Bottom-Line Performance

Are Your Learners Disengaged?

It’s true: no one likes being forced to do anything. L&D professionals have the tough task of taking job related information and making it easy to learn while appeasing all the appropriate company stakeholders. Budgets are shrinking and the ubiquity of “rapid authoring tools” is making it more and more tempting to churn out eLearning in-house that is cost-effective and easy to produce. But if your learning solution is not designed with the learner’s human characteristics and preferences in mind, it will fail…no matter how consistent you made the corporate branding look.

Even when part of your course is brilliantly executed, if learner’s minds are not already primed to expect a positive experience, they will likely have already written the training off as worthless. Once the learner has judged that your training is not worthwhile, you have lost them. No matter how great a section of the training might be, they will not get value from it.

It’s always a challenge to make required training engaging while on a budget. We have tackled this challenge countless times through our projects and while we do not have one tried and true answer for you, we do have a few general tips to help you avoid some common problems.

Things that shut people down:

• Required training: Unfortunately, the mere mention of required training is enough to shut workers down while evoking painful memories of the painful courses of yesteryear taken in IE 6. Realize that you will have to overcome learners’ innate bias against the word “training” and make your solution even more engaging.
• To-do lists: We all have a long one. When training becomes another task in a list of items to be checked off for completion, learners will see no inherent value in the training other than being able to say they completed it. Position your training as something unique, different, and immediately useful.
• Courses written for content rather than user experience: In her excellent blog post “Designing Learning for the Ultimate Mobile Learner’s Experience,” Mayra Aixa Villar (@mayraaixavillar) explains how writing a course around learning objectives can ignore the actual experience learners will have while taking the course itself. Trying to fit a 50 page PDF into a 15 minute eLearning course is simply not going to work, so be prepared to streamline your content to highlight the essentials. “What do I want learners to be able to do differently after completing this course?”
• Stupid scenarios that seem entirely false but are politically correct: We know you don’t want to offend anyone, and we know you want to figure out a scenario that is broad enough to apply to situations across your organization. But if scenarios are not specific and realistic, learners will tune them out…and tune out the rest of your course. Don’t be afraid to push the boundaries a little bit.
• Refuse to make people uncomfortable: After all, it’s only when we are slightly uncomfortable or somehow on the edge of our seats that we are truly paying attention.
• Making everything the same throughout the training: It is always tempting to keep a course ordered and uniform throughout. In fact, it feels correct and appropriate to do so. But the Principle of Difference tells us that people will remember the item that stands out the most from the others. Taking a key section or point and making it different from the rest of the course will actually help learners remember better.
• Focusing on Telling….making it one size fits all: Situations will vary for your learners, especially if they work in different departments or divisions. No one’s experience is one size fits all, so you don’t make your training one size fits all, either. It may seem more efficient to push a course out that will “apply to everyone,” but the cost in lost productivity and money spent having to fix your mistake later will ultimately outweigh the upfront invest of creating a truly thoughtful, well implemented eLearning course.

While the cost of building generic training for the sake of efficiency may be low, this usually comes at the expense of effectiveness. More time and money spent up-front to avoid these common pit falls is the wise choice when focusing on the bottom line.

When the electricity is fried at your house, do you fix it yourself?

(Hopefully you call an electrician.)

We don’t think corporate training initiatives are any different.

Have you ever taken a project on yourself in an effort to save money, only to waste hours of your time and never really get anything accomplished? What about buying a TV or appliance from an off-brand because it is cheaper, only to have it break down a few months later? Businesses need to stay focused on the bottom line, but most of the time we are actually more successful with a bit more up-front investment.

Think about it: you are at your best and most productive for your company when you are engaged in a task that you are an expert at. You probably cruise through your day to day tasks in less than half the time it takes an average joe, and that’s how your company makes money.

