For several years now I’ve offereda class called Instructional Design for the Real World. It grew out of myexperience in grad school, shortly after I’d taken a promotion to head up agovernment agency training department. I was spending a lot of time dealing withHR staff and subject-matter experts who believed that “presentation” was“training,” so I enrolled in a master’s program in training and development—mostlyto help me learn to articulate rationale and ideas to those outside the field.
Good intentions, unrealistic advice
The program required a number ofinstructional-design courses and I was often one of the only working trainingpractitioners in class. Sometimes the sacred-story-version of our work made melaugh out loud. A couple of my favorite comments from textbooks:
- “Increase the credibility of your program byinsisting that a member of senior management be present in every session.”
And
- “Do not rush the needs-assessment process.Managers wanting good solutions will give you all the time you need to exploreproblems and underlying issues with all stakeholders.”
More recently I’ve seen quick-biteinfographic type items offering similar unrealistic advice. Like:
- Don’t forget to get buy-in!
And
- Ask subject matter experts to summarize content!
As if these were one-off shortsteps. For many of us, these are matters that take far more energy and timethan does actually designing anything. For instance, that magical goal to, “Getbuy-in!” might involve talking through years of history with a topic or attitudestoward the subject matter, or otherwise getting at the root of resistance to anew approach or technology, all while navigating the politics of the peopleinvolved. And in the real world: You may not always get there. (An aside: The suggestionto “Get buy in!” as a single quick item reminds me a bit of the South ParkUnderpants Gnomes, whose business plan was: 1. Collect underpants. 2. ? 3. Profit.)
Better tips for the real world
A few tips I offer for “real world”work:
- Before you design training, find out whetherit’s even a training problem. Often it’s the manager who needs training inmanaging employee performance. And in a horrifying number of instances you’lllikely find it’s a hiring problem that could have been prevented in the firstplace. See https://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/442/nuts-and-bolts-when-training-worksfor more.
- Needs assessment: Managers and others whorequest development of a course often have no idea how employees actually spendtheir day. Try your best to assess the target audience before moving on to aninstructional solution and find out what else is going on, what trainingthey’ve already had, and whether theythink they need training. See https://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/1496/nuts-and-bolts-needs-assessment-basics
- Design: Don’t get so caught up in wordsmithing objectivesthat you forget what the experience is supposed to achieve. I once sawincredibly expensive custom “timesheet” training with a bunch of downrightpoetic, gloriously worded objectives—that covered everything except, oops, howto actually complete your time sheet.
- Beware of academic objectives. Do you want yourstockbroker to describe three types of investments, or prove that she can takea sum of money and make more money with it? This is a deviling problem, asacademic objectives are so easy to write content for, and create bulletedslides about, and write multiple-choice questions on. Try to get past that tothe often-harder matter of teaching, and assessing, actual performance.
- Recognize constraints. Even the most creativeorganizations will make you work within budget, or stick to brandingguidelines, or work with some particular software, or with staff who must beinvolved. Find out where the negotiable points are; if you need it, seek outsome self-study in negotiation skills. The need for that across a career issomething I find sorely apparent among many newly coming to the field.
- Make evaluation iterative. Don’t wait until there’sa pilot to find out you need to go back and tweak. Test out activities as yougo. Verify timing and resources needed. Stop and say: Will this solve theproblem? Is this really relevant to the issue? Consider the expensive timesheettraining mentioned above. Why didn’t anyone step back at that phase and justsay, “The point of the training is for a worker to learn to complete the new timesheet. If the employee achieves these objectives, will she be able to do that?”The money and time and effort saved in taking a 10,000 foot view of theobjectives in the aggregate—including that of the employees whose time waswasted on bad training—would have been well worth a 15-minute conversationbefore moving on to development.
- There’s no such thing as fidelity. Know that youcan build it specifically for experienced nurses, and someone somewhere willassign it as mandatory for all the custodial staff. Know that you can requireprework and someone will waive it. Know that you will NOT require prework andsomeone will add it as a requirement even though what they include only repeats—orconflicts with—the program you created. Do your best to communicate to keepthat from happening, but keep it in mind as you’re building the course.
I’m sure experienced practitioners willhave more ideas to add, and look forward to seeing comments about that. Newerfolks still looking for “nuts and bolts”? Beware of advice that’s too good tobe true and promises of steps that seem too convenient. It’s called “practice”for a reason.
From the Editor: Want more? See Jane at DevLearn!
At DevLearn 2014, October 29 – 31 in Las Vegas, Jane will be presenting sessions in theInnovation and Social Learning Tracks:
Session 310, Wednesday, October 29: Ignite!Meme-ing the Future of Learning: This panel, hosted by David Kelly,includes Jane Bozarth, Cammy Bean, Joe Ganci, Chad Udell, and Jeannette Campos.Technology has brought us tools that have changed our lives forever, and it hasalso brought us memeslike Socially Awkward Penguin and Grumpy Cat. In this session, these two worldscollide as the experts on the panel use today’s memes to explore the currentand future state of learning.
Session 706, Friday, October 31: Show YourWork: A Management Perspective: Narrating our work, or “working out loud,”offers great potential for connecting talent pools, capturing tacit knowledge,and reducing rework and duplication of effort. But how does it provide value toa business or an organization? In this session, you will gain a clearerunderstanding of what “showing work” means, explore the value of narrating workfrom the point of view of management, discover why it is critical to businessoutcomes, and learn how to encourage more people to narrate their work.
