law firm. The firm actively promoted their professional development goals within the firm, and used those goals as tools on their website as both a marketing point as well as a recruiting tool. When my associate was onsite for a meeting, she walked by a large room, that had a number of computers as well as shelves of books and videos. She asked about the room, and was told, “It’s the training library.” She was impressed by the investment in the equipment, but when she asked for a bit more information about it she was told, “Oh, nobody goes in there.”

The reason? If an associate or attorney was seen in the room by a partner, it would be assumed that they were not busy enough, and would be given more work, or even be publicly berated for “wasting their time” and be told to get back to work.

While the firm, and the professional development group, made a big deal about how important training and development was, the culture of the partners completely undermined any goals that the firm could set.

When creating training goals it is important to also review the corporate culture and other influences that have the ability to undermine those goals.

As the year comes to an end, I always start thinking about where I am with my current goals, and what goals I will set for the upcoming year. This is always a good time for you and your company to look at their training and performance goals and make sure they are properly aligned. So, in that spirit, over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing some customer examples of training and performance goals.

When I was working on an assessment project for a large aerospace company, I started off with what seemed like a simple question to the Director of Training, “What is your group’s primary mission?” To which I got a quick and definitive answer, “To deliver 834,000 hours of training.” After digging some more, I was relieved to find out that there were secondary goals that defined the quality of training and satisfaction of the learners, which was good. When interviewing other people in the Training department, they were all able to immediately repeat their mission exactly, “To deliver 834,000 hours of training.”

So, what’s wrong with that you say? Well, none of them could provide me with specific information on how deliverying 834,000 hours of training would improve the performance of the company. To make things even better, when I suggested that by using a combination of blended learning, competency development, and targeted performance goals and measurement, they could deliver the same effective amount training in less than 600,000 hours, they were very concerned. “But we won’t deliver 834,000 hours of training, we won’t get our bonuses!” was the loud response. The core problem was that the training department was measured and compensated soley on their ability to deliver hours of “butts-in-seats,” with no measurement or tracking of the impact that had on the company.

So, before you get all excited that your department has solid, well-defined training goals for the next year, make sure you can also explain how those goals will drive the performance of the company. If you can’t explain it, and have no process to measure that impact, your goal setting is not done.