Truth about Training

The Truth about Training

Hello Mr. Davidson – glad I ran into you here in the elevator.  I have heard that you believe that training is not necessary for your organization and that you are thinking of cutting your training budget because the company is having economic issues.  What I would like to discuss with you when you have a minute is how training can actually be the best thing for your organization during these tough economic times.

Now is probably the best time to do training while business is slow.  Recently many advances were introduced at your firm, so many that the employees did not have a chance to really understand everything.  Now is the time to train the employees in the depth of the advances so they can utilize the information more effectively for their clients.

This is also the time to develop those in the organization that are showing extraordinary talents.  These talented employees will be looking for ways to improve themselves and by extension the organization so by taking time and setting up some talent development training we can help build these employees knowledge. 

Lastly, consider the fact that your organization is global – we can develop training to be utilized by the employees at their own pace thereby keeping costs down and still allowing everyone access to the same information instead of bringing everyone together in one place to learn what is needed.

How does next Thursday at 2:00 look for you to talk about training for your organization?

(it appears that blogger will not allow audio only video - the audio is posted to the blog links in the classroom - will fix this for future versions)

Scope Creep

Scope Creep

Many years ago I worked as a computer programmer for a local printing company.  It was my first job out of school and I felt lucky that the company gave me a chance at a job with them since my degree was not in computer programming.  I graduated college with a B. A. in Communication and a Business Programming Certificate (the equivalent of an Associate’s degree).  Like many college graduates at the time I did not start working in a field related to my degree so I guess you could say that the scope creep actually started early because I was working outside my knowledge base.

The position I held was as a computer programmer and I worked on many different projects.  One project in particular was to take a local bank’s information with regard to their clients names and addresses and print out form letters addressed directly to the clients.  Like I said it was many years ago so at the time to do a project such as this it took a lot of programming just to format the data correctly.  The data was supplied in all capitals and we had to convert it to proper format (upper and lower case letters – there was not an app for that!).  Along with doing the programming to convert the data we quickly learned that special programming was needed to have the machines that ran the printers actually print the material properly.  This special programming was not considered in the original estimate.

Along with the extra programming needed for the printer there was the added situation that I was a new programmer and did not have the experience needed to program the printer for the extra work.  I had never been trained in the programming language the printer used so I had to learn how to program the printer fast.  I do not know if the inexperience was factored into the job estimate or not, however I have a feeling it was not considered because I came on board after the contract was awarded and before another programmer on the team decided to leave. 

Keeping in mind that I was a new programmer straight out of college I was inexperienced and as many inexperienced people do in their first job, they make mistakes.  I made a major mistake when writing the program to convert the data from all capitals to upper and lower case.  The mistake I made was that I did not clear one of my fields and thus when the field populated with data, that field stayed populated with data and was never blanked out.  What happened is that one of the clients had a long name and part of their name was duplicated to the clients that came after them, for example:

                                100^th client -> MR. JOHN WILLIAM MICHAEL JAMES III M.D.

                                101^st client -> MRS. EDITH JAMES

After applying my program:

                                100^th client -> Mr. John William Michael James III M.D.

                                101^st client -> Mrs. Edith James  M.D.

The field which held the “M.D.” data never cleared so everyone printed as a doctor after their name.  As you may guess this was a major issue and it needed to be fixed.  The mailings had already started going out and the issue was actually caught by one of the clients reporting it back to the bank.  I spent the better part of 3 days fixing this issue.  I never made that mistake again however it cost a lot to the company. Now in hindsight and after taking the class I am taking for Project Management, I am realizing just how much my “little” mistake cost the company.

Not that these issues were enough to deal with, the bank that hired us came back and requested that we do a second mailing as part of the project.  They wanted us to create their W2s for tax season while we were doing these form letters.  The request for the W2s was not in the original contact.  The bank needed to supply the data for the W2s and we had to do special programming again to print these specialized forms.  Not being involved in the negotiations I really do not know what transpired in the meetings for the contract, all I know is that we had to do additional work for the bank that was not originally requested and we had to work a lot of overtime to complete the project.

Scope creep happened several times within the project, some self-inflicted and some directed by the client.  It was a great learning experience for me and at the time I did not realize that it was scope creep.  The experience definitely had an impact because it is now 20+ years later and I remember the experience like it was yesterday.  There was another instance of scope creep with that same company but I will not elaborate on that one at this juncture.  Suffice it to say that the scope creep happened when the division I was working at in my home town was closing and they were consolidating with another division in another state.  My job was to help them move the projects to the new facility; however when I arrived at the other location instead of helping train people on the contacts being moved, the management had me working on new projects thus splitting my time between projects – big scope creep!

