Even if the content is good, presentations can break down quickly with a bad presenter. As a toastmaster and a presenter, I have learned a lot of tricks on how to bring a presentation from good to great. I focus on a Presentation Skills Checklist (please download for your own use) to ensure I am executing great presentation skills. The points I check on that list are room presence, eye contact, filler word elimination, vocal variety, and, time management. Continue reading
One practice effective L&D professionals should have in common with Donald Trump
From time to time, there comes along a tool that is so powerful yet so accessible that everyone – from the President of the United States to the most scrappy of start-up CEOs to the most humble human beings found in the most remote corners of the world – can all use in order to amplify their voices. Continue reading
Throw Away Your Garbage Activities
Last week we featured a list of 20 training activities. This week I spoke at ATD ICE about how to implement those activities into a training session in the correct way. If you weren’t in San Diego for the conference (or if you were, but for some reason didn’t attend my fabulous session), here is a recap of what we did. Continue reading
Case Study: The Impact of Training One Year After Launch
A year ago I found myself in Birmingham, AL, helping to lead a train the trainer session as part of the launch and roll-out of a new sales training program.
A year later, we’ve been able to look at the impact of training through the lens of Kirkpatrick’s four levels of evaluation and see the results and impact on each level, including a double-digit growth in sales for those stores who have implemented this program compared to those who haven’t. Continue reading
20 Training Activities in a Simple Training Model
Training activities can be fun. Training should be engaging. Training must be meaningful.
I have been asked to design many training modules and have worked on several teams that value the fun aspect of training over the other two aspects I mentioned. I like a fun training as much as the next person, however meaningful and engaging training is paramount in training designing. Continue reading
How can the real world inspire Just-In-Time training?
An employee has a task to complete. It’s not something she normally does, and she may not need to do it again any time soon, but it’s really, really important that she’s able to do it correctly, right now.
Maybe she’s an administrative assistant sent early into a conference room to connect the projector to her boss’s computer for an important presentation to the executive team.
Should she have learned how to do this 5 years ago during her new employee orientation? Maybe, but that was five years ago and she hasn’t been asked to do it since. Continue reading
Rhetorical Devices in Presentations & Training
Rhetoric is the written or spoken language that strives to inform using forms of persuasion described by Aristotle as ethos, pathos, and logos. When viewed through an L&D lens the rhetorical devices presented in this model can be useful as we think about the value our training provides to our participants. Continue reading
4 Ways to Create More Engaging Software Training via Elearning
A few weeks ago I wrote a post asking if it was possible to create engaging software training (spoiler alert: the answer is yes). That post focused on instructor-led, in-person training. Several people reached out to tell me they liked that post but were curious how it could be transferable to eLearning. Continue reading
Affordable Alternatives to Storyline
Why Storyline?
Last week I wrote about fun drag and drop interactions that our team created in Articulate Storyline. I really like Storyline and have used it for years. I am a much more of an Instructional Designer than a developer, and because Storyline is so easy to use, Continue reading
Effective PowerPoint Checklist: Is Your PowerPoint Good?
I’ve been working with a number of presenters to help them develop more effective, engaging presentations for upcoming conference or training sessions. While PowerPoint should never be the focal point of a presentation, effective slide design is important for those presenters who choose to use PowerPoint in their sessions.
To help presenters determine whether their slides are any good, I put together the Effective PowerPoint Checklist to help them perform a self-assessment. Continue reading