Typically people who know they need some sort of company training will tell you what they want:

We need an instructor-led training course developed to [insert desired training outcome].

Or

We want a 20 minute e-learning course to [insert another desired training outcome].

More often than not, these people tend to believe it is either one, or the other. And if they do choose both they usually assume two independent development streams and budgets.

Meeting — and exceeding — the client’s expectations in this scenario is therefore a slam dunk. Let me tell you what I mean by that.

Development effort?

If we assume the following to develop both types of training independently,

What would you expect if a professional e-learning creator developed both? Well let’s discuss the design approach first (with the odd caveat  )

Three Design principles to follow

1. Use the Reusable Learning Object methodology

I’ve mentioned in previous posts the Reusable Learning Object (RLO) methodology, inspired by a Cisco White Paper from the 1990s.

By applying an RLO approach we break down the course design into knowledge objects. We then decide how the knowledge object will be created – and if designed correctly, we can then construct it so it is applicable to both e-learning and instructor-led the content. The following table better explains what I mean by this:

2. Use the correct tools

As instructional designers we are spoiled for choice when it comes to learning development software – and there are two important considerations:

Not all software tools are created equal, therefore

You should use the right tool for the right job.

Software licenses can definitely influence this choice, but this is becoming increasingly easier as more solutions move towards affordable subscription models. (Although these can present further challenges in a corporate environment.)

Quite recently I had a great example of the wrong tool being used. A client presented me with an interactive PDF that was created by one of their Subject Matter Experts (SME). I could have cried.

Now let me first of all say (1) that PDFs are great and the ability to make them more interactive is welcomed and (2) what this SME had managed to achieve (a complex interactive slide pack) was very impressive. BUT the goal of creating this PDF – conveying knowledge to a user – was truly disappointing. And that was before I asked the question about how would this content be managed, i.e. how will the user access it and further details.

For each knowledge object, you should identify possible tools, and this could be heavily influenced by the tool used to create the e-learning container.

3 – Be smart when formalizing your instructor-led deliverables

If I asked three different instructional designers or developers to create the same instructor-led training course – what deliverables would I receive?

• Slide packs
• Trainer notes
• QRGs
• Exercise books
• Student notes
• Printable packs
• etc.

The list goes on. And that is where your costs can really escalate if you don’t formalize the deliverables and importantly use the right software tools in your development.

• Did you know some e-learning tools can output their content and quizzes in Word or PowerPoint suitable for instructor-led training?
• Did you know some e-learning simulation software allow you to output the simulations as printable step-by-step (exercise) guides in Word suitable for instructor-led training?

Using the right tools when developing e-learning content allows your outputs to be utilized as part of instructor-led training deliverables.

Maximizing your training budget: what’s your best option?

So if we apply the above design principles, what is the development effort to design both?

You can see that for a small increase in effort and cost you get double the return.

So when you’re faced with a choice of instructor-led training, or e-learning – why not consider both?

When designing training for new software users, a question that will inevitably arise is: Should you go for simulations or for the training environment?

This is always an interesting topic. And nothing yells out in-experience when it comes to this decision.

Over the past 10 years I have had the pleasure of designing and implementing training solutions for numerous software roll-out — both large and small scale — and the topic of training environment always comes up… All I can say every time this happens is Run! Run as fast as you can!.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that having a training environment is a bad thing. In fact, for over four years, I ran a training department that had a robust training environment. My team delivered hands-on instructor-led training, and then provided a play-pen version of the environment for learners to log in — in their own time.

What is important to recognize is that a training environment — like any training material — requires continual management, maintenance and a strong design.

What are some of the challenges that are faced?

To answer this question, let me provide some real-life statements that I often come across:

We’ll just replicate the test environment

• So in this sweeping statement the speaker has made the creation of a training environment sound easy. Ignoring the fact that instantly we need (1) additional storage and (2) there is a new environment to manage / update, there are some typical outcomes of this approach.
• Check out some of the gotcha! issues that spring to mind:
• Remember that the development team does not care about your training environment — their number one goal is to develop and test the software;
• The development team also has no appreciation that updates they make can impact the training you’ve designed;
• You environment is generally not used every day — so it is very easy for it to fail without you being aware;
• The test environment is clear in its definition of ‘test’ — a training environment should be as robust as a production environment. Often training is the first time the learner interacts with the software, and a buggy training environment does not give a skeptical learner more confidence to dive into it.

Everyone can just log into the training environment

• Of course they can… But if we ignore the fact that we need to ensure all users have their own accounts with the right access privileges — as this isn’t the production environment — there is often a far bigger fundamental error made: assuming that everyone will perform the same exercise on the same data at the same time.
• When you create hands-on exercises, you typically tell the learner the information to enter, and create relationships with existing information in the system. So if one learner is performing the exercise, that’s great, but if ten people are trying to do the same exercise, suddenly duplicate entries are rejected as data often has to be unique. And relationships can’t be built as someone has already built one.

