Little Green Men Invade the Parking Lot

Anyone who has ever walked into a corporate classroom, sat down with coffee in hand waiting for the session to begin, has probably looked up and seen a clean white sheet of flip chart paper tacked up to a back wall or taped behind a door with the headline “Parking Lot” written across the top in brightly colored markers. It is usually something the facilitator joyously points out during the beginning of class ritual somewhere among the agenda, the objectives, the what-do-you-want-to-get-out-of-today’s-session discussion and the directions to the restrooms and fire exits. It is the tool of choice to capture those seemingly unanswerable questions and comments that arise during class that must be deferred to, and deliberated over by, the all-knowing but unavailable subject matter expert “who can’t be with us.” It is an old stand-by meant to comfort the class and bring relief to the facilitator. The participants are comforted knowing their insightful questions or challenging real-world situations that takes us beyond the boundaries of what is being covered in class will be acknowledged, addressed, and perhaps even acted upon, by the remote and powerful bigwig who has the knowledge and clout to tackle such things. The facilitator draws relief from the fact that by jotting the issue down on a post-it, and popping it up on the Parking Lot, she won’t have to sacrifice valuable classroom time trying to unravel a seemingly unsolvable esoteric puzzle. Yes, the Parking Lot is a longstanding, battle-tested classroom tradition that is tried and true. But has reached the end of its day?

I recently took over responsibility for a managing a group technical training instructors. They conduct classes to prepare service technicians to install and repair a variety of hardware and software products we sell as part of our customer solutions. Having spent most of my workplace learning career focused on leadership, communication, and other soft skills topics, it is going to take me some time to understand nuances of this baffling world of electro-mechanical wizardry, touch-screen interfaces, and the impact of trying to train 64-bit software on a 32-bit machine (if that is even possible). This week, in a meeting with one of the instructors, we got into a dialog about how he keeps up-to-date on all of the technical knowledge he needs to run his classes effectively. With the amount and frequency of product introductions and updates in our company, I expected he needed to build a “Parking Garage” to capture all the questions I imagine to be unanswerable in this mystifying technical realm. He shrugged his shoulders seemingly to indicate that “it’s part of the job.” Then he admitted that it is impossible to keep up with all the product changes. But even though that is the case, there is no Parking Lot in any of his classrooms. He told me about the long list of engineering and operations subject matter experts he has on his MS Office Communicator instant messaging contact list. At any given time during class, he can scan the list to see who is “green,” meaning they are online and available. So when someone in his class asks, “What was the thinking behind moving the lever to the other side of the unit in the version 4 release of Product X?” he doesn’t reach for the post-its. He taps the keyboard and gets the answer right then and there. And when the service technicians leave class, they pull out of the parking lot not only well trained, but with the list of little “green” men and women in tow as well.

3 New Roles for Learning Professionals Driven by Web 2.0 #LCBQ

Last month, the Learning Circuits Big Question (#LCBQ) asked, “How can you address the "I want it now!" demand from stakeholders?” You can read answers from those who were asked to weigh in at the Learning Circuits blog, and you can read my response here. To follow up on that question, the #LCBQ for May is:

How do we need to change in what we do in order to address learning/performance needs that are on-demand?

My read of this question is that it is asking us what new elements we as learning professionals need to add to our jobs to support our learners in the on-demand world of instant answers available through web 2.0 search engines, social media, and online collaboration.

I’m not an industry researcher or thought leader so I’m not pretending to an expert on this topic. But as a person who makes my living as a workplace learning professional, I can share my perspective on what I’ve had to do differently to embrace these tools and incorporate them in the mix of solutions available to the learners at my company.

As I see it, there are three new roles I’ve been playing because of web 2.0 that either didn’t exist - or I didn’t need to play - years ago.  We as learning professionals need to consider these roles part of our job in today's world:

Personal Knowledge Manager – For years, we talked about capturing and documenting organizational knowledge to enable business continuity in knowledge banks and other places. Now with the glut of information that comes at us each day, we need to think about knowledge management on a personal level too. We can’t possibly keep all the available information in our heads, so we need to come up with ways to organize, store and retrieve content ourselves, for both our own personal knowledge and for use in helping our learners. Online note taking tools such as OneNote or Evernote can help us capture thoughts, ideas and things we hear; while bookmarking tools such as diigo or del.io.cious can help us store and tag web content.

