The term “bench strength” is frequently used in relation to leadership, so it isn’t surprising that many organizations are keen to create development programs for their future leaders. However, many of these programs fail to adequately prepare employees for the demands of assuming a leadership role.

Very often, training is created in isolation. Stakeholders may believe that “one and done” constitutes a solution; however, in reality, training needs to be reinforced and scaffolded. The eLearning you create is one piece of the puzzle, but it needs a bit more to really stick.

Too many eLearning courses are just data dumps full of facts, details, and nonessential content. These kinds of courses also often lack the necessary context to explain how all this information applies to the real world, making them both boring and ineffective. eLearning should be redesigned to better reach the audience and share content with them in a way that’s engaging and practical. And one simple but effective way to do that is through interactive stories.

Do you struggle with how to prioritize all of your training requests? Are you able to say no to some projects, or do you just take on every one that comes your way? Do you want to bring more rigor to the processes and strategies your team uses to accomplish your training goals? Then there’s a tool you’ll want to use to analyze your work and back up your decisions—data.

Going to RFP (request for proposal) for an LMS can be a daunting process. With all the special protocols, the nondisclosure agreements, and the thick cloud of secrecy that envelopes all parties involved, it can be frustrating and isolating. But once you accept that there’s no avoiding the pomp and circumstance of the process itself, you can begin to strategically position your company to choose the right LMS.

If a picture can convey a thousand words, imagine how much more a video can convey. Videos are fast becoming a standard means of sharing knowledge and training information in organizations, but using them effectively has a number of challenges. How can you ensure they’re searchable, archivable, and relevant for your audience? How can you easily organize and manage these dynamic training assets, including user-generated content? And once you’ve created videos, how can you drive traffic to your online video portal so this content is actually viewed by the people who need it?

During design and development, SMEs and stakeholders sometimes suggest ideas or practices that are antithetical to good instructional design. For example, a designer might have a stakeholder who believes it’s best to simply film a daylong stand-up training session and deliver it as one video. In this case, like so many others, it’s helpful for the designer to identify research findings to help them understand why learning should be designed differently.

Science fiction has always challenged people to see their world in new ways, from a glimpse at an imagined “long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” in Star Wars to envisioning a potential future centuries from now in Star Trek. Movies like The Matrix, Inception, Minority Report, Blade Runner, and so many others have proposed mind-blowing ideas like alternate realities, parallel universes, transporter beams, and time travel. One of the many reasons this genre is so popular is that it poses a wide range of “what-if” questions and allows its audience to play with possible answers. But these ideas can do more then just entertain you—they can also inspire your work in L&D.

3-D virtual simulations give you the opportunity to create an immersive learning environment with interactive and engaging experiences. Articulate Storyline has emerged in recent years as a popular eLearning authoring tool, but it lacks built-in tools or methods to create 3-D virtual simulations.

YouTube is the world’s biggest online video provider and second-largest search engine—and that presents some amazing opportunities for L&D. But selling this free tool to stakeholders and gatekeepers in your organization can be a challenge, particularly if they’re having trouble envisioning YouTube used for purposes beyond entertainment. Do they need to see a working sample first? Do you?

Finding ways to make learning “stick” with technology is always a challenge. Augmented reality (AR) is one of those “make it stick” technology options available for education and training. However, AR can seem overwhelming, expensive, time-consuming, and difficult to use in everyday learning development. These assumptions cause developers to overlook the potential this technology holds for their learners.

Workplaces are awash in email traffic, competing demands, and hard-to-maintain courseware, while businesses try to operate more responsively to the needs of both the marketplace and its stakeholders. To better work within this complexity and remain relevant to the business, L&D needs to rethink the methods it uses to support learners. While expensive, enterprise-weight solutions exist for this dilemma, there is a simpler approach you can consider that has shallower learning curves, stronger impact, and greater extensibility—Slack.

With the financial advantages of big data gaining global attention, business leaders are recognizing the need for better reporting and improved accountability across all organizational divisions. New innovations are enabling unprecedented analysis of deep data and measurement of training effectiveness, business impact, and training ROI. The advanced data enabled by next-generation training will allow businesses to make smarter decisions and formulate competitive strategies based on robust and timely insights.

In order to transform the learning organization into a center of excellence, learning leaders must consistently and deliberately deliver measurable business value. But in most organizations, learning is an afterthought to the strategic process, relegated to a reactive, execution-only role.

When was the last time you heard a term in your business but couldn’t really say what it meant? “Performance support” is popping up more and more, but can you really define it? Share the basic concepts underpinning it? Describe the business results other companies are experiencing?