Three Considerations for Global Learning

I have been working in Learning & Development for many years.  Until now, I have only occasionally had to support projects that were global in scope.   Most of the time, that meant creating something here in North America and then shipping it overseas to be translated.

But recently my company has been evolving from a multi-national operation to one that is truly globally integrated.   This has meant that my team has been asked to develop learning solutions to support our employees in all markets in which we do business, not just those here in the US.  So now we are working to scale up our operations.   We are trying to develop curriculum that is appropriate for broader audiences, and to create design processes that take into account that we need to work with stakeholders and subject matter experts that may be in other parts of the world.  We are clearly on a journey here.  We have a long way to go, but we are learning a lot along the way. 

Here are three observations so far about creating global learning solutions.   They may seem simple and obvious to those of you who have been operating this way for a long time, but for those of us who are in the early stages of our global journey, their implications are profound.

Culture is more important than language.   It isn't enough to do word-for-word translations of your learning content.  Localization is just as important.  You have to make sure that the context, style, and learning examples are consistent with the beliefs, values and expectations of your audiences. Also, people have different expectations about what constitutes a learning experience.  This impacts how they interact with instructors and peers in class settings.

Technology must be tested.  Technology is not the easy answer.   Technology deployment is uneven around the globe.  Bandwidth issues exist in many places.  If you plan to use virtual delivery tools or elearning, my advice is test and retest the technology before going live with it.

Local resource support is critical.   You can accomplish a lot more with active local support than you can on your own and at a distance.   We have engaged our  Human Resource Business Partners and key local business leaders to help us create the right conditions for learning and help us minimize the pitfalls. So far, this has proven to be the most critical factor in helping us to be successful.

There is certainly more to the story than these items, but they make a big difference for us.

Two Years and Still Growing

Today is the second anniversary of the launch of Many Ways to Learn. I never thought there would be much interest in a blog about workplace learning, but here we are two years later. When I talk about my work among friends and family, everyone runs the other way. But this blog does have a modest following, and the connections I’ve made through it have been enriching both personally and professionally. Feedback indicates people are gaining something by reading it, which makes it worthwhile to continue.


Two years ago, I started writing this blog as part of a personal experiment. I was not using social media tools at all. As a learning professional, I felt it was important to understand these tools. I wanted to see if they held any promise for use alongside our formal learning offerings. I didn’t expect they would, but I was wrong. They certainly proved to hold promise. I slowly began to introduce them to my team members. I have a creative bunch so I wanted to see what ideas and suggestions they might come up with for usage in service to our learners. At the time, terms like informal learning, social learning, personal knowledge management, and content curator were not part of our day-to-day working vocabulary. I’m happy to say they are today. In November 2009 I really began seeing the possibilities. I wrote this blog entry: Web 2.0 Learning Shift to describe what I saw happening. Since then we have implemented a number of non-traditional learning solutions at my company to give our learners alternatives to classroom training or self-paced e-learning. Do we have all our learning opportunities embedded directly in the workstream? No, we don’t. Do we have more learning opportunities in the workstream than we did two years ago? I am proud to say yes, we do.

Here are a few more YES/NO situations to describe the current state of learning at my company.

YES – people are having workplace discussions and sharing resources though social media.

NO – not everyone in the company is on board.

YES – we have a formal social media policy.

NO – we don’t block people from using twitter or facebook at work.

YES - we do have our own internal social media network (through Yammer) available to employees worldwide.

NO – our senior leaders are not all active in our social media network.

YES - we do have online discussion groups and virtual meet-ups to promote learning.

NO - we can't measure what people are learning through these groups, but their discoveries are evident.
YES – we are conducting classes virtually.

NO – we are not using virtual reality tools like Second Life.

YES - our virtual classes are interactive discussions.

NO - our virtual classes are not passive PowerPoint webinars.

YES – we do have wiki-based tools and activities that allow learners to build off each other’s ideas.

NO – we don’t have control over what people post or the edits they make – but it has not been a problem.

YES – we have created learning environments in SharePoint to help our employees manage their learning experiences.

NO – they don’t all take to SharePoint like a duck takes to water.

YES – we do offer just-in-time access to workplace answers through our knowledge management system.

NO – we have not retired our learning management system.

YES – our employees are accessing (some) audio and video content through mobile devices.

NO – the mobile content does not mainly originate from the learning department.

YES – we do capture and share best practices through social media tools.

NO – our social media tools are not the most commonly used means of sharing best practices.

YES – we have increased our employees’ ability to learn through informal means.

NO – we haven’t stop designing and delivering Instructor-led classroom training.

YES – we develop a lot of rapid e-learning programs.

NO – our e-learning programs are not all award winners, but they don’t have to be to be effective.

The last two years have certainly been interesting. They have shown me there are indeed Many Ways to Learn. Through writing this blog and interacting with readers, I’ve discovered a lot and grown quite a bit as a learning professional. I’ve used what I have learned to help my department evolve and to help employees in my company be successful. I also hope this blog has led others to make a few discoveries. Thanks for reading.

Virtual Collaboration Is Easy

There certainly are Many Ways to Learn. One of them is to sit back and observe. That is what I did this week as I watched two tech support people from two different companies troubleshoot a software problem on my laptop. The amazing thing was they did this seamlessly, working virtually, from two different parts of the world.