Looking back on these issues, if I was management, I do not know how these issues could have been avoided – definitely not the mistake.  In the situation of the additional request I would hope I would have had enough strength to say to the client that this addition is really not an addition it is actually a new project and we will treat it as such.  The management at the time did not want to upset this client because the bank was their biggest client.  It is easy to “talk a good game” and say that I would have made them do a new project but who knows what politics would have drove me to do in the same situation.  In the case of the inexperienced employee (myself) and needing more time to complete the project, that was not the bank’s issue it was my company’s issue so we needed to find ways to make the project work and be delivered on time.  Overtime was the only option because the company was short staffed.  As I came on board another more experienced person was giving their notice.  I am sure that if the experienced person had been around there would be more hands on oversight of what I was doing thus hopefully avoiding the mistake altogether.

Misinterpretations

Misinterpretations

Ever play the game of telephone around a campfire when you were young and by the time the message was received at the other end of the line it was nothing like the original message?  I believe the modern version of this game is email.  Emails may have the same wording as voicemails and even in person meetings; however emails cannot show emotion and can easily be misconstrued.  When communicating via email it is important to review how the email is worded before sending – if possible have a colleague or friend read the email prior to sending. 

In this week’s assignment we are to review and interpret “The Art of Effective Communication” (Laurette Education, n.d.).  There are 4 tabs on this site: 1.) Start 2.) Email 3.) Voicemail 4.) Face-to-Face and the email tab seems to be sarcastic.  When I read the email message I interpreted it as the person sending the email was annoyed with the person receiving the email because what was requested was still not completed. When reviewing the voicemail tab it was clear that the sentiment was not at all what the email had implied.  This tells me that voicemail is a better form of communication (at least for this example) than email.  Perhaps a combination of the two could be done; however you then run the risk that the receiver will read the email before listening to the voicemail.  If this is the case then the receiver may not listen to the voicemail with the same open mind they might have if they did not read the email first.  With the advances in technology it is entirely possible to read an email prior to listening to a voicemail. Lastly is the Face-to-Face communication which of course is probably the most effective form of communication.  In this exercise it was clear that the person was not trying to be sarcastic about the situation but they did need and want movement on the issue at hand.  The sender of the message was trying to communicate the message in a positive light also making sure the receiver knew that what was being requested was a priority to the sender.

My suggestions to anyone working with a team would be to try and communicate in person as much as possible – this could include video conferencing.  When we communicate in person (visually) everyone in the group can see the facial expressions, hear the tone in the voice, and see the body language.  Since a large part of our communication is non-verbal it is important to see the other person when communicating to obtain the total picture.  I am aware that in-person communication is not always possible.  The second best form of communication is the phone call which may end up in a voicemail.  I personally do not believe in leaving long detailed messages on voicemail because many people get “tongue tied” on the phone especially when the machine comes on.  My thought is to leave a quick message requesting a call back.  This could lead to “phone tag” and if this goes on too long then a message may need to be left but by that time the person on the phone has relaxed enough to leave a decent message.  The last type of communication should be email and hopefully you can use email as just a follow up to a conversation which had taken place earlier.  Again if you must use email, type the message, leave it for some time, come back and re-read the message and only send after feeling confident with the message.  Review the message for unintended emotions or the lack of emotion when an emotion is needed.  The important thing to look for is that the message cannot be misconstrued.  This is a difficult feat to master because each person is an individual which means each person reading the message could have a different understanding of the message than the other people.  That is what makes the world interesting.

Reference

Laurette Education (n.d.) “The Art of Effective Communication”. Extracted from http://mym.cdn.laureate-media.com/2dett4d/Walden/EDUC/6145/03/mm/aoc/index.html

Project Near Disaster

Project Near Disaster

Many years ago I was working as a programmer/analyst for a prestigious company when there was a decision by upper management to expand the business into Canada.  The Canadian office would be housed in Mississauga, ON which is not too far from Buffalo, NY.  At the time I was working as the programmer and network system analyst.  As part of my duties I would: 1.) make sure the network structures for the offices were in place and 2.) maintain the computer systems.  When the decision was made to open the new office and because of the successful work I had done in the past I was put in charge of the office setup.  At the time I did not know what a project manager was and heck the role probably did not exist.  I had been part of setting up offices in the past so I was comfortable with knowing what is needed to organize the project.