Content Curator – As learning professionals our traditional role has been to analyze a business problem, uncover the learning need, do some research to identify content that can address the need, and then use it to build a course. That was then and this is now. In the on-demand world, by the time we go through that process our learners have already sought out alternative sources to meet their needs using company intranets, Google searches or Wikipedia. So alongside being content creators, we need to be content curators as well. We need to be able to filter through available information and select the most appropriate bits of it, discard what doesn’t fit, organize and sequence what’s left in ways that will tell the story to help learners meet their needs.

Community Manager – Probably the biggest shift for us as workplace learning professionals is embracing the idea that people can learn from each other without much information coming from us. With today’s social media tools, it is so easy for groups to organize, share information and collaborate. We can help them be effective at this by translating our facilitation skills to this environment. Sometimes all that is needed is to provide an online venue and dangle a small piece of content out there for them to organize themselves around. Then pose a few thought provoking questions and let them at it. They can use their collective skills and experience to problem-solve and learn from each other. You may need to do a little coaching from time-to-time to keep them on the right track, but community members will ultimately decide what they want to contribute to, and take away from the experience.

Inspired by the Lectora End-to-end eLearning Solution

This week two of my team members and I attended the Lectora User’s Conference in Cincinnati. (Lectora is an elearning development tool from Trivantis.) It has been a few years since I last attended this conference. It has certainly grown. There was double the number of attendees at this year’s event, which was a bit surprising. The last Lectora conference I attended was held in Las Vegas, a place that certainly offers more to do in the off hours. But it was the tool, not the location that compelled me to return to this event. Before the end of 2010, I purchased a few licenses for Trivantis’s then new release: Lectora Inspire. The Inspire version of Lectora improved on what was already a great tool for authoring elearning by including the ability to launch and use flypaper, Camtasia and Snagit right from inside the software. My team members and I wanted to attend this conference to get ideas from both the folks at Trivantis and the other conference-goers, on how to take advantage of these great new capabilities. We got that and much, much more.

The Trivantis team put together a terrific event that included captivating keynote addresses from Elliott Masie, on key learning trends, and Tim Ferguson, CIO at Northern Kentucky University, on the explosion of mobile learning. Each day, these were followed by practical, informative sessions and workshops on how to use the new tools built into Lectora Inspire.

But the biggest news from the conference was the four announcements from Trivantis:

1. They’ve entered into an agreement to acquire flypaper, a tool that allows you to add interactivity to your courses by creating flash animations and effects simply, without having to be a flash developer.  This should lead to even more capabilities in future versions of the Lectora tool.
2. They introduced Snap! by Lectora, a PowerPoint-to-elearning tool to serve the same needs as Articulate and Adobe Presenter at the low cost of $99.  From the looks of it in the demonstration, they are going to give the other guys a run for their money.
3. They launched WeLearn, a new social eLearning network. They tried something similar a few years ago, but didn’t get much traction with it. WeLearn is a retooled approach that is currently in Beta.
4. They introduced CourseMill Express, a lower end version of their CourseMill Learning Management System that should be helpful for small businesses that don’t have the funds to invest in a full-blown LMS.

All-in-all, this was quite an event. It gives someone like me, who leads an enterprise team of instructional designers and course developers, a lot to think about. The Lectora line up now creates a strong end-to-end solution with Snap! at one end and Inspire (including flypaper, Snag-it and Camtasia) at the other. I could outfit my team members with the tools they need based on their level, but have them all working across the same platform.

Note:  To read messages from the conference-goers on twitter, search on #2011LUC. 

Use the Six Disciplines to Create Breakthrough Learning

The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning is a terrific book for anyone who is interested in fostering effective workplace learning. Now in its second edition, it is about time I got around to writing about it. The 6D concepts and the approach outlined in the book have helped me and my team create successful learning experiences that have led to real behavior change and improved business performance.