We see it all the time: understaffed, underfunded training departments are handed large-scale initiatives and are expected to “figure it out” on their own. Without the proper mindset and resources, these initiatives never get too far. In an effort to save the company money in the short term, a business can actually hurt its long term viability by failing to invest in important infrastructural improvements that cannot be overlooked.

Why does this happen so much with training? We think it’s because learning can seem intangible. You can’t see, touch, or taste effective learning…at least not in an obvious sense. But we believe a staff that is optimally trained and receives the necessary support to perform at a high level is actually one of the most, if not THE most important factor for business success.

That being said, you don’t always need a doctor when you feel sick. Sometimes a quick trip to WedMD.com and the local pharmacy is all you need. How do you tell the difference?

If a business need or problem is systemic or significant, than you need to get a professional. Bandaids, quick fixes, and reactionary measures will never get you there. If you are considering a “bandaid” solution to a major problem, ask yourself: “How did we get into a situation where we are desperate to find things for the cheapest possible price? Why do we need to save so much money in the short term?” Somewhere in the organization, chances are resources are getting diverted inefficiently. It’s no accident that the products and services that have been intentionally created with an obsessive attention to detail are beginning to rise to the top. Apple’s iPhone and iPad may be more expensive than an entry level phone or tablet, but most believe them to be far superior products.

All of these factors are what drive’s Bottom-Line Performance’s attention to quality design and project management versus one-size-fits-all project work. We pride ourselves on serving clients who are excellent at what they do and care about quality enough to let an outside expert maximize their learning and performance needs.

It sure beats sticking a fork into an electrical socket. Call an expert!

We have been working on a few projects lately that need to work for students across the globe, and it begs the question: what impact does culture have on learning preferences?

My disclaimer for this post is that I’m not advocating that we teach to “learning styles.” There is more and more data out there actually arguing AGAINST catering to learning styles.

However, my question is – How much should culture influence my design? And how much does my own culture influence the way I design courses?

I first suspected that I don’t want to design to culture, and here’s why: The question was, “This a German audience. They just want facts. Will they want to do hands-on activities?”

My first response was, “Yes!” I think that German audiences would hate death by PowerPoint as much as an American audience. However, wouldn’t there be different tolerance levels for the types of activities based on culture? How can we plan for that in our learning designs? (I would be willing to do a global tour and explore cultures to study it…I wonder if that’s in the budget?) Of course, how different is an industrial German city’s business culture from that of America? Not so different, compared to how foreign American culture seems in other parts of the world.

Social media and increased connectivity are resulting in a more homogenous culture and unified learning preferences. We use the same gadgets and websites as our friends abroad…or at least that is the direction things are headed. But this does not mean we are quite “there” yet. A recent client trip to a rural area of Arkansas introduced me to a demographic of Americans I had never come into contact with. It soon became clear that a reliable 3G signal and WiFi are taken for granted by American city dwellers. For these individuals, the online learning experiences we often design and advocate for our clients would not be a viable solution.

It goes without saying: different cultures have developed customs, values systems, and aesthetic preferences that will shape their learning experience. The difference is particularly vast between Eastern and Western cultures. The music, religious practices, and dietary preferences of these people differ in many ways. Through these experiences, brains become wired differently and anticipate different experiences. Will this affect learning? Probably…but I don’t think there is one right or wrong answer here.

Should we take culture into consideration when designing a learning experience? Well, yeah…but depending on the cultural differences of your learners, a one size fits all approach may not be quite what’s called for. It all depends on how different your learners really are.

My best recommendation would be to create a dead-simple user interface that will be easy to use for any human being, then make small changes to the text and script of your course to account for the varying cultures you are writing for. There may be a need for some subtle changes in your approach from one area to the next, but the best learning solution will be effective regardless of cultural variations. People are still people. 

Process makes perfect. Every organization needs some tried and true methods that they can rely on in the trenches. I want to share a method BLP often uses when working subject matter experts (SMEs) to create scenarios that drive many of our e-learning courses.  After I review the process, I’ll share a finished example to help illustrate the end result of the process.

The 4-Step Process

We create “scenario worksheets” that we use with SMEs. We explain to our SMEs (who often initially resist the idea that we need stories to drive their content) that scenarios do several things: 1) Immediately engage the learner; 2) Give a contextual way to share content (i.e. a job context that mirrors’  learners own job contexts); 3) Set up a story that can be used to create interactivity by inspiring the learner to “solve” the character’s problems or challenges. 4) Keep the learner engaged throughout the learning.

Here are typical steps we use in creating scenarios and the questions we pose to SMEs, regardless of topic. We often create “scenario worksheets” that SMEs either fill in or respond to via interview based on this 4-step process. Note that the 4-steps are not completely linear. You may start with step 1, answer a few of the questions, move to Step 2, and find that new details related to the characters emerge as you go:

1) Define the character or characters in the story:

• What are their names?
• What do they look like? (age, gender, ethnicity, clothing, etc)
• What do they do? (We want to know their job title, employer, etc.)
• What information is critical to know about them? (i.e. are they new to the job, experienced, great performer, poor performer, unhappy customer, happy customer, etc.)
• What other background details will add authenticity to them and help paint a picture? (i.e.  prior experience, significant events in their lives, personal information, etc.)

2) Determine the situation:

• What does the character need to accomplish? (Obviously the challenge relates to the course you are writing. If you are creating a sales training course, for example, your challenge might be the need to increase sales in a territory. If you are teaching statistical design of experiments, the challenge might be the need to determine the best temperature at which to mix an active ingredient.)

3) Describe common obstacles that the character needs to overcome. These obstacles should mirror ones that exist in the real workplace:

• Does the main character lack information? Expertise? Time? Money? People resources?
• Does the main character face obstacles in the form of people who are hindering progress or success? This could be an uninformed customer, an unhappy parent, a disgruntled fellow employee.
• Does the main character face obstacles in the form of situational barriers such as economic conditions, a compressed timeline, unexpected turns of events, etc?

4) Define the process that the main character goes through to resolve the challenge and manage/remove the obstacles: (We typically write the content for this one based on the content provided by SMEs. Typically, It’s what they want to “tell” learners. We turn the “tell” around to become more of “show me” and “let me try it” types of events.

• What new information will the main character discover to resolve the situation? How will the character discover this information? How will they use it to solve their problems?
• What new skills will the  main character develop to resolve the situation? How will they acquire the skills?
• What resources will be available for the character to use as he or she resolves the challenges? Will we create job aids that the learner can use to help the main character? Will the main character access a virtual job aid?

An example

We completed a two-course series for a client a awhile back on basic electrical terminology and troubleshooting. The first course was designed to teach new sales reps basic electrical terminology. One method would have been to simply present all the terms reps need to know. However, this method isn’t very engaging or helpful to the learner. We opted, instead, to think about the “how” and the “when.” When would reps be likely to need an understanding of terminology? How would they typically be using the terminology? We crafted three scenarios for the course and then wove the stories throughout the course.

The entire course opened with 3 voice mails from the customers we created. Each subsequent module then focused on one of the scenarios. Learners started and ended each module with the scenario with the content required to resolve the scenario successfully sandwiched between. The course was hugely successful.

The three characters we use are introduced on the first screen of the course.

We opened each module with a review of the scenario. Learners then gathered the info they needed to respond.

Other tips

If we are creating a curriculum as opposed to a single course, we set up an Excel spreadsheet that lists the characters we will use and key details about them.  We also create image files for each character so we have a pool of images to use as we tell our story. These are both incredibly helpful organizational tools.

Corporate training often includes content that discusses the challenging, difficult, or stressful aspects of a job… but how much reality should you convey in a training course? This can be uncomfortable – we may not want to be that “real” in the course. Sometimes it’s hard to take a good hard look at ourselves.

Which begs the question: Are we entertainers or journalists? Are we trying to entertain learners or given them an accurate picture of the job or task? Are the two ideas opposed? When we “soften” the course and remove any negative or challenging ideas from the course, we veer towards the world of entertainment rather than learning.