My project plan was well defined and considered every item that would be necessary to setup the office (or so I thought).  I was still young and did not understand all the rules of business between the United States and Canada.  I was unaware that paperwork needed to be filed in order to work in Canada when you are not a resident of Canada even if the office was part of an American company.  I tried to cross the border and when asked my purpose for going to Canada I told them I was going setup our new office in Mississauga.  This answer delayed my entrance into Canada and thus my delay the start of the project.  I was not the only person with this issue.  There were other people being sent from our main office in the United States to the new office in Canada to help with the setup.  The proper paperwork had not been completed and filed with Canada so each person attempting to enter into Canada to work on this project had difficulty.  

The project that was planned initially worked well once we could get all the workers to the site.  The only issue with the project was a delay in the start time so it pushed back the start date for the office opening.  Due to the delay of the personnel the office, wiring was not complete when the hardware arrived at the office.  This was not a problem because we were doing all our own installation, the deliveries were just that, deliveries.  Nothing that was delivered needed expertise other than us to complete a proper setup.  Other than the project being pushed by three weeks all steps of the plan worked. 

The take away with this project was to plan the logistics for the staff that is required to be on site.  There were no issues when working within our own office; it was only the interaction between the two countries that needs to be organized well in advance of the project start date.  As I stated at the beginning of this post, this event was many years ago and completing the paperwork requirements for the workers temporarily working in Canada did not take too much time.  In today’s world the time frame for completing the paperwork to travel between the countries would be a longer and more involved process.  It is vital that any organization working with other countries start the inquiry into what is needed at least six months prior to the start date – probably more like a year.  It was a lesson learned and luckily it did not take too long to resolve and not impact the project too drastically.

EDUC - 6135-1 Reflections - Class Wrap up

            Distance Education is just now starting to come into the main stream in my opinion.  I know that distance education has been around since the 1830’s in the form of correspondence courses.  As technology progressed so did the forms of correspondence courses and how they were offered, through television, videos, recordings, etc.  Personal computers have come on the scene and taken the correspondence course to a whole new level.  We now have actual distance education coming into its own through online universities, blog postings, wikis, and internet videos.  As people progress to having constant access to the internet through smartphones and tablet computers, online studies will become more accepted and even recommended for those that want to learn more but need to have the flexibility to obtain that learning on their own schedules.  With the advance of Web 2.0 technologies, the sky is the limit and as the society is raised with these technologies it will just be part of how the world works and not an exception to the rule.

            As for the people that think distance education and degrees earned online cannot be comparable with those obtained at traditional institutions, I tell them that it is time to pull their heads out of the sand.  I try to get them to see that everyone is learning through distance education in one form or another.  I also try to point out that they have probably done some form of online learning recently whether it be through research they have done or a live meeting they may have attended or being on the receiving end of a person trying to trouble shoot an issue with their computer from a remote location.  You see it is really the perception that needs to be adjusted.  Once you can adjust the perception you can then take the talk a little further to say, “now that you see what you have done in a small way would it not be feasible that someone does this on just a slightly grander scale like taking a class or two or twenty to fulfill and educational program?”  I find if you start with a small sample and you can get people’s buy in to that sample you can then expand it past the sample to the full blown courses.

            As an Instructional Designer I will attempt to design courses that are not just educational but have interesting presentations and fun interactive projects.  I think that if training programs are developed to be educational and fun more people would want to learn online.  The trend these days is for people to use online games to help children learn and I think we should take that further and design similar avenues for the adult learner.  Adults talk a good game about wanting to learn more, however I know for a fact that there are plenty of adults that like to have a diversion from their everyday lives and giving them games suited for adults would be just what is needed.  As an adult learner utilizing online studies I know I would enjoy some classes that have an element of fun to break from my everyday work.  That Is not to say all classes need to be delivered this way – that would not be productive.

            The biggest help I can provide to be a positive force for distance education is to promote distance education.  Letting people know that I am a product of distance education has already changed some people’s opinions.  I have had several people inquire as to what I am studying, how it is going, and asking how I am able to make it work with my busy schedule.  I have also sent out links to colleagues letting them know about the programs available at Walden University.  There have been some great new additions in the curriculum that some of my colleagues could benefit from attending.