I recently installed a new software package on my computer. The installation went fine, but I was having difficulty registering it with the company from which I received it. I called their tech support group, based in Cincinnati Ohio to troubleshoot my registration. After attempting to help me register by going through the usual steps (and two alternative methods), the technician determined that something on my computer was blocking communication to my registry. In order to access my registry, I needed to be logged in as a system administrator rather than with my usual user ID. Of course, this was my work laptop and being an employee at a good ole American company that is concerned with data security, I don’t have admin rights for my computer. In order for me to log on as an administrator, I needed to call my company’s tech support team which, being a good ole American company, we have outsourced to another company in India.

So I put the Cincinnati guy on hold while I called India. The India guy helped me get logged on as an administrator, but I still wasn’t sure what I needed to do. Using the conference call feature on my phone, I connected the Cincinnati guy and the India guy at the same time. The Cincinnati guy tried to describe what needed to be done to the India guy and me. Neither one of us was quite getting it, so he suggested setting up a web meeting so I could share my desktop with him and he could perform the required steps for me. It took a minute or two to get the web meeting going, but once it was, he began proceeding through the steps to complete my registration. This was going along fine until he hit a snag. He encountered an unfamiliar setting that was blocking him from completing the registration. The India guy knew what this was, but he had difficulty getting the Cincinnati guy or me to understand what we needed to do to get through this blockage. Fortunately I was able to share my desktop with him to using Office Communicator so he could complete those steps. That freed things up for the Cincinnati guy to complete what he needed to do to get my software registered.

It was fascinating as I sat in my office in Connecticut watching the Cincinnati guy and the India guy take turns manipulating my laptop while the other watched in such a matter-of-fact way. It really brought home the message about how easy it is these days to work collaboratively or to provide just-in-time coaching support at a distance.

Three Ways to Use Video with Office Communicator to Enhance Learning

Like many companies these days, my company uses an instant messaging tool to enable informal communication and impromptu virtual meetings among employees. The tool we use is Microsoft Office Communicator. Recently, our IT department has added the ability to enhance discussions through Office Communicator by using webcams. Last week, our Innovations in Learning group (a yammer-based Community of Practice group inside my company devoted to workplace learning) discussed our early experiences with the new capability and its potential uses for learning.


In early explorations with the tool, group members tried out and described three different uses:

Connecting additional participants into a classroom ILT session from a distance – while overall it was perceived as a plus to be able to bring in participants through video who otherwise would not have been able to attend, the experience as described was challenging for both the participants and the facilitator. In a course that was designed to be led by an instructor with a live group, there were elements that did not work for the people joining from a distance (no surprise there!). Also, the facilitator reported needing three laptops and cameras to make the session work (one trained on the facilitator, one on the group, and one on the materials being shown or discussed in the room). This meant that a second person needed to join the facilitator in a “producer” or “moderator” type role.

Conducting small group virtual training sessions using desktop sharing – one of the great things about Office Communicator is that you can have instant meetings by sharing your desktop. Adding webcams makes the meeting experience a little more engaging. Office Communicator is limited to only showing one person on screen at a time. The software displays the image of the person who is speaking. So while you can't see the whole group at once, you can see the facial expressions and body language of the person who is speaking.  And since it is easy to quickly set up a virtual classroom without a lot of preparation using Office Communicator, this can be practical for small group sessions, post-training follow-ups, and distance coaching.

Using Office Communicator for virtual break-out rooms - Many virtual classroom training sessions are conducted using software that was designed for meetings and do not provide break-out capabilities. Office Communicator can be used as a virtual break-out tool with or without webcams. The webcams add a little more intimacy to the small group discussions, which can help groups keep their attention on the task at hand rather than distractors they may be facing in their home office or at their workstation.

Webcams used with Office Communicator do increase the sense of "being there."   In this day and age of agile workers and virtual teams, any capability that can help shorten the distance between learners is welcome.

Right Here in Our Own Little Community!

It has been just about four months since our formal instructional design standards committee morphed into the broader and less formal Innovations in Learning Community of Practice.  We are an internal company group that discusses different learning topics through Yammer each month.  At the end of the month, we have a virtual Meet-up to discuss the Yammer posts.  The core of the community is still made up of a handful of instructional designers from within my department, but we've grown modestly (29 members!) as we have widened our focus from instructional design, to workplace learning.  We have been joined by course developers from other learning groups within the company, classroom facilitators, marketing people, and line employees who have no formal role in workplace learning at all.

As a result of our recent growth, three exciting developments have occurred:

1. The center of the community is shifting - I am pleased to say that community members from outside the original group from my department are taking an active role in the community.  For the first time, the topic discussion at our next virtual Meet-up will led by a community member from another department. 
2. The "rules" and norms are changing - Not surprisingly, as other group members take an active role in the community, new rules and new norms are developing.   Timelines for discussions are extending and we are changing the format of our next virtual Meet-up a bit.  I couldn't be happier about this.   I was afraid that this was going to be viewed as "Mike's group."  Now I'm beginning to envision a day when I can step back to the fringes and let others take the lead.  I think it is still a ways away, but this is encouraging.
3. We've attracted "hobbyists" who may want to turn "pro" - This is the most exciting development so far.  Two community members from line positions have reached out to me to discuss possible career opportunities in learning roles.  One of them is an enthusiastic hobbyist who has done a lot of communications work. She was attracted by our discussions about Articulate Presenter and has even gone as far a purchasing a software license so she can practice what she is learning.  The other is currently in a sales role. He is also in the final stages of completing his Master's in Adult Education. Besides adding new flavors to our community, both of these individuals are now on my radar screen for succession planning.