There are few surprises in the book for a well-trained or well-read learning professional. The magic is in how it has all been put together. Cal Wick, Roy Pollock, and Andy Jefferson have done a great job synthesizing quite a lot of theory and research which they have distilled into a practical, no-nonsense framework for learning design. They create a clear, easy-to-follow road map for learning professionals and business leaders alike. Their company (Fort Hill) has also developed some great tools, such as the Results Engine® (an updated version of the Friday5s® tool that I wrote about in this 2009 blog post), to support the later stages of the 6D model, where the activities required for genuine learning are usually tougher to sustain.

What are the Six Disciplines? Just that: disciplines. What a great word for us in the workplace learning field. Even when we know the right thing to do, workplace issues such as competitive pressure, speed-to-market needs, and budget constraints sometimes tempt us to abandon good intentions or compromise our standards. We need to maintain the discipline needed to create a complete learning experience, one that will lead to desired business results.

So here are the 6Ds:

D1 – Define Business Outcomes – D1 reminds us that we need to start with the end in mind. We need to look upstream to what the business is trying to accomplish, not just look at learner needs in a vacuum.

D2 – Design the Complete Learning Experience – This is my favorite concept in the book. We need to attend to all phases of learning, (Prepare, Learn, Transfer, Achieve) not just create a course or a learning event.

D3 – Deliver for Application – If we truly want learners to do something different as a result of what they have learned, we need to make sure they understand the context of what they are learning, make learning relevant to their needs, and ensure they have the opportunity for practice and feedback.

D4 – Drive Learning Transfer – This is where the rubber meets the road. Can learners repeat what they have learned in the work environment? Will they have opportunity to use the skills? Will they be motivated to do so? Will they have the support of their managers and peers? All of this must be considered in the Prepare phase, so that when learners get to the Transfer phase, the mechanisms to support learning transfer will be in place and working properly.

D5 – Deploy Performance Support – Closely aligned with learning transfer is having the performance support to sustain motivation. At the very least, this means learners have the support of their manager. At best, they have job aids, performance support tools, and receive coaching to help them during the Achieve phase.

D6 – Document Results – Of course, it is important to measure performance. It is important for learners, their managers, the learning department, and business leaders to know what is working, what is not, and what the impact is to the business.

I encourage you to pick up a copy of this book and begin practicing the 6Ds. Also, check out the Fort Hill Company website for more information on the 6Ds and the Results Engine® transfer tool.

Still Learning ... through #lrnchat

Where do I spend my Thursday nights?  Well, between 8:30 and 10:00 PM eastern time, I'm usually online participating in a twitter-based #lrnchat discussion.  For those of you who are not familiar with #lrnchat, it is a weekly gathering of workplace learning professionals, hobbyists, academic enthusiasts, and education junkies who get together to discuss learning topics.  A very geeky thing to do I'll admit, but it is a lot of fun.  It has also been an important part of my professional growth and development since I began participating in - and learning from - these chats in October 2009.  I wrote this blog post: I Have Learned ... Socially!!! at the time to share the excitement I had in that experience. I have been returning ever since.

I have to admit, not every topic, every week is a home run, but the batting average is pretty impressive.  And even in those weeks when to topic isn't the greatest, it is still fun to talk and share laughs with the other community members.  But every once in a while, a thought provoking question, a comment, or a discussion thread whacks me on the side of the head and a good idea penetrates my thick skull.  That happened again this week.   The topic was "Using Social Media in Projects."   The first question of the night was, "What projects are you working on that use social media?"   Happily, I was able to contribute a few responses here.  I and my team have been incorporating social media tools into our learning design for quite some time now.  But it was the second question that hit me upside the head:  "How are you using social media to gather formative data about your projects?"   This was a simple, straightforward question.  It absolutely made sense.  But the truth of the matter is I haven't been using social media to gather formative data.  I don't really know why.  I'm usually very diligent about analysis and data gathering in the early stages of a learning project.  In fact, I'm sometimes criticized for spending too much time doing it.  It never occurred to me that I could be using social media as part of my data collecting.  But as soon as I thought about it, it made absolute sense to do so.  I can cast a wider net and likely get a faster response than I can with traditional data collection methods.