We’ll just leave the training environment there for the first 6 months as a play-pen

• I often hear the desire to have a play-pen for learners to be able to go into the system in their own time to ‘play’. This sounds like a great idea, and learners will often say they want it. However, I can count on one hand how many learners will actually use it. This isn’t a negative slant on the learner; we just need to keep in mind that they are usually busy doing their everyday activities.

OK – so are you saying to NOT use a training environment?

No, not at all! In the right circumstances, and with the right appreciation for what is involved, a training environment for IT training can be very successful. We’ve utilized one and it was a great success.

But I seldom steer a client in that direction.

So what can we do instead?

There are numerous software tools that allow you to create simulations and can be used as a precursor to a training environment. Simulations allow the user to feel like they’re interacting in the software, and this is often a great approach to go.

When creating simulations you just identify the top X tasks the learner group will be required to do, and then design the simulations around that. The user is forced to perform the steps you design and you can add additional information along the way.

Simulations are repeatable, scalable, and a fraction of the cost compared with creating and managing a training environment. You’ve also drastically reduced your risk with the number of things that could go wrong.

Some of the software tools that create simulations also allow you to export work instructions automatically, and these are often deliverables a project implementation team are required to produce.

So which is better – simulations or the training environment?

Well, the depth of knowledge achieved by a learner who can go off road and play in the software will always trump that of a simulation training experience. But when designing training my goal is to always look at costs versus benefits, and simulation training provides a highly cost-effective means to create scalable, repeatable training that is good enough.

Microsoft’s Clippy – oh how I miss him… This little bit of animation that always used to offer me help that never quite hit the mark. I remember fondly swapping the characters for my amusement (which was a welcome distraction from the task I should have been performing). But I know it got to the point that every time I loaded up Microsoft Word my first task was to CLOSE CLIPPY DOWN!

Well, roll on a few years and we now have a label for what Clippy was trying to do, and that is context-sensitive learning. And most importantly, we’re now doing it better!

What is context-sensitive learning?

For me, context-sensitive learning means offering the right knowledge to the right person just when they need it. Simple, right?

Let’s take a look at some scenarios:

Scenario 1

Imagine you’re using a piece of software and a little light bulb at the side of your screen gently flashes just letting you know that your computer:

• knows what software application you are using;
• knows what screen and fields you’re populating;
• based on this information the computer offers Guided Help / Work Instructions / Simulations / Quick Reference Guides that might be useful to complete the task you’re doing.

Scenario 2

Imagine you’re approaching a piece of equipment in your factory, you point your mobile / tablet at its control panel and you’re immediately offered various tasks that can be performed and provided the information to perform those tasks.

Scenario 3

Imagine you work in the service industry and a regular customer approaches – you are immediately provided the necessary information about the customer to allow to you cater to their expected requirements (RIP Google Glass, the world wasn’t ready for you yet!)

I’ve already had the pleasure of working with a client on Scenario 1 and am now working on Proof of Concepts for Scenarios 2 and 3. And it is at this point that I must heed a warning – don’t get lost in the shiny tech, the potential, and the vaporware. (Vaporware is the impressive slide-deck and/or marketing video displaying the product or solution that doesn’t exist yet.)

It is important to always come back to your primary goal: offering the right knowledge to the right person just when they need it.

What’s involved in designing and rolling out a context-sensitive learning solution?

I always approach learning using these three fundamentals:

• Effective content;
• Management (of the content);
• Measurement (of the content).

Effective content

For many years now I’ve advocated designing all learning content in bite-sized chunks (referred to as RLOs, or Reusable Learning Objects) – and with context-sensitive learning, this approach really highlights the benefits.

A training course is made up of many bite-sized chunks, but really when learners need to recall the information via a context-sensitive learning solution, they don’t need the training course; they need the relevant Work Instruction / Simulation / Quick Reference Guide / etc. How this information is designed is key.

Management of the content

The effective content that is being served to the learner needs to be stored in a repository – be it a learning management system, a content management systems, or a digital asset library, to name but a few.

But to minimize content management overhead (and therefore cost) it is very important that the repository allows for (1) bite-sized chunks of learning content and (2) integrations (APIs).

Measurement of the content

Often overlooked, the measurement of learning effectiveness is the business benefit and what I wished learning centers were made accountable for. The fact is that learning effectiveness is hard to quantify (ignoring ‘happy sheets’), but with context-learning solutions, measuring simple engagement itself is a very strong measure for success.

If people are using the solution, and most importantly, repeatedly< using the solution, it can be assumed it is providing benefit.