If you are interested in reading about our development up to this point, review these two previous posts:

Deciding between Formal and Informal Learning Approaches
Community Building with Yammer

And of course, tune back in a later date for additional updates.

Happy Anniversary to Many Ways to Learn!

Incredible as it may seem (to me anyway) today is the one year anniversary of the Many Ways to Learn blog. I posted my first entry on August 7, 2009. At the time, every training journal, magazine and newsletter was loaded with articles about social media. (It seems they still are!) Up until then, I had been indifferent to social media. My only experience with it was a half completed profile and a dozen connections on Linkedin, and watching my kids connect with their friends on Facebook. But after being bombarded and bludgeoned with articles on how social media was the biggest thing to hit the training industry since the advent of elearning, I thought I’d better investigate it. So I simultaneously started this blog, created a Twitter account, completed my profile on LinkedIn and began reaching out to people to see what would happen. It was going to be my own mini social experiment.

Not knowing what to expect, I approached all of this with a bit of skepticism. My perception of social media was that people were wasting time tweeting things like, “I’m taking a shower now” or “I’m moving from the couch to the loveseat.” At that time, I had no understanding of the value it could bring. I enjoyed writing the blog entries, but I never thought anyone would actually read them.

Here it is one year later. As I reflect on my social media experiences over this last year, I’d have to say they have been both fruitful and satisfying. Here are a few things, I have learned:

• People are interested in what I have to say – incredible as it may seem to me, people do read my blog. Not by the thousands, but a by the hundreds each month. Each time I publish a new post, I get a spike in readers so I know I have a few subscribers out there. It is good to know that I can contribute to other people’s learning and enjoyment in at least some small way.
• There are many thriving virtual communities – whatever you may be interested in, there are people out there who are interested in the same things. I love instructional design. I’ve been lucky enough to find a community of people who are interested in workplace learning. Many of them now are my Twitter and LinkedIn contacts. It is great to have people to talk to who are genuinely interested in what I like to do. My family and friends are bored to death by the things I write about in this blog.
• Hobbyists, not professionals, make up the heart of virtual communities – within each community you will find experts, enthusiastic novices, and everything in between. And while there are many professionals on line, they are not the ones who do the bulk of the information sharing. Since they sell their content and expertise, they can’t really give it all away. On the other side of the coin, the hobbyists have no profit motive so they are free to share whatever they like.
• Social media enables you to connect directly to thought leader and experts – the amazing thing about social media is that you can connect with just about anyone. Thought leaders, authors, and even celebrities (if you so choose) will not only accept you as a follower, but in some cases will follow you back. It is great to be able to discuss a topic with the person who originated the idea or wrote the book. Prior to social media, this ease of access was not possible.
• There are no geographic boundaries on the connection possibilities – this is an obvious one but it is still worth mentioning. I live in Connecticut but I have social media contacts that I regularly engage with all over the country, in Canada, the UK, Germany, India and Australia. How wonderful is that?
• Twitter can lead to real business opportunities – Some social media contacts can be converted into face-to-face business contacts. I recently hired a vendor to deliver Virtual Team Building training for a group of our managers who I met because she was following me on Twitter. I’ve had other contacts deliver proposals for services I might consider using in the future.
• There are a myriad of web 2.0 tools out there, and many of them are free – there is way more to the Web 2.0 world than just blogging and tweeting. Thank goodness for people like Jane Hart, who aggregate lists of tools to save the rest of us the leg work.
• It is possible to effectively collaborate at a distance – I manage a virtual team. I’m in Connecticut. I have two team members in Georgia, one in Ohio and one in Florida. We are able to work together at a distance by sharing our desktops, storing files in shared workspaces, and using online collaboration tools.
• Real learning does take place through social media – I’m living proof of that. A year ago I knew nothing about social media. Now I use several different tools to regularly to connect with people inside and outside my company. I’m doing things inside my company that I learned from my external social media connections and experiences. The informal learning that takes place online is real and powerful.

There are probably a million other things I could list here, but I won’t - at least not now. One year into this “experiment” I am convinced that I’d be crazy to give it up. The connections I’ve made through social media are too valuable to cast aside. I contribute to the online learning community and I get a lot out of it too. Plus, I’m having fun!

Using Social Media for Learning

I put together this presentation for a Web 2.0 class I'm taking at Florida State University. It presents a process for learning through social media, an example of how the process works based on my personal experiences, and an invitation to connect with me to share bookmarks on del.icio.us. Check it out and let me know what you think. If you want to add me to your network on del.icio.us you can find me here.

Using Social Media for Learning

View more presentations from Mike Petersell.

This Week at the Technology Assisted Learning Conference...

I spent the first half of this week in Chicago at Corporate University's Technology Assisted Learning Conference.  The conference was small, but impactful.  It provided a nice mix of presentations by industry thought leaders pointing out near-horizon future directions, and case examples from practitioners who are making good use of currently available technologies for their learners today.  As an added benefit, the conference was co-located with Social Media for Recruitment. Both conferences' schedules were aligned to allow for networking.   And although the conference was small, it did attract a wide range of attendees, including participants from a variety of industries (Finance, Real Estate, Technology) and geographies (Saudi Arabia, The Netherlands).  I was proud to be listed among a great group of speakers that included Allison Rossett, Tony O'Driscoll, and Charles Beckham each of whom delivered presentations that lived up to expectations to be the highlights of the event.