            I have explained to many people that while I am taking these classes to obtain a master’s degree I also want them to understand that online learning can be done at any time for any reason.  I also talk about the grandmother who has obtained her Phd and the number of people that are continuing to obtain their masters degrees.  As for improvement, one thing I would like to do is to continue to take courses myself and see where the field of ID is headed.  I think we all get stuck in the ways we have always done things and unless an effort is made to work outside of our comfort zone we will stop growing.  The best I can do is lead by example.  As the old saying goes, “You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink” holds true in everything we do so the only thing one can do is lead by example.

Instructional Design and Technology - How to/Should You Go Online with Your Class

This post is outlining information to help a trainer determine if a class for which they are the instructor would be appropriate as an online class. There are tips to help determine that very thought as well as some tips on how to make the online class and the materials that may/should be used for the online class.

Converting to a Distance Learning Format

Helene A. Smith

Walden University

Dr. Rosemary Dawson

EDUC – 6135 – 1

February 25, 2012

            When converting to a distance learning format from an instructor-led training environment several considerations need to be reviewed.  After reviewing, The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web – part 2 several questions should be answered before proceeding with converting a traditional course to one that is online:

• Is this class appropriate for online?
• If appropriate, what technologies are best?
• Is there easy access to the technologies?
• What is the cost for creating the class/curriculum?
• Was the traditional classroom training, for the course to be implemented on the web, effective?
• Who will be creating the web based version of the traditional course?

(Moller, Foshay, Huett, 2008)

All these questions are important to answer before even beginning a project to create an online version of a traditional class.


Whenever converting material from a traditional setting to an online version some items to review would be:

• Determine if the class will be appropriate for an online setting.
• Does the course need to have a trainer local to convey the message even after the online portion is completed?
• Can the learner understand what needs to be done even to access the online training?
• Is the course designed to be “user friendly”?
• Determine what will it take to develop the course and what materials are needed.
• What materials will be required?
• Who will generate these materials?
• How much time is needed to create the materials?
• Prepare the trainer for how to deliver the material online if there will be live meetings.
• Prepare the learner on how to find the material needed for the course.
• Create a forum for the learner to ask their questions about the material covered.
• How will the question be addressed in the online classroom?
• How will the question be addressed during a live meeting or synchronous training event?

Once you have determined that the class is appropriate for an online version, consider doing the following best practices:

• Quality design of learning materials for different methods.
• Professional design – aesthetically pleasing.
• Utilize different technologies – so many to choose from today.
• Mix up the technologies to keep the interest of the learner.
• Cover all the media available for the online studies and mix them up.
• There are many technologies available, however try not to use too many.
• “Interaction is essential” (p. 172)
• Determine how large of an audience before continuing – do not limit yourself.
• Just because a technology is newer does not make it better.  Sometime the tried and true programs are quite effective.
• Make sure the teachers/trainers know the technologies being utilized.
• Involve all members on the team when developing the program.
• Remember technology is the tool – how do we want the learners to gain the information they need.

(Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2012)

Following these best practices will help keep you on course for creating the online curriculum.  The best help I can provide at this point is to remember best practice #12 above – technology is just a tool.  There is several times where I have seen people not be able to function if their computer is down.  We were able to do most of our functions in the past without a computer so you should be able to continue in this vein.  

To help assist in determining what goes into the online version of the training program try organizing the process into the following hierarchy:

• General Goals
• More Specific Goals
• Objective

The trend in distance education is to reduce the amount of information being delivered (i.e. classroom lectures) and increase the amount of interactivity amongst the learners.  What an online class should strive for is interactivity and cooperation between the learners themselves and with the instructor (Simonson, et. al., 2012)

Try to picture the learner when generating your class and you will develop material that the learners will adapt to quickly.  With this adaptation for the learner, adaptation will also be needed of you as the trainer. As a trainer, in the past, you stood in front of a large/medium/small room giving information and the learner hopefully absorbing the information – this role will change.  As a distance trainer a few items will need to change from the traditional setting you have had:

• As a distance trainer you will no longer be able to see the learners’ faces or hear their sounds so if possible try out your “class” on friends or other co-workers before doing it virtually.  See if you can pick up on areas that may be of concern or areas you may be excited about but the audience will not have a reference.
• Make sure you know your material – nothing sounds worse on a live meeting than when someone just reads their presentation.
• Make the presentation sound like you.  The “class” that you are delivering (with a few exceptions) should not need to be word for word from the “deck” you were given.  If you make the presentation in your style people will stay with you on the calls because they know you believe what you are saying.