I think that as instructional designers, we have a responsibility to portray as much reality as possible in the courses we create. But how can we help our clients be comfortable with this approach? A few thoughts:

• Keep going back to “What would the learner want?” I don’t know about you, but I want to know if I’m going to be jumping off a cliff anytime soon. I listen more carefully to the instructions about how to pack a parachute if I know I’m going to be using it!
• Get other perspectives. Sometimes a subject-matter expert will say that it wasn’t stated strongly enough!
• Ask questions. If I only receive positive answers to my questions about the content, I begin to wonder if I’m getting the whole story.

The issue is even more relevant to Corporate Training Directors. How do you create buy-in with management circles who may not understand training and learning the way you do? How do you answer the tough questions (“What’s the ROI? Do we really want to show them this?”) while also guiding the decision-making content to include the content and learning goals you know are necessary?

We aren’t always aware of the real skills and knowledge that go in to our daily workflows….which makes designing training even harder. Journalism and entertainment just might both have their place in training. The trick is to toe the line.

What do you think? How do you work to accurately portray the job in training courses?

I just finished reading Malcom Gladwell’s latest book, Outliers. In one of its chapters, he explains the 10,000-hour rule. This rule states that people don’t become “masters” at complex things (programming, music, painting, free throws) until they have accrued 10,000-hours of practice. And…he dos a great job of illustrating that people who are commonly regarding as “masters” are really just people who hit the 10,000 hour mark very early in their lifetimes. (Examples: Mozart and the Beatles in music; Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak sin programming).

The research he cites to prove his point is compelling. It does support this 10,000 hour threshold and crosses all types of areas from computer programming through hockey. Who cares, you ask? As learning professionals, WE SHOULD.  In an era where company management wants training on just about anything distilled down to minutes of time as opposed to hours of time, what can a learner realistically gain in terms of mastery? – or even rudimentary skill?

Think about it. Today’s companies want people to spend less and less time in training, and they want to “downsize” out the most experienced workers (i.e. the most expensive ones).  It’s time for us to tell companies the truth: we can’t make people competent at anything very complex unless we really allow them the time required to learn. And a 30-minute e-course or 4-hour classroom experience – or even an 8-hour e-course and week-long training course won’t make people “masters” at anything. At best, we give them a starting point to use in building competence on the job.

Don’t believe me? How long would you speculate someone needs to practice before you’d say they were a “good” doctor? Do you want the 1st year resident taking out your appendix or the general surgeon whose been doing her job for 10 years? What about driving? How many hours on the road does someone need before you feel like they are a good driver?

I’ll bet it’s not the six hours that is the sum total of most driver’s education training programs.  IF you had to have someone selling your services or your product, who would you prefer: The employee who just transferred into the sales department or the sales department’s top seller, who, by the way, has been doing sales for more than 5 years (which would translate to about 10,000 hours of time if you multiply 52 weeks x 40 hours x 5 years)?

No one gets good at anything without practice – and lots of it. The more we practice, the better we get. We need to think through learning design very carefully if we really want learners to get better at what we’re trying to teach them. Companies don’t have 5 years to train the new sales guy, so we have to come up with a design that allows as much practice as possible in as short a period of time as possible. When our designs are all “tell,” and no “do,” then we are setting learners up to be absolutely no better at doing something AFTER training than they were before training – even if we provided lots of great information or “reference” material. And when we pretend we can make people good at selling, managing, troubleshooting, etc. by creating and delivering a 60-minute e-course or 1/2-day classroom session for them to take,  then we’re just plain silly.

What about what you do? How many hours did it take you to get good at it? How can we do a better job of helping people actually get good at something through the learning solutions we devise?

Most of us think of QR codes as that goofy looking bar code in the bottom corner of advertisements. Or maybe you have noticed them slapped on billboards that you could not possibly have time to stop and scan. Either way, chances are you have seen a QR Code recently!

For those who haven’t been exposed, a QR code is a two dimensional code  that can hold thousands of characters of information. They can be easily generated using numerous free online services and easily scanned with one of many free QR readers out there. QR Codes will easily link to text, an image, or a website.

It may seem like QR codes are just another marketing gimick, but not so fast: in his recent New York Times blog, Gene Marks offers an interesting insight:

“The QR code was actually invented by Denso — a Toyota company — to track automotive parts during the manufacturing process, but has since gained popularity as a marketing tool. QR codes can be used for just about anything you can think of.”

So while marketers are using QR codes almost everywhere you look, there are many ways QR codes can be put to work in your business…like in your training program.

On February 28th, BLP is hosting a Lunch and Learn at the Downtown Central Library sponsored by CIASTD. It’s an interactive scavenger hunt through the library where you will have the opportunity to scan QR Codes and reveal the next clue. By the end of our hour, you might know your way around better than the reference librarian!

QR Codes (particularly scavenger hunts) can be a fun tool to integrate into a corporate learning environment. Imagine using QR codes to:

• Create an interactive employee orientation scavenger hunt.
• Provide easily accessible reference materials for sales reps.
• Keep company policies within easy access.

Well, that was fun.

The last of the celebrities and East Coast football fans have left Indianapolis, and what a party it was! It was hard not to get caught up in the “Big Game” buzz last week. Football was on everyone’s brain, and we are so happy to have been able to share Gridiron Guru with you. This was part 1 of our m+s+g=l? learning lab experiment.

Our sign-ups were modest, but we had players from all over the world take part. The top score achieved topic mastery of all four paths AND amassed a Grab Bag score of 126,000,000. Talk about self-directed learning!

Part of social learning is that the “teacher” learns too. Unlike the bearded character in our game, we are NOT Gurus who have achieved mastery. We know what we are good at and love using our expertise, but there is always more to learn. And boy, did we learn a ton from putting this game together! Here are 5 take-aways for you to consider as you begin looking at ways to “gamify” your training and create opportunities for informal, non-traditional learning on mobile platforms.

1. Respond to results in real time. Social learning platforms enable facilitators to respond to the needs of learners in a more immediate, direct fashion. The admin side of the game engine we created for this (KnowledgeGuru)  has a robust set of reports that allow us to see what learning objectives and questions were the hardest. Here is a quick view at part of a learning objectives report:

Okay, so maybe 67.5% of statistics are made up. Nevertheless, it is commonly quoted that 75% of what we learn is “informal.” (See Marcia Connor’s 2004 article on Informal Learning to see the research on this.) Connor explains:

“Most learning doesn’t occur during formal training programs. It happens through processes not structured or sponsored by an employer or a school. Informal learning is…what happens the rest of the time.”

She goes on to explain that companies invest all their $$ and time in creating formal learning programs when informal learning is where companies are going to get the most bang for their buck.

Connor further distinguishes between what is intentional learning and accidental learning with this helpful graphic:

Notice that she categorizes “informal” and yet “intentional” learning as that which occurs via community, teaming, and playing. There is also informal, yet ”accidental” learning that comes from self-study, exploring, and internet surfing. This intentional learning is going to come from blogs, social networks, project opportunities at work, and interactive opportunities (i.e. playing). Social media was just starting to appear when this graphic was produced in 2004. It will be especially interesting to see how social learning applications evolve as social platforms achieve increasingly high levels of saturation.

The concept of informal learning is quite the rage these days as everyone talks about Web 2.0′s ability to make informal learning easier. At BLP, we have even launched our own Learning Lab to explore the possibilities mobile, social, and gaming platforms hold for learning. (You can play “Gridiron Guru” here)  While I myself am excited by the various Web 2.0 applications I see, I’m starting to have my doubts as to how easily these applications will make informal learning EASIER. Will the inundation of social communities cause us to opt out entirely? Where is the saturation point? As our attention becomes more fragmented, how can authentic “learning” occur? And what is “authentic learning,” anyway?

Many of us find ourselves sticking our toes into the water of social media without making a significant enough investment to drive value. I “dabble” rather than dive deep.

Companies who see informal learning as the Holy Grail that will eliminate the need for expensive, formal training need to think carefully. Informal learning IS largely what self-motivated people do.  Often, this description of “self-motivated” is not one that fits the profile of people who come to formal learning opportunities. If an “informal” forum exists, a non-motivated learner isn’t likely to seek it out even if it exists. A self-motivated employee likely will…if he/she can find information easily.  If various departments and pockets all set up their own social networks – or create collaboaration sites – suddenly we’ve created a nightmare for employees who are drowning in information. We’ve bombarded them with STUFF…much of which they won’t have time to use.

Companies need to give intentional, planned consideration to how they want informal learning to take place in their organizations – at least the part of it that involves online communities. One or two are great…there is a huge drop-off in ability to participate beyond that point. The same truth goes with blogs…exactly how many blogs can you keep up with? Again – planned consideration is the key. Creating a bazillion sites and blogs – just because it’s easy to do – sets companies up for disappointment. Always remember that LEARNING is the goal and all of these tools are just a means to an end.

As always, I’m interested in views that either contradict or support my own. Tell us what you think of the growing interest in informal learning…and social. networks as a means to facilitate it?

We’d also love to also have your participation in our social learning lab. Give Gridiron Guru a shot by clicking the image below:

Yes, we’re all hearing the buzz. The holy grail of learning is shifting to games/gamification, mobile, and social. Within my team at BLP, we actually are already believers of the value that blending these three things together can have on a learning experience….but we want proof, not just gut feelings about this. So – we invite you to join our newly-created “learning laboratory” at Bottom-Line Performance and be part of a little three-part experiment we’re going to do.

Part 1 coincides with the Professional Football Championship Not to Be Named for Copyright Purposes. Since it’s in Indianapolis this year and so are we, we felt it was a perfect fit. We’re creating a game called Gridiron Guru that targets the casual football fan. If you can already explain how teams score, but you’re clueless or unsure when you hear things like intentional grounding, pass interference, 4-3 defensive formation, nickel defense, etc., then this game should help you learn…while you also have fun and engage with other people who are doing the same thing as you.

We chose a fun theme and approach, but our goal is serious. How well does a social/mobile/gaming approach work in helping people learn…particularly when no one is pushing them to learn? You get to opt into our little experiment – and you only play as far as you want to play. Yeah, we are providing a small incentive (Top 3 scores entered into drawing for $25 App Store card), but there is only ONE winner and, hopefully, lots of learners/players. Let’s see how much learning happens with this format.

Our game begins Monday, January 30th. If you want to play (and we hope you do), start following @thekguru on Twitter. He’ll announce the game’s start and send out the game link on the 30th.  You will need to create an account to play – but you only provide a name and email…and we aren’t adding you to any contact list. This is just for the game. Ideally, you’ll play on your iPad. If you aren’t lucky enough to have an iPad yet, you can play on your desktop. Android is not an option for this little experiment of ours….yet.

Our game ends at kickoff time Sunday, February 5th. We’ll tweet out the winner (as well as posting on the Knowledge Guru game site). We’ll analyze our first round of data and send out the results.

For Part 2 of our experiment, you can expect a college basketball-themed game (in March, of course) that focuses on the game of basketball for the casual college b-ball lover. We’ll deliver Part 3 at the end of April or beginning of May, and focus on the far more serious topic of  effective learning design. We’ll use the Knowledge Guru game engine again for our March game – and then go 100% social at the end of April when we play our learning design game on Twitter.

So – come play with us and learn with us. We’ll share our results after each game – and then results overall. We’ll share what people seem to retain, like, dislike, etc. and how much people learn (our game engine has some wonderful reports we can share!!).