Dr. Rossett started things off with a keynote address on creating engaging elearning.  She shared practical advice organized into a list of "5 Essentials" which I summarized in my notes as:  The Right Stuff (relevant content), Guidance (providing certainty through clear navigation and instructions), Active (setting the level of challenge in the zone of proximal development), Relationships and Connectivity (capturing the power of the social experience), and There When Needed (clear, accessible, nothing unrelated).  Shortly afterwards, Tony O'Driscoll took the podium to bring us all into the immersive world of Learning in 3D as described in the book he co-authored with Karl Kapp (who's pre-conference workshop I unfortunately missed.)  Towards the end of the day Charles Beckham walked us through applications for the new social learning community platform, Jambok.

These were the expected highlights of the event.   However, sandwiched in and around these presentations were case studies highlighting technology applications in learning from a variety of companies.  I got to kick things off in the opening slot on day two with a case on our virtual approach to onboarding.  It was such a pleasure to be able to share the work we are doing with others in the learning community.  With that out of the way, I enjoyed presentations highlighting practices at The Nielsen Company (global learning community of practice), Harley Davidson (global elearning translation and deployment - and very high on the cool factor), excellRx, Inc. (using avatars - without making them too creepy!), AIMCO (creating cheap, effective, viral video) and others.

All in all, it was a blast.  This was Corporate University's first Technology Assisted Learning Conference.  I have a feeling it is an event that will grow in popularity over time.

Coaching Remote Employees Can Be Quite a Ride

My son just got his driver's license.  I was nervous when he went out to take his road test because it was a rainy day with wet road conditions.  But no matter; in the weeks leading up to his test, we spent plenty of time in the car together, so he was ready.   I'd done the same thing with my daughter two years earlier.  I used the same approach with both of them but the experience was very different.   When my daughter was learning to drive, she verbalized everything she was thinking and feeling and asked me a lot of questions.  I always knew where should stood and what help she needed from me.   With my son, it was just the opposite.   We would get in the car and drive together in silence.  Every once in a while I would ask him, "How is it going?"  or "What questions to do you have?"   Most often he'd reply by saying, "I'm good" and would continue driving. 

One day as we drove a long in silence, I started to think about work.  In the last few months, we have been doing a lot of work helping managers who are leading virtual teams.   This is something that I think about a lot.  I've written about it twice before: in January and again in April of this year.  On this particular day, I was thinking about the challenges managers face in trying to coach remote workers. Coaching employees in general can be a challenge, but being separated by distance (and perhaps time) adds another level to the challenge.

I began to think about what it would be like for a manager who had to coach remote employees who had personalities like my two children.   A manager coaching someone like my daughter would probably welcome the feedback.  She certainly gives you enough to work with, but there is always the danger of getting off track.  On the other hand, a manager coaching someone like my son might find his silences difficult to interpret from a distance.  This got me thinking about how important it is for us to continually reinforce the advice we provide to our managers who coach remote employees.   Here are some of the key points we try to drive home with them:

1. Use a Combination of Scheduled and Impromptu Coaching Sessions - It is important to have regularly scheduled coaching sessions with remote employees.   But don't pass up an opportunity to pick up the phone in between sessions when there is something important to discuss.
2. Use Technology Tools to Keep You on the Same Page - In this day and age, there are a lot more technology options than just using the telephone.  Use web conferencing tools, wikis, or blogs for shared note taking.   If possible, use webcams with a service such as Skype to allow a more "face-to-face" type interaction.
3. Start, but don't Stop with Results - You probably have metrics and performance indicators that will make discussing work outputs with your employee feel very natural, but don't stop there.  Use performance results as a jumping off point into a deeper discussion about work activity and resource needs.
4. Listen Carefully to Your Employee - It is important to stay focused on your employee during remote coaching sessions.   Busy managers must avoid the temptation to multi-task.   Use active listening techniques such as clarifying, paraphrasing and giving feedback.
5. Probe Silences - Don't allow silences, hesitancies or unreturned phone calls to go unexplored.  Unlike driving lessons with my son, managers of remote employees don't have the advantage of actually seeing what is going on to compensate for what is not being said.

Exploring the Elements of Online Communication

Although we are all connecting with each other online through one medium or another, there is really a small, finite set of content elements that make up the core of what we communicate.  Over at his excellent blog Clive on Learning, Clive Sheperd writes that "all online communication, whether that’s published content, live online events or social media, make use of the same key media elements: text, audio, images, animation and video."  He has put together an e-book of some of his blog posts that cover these media elements to help e-learning designers, virtual classroom facilitators, and online communicators in general to know how and when to use each of these elements to construct effective online communication.

For each element he describes what it is good for, what it is not so good for, how it should be optimized for online delivery, how it combines with the other elements, and how it is represented online.

It makes a handy little reference tool.  And if you are not into e-books, don't worry.  He has assembled the original blog posts with links on a single page so you can access the information that way as well.

Follow the link to Clive's blog below to check it out:

Clive on Learning: Media Chemistry – exploring the elements of online communication

Virtual Team Leadership

One of the topics that has become an important component of the management training we conduct at my company is Leading Virtual Teams.  With the growing trends of agile and mobile workers, it seems to be an issue that comes up in every management training needs analysis we do these days. Ultimately, it ends up as a key component in the training we deliver and the follow-up coaching we provide.

I am constantly browsing for resources on virtual team leadership that I can share with managers in my company.  I recently came across the presentation below on SlideShare. It is from Camille Preston at AIM Leadership.  It is more of a mini-eBook than a presentation.  The core content is built around four things that virtual leaders need to do:

1. Care to Collaborate
2. Connect to Communicate
3. Filter to Focus
4. Pause for Perspective

The gist of the message is that "to be effective, virtual leaders learn who they are working with, what matters most to that person, and how to set that person up to be successful."  They do this through focus and reflection.   Check it out:

Leading Virtual Effectiveness: Four Strategies for Effective Communication

Formalizing Informal Learning

As stated in my blog post from January 16, I have rededicated myself to using social media for learning at work.  Following the strategy I outlined on January 24, each of my team members is now actively engaged in managing various topics on the corporate social media network (yammer).  This marks the end of the first week of us using yammer at work.  So far we are off to a great start.

I have three staff members on my management development team.   Here is a sample post from each of them. These posts were collected from my yammer feed from this week:

Team member #1 is the topic leader for the discussion on #remote_teams.  As discussed in last week's blog post, remote management and virtual teams are fast growing trends in my company.   We have included remote management as a topic in all of our recent management training programs.  It seemed only natural to continue the discussion through our social media network.

Team member #2 is the topic leader for the discussion on #project_management.  As I'm sure is the case in all companies, project management is an important topic.   A few years back we began to take an enterprise wide look at how projects were managed inside the company.   We have been gradually migrating different departments to take a uniform approach to projects.  Our current approach is aligned to the PMBOK guidelines.

Team Member #3 is the topic leader for the discussion on #change.  Our company is transforming the way we do business.  This has meant large and small scale changes taking place in every business unit and every department.  Each day this week team member #3 has shared some of the myths and realities about workplace change from The Employee Handbook of Organizational Change by Price Pritchett.

In addition to these topics, I personally lead the discussion on the topic of #managing.  All four of us participate in each other's discussions and we also post to disucssions on #leadership, #engagement and #growth.  Besides managing these topics, we are active in several newly formed yammer groups.  Our goal is to deliberately create an information pipeline around important management topics that can be captured as informal learning through the social media network. 

To help us get a jumpstart on building our followers, I created the flyer shown below.   This week I participated in a management kick-off meeting that was attended by over 300 managers.  Our Learning & Performance group had an "expo-like" table set up at the event.  I handed out many of these flyers and talked to a lot of managers about our new social media network.   Very few of them were aware that yammer was available inside the company.  Most of them had never even heard of it.

Although it is new, I'm confident that our social media network will grow quickly. There are only a handful of users today, but I'm sure there will be many more very soon. I want my team to be active and ready to guide others how to take advantage of this tool for informal learning when they get there.  From these small beginnings, I expect great things to occur.

Gradually Going Virtual

This week I joined my team in delivering training to a veteran group of managers in my company.  It is always a challenge when you have to conduct management training for an experienced audience.  Clearly, this was a successful group with very few skill deficiencies for the jobs they are doing.   But despite their experience and previous success, it is important that they keep their skills aligned with the current and future direction of the company.

Without a doubt, things have been rapidly changing at my company.  Our managers need to make sure they are adapting their management tactics to keep up with the changes in our operating approaches.  Their failure to do so could put us at a competitive disadvantage.   One growing phenomenon in our work place is the increase in remote management situations.   While this is not new at our company, it is happening on an increasingly larger scale than in the past.  More managers have remote staff members, while some (including myself) have completely virtual teams.

Needless to say, managing remote teams was an important topic in this week's training program.  We reiterated the importance of using traditional leadership skills to help teams successfully meet their business goals.  In addition to that, we discussed new skill requirements that are specific to managing virtual teams.   Two key topic areas were approaches to building trust and maintaining strong communication while managing people at remote locations.  Below are items that were explored during these topic discussions.

Building Trust with a Virtual Team

1. Conduct Face-to-face Meetings - If possible, it is recommended that virtual teams have at least one in-person meeting so that people can put names and faces together.   Studies show that meeting in-person helps teams overcome communication and trust barriers during those times when they must meet virtually.
2. Maintain Transparency - Team members should always be aware of department goals and priorities and how well they are performing against those goals.  Additionally, managers must make it a habit to continually inform remote team members about issues that impact their work.
3. Be Accessible - Remote team members must feel they have access to their manager (and other team members).   Managers must take extra care to make sure they are being responsive to remote team members.   While team members who are co-located with their manager will see the things that my be preoccupying the boss, remote team members could interpret silence as disinterest, which might make them hesitate to reach out to the manager when they should be doing so. 
4. Share Team Member Profiles - The more team members know about each other, the easier it will be for them to be open and candid during remote communication.  Sharing photos, interests and areas of expertise will go a long way towards bringing team members closer together.

Communicating with a Virtual Team

1. Establish Communication Routines - Make it a point to get to know when each team member is most easily accessible by phone, email or other means.  Set up specific days and times for one-on-one and team meetings.
2. Share Good and Bad News - Provide status updates to remote team members on a regular basis whether the news is good or bad.  While managers may be tempted to reach out to remote workers only when the news is good, remaining silent when it is bad leaves things open to interpretation which can create tension and misinformation.
3. Take Advantage of Available Technology - There are great tools available for conducting virtual meetings, engaging in instant communication, file sharing, and capturing group input.  Many of these tools are intuitive and can be used with little or no training.  Others do require investing some time to learn how to use them.  But the payoff for this investment is usually well worth it.

In addition to discussing these topics, our training included demonstrations of some of the technology tools available in my company that are helpful for remote management.  We also gave managers the opportunity to sign up for one-on-one or small group coaching sessions to help them get the most out of these available tools.

Tips for the New Year Part 2: Train-the-trainer

Last week in Many Ways to Learn, I discussed how Learning & Development departments that are operating in a “leaner and meaner” mode after 2009 will need to get creative this year about how to handle tactical functions such as course development and delivery. Last week’s blog entry covered tips on how to manage an outsourced e-Learning project. This week’s topic is how to conduct a train-the-trainer session for new or occasional trainers.


Train-the Trainer

Throughout my career, I have managed a number of projects in which it was necessary to have people who were not training professionals deliver training. Without proper preparation, projects like these could be a disaster. But by taking appropriate steps to prepare individuals who are selected to be trainers on how to deliver the training, these projects can be both successful and rewarding.

Fortunately for me, a number of years back I had the privilege of earning the credential of Master Certified Instructor from Achieve Global. This means I have been deemed qualified to certify others to deliver programs from their leadership development line. Over the years, I have conducted a number of Achieve Global certification programs. The techniques I learned from the training they provided me and through the experience of delivering these certifications has been invaluable to me. I have used them over and over again on projects in which I have had to rely on a contingent group of inexperienced facilitators to deliver training.

Here are some of the key activities that have helped me to make those occasional trainers successful:

Establish Criteria for Identifying Trainers – This will have a huge impact on the success or failure of your project. People who you are relying on to deliver training must be willing, able, and available to do the job. Being able means hey have appropriate subject matter expertise, presentation, and facilitation skills. Being willing means they are enthusiastic about the role. (There is nothing worse than attending training delivered by a reluctant trainer.) Finally, being available means that they can commit to delivering the number of programs you need them to deliver within the timeframe identified for your project.

Provide a Solid Package of Course Materials – Expert trainers who have knowledge of a given topic can often get away with “winging it.” That is not the case with novices. They will need a complete package of training materials that are clearly written and easy to follow in order to be successful. This should include an instructor guide, participant materials, handouts, job aids, and other media as appropriate.

Conduct a Modeling Session – One of the best ways for people to learn what is expected of them is to provide them a good model of successful delivery. Your train-the-trainer candidates should first experience the program they will be asked to deliver from the point-of-view of a participant. This will give them a good frame of reference for understanding the expected outcomes of each activity or discussion so they can figure out how best to manage them.

Review Facilitation Techniques – In addition to understanding the content they will be delivering, it is just as important for your new trainers to be able to create a comfortable learning environment. Cover techniques such as how to establish and uphold ground rules, how to question and listen to participants, how to provide verbal and non-verbal feedback, and how to control distractions that may occur during delivery.

Provide Practice and Feedback Opportunities – Train-the-trainer candidates should have at least one opportunity to practice delivering a segment of the training and to receive feedback on their practice delivery. Ideally, they should have a second opportunity so they can hone their skills and address any issues uncovered during their first practice. Typically, for a program that could be delivered in one day or less, I would structure a train-the-trainer session as a three-day event: On day one I would conduct the model session and go over all the materials in the training package. On day two, for the first part of the day I would have each candidate deliver a brief segment from the program. The focus of their delivery would mainly be on getting across the program content. They would receive feedback from me and from each other. For the latter part of the day, I would focus on facilitation techniques. On day three, they would be expected to deliver a longer segment of the program incorporating some of the facilitation techniques covered on day two. This approach usually works well, but can be challenging if you have a large group. The alternatives are to eliminate one practice or to break the candidates up into smaller groups and conduct several train-the-trainer sessions.

End by Scheduling Deliveries – The last thing I do before ending a train-the-trainer session is to get the new trainers to commit to deliveries. Depending upon the parameters of your project, this can be done by assigning them delivery dates, presenting them with a list of dates to sign up for, or giving them a window in which to schedule their own delivery dates. This approach capitalizes on enthusiasm before momentum for the project wanes.

I have found these train-the-trainer practices to be very effective in preparing non-trainers for classroom delivery. A variation of this approach can be used for preparing people for virtual classroom delivery as well. One significant difference would be to replace the practice deliveries with one-on-one or small group online coaching sessions. It is difficult for a large group to stay focused on line as each person tries out polling features and annotation tools on your virtual classroom delivery platform. It is much more effective when this is done with only one to three people at a time.

If you have additional suggestions on how to structure a train-the-trainer event for new or occasional trainers, please add your comments below.

In Praise of SharePoint

Recently, we have made some great strides in my company in our quest to convert training from event-based to ongoing. We made a deliberate attempt to reframe training by thinking in terms of “learning environments” instead of “learning events.” Rather than simply setting up training programs as two or three-day instructor-led events, we have been viewing each class as an ongoing community of practice. Participants still gather to attend a learning event but then they continue to work and learn together virtually after the instructor-led segment of the training is completed.

To enable ongoing collaboration, we use Microsoft SharePoint. For those of you who may not be familiar with SharePoint, it is an integrated suite of tools that provides content management, discussion, and information-sharing capabilities. It can be used organization-wide or scaled down for small groups. In our case, we set up an individual SharePoint site for each class we conduct. Our training program participants, facilitators, and subject-matter experts connect through their SharePoint sites to build on topics discussed during their learning events and to capture and share new informal learning. SharePoint helps us do this in several ways:

1. Ongoing Dialog – There have always been options available for participants to use to stay connected after training, but few classes usually sustain their momentum for long. Because SharePoint offers so many capabilities, participants seem more motivated to stay connected through this tool than other means we have offered in the past.