One last thought

Finally, regarding scenarios 2 and 3 mentioned above — some of you might be more familiar with the term Augmented Reality. If you’ve played Pokemon Go recently, whether you realized it or not, you’ve experienced AR. It is a really exciting time for learning architects like myself, as Augmented Reality opens up context-sensitive learning so now it is not just ‘software’ on a computer.

The future is certainly bright!

I’d like to ask you a few questions…..

Which is generally more successful in achieving learning outcomes?

Most people will probably pick the first option… While I’m sure they have been scarred by poor e-learning content in the past, lets stick with the premise that instructor-led training is generally more successful in achieving learning outcomes.

This chart represents knowledge over time…

You can see that initially the user has zero knowledge in the new topic; then they attend a classroom-based training course where they become knowledgeable on the said topic; and after the event knowledge will slowly fade away. That’s how the human brain works. You know what they say, if you don’t use it, you lose it.

So far, instructor-led training is more successful in achieving learning outcomes.

But let’s ask that question with an additional tick box. Which is generally more successful in achieving learning outcomes?

Now if we compliment the instructor-led training with online content we have a far more powerful solution:

For example, there could be some small online content to digest prior to training. Let’s be honest, it needs to be small and digestible, as most people won’t look at it until they’re on the train going to the instructor-led training. Nevertheless, making some initial content available immediately starts increasing the knowledge level.

Now lets look at the instructor-led training… I’ve had some awesome trainers… But I’ve also had some I’d never like to see again. (And I’m sure the feeling is mutual, as I am the student who insists on asking questions until I understand concepts :D). Training instructors need more than one type of content if they want their courses to be efficient. The best courses that I attended had a combination of slide decks, videos, games, quizzes, reference guides, and other interactive features.

After the training event, it’s important to have that constant drip feed of refresher content. I always chuckle when I look around corporate offices and they have printed Training Manuals on bookshelves, which clearly have never been opened since they were initially put there immediately after a training event. People need constant reminders of the things they are supposed to know.

So the important component to all of this is how you manage your training content, as you need a learning platform that has the ability to provide blended content and, more importantly, automate the release of information in what we call “drip content”. When the learning curriculum is designed, if you already have the blended design in mind, you can create your instructor-led training course with learning objects that can easily be manipulated into this supportive content, thus reducing overall development costs and maximizing learning outcomes.

It is a sad fact that pretty much anyone who has used a computer has:

• taken an e-learning course…
• formed an opinion that e-learning is boring, and if it is boring then
• it is doubtful it will have achieved its learning objectives.

Therefore, the first time we sit down with clients, even though they are telling us they want an e-learning course developed, we know exactly two things about them:

1. they’ve been scarred by e-learning, and
2. their decision has probably been more due to circumstances than preference.

Okay, so everyone that has a strong connection with the learning and development industry knows that

All e-learning is not created equal.

But how do we convey that to the client?

First of all, we never use the term e-learning. I mean, never. Because as soon as you do, the client (whether they are aware of it or not) automatically associates discussions with those deep e-learning scars they harbor.

What we do is re-frame their requirements in three terms:

• EFFECTIVE
• MANAGED
• MEASURED

Let’s take them one by one:

Effective learning

This is probably what your client has thought about – the training course.

We use the term effective learning to immediately put some distance between ourselves and the monotonous ‘CLICK – READ – CLICK – READ – CLICK’ e-learning. We talk in terms of blended learning, a combination of words, pictures, videos, interactions, gamification, that constantly engage the learner and keep them attentive.

Managed learning

The next term we discuss is how the content is managed, and we have a library of questions which, based on responses, leads to further questions…

The first question we lead with attempts to identify their learning plaform(s), for example:

Do you have an LMS (Learning Management System)?

Now of course we know that all LMSs are not created equal, and any limitations impact the effective content that can be designed.

As we delve deeper into the managed term discussions, we typically collate business requirements. We listen, and more often than not, we then need to reset expectations about what is feasible based on their learning platform (or lack of) and also the management overhead of these business requirements.

Measured learning

The final term we discuss is how success will be measured.

As a small/medium business owner, ROI (Return On Investment) is critical to our success – and yet I’m often amazed by how much corporate learning content is created with no data being generated on whether

• the content is viewed,
• if it has been effective, and
• if any follow up (accountability) is carried on.

It is important to remember that when the effective content is well managed, it can easily provide measured data on engagement, with very little overhead. Of course measuring training effectiveness is another discussion – but the traditional ‘happy sheets’ at the end of all training programs that we trainers love to give out do an adequate job on obtaining the learner’s initial thoughts.

So, to all those learners who have had to endure my early e-learning courses I offer my sincerest apologies – and all I can say is that I will constantly strive to ensure we only create effective content that is managed and provides meaningful measurement.

Unstructured Learning is often neglected and yet if you design your content correctly you can provide your learners with the optimal balance of Structured and Unstructured Learning.

Check out this video to see how we do it: