Can we use training to motivate?

19 May 2013 By 11 Comments

In my previous post, I showed a flowchart that could help you find the best solution to a performance problem. Thanks to your comments and questions, I’ve improved the chart to make clear two of my opinions:

  • Training is rarely the solution for low motivation
  • When training could help, it’s best to let learners become motivated through experience (decision-making scenarios) rather than preaching at them (presentations)

First, you might want to download the revamped flowchart. Here’s how the motivation bit looks now:

Motivation section of the action mapping flowchart

I’ve added a new loop that sends you back to the main analysis node because low motivation is usually a side effect, not a core problem. It’s often caused by one of the other three problems in the chart.

  • Environment: High pressure, a poorly managed organizational change, user-hostile software, heavy-handed management … these can all lead to low motivation. Training is unlikely to help, unless you can train away the environmental problem, such as by improving managers’ skills.

  • Knowledge: If the employees who do the data-entry drudgery for the TPS reports don’t know the painful results of their screwups, they’ll be less motivated to avoid errors. For example, we could show them that a rejected TPS record can mean that a client doesn’t get the check she needs to buy medication. If this is included in the results of a branching scenario that we’re also using to practice entering TPS records, then I’d be willing to call it training. However, if it’s just a finger-wagging exhortation divorced from any application, it’s not training in my book.

  • Skills: If I don’t have the skill to quickly and painlessly parametize widgets, I will dislike having to parametize widgets. Give me training!

When low motivation can’t be blamed on anything else

I’ve heard several reports of “lazy” workers. “They just don’t want to do it,” the client says. “They don’t care.” [Read more...]

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Is training really the answer? Ask the flowchart.

7 May 2013 By 27 Comments

Here’s a flowchart that will help you identify the best solution to a performance problem, whether it’s a job aid, a workflow improvement, training, or something else. It’s based on action mapping, my streamlined approach to instructional design.

First, download the flowchart. Then consider watching the following 8-minute video, which walks you through a short discussion with a client, showing you how some quick questions can save you days of unnecessary training development.

Blurry? Click the little gear and choose HD. Not allowed to watch YouTube? Here’s the video on Vimeo.

What happens after the video?

So far, thanks to our questions, the client has identified ways to:

  • Make important reference information always up to date and available at the point of need
  • Make the rules for flagging easy to scan and apply at the point of need

These are permanent workflow improvements that avoid the need for training. At this point, the only training we’re going to develop is a very compact activity on identifying last names. It could probably be posted on the intranet with a link sent to everyone through email.

If we hadn’t used the flowchart and had simply obeyed our client’s request for training, we’d spend a lot more time developing something a lot less useful. We’d probably create an online course that starts with “Welcome to the course on completing TPS records.” We’d list objectives like, “At the completion of this course, you will be able to enter the correct XR code…” We’d probably “motivate” the learners by talking about the importance of completing the record properly and describing the costs of having our records rejected.

Then we’d tell people what they already know — that they have to log in to the annoying server to see the XR codes. We’d probably walk them through it “to make sure everyone knows how” and lecture them on the importance of using the updated sheet.

To “teach” the rules for flagging records, we’d probably display a chart of rules, give some examples, and then quiz the learners on whether they can remember the information that they saw five seconds ago and which they will forget by tomorrow if not later today. Finally, we’d include a little activity to help them practice identifying last names.

Within a month, we’d discover that people are still printing out the XR code sheet and failing to flag records properly.

Instead, just by asking some questions, we’ve helped the client identify permanent improvements, and we’ve freed up enough time to do a good job on the little name activity. The time that we don’t spend on creating unnecessary training becomes time we can invest on designing much higher quality activities.

What do you think? What did I miss? When the flowchart is all it can be, I’ll put it in the Elearning Blueprint, which this summer I hope to expand into more of a training blueprint.

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Feedback in scenarios: Let them think!

29 January 2013 By 28 Comments

You’re at the county fair. Your kids are off watching the pig race, and you’re starving. There are only two food carts nearby. One sells deep-fried pork skins from a pot of bubbling grease, and the other sells sushi from a styrofoam cooler. You decide to buy the sushi.

As you hand over your money, a disembodied voice suddenly booms from the clouds above. “Incorrect!” it intones. “Unrefrigerated sushi can harbor zygodread, which can cause severe vomiting. You should never assume that a cooler at a county fair contains ice. It’s always safer to buy hot food that’s cooked in your presence, such as the pork skins. Try again.”

You’ve just met The Omniscient One. It’s the personality-free know-it-all that drones through most elearning. When it intrudes into decision-making scenarios, it sucks the life out of our stories and the brains out of our learners.

“I know everything, and you have no brain”

The Omniscient One (the OO to its friends) is a big fan of telling feedback, because it knows everything. It not only tells us whether it approves of our choice, it also explains exactly how we have sinned and what we must do to atone. Like the folks in your legal department, it believes that no adult can be trusted to draw even the simplest conclusion on his or her own.

An alternative: show the result

In the real world, we’d remember the sushi lesson best if we ate the sushi and then spent three very unpleasant days. In elearning, you could call this showing feedback because, well, the elearning shows (or at least describes) the results. The feedback isn’t a pronouncement from on high but is instead something like this: [Read more...]

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What to do if they just want “awareness”

12 December 2012 By 14 Comments

“We just need everyone to be aware of the policy,” your client says. “I’ve sent you the 97 slides that we use in the face-to-face training. Could you have it ready by next Monday?”

Which of the following should you do next?

      a) Clear your schedule and open your PowerPoint converter software.
      b) Ask the client some questions.

If you want to avoid cranking out yet another information dump, you’ll ask questions. The questions will be designed to:

  1. Uncover the client’s business goal — discover how the project will measurably change the organization’s performance.
  2. Identify what people need to do on the job with their “awareness” and why they aren’t doing it.

The answers to these questions will help you design realistic, challenging activities that help learners apply the policy and improve the organization’s performance.

1. Uncover the goal

To find out how your project will improve the organization’s performance, try asking questions like these:

  • How do you know that people aren’t already aware of the policy?
  • How is that lack of awareness affecting the performance or earnings of the organization?
  • What are you currently measuring that could be affected by awareness of the policy? (sales, lawsuits, etc.)
  • How will that measure improve when everyone is aware of the policy?

For example, a client might say that they want to increase awareness of the information security policy. To the above questions, they might answer:

  • “We know people aren’t aware of the policy because we’ve had some leaks of confidential information about clients and employees.”
  • “I guess this affects our earnings as a business — it’s expensive when someone sues us, and sales could go down if customers decide they can’t trust us.”
  • “I think the information security people can tell us how many leaks they’ve seen in the last year.”
  • “When everyone is aware of the policy, we should have fewer leaks.”

[Read more...]

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Scenarios: What are they good for?

2 May 2012 By 30 Comments

“Why do you want to use scenarios?” your client asks. “Why can’t we use the quizzes that we’ve always used?”

Sometimes the best way to convince a client is to show them through examples. Present one of their quiz questions three ways, so the client can see for themselves the deeper thought required by a scenario-style question.

Here’s an example. What kind of thinking is required by each type of question?

1. Quiz question

Which of the following is the most secure way to carry sensitive data?

    A. On a laptop

    B. On a USB drive chained to your wrist

    C. On a CD titled “The Chipmunks Sing Disco Duck”

Feedback for incorrect answer: Incorrect. Try again.

2. Mini-scenario with correct/incorrect feedback

Bob wants to work on the salary data at home. He has a long commute on a train. How should he carry the data with him?

    A. On his laptop

    B. On a USB drive chained to his wrist

    C. On a CD titled “The Chipmunks Sing Disco Duck”

Feedback for incorrect answer: Incorrect. Try again.

3. Mini-scenario with “showing” feedback

Bob wants to work on the salary data at home. He has a long commute on a train. How should he carry the data with him?

    A. On his laptop

    B. On a USB drive chained to his wrist

    C. On a CD titled “The Chipmunks Sing Disco Duck”

Feedback for A: Bob falls asleep during the commute, and a thief steals his laptop and sells the data. Try again.

Feedback for B: Bob falls asleep during the commute. A thief sits next to him, plugs his USB drive into his laptop while Bob is unconscious, and later sells the data. Try again.

Feedback for C: Bob falls asleep during the commute, and a thief steals all his belongings. The thief breaks the CD into pieces in disgust and no one ever sees the data. This is the best choice.

Version 1, the quiz question, asks learners to regurgitate a fact with no context.

Version 2 puts the facts into a realistic context but directly tells the learner when they’ve made an incorrect choice. [Read more...]

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How action mapping can change your design process

18 January 2012 By 40 Comments

Happy action mapping users say that the model helps them create lively elearning. But would it fit into your design workflow?