2. Job Aid Sharing – When we conduct training, inevitably, someone asks a question and the subject-matter expert will respond saying, “I have already worked that out,” or “I have a spreadsheet for that.” The SharePoint site provides that subject-matter expert – and anyone else in the class – with a place to share documents that are relevant for class members.

3. Best Practice Sharing – Typically when we conduct training, we generate lists of best practices for the topics that we cover. We post these lists on the SharePoint site after class. This provides real value for the participants. They go back to the site to get this information. While they are there, they are able to build on those ideas or add new ones to the lists.

4. Action Planning – It is also customary for us to have training participants commit to specific actions they will take after they leave a training class. We challenge them to put what they have learned to use in the business. To do this, we distribute and collect back action planning worksheets during our classes. We post these commitments on the SharePoint site so the class members can see what each person has committed to doing. We also use the SharePoint calendaring function to set up milestones for tracking progress. This has been a great benefit to our class members. They offer each other tools, ideas, and suggestions on how to meet the goals they set during training through the SharePoint site.

5. Program Evaluation – The SharePoint sites provide us with another means to collect level 3 (behavioral change) and level 4 (business result) evaluation data. We mine completed action plans and general dialog in discussions on the SharePoint site for each class for evidence of applied learning and business impact.

One obvious usage I haven’t mentioned here is for program pre-work. At this stage of the game, most of our collaboration work is post-work. The reason? SharePoint is still new in our organization. Our training classes seem to be the first place our employees are encountering it. Also, my team is new to it too. We are still working out how best to introduce it on the front-end. Our goal is to begin using it for pre-work in 2010.

Web-based Learning: The Missing Piece

Last week I made a cross-country journey from Connecticut to California to conduct training for a group of managers from our offices on the west coast and in the southwest. All the way out on the plane, I kept thinking, “Everything on this agenda could be handled through virtual classroom training.” That thought was also on my mind during training as we pushed through our first day’s agenda. With each new topic or segment, I was mentally redesigning the program for web delivery:

When our knowledgeable subject matter experts were speaking, I was thinking: they could be reaching more people through a web-based virtual classroom session.

When the managers in the training were sharing best practices, I was thinking: this discussion could be more in depth and have a longer shelf-life if we were doing this in a wiki.

When we covered some of the necessary static content through PowerPoint presentations, I was thinking: this could be repurposed as e-learning and assigned as pre-work.

When we broke the participants into groups for activities in which they had to tackle real business problems, I was thinking: they could have received these as case study assignments, worked on them, and submitted them by uploading them to a class SharePoint site or to our LMS.

In short, at every turn during the day I was reinforcing my belief that by using sound instructional design principles, this whole learning event could be delivered as an equivalent – or even improved – learning experience using web 2.0 tools and virtual classroom technology. Redesigning the program for the web would transform it from a single learning event into a program that could engage the learners for a longer period of time. It would also be scaleable and repeatable for other audiences. The day’s events just reaffirmed that what I have read in the Virtual-ILT research, and what I have experienced in my own web-delivered programs, really can be effective.

Then we went out to dinner.

There were eighteen of us: training participants, facilitators, and subject matter experts. We had a round of drinks at the bar before moving on to our oversized table for dinner. The conversation was lively. Some of it was personal, some of it was job related, and I'm happy to say some of it recapped key learning points from the class that day. At one point I sat back in my chair just to look around and listen to the group. I heard their laughter, their casual remarks, and their informal conversations. I saw the pleasure of relaxed camaraderie on their faces. At that moment I thought, “This is the piece we are still missing.” Our current generation of online learning, collaboration, and web 2.0 tools doesn’t do enough to replicate this part of the learning event. I’m sure they will someday soon. But will they serve beer?

Web 2.0 Learning Shift

A fundamental shift is taking place in the world of corporate learning. Training departments that were primarily focused on developing knowledge and skills by pushing course content out to their target audiences face direct competition from Web 2.0 tools. Many would-be learners no longer wait to sign up for a course to get the information they need. Instead, they turn to the internet using search engines such as Google or Yahoo! (and now bing), or to Wikipedia for quick answers. A number of other factors also point to this being a time for change:

Do More with Less – This has been a corporate rallying cry for decades now and it is not going away. Just when you begin to think that you can’t cinch the belt any tighter, you are asked to punch another hole in it. This is both a budget and a manpower issue, so even if running training courses could still meet the need, this just isn’t feasible.

ILT and eLearning are not the Answer – Been there; done that. People are no longer getting excited by the traditional corporate university model with its catalog of instructor-led training and eLearning courseware.

Remote, Mobile and/or Agile Workers – Offering training in “the office” doesn’t have the same meaning anymore. The number of people working from home, from the road, or from other remote locations continues to increase each year. For these people virtual learning is a natural extension of the virtual workplace.

Social Media Explosion – Like it or not, employees are using social media tools. They are connecting to people outside of their companies and sharing information freely on facebook, twitter, and personal blogs. User created content has become a powerful source of information through these tools.

So where does that leave us?

Well, providing solid content that meets our learners’ needs will always be important, but instead of “courses” or “programs” being central to what we do, we need to think in terms of “environments” and “enablement.” We need to help learners connect to the right resources quickly when they need them – and to each other. Instructional designers and course developers have to make the leap from producing instructor-led training and elearning courseware to embracing a new platform, one on which they can create virtual collaborative learning environments that allow their company’s employees to learn both formally and informally. Learning needs to combine real world experiences with opportunities for reflection, sharing, questioning and refining. Improvements to virtual classroom tools in recent years now allow this to be done effectively.

For many, it is a struggle to make the leap. Creating an environment that enables informal learning requires giving up some control over objectives and measures. By its very nature informal learning will produce its own unintended outcomes. But isn’t it a good thing if people learn more from our design efforts than we put into them?

VILT = ILT Part 2: More Than Just the Medium

My last blog entry about the VILT survey conducted by Skillsoft PLC received a comment from Hank Riehl at Skillsoft - Thank you Hank. In his comment, Hank outlined some of the elements that have made the Skillsoft Live Learning courses successful. He also provided a link to a DOE study of online learning that reports on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. This reinforces the Skillsoft survey result.

The researchers who published the DOE study performed a meta-analysis (combining the results of multiple experiments to obtain a composite estimate of the effect) of 51 learning studies in which they could find useful effects. The studies were conducted between 1996 and 2008, most of them being from 2004 or later. The studies were typically conducted in an academic environment, mostly with older learners in college or graduate school.

The report asserts the researchers consistently found advantages in online and blended learning programs over face-to-face instruction. This statement provides great support for anyone trying to make a case for converting a classroom program to the virtual world, but the researchers caution online and face-to-face conditions in the studies examined differed on multiple dimensions, including the amount of time that learners spent on task. So the advantages observed may be the product of those conditions rather than the delivery medium.

This is what I was getting at in my previous blog entry: VILT can be successful, but it takes more than simply switching the medium from ILT to the virtual classroom. It takes rigorous and thoughtful instructional design to create the right conditions for learning. The Skillsoft PLC survey and the DOE study provide support for the notion that it is worth it to put that effort into designing an online or blended learning program.

VILT = ILT...or Does It?

Last week, SkillSoft PLC (a leading elearning provider) published the results of a survey showing that learners feel virtual learning is just as effective as face-to-face instructor-led training. They randomly polled 1800 learners who previously attended a SkillSoft Live Learning course within the prior year. 70% of the respondents rated virtual instructor-led training (VILT) as either the same, better, or much better, than traditional classroom-based instructor-led training (ILT). Granted, this is just a survey, not a study, so it does not prove effectiveness, but the findings do not surprise me. We have had great success and acceptance with VILT as a component of our courses at my company . However, I caution anyone from just swapping ILT programs in favor VILT without doing anything else.

It was difficult to get people bought into a virtual classroom approach when it first became available. But after the tragedy of 9/11, and the anthrax scare that followed shortly afterwards, our workforce was reluctant to get on planes for training classes. They became much more open to the idea of virtual learning.

We capitalized on that acceptance and started conducting basic webinars, but we quickly evolved from there. Webinars created a very passive learning experience which we found to be insufficient for most of our needs. We shifted our thinking away from VILT being viewed as a replacement for ILT by itself. Instead we began to view it as only a single component of what is needed to replicate a successful ILT experience. This was around the time that “blended learning” became an industry buzzword. In any event, we began to develop integrated distance learning programs that incorporated elearning modules, readings, self-paced activities, and testing. The virtual classroom component was used to bring in the interactive discussion element, but it was not being relied on solely to create an equivalent learning experience to ILT.

Today, we run several successful programs this way, including our 3-month long onboarding program for sales new hires. In the 3-month period, they complete nine training modules during which they participate in a total of 17 VILT sessions. Test results and work performance indicators show that our program is equally successful (and in some areas superior) to its ILT predecessor. So again, while I’m not surprised at the Skillsoft survey results, I find it usually takes more than just a VILT session to create a successful learning experience.

The Promise of Seamless Collaboration

My company has invested in Microsoft tools as the common platform for all of us to use. We have been using software packages such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access for years. Fairly recently, we've add Outlook (for calendaring and time management), Live Meeting (for virtual meetings), Sharepoint (for project collaboration) and the newest addition, Communicator (for instant messaging and instant meetings). The idea behind this strategy is that all of these tools work together and integrate seamlessly to allow virtual work groups to collaborate effectively. This also creates many new possibilities for synchronous (real time) distance learning.

I decided to run a project team meeting through Communicator this week as a test run to see how this might work for learning. It was a three-person meeting in which we were scheduled to revise a training proposal that we are scheduled to present to an internal client group next week. My intention was to invite my two team members to share my computer desktop through Communicator so we could discuss and edit the document together.

One of my team members was able to connect right away. The other, had difficulties. We could get him connected inside our virtual meeting, but every time he tried to take the final step to view the shared document he would get bounced out of the meeting. After 15 minutes of the three of us trying to troubleshoot, we decided to try another meeting approach. My second approach was to launch Microsoft Live Meeting from inside Communicator (since we were already there) and collaborate that way. I was excited because the team member who we could not connect with got right into the meeting, but my other team member, who had no problem with the desktop sharing in Communicator, was being blocked in making the jump from Communicator to Live Meeting. Again, we spent 15 minutes troubleshooting before we abandoned this approach as well.

After wasting 30 minutes of our meeting time, we went back to our usual meeting approach which was for me to set up a meeting directly in Live Meeting and send them email invitations to join me. This worked just fine and we were able to complete our proposal.

While I am encouraged by the promise of these collaborative tools, right now it is just a that: a promise. I can't imagine trying to use these tools with a training group when we can't even get a three person meeting off the ground. That being said, I am excited and encouraged by the possibilities. I know, one day soon, we will be designing learning activities that involve these tools and conducting learning sessions through them. In the meantime, we will just keep practicing so we will be ready when they are.