Some tips to help facilitate communication and learning in the online environment:

• Begin each class session with a quick quiz to see if the leaners understood what was assigned. Depending on the information received adjust the class to review information that needs clarification (Simonson, et. al., 2012).
• Assign reading assignments that are not in the textbook.  When the learners review information outside of the main textbook they hopefully will understand perhaps a different perspective of the information being taught in the class  and thereby retain the information (Simonson, et. al., 2012).
• Communicate your contact information to the learners.  Make sure they know your schedule for office hours.  Send e-mails to the learners if noticing there are issues with their studies.  Show that you care about the learner – if you keep in contact it is more likely that the learner will as well (Piskurich, 2012). 
• Make sure you contribute to any discussion boards where the learners are posting their information (Piskurich, 2012).
• If a synchronous classroom environment, make the learner have to do something with the communication system at different times during the presentation.  Make sure the learners know that they will have to perform a function when something specific happens during the class.  This should keep the learner focused on the class and not multi-tasking on something else in the area where they are “attending” the class (Piskurich, 2012). 
• Use documents that the learners can refer to later to help with some of the required software that needs to be incorporated for the classes.  I have attached a document which gives an example of what I like to refer to as a QRC or Quick Reference Card.  This is a great way to get some information to the learner so later when they need assistance and you may not be available the learner can reference the information for him/her self.

MIT Online Instructions

In the MIT Online session provided above you will find the class for Linear Algebra. This course, as with many online courses from established universities, is presented online for the learner to expand their knowledge. These free online courses are not for credit, you cannot use this course to gain a degree from the institution and it is simply another way to access information. The main part of the sample from MIT is laid out like any class you would take either in a traditional classroom or online. There is a syllabus, a course description, course format, course overview, goals and prerequisites. This course also offers other suggested sources of information such as a textbook and introductions to the instructor and TAs; there are even credits for the videographers and writers. As you proceed through the screens the way this course differs from a traditional classroom setting is that there are links to view the lecture and/or the transcript of the lecture. These links are a page design set for self-paced study by the online learner (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek., 2012).

This online class demonstrates definite pre-planning because unlike traditional courses there are documents you can use to check your progress in the class. Another item that shows pre-planning has happened is where the links for the sessions are posted on the screen, the length of time for the hyperlinks is shown in parentheses. On the downside and this is probably because the course is an audit type course; however there is no interaction of any kind. There are no blog sites, posting sites, no way for learners to interact. In a true online course for actual credit or as a step in a degree program these posting sites are available. It is understandable that an audit course would not provide posting sites, however it does not mean that people interested in this class could not try and create their own posting site. Anyone can make a blog site these days - the hardest part would be to have others that might be auditing the course to join in on the blog - or even find it.

Yale Online Chemistry Instruction

Another site I reviewed is the Yale Online courses area, specifically Chemistry. I was interested in this area because my daughter is a graduate student in the Chemistry department at Yale University. I was interested to see what a university of the caliber of Yale would put out as an online course. As with the MIT sample above, the free online courses in the Yale site are not for credit, these classes cannot be used to gain a degree from the university. I was not impressed with the online class. There were no indications that the classes were designed for the web. Basically the classes were just videos of the instructor giving his lecture to his class. Unlike the MIT page, there was a syllabus for the class through a link on the left side menu, however when selecting the link the syllabus was somewhat vague and too high level. The only way I found any classes (or lectures in this case) was to start clicking on links and see what the next page would give me. I eventually found the classes for the beginning chemistry classes by sheer luck. Once on the page with the links to the classes and eventually selecting one of the classes all that was on the page was an overview and links to the video of the classroom lecture. There is a link for the HTML version of the script which I suppose is something but nothing significant enough to say this is a online course. The only other item that would be online about the class is that the video can be paused, replayed or fast forwarded - in other words self-paced. It leads me to believe that Yale feels the pressure to offer online courses but it is an afterthought and nothing that they will put much work into since they probably feel that Yale is a prestigious university where the knowledge should be held within its walls.

The big difference here is that Yale is an old established university first opened back in 1701 and MIT is by definition a technical college. I would expect MIT to have a well-developed online course structure and that they would have a well-developed online degree program in many areas of study.

McBride, M. (2008) Freshman Organic Chemistry. (Yale University: Open Yale Courses), http://oyc.yale.edu/chemistry/freshman-organic-chemistry/ (Accessed 05 Feb, 2012). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Strang, G. 18.06SC Linear Algebra, Fall 2011. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare), http://ocw.mit.edu (Accessed 05 Feb, 2012). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA