Whether it comes from a “post-mortem” or from reflection, each of us has the opportunity to develop our craft by learning from our mistakes.
“I do it!”
Watching kids learn may be one of the greatest privileges of being a parent. Sure, it can be painful when it takes them three times as long as you to do a simple task, and there are often large messes or mistakes. But the sense of pride and accomplishment when kids master a task they set out to learn is inspiring.
Continue readingAs I was driving my kids to school on Tuesday morning, a local radio station asked for a contestant to call in to be part of the Puget Sound Showdown. Basically, it’s a lightning round-style radio quiz competition in which two listeners (one from the north Puget Sound area near Seattle, one from the south Puget Sound area) compete to answer random trivia questions correctly. The first contestant to answer five questions correctly is the winner. So I called in (on a hands-free device, of course, because I was driving).
“What was Peter Parker’s day job?” was one of the questions.
Continue readingThe Association for Talent Development’s International Conference and Expo kicks off in earnest today, and in the final podcast of our series featuring ATD ICE speakers, my longtime friend and fellow L&D nerd (and VP of Organization Development at FORUM Credit Union in Indianapolis), Michelle Baker, fills in as our podcast interviewer to ask me some questions about my upcoming session (which will take place on Wednesday, September 1, from 8am – 9am Mountain time).
My presentation will focus on the “radioactive” elements that are often (mis)used in training programs, and how they can best be leveraged to yield maximum impact on your learners. These elements include lecture, PowerPoint, subject matter experts, handouts, smile sheets, icebreakers, elearning, augmented reality, role play, games and data.
Continue readingWhether you’re using Zoom, Webex, Adobe Connect or any other virtual meeting platform, chances are that you’re going to run into technical difficulties at some point, especially when you try using features intended to make a session more interactive.
Recently, my colleague Lauren Wescott delivered a highly acclaimed session on the role of the producer in virtual meetings. The producer has many responsibilities, and among those responsibilities is the need to quickly troubleshoot and think on their feet. If a virtual feature is giving you fits, the producer may need to help nudge the facilitator in the right direction to move past the technical difficulty.
Following are a few common mishaps, and a handful of immediate steps to move beyond these issues without derailing your whole session.
Continue readingA friend recently attended a training that was refreshed based on new policy and handed to a new team who inherited it from another team. This new team decided to take a new approach to the training because they were making changes anyway. I like this approach to revamping training if you have an opportunity to make changes when you have the files open, take it!
Unfortunately, this doesn’t always go as expected. Luckily, when training goes poorly, my friends ALWAYS tell me. Instead of a great training experience, the majority of the class time was spent with the participants correcting the facilitator’s out-of-date or misinformation. Let’s break down what went wrong with this training, so we don’t make the same mistakes.
While we may not be the content experts, our materials guide us. The task of this training team was to update the content consistently across the new policy books. They became so focused on the new interactions and cool new training that due diligence was left out. It doesn’t matter if you are teaching pilots how to fly or philanthropists how to engage, content must be rigorously checked.
The first time the class corrected the errant information, they chalked it up to a mistake. As the day went on, the frustration grew, and eventually, it was not a good learning environment. To put it bluntly, they checked out.
Skipping steps in the design process is always tempting, especially when it is just an update. I regret skipping steps every single time. My team is pretty awesome at reminding me of this when I get in a hurry because this is one of those steps that is tempting
Do pilots take time and cost money? Sure.
Is that better than a course failing in front of a bunch of participants who are taking time away from their jobs and family? Absolutely!
First, I really don’t like that term, but it is industry jargon and I don’t know how to kill it (pun intended). When a project goes poorly, or well, sit down with the team and reflect on why things went the way they did. Start with what went well, then discuss what could be improved next time. Never place blame, and always walk away with an action plan.
What else could this team have done to prevent this issue? Where have you seen training like this breakdown? Let’s keep this conversation going in the comments below!
Early in my instructional design career, I developed loose structure I followed for most of my instructor-led training. Most training I developed had the same basic structure:
As I grew in my field I learned that this structure missed a lot of opportunities for engagement Continue reading
Last Thursday we published a transcript of a conversation our team had about game design. One theme from that post is the idea of letting go of something that you poured your heart and soul into.
I love my job, and that shows in how much I love what we produce. As a result of this passion, I often find myself emotionally connected with what we produce and I have a sense of pride when I feel we accomplished what we set off to achieve. I am not a perfectionist, but I do like putting out good work. Continue reading
This week we had an opportunity to pilot a training program that we’ve been working on for the past two months. We were excited to unveil it before a pilot audience, especially because we had an opportunity to incorporate a board game into the module.
At the end of the pilot session, we realized that we didn’t quite hit the mark in our first draft. Yesterday, the Endurance Learning leadership team came together via Slack to debrief the experience.
Today’s post is a sort of “fish bowl”, an opportunity to take a look into the conversation that took place as we de-briefed this session. Continue reading
In my first job after college, I sent an email to all staff regarding the status of a server. My email ended with:
“The server should be back up and running within the hour. We apologize for the incontinence.”
I didn’t realize my mistake until I received an email reply from a colleague highlighting the difference between incontinence and inconvenience and the people within the cubicles around me erupted with laughter. This typo became a long running joke at meetings, in future emails, and while passing my colleagues in the hallway. Continue reading
The Office takes on diversity
If you don’t want a more equitable and inclusive work environment, you’re not a good person. Period. Full stop.
Can we train our way out of a labor system that has a history of putting certain groups ahead of others, a history that spans from the very beginning of this country with slavery until present day when women make 82 cents for every dollar that a man makes and when combined, African Americans and Hispanics make up only 9% of the workforce in the top 75 tech companies in Silicon Valley (though they make up 31% of the overall US population)? Continue reading
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