Action mapping makes stakeholders work together to analyze the performance problem, commit to the same measurable goal, and agree to focus on activities rather than information. This can be a big change to the typical course development workflow.

Without action mapping:

  1. The client says, “I need a course.”
  2. You say, “Okay.”
  3. The client gives you a pile of content, the phone number of a subject matter expert (SME), and a deadline.
  4. You create a detailed storyboard or script, getting information as necessary from the SME. The structure of the information determines the structure of the course.
  5. The client and SME approve the script and you go into production.
  6. The course is made available and your job is done.

action mapping for instructional designUsing action mapping:

  1. The client says, “I need a course.”
  2. You say, “Great. Let’s get together to make sure we all understand what you want the course to accomplish.”
  3. You schedule a two-hour meeting in a space with a whiteboard or in a virtual meeting room where you can share a mind-mapping screen. You include the client, at least one subject matter expert, and possibly others from the table below.
  4. In that meeting, you identify your business goal and how you’ll measure success. You also identify the behaviors needed to reach that goal.
  5. As a group, you analyze why the behaviors aren’t happening, confirm that training will actually solve the problem, and identify how the training will be supported by managers, workplace changes, and other improvements.
  6. After the meeting, you work with the SME and possibly others to brainstorm and prototype practice activities for each behavior needed to reach the goal. Ideally, you test the prototypes on learners.
  7. You get approval for the prototypes from the client.
  8. You work with the SME and possibly others to identify the minimum information necessary to complete each activity and decide how it should be provided.
  9. You create a storyboard or script. The content has already been identified in the action map; you’re just filling in the details and arranging the material. The activities determine the organization of the course.
  10. The client and SME approve the script and you go into production.
  11. Once the material is being used by learners, you or the client begins measuring its impact, and you revise it as necessary.

The above list makes it look like action mapping takes longer, and it will take longer if you’re not doing much analysis now. However, the rest of the process can actually go more quickly than conventional course design. You save time by:

  • Not creating a course when it isn’t necessary or won’t help
  • Addressing only the specific behaviors that need to change
  • Excluding unnecessary information
  • Taking advantage of easily updated job aids
  • Designing activities that test multiple areas of knowledge at once
  • Creating tightly focused materials that don’t waste learners’ time

Who should be included?

The table below lists the four steps of action mapping and identifies who you might consider including at each step. The first two steps can often be covered in one two-hour meeting, if the client and SME are familiar with the learners and the performance problem.

One of the goals in action mapping is to identify what information needs to be memorized (put in the course) and what can be referenced on the job (put in job aids). Often, existing job aids are created and “owned” by someone in a different department. That person might be your SME, or they might be someone else. They need to be included in some of your planning to make sure the job aid can be used as you want, to approve any changes to it, and to offer their ideas about incorporating it into practice activities.

Step Client SME Job aid
owner 		Learner Graphics/Flash
person
1: Set goal Yes Yes Maybe No No
2: Identify behaviors & why they’re not happening Yes Yes Maybe No No
3: Brainstorm practice activities Approve prototypes Help brainstorm or at least approve prototypes Help brainstorm or at least approve use of job aid Provide ideas, feedback on prototypes Help create prototypes
4: Identify necessary info No Yes Approve use of job aid or changes to it Maybe, as tester No

 

What works for you?

I’ve added the above information to the Elearning Blueprint, where it’s easy to update. So please tell me: What did I forget? What processes have worked best for you?

Also, a reminder: I’ll be leading a two-day certificate program in instructional design for elearning on Feb. 11-12 at the Training conference in Atlanta. Use code CATMN to get a $150 discount on your registration. I hope to see you there!

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Are learners idiots?

13 December 2011 By 45 Comments

Be sure to read this paragraph. It tells you that in this post, you’ll learn how to manage stakeholders who want to treat learners like idiots. If you have trouble reading the paragraph, click the speaker icon located in the bottom right-hand corner of this screen and a professional narrator will read the text to you in a soothing voice that slides like oil over any functioning brain cells and gently smothers them.

Now read the next paragraph.

“Assume intelligence,” Jerry Weissman tells us in Presentations in Action. “Your audience has been there, done that, and they get it.”

Are your learners idiots?Contrast Weissman’s advice with what your stakeholders might be telling you, or what a small voice might be saying in your head.

  • “We should tell them how to navigate the course.”
  • “We should define ‘safety’ to make sure everyone knows what we mean.”
  • “We should explain that they’re about to be shown a story in which a character will have to make a decision, and they’re going to make the decision for that character.”

We’re all adults here

If you’re designing for the corporate world, which is what I focus on in this blog, your learners have decades of experience figuring out what buttons do, reading text on a screen, and interpreting what’s happening to them as it happens.

Unfortunately, stakeholders might focus on the possible exception, the one person who can’t figure out that a button pointing to the right will move them forward and who will sit staring at the first screen until the lights get turned off.

A common solution is to provide optional help: a tab called “How to navigate this course,” links to definitions, and optional popup explanations like, “This is a fictional activity. You will pretend to be a person who is facing a challenge…”

A sign of a deeper problem

Unfortunately, stakeholders or small voices saying that you need to guide learners by the nose are symptoms of a deeper issue that can poison your materials, regardless of your optional help tabs. [Read more...]

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How to create a memorable mini-scenario

12 October 2011 By 21 Comments

Often we’re told, “Put this information into a course.” But what happens if we put the information into a job aid instead, and then design mini-scenarios that help learners use the job aid?

This approach not only keeps boring blather out of our elearning, it can also make our activities more memorable. Here’s how it could work.

Example

Let’s say we’re designing a course on needle safety for a hospital. A common approach would be to display some slides of information about dos and don’ts, and then to present a generic fact check, like, “What’s the best way to dispose of a used needle?”

Instead, we’ll plunge our learners directly into an activity that somewhat simulates real life and that includes real-life job aids. So here’s the first thing learners see in this module.
Magda has pricked herself with a needle that she just removed from a patient's artery. What should she do?

We’re tempting the learner to respond without thinking, but we’ve also given them access to more information. For example, the learner could click the first thumbnail to see the safety poster that appears in every examining room and that explains what to do with a needlestick injury.

But our sample learner thinks, “Everyone knows you pour Betadine on that kind of wound,” and they choose that without looking at any other information.

Here’s the feedback we give them. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Elearning examples, Instructional design, Scenario design Tagged With: , ,

Do they just know it, or can they USE it?

28 September 2011 By 29 Comments

It’s easy and tempting to write activities that test whether learners know something. How can we make learners use their knowledge as well?

You might be familiar with Bloom’s Taxonomy. Its current form identifies six categories of intellectual performance, from remembering to creating.

macheteTo make the taxonomy easier to apply, I grabbed my Unsubtle Machete of Oversimplification and in a few whacks reduced the categories to just two:

  • Know activities ask learners to retrieve and maybe categorize or explain information.
  • Use activities ask learners to apply information to realistic situations.

Often, a “use” activity includes a test of whether the learner “knows” something — you get two activities in one!

Example

Your learners create widgets. To speak with their coworkers, they need to know some technical terms. One term is “transmogrification,” which means modifying a widget so it will work at high altitudes. What can we do to help learners master this term and the related concept?

Know activity: Drag the term to its definition — drag “transmogrify” to “modify a widget so it will function at high altitudes”

Use activity:

Your client wants to use their widget at 2800 meters above sea level. What modification do you need to make to the widget?

  1. Transmogrify it
  2. Redorbinate it
  3. Neoplyordinize it
  4. No modification needed

The “use” activity tests whether the learner can apply their knowledge of transmogrification in a realistic situation, not in an abstract definition activity. At the same time, it answers three “know” questions for us. It tells us whether the learner knows that: [Read more...]

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Are instructional designers doormats?

23 August 2011 By 33 Comments

If your client said, “Please create a course about our impossibly complex process,” what would you say?

A. “Hmmm. That process looks really complicated. Is there any way to make it simpler?”

or

B. “No problem. Would you like fries with that?”

Often we know nothing about our client’s processes, and it’s tempting to think we should never question what they do.

But I like to think that our ignorance gives us a valuable outsider’s perspective that can help our clients improve performance through every means, not just through a course.

Our contribution can include everything from writing job aids to helping the client troubleshoot and simplify their processes.

For example, I was once asked to write a super-whiz-bang Flash course on how to use a client’s internal software. To write the course I needed to learn how to use the software, so I asked for their manual. They didn’t have one. A cheat sheet? Nothing. There was a dense, cryptic screen you could get if you typed “help” and that was it.

I obediently wrote the course. It took eons and cost the client a bucket of money, but I think the most valuable part was actually the PDF quick reference that I wrote in just two hours.

Now that I have more of a spine, I’d propose just starting with the quick reference to see if that removed the need for a course.

But isn’t it risky?

In his post on this topic, Allen Partridge asks, [Read more...]

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