The good news is that I can learn.  My company has recently re-outfitted our sales and service employees with an upgraded mobile device.  The time is right for us to begin deploying mobile learning.  We are in the early stages of developing our strategy.  So on Friday, I logged onto my company's yammer network and posted a few questions about mobile learning.  I asked people to share experiences they may have already had with mobile learning, and to share expectations about topics, tools and support they would like to see through mobile learning.   Responses were starting to trickle in by the end of the day.   I will continue the dialog next week.

Thanks again to my #lrnchat buddies for the whack in the head.  See you next Thursday.

Addressing Stakeholders Who “Want It Now” #LCBQ

The Learning Circuits Big Question for April is: How do we address the “I want it now” demand from stakeholders?

It is easy to see where this question comes from: Business leaders can mull over strategy decisions for a while, but once they decide on a course of action, they want to move forward as quickly as possible. You, as their learning partner, will want to accommodate the need for speed, but the demand for quick action often does cause some tension. Having worked in corporate learning for 20+ years, this is a situation that I have often faced. Assuming there is a real learning need behind the request, there are usually three questions that need to be answered before you can respond to your stakeholder.

1. Can the target audience learn what they need to learn quickly?  For example, there is a difference between helping a transaction-oriented salesperson to learn a new procedure for processing a sales order vs. helping her learn how to become a consultative seller. You can get started on the latter quickly, but it will take time, practice and experience to fully achieve the learning outcome.
2. Will you have access to the content, tools and Subject Matter Experts needed for a quick turnaround?  Much of the work that instructional designers do is dependent on having what is needed to develop the learning solution. Sometimes training requests come along too early in a project to be actionable. When that happens, the good news is that you are at the table with the team working on the project in its early stages. This gives you the opportunity to influence the development of tools and communication materials in ways that can be helpful to learning.
3. Can other learning projects be delayed or put on hold while the learning team is redeployed to take care of this urgent request?   Most of us work in environments where there are multiple projects going on at the same time. Business leaders and/or learning governance boards will sometimes have to intervene to help the learning team sort out the priorities.

If the answer to these questions is “Yes” then go ahead, tell your stakeholder, “You can have that right away!”

The Last of the 3-Ring Binders

This week when I return to work, I’ll be packing up for yet another office move. The latest round of transformation projects and real estate strategy adjustments has me going from the fourth to the fifth floor. At least I’m moving up in the world! I have moved many times in my career. During each of these moves, I have winnowed down the contents of my office to just the essentials and a few personal items. So when the move coordinator asked how many boxes I’ll need, I replied, “Probably one, but better get me two just in case.” causing her to raise an eyebrow in surprise.


As I think about packing up next week, I realize that office moves are great milestones for reflecting on how things change over the course of our careers. Each time we move, we throw open the drawers and closets and pull out items we might not have seen in a while. We have to decide what to discard and what to take along with us into the next phase. As a learning professional, one of the staple items in my closet has been a collection of 3-ring binders - the ghosts of training past. Less and less of these end up in the “keep pile” with each move.

Two decades ago, when I relocated from New York to Connecticut for a promotional opportunity, I had a ton of these binders. Some from programs I had designed and delivered; others from classes I had attended. Among them, there was at least one binder from a program that probably had a title like, “How to Cope with Change.” I’m sure I checked to make sure I had it backed up on a floppy disk before throwing it into a dumpster along with many others that would not be making the move with me.

Ten years ago, when I moved from a satellite building into our corporate headquarters a few miles away, I still had many 3-ring binders with me. Among them, there was probably one with a title like, “How to Create and Drive Change.” I’m sure I backed it up on a CD, pulled the out pages and put them in a recycling bin, before offering the empty binder to another department for reuse.

Now as I make the move from four to five, I have only a few 3-ring binders with me from some of my favorite programs, one’s that have helped me greatly over the years. Among them is a program with a title like, “How to Manage in an Ever Changing World.” Since no one is using 3-ring binders these days, I’ll make sure it is backed up to our SharePoint site before separating the paper, plastic and metal parts and placing them in the appropriate bins.

Note: for suggestions on what to do with discarded 3-ring binders visit planetgreen.com.