In this issue:
1. Now More than Ever: Analysis at Web Speed
2. A Reader Responds .. how to ensure appropriate training and its effectiveness
3. Upcoming events
The theme in this issue is "How do you know what to teach? When and how do you know it is effective?" The following two articles will help provide answers...
1. Now More than Ever: Analysis at Web Speed
Dr. Allison Rossett is our "guest columnist" today. Dr. Rossett is the author of the award winning book, "First Things Fast: A Handbook for Performance Analysis" and she is recognized as one of the leaders in our industry. I asked her to respond to the Influential Trends readers who have been asking, "Do organizations need to conduct needs assessments? And if the reply is 'yes,' what are the new, fast and effective methods?"
Dr. Rossett responds:
Some years back, during introductions at the commencement of an analysis class at a global computer company, an engineer rose to tell the group what he was up to. He said something along these lines, "I'm tasked with doing the corporate needs assessment for our engineering population and I've been at it now for sixteen months. I decided to take this class because I sense now that some of my executive support is eroding and I need to get this thing wrapped up swiftly."
The training and development professionals in the room understood his problem immediately. They knew that he was pursuing perfection and the organization needed something quite different. The more he chased that singular and accurate picture of engineering needs, the more it retreated from him, as their jobs and technologies changed at rapid pace.
Analysis in this case would never be complete, because the data would be out of date as soon as his "final" report had emerged from the printer. That engineer must establish a system for continuously gathering, reporting, and recommending, based on numerous waves of contacts in the field. He needed to become a lurker on listservs frequented by the engineers. He needed to establish online communities that conversed about changes, customers, products and development. He needed to actively and repeatedly solicit formal and informal opinions. And he needed to infer needs from business indicators. What he didn't need was that big and cumbersome study resulting ina dated report.
The alternative is continuous and virtual engagement with customers, so that needs, large and small, lasting and temporary, are known when they emerge and are responded to swiftly. That's a far cry from conducting an annual assessment and then building a large inventory of courses and materials, all targeted at a historical moment in time.
It is far better to think about analysis in short and tailored bursts that continuously troll for needs. Consider emergent and online experiences with purchasing computers and automobiles. While the elements that vary are determined in advance, the products are immediately configured to meet individual and immediate needs.
The challenge for professionals, then, is to be both responsive and anticipatory, immediate and perpetual, and to recognize that it is critical to already have some handle on business strategies and staff strengths and weaknesses, even before the executive asks for help. Wouldn't that be better than waiting for a request, being abruptly catapulted into action, and then attempting to slow the sponsor's enthusiasm, while an analysis is conducted?
Thank you Allison! If you would like to learn more about needs assessment, Allison Rossett and her associate, Terry Bickham, offer the course "How to Conduct Needs Assessment." For more information, visit http://www.influent.com/seminars/needs.htm
Dear Readers: We interrupt our regular articles for this brief announcement. Please excuse this interruption in our regular "programming"...but we need to take a few moments to contact those readers who will be attending the New Media Instructional Design Symposium (NMID) that starts next week. This newsletter is the fastest way of reaching them...
NMID Update
- We are expecting almost 180 Instructional Designers and their Managers to this year's event. We have a few spaces (and hotel rooms) still available for last minute registrations. Just go to http://www.influent.com/nmid99 and register -- or you may register onsite. (This event is does have a limited enrollment.) We can take care of payment or invoicing at registration. Come on down!
- Make plans to attend the Symposium reception on Tuesday starting at 5:30 PM. If you get to NMID early or for the preconference workshops on Monday, please stop by the registration desk ... we will have signup sheets for dinner/discussion groups. You can link up with other attendees and faculty for meals, trips or just to hang out.
- We have added a number of new sessions to the program. Revised schedules will be distributed when you register.
See you in Washington DC!
P.S. To our readers that were unable to attend this year's event, tThanks for your patience as we used Influential Trends to communicate with the delegates coming to Washington DC. We now return to our regular articles...
2. A Reader Responds... how to ensure appropriate training and its effectiveness
Dan Deschaine, Technology Trainer, AgStar Farm Credit Services, ACA Mankato, Minnesota asked in a previous edition: ... "What tips do you have and what ideas have your readers used to address the issues of supplying the appropriate training to ensure the workforce continues to improve its technical skills?" and "How can that training be measured for its effectiveness?"
Alfred Riccomi, Adjunct Professor of Computer Science, SMU and Management Consultant, Multimedia PC Systems responds:
- In response to the first question:
After teaching your users "the basics of computer usage," do NOT bother trying to provide "customized, individualized, intermediate-to-advanced training" for skills they might
need (or even will need assuming you know) some time in the future. Rather, teach them how to learn additional skills entirely on their own by helping them:
a. learn to build on what they already have learned, and
b. find the additional information they need when they need it from a variety of sources including: learning how to read user manuals (it is an acquired skill), learning how to search over the Internet (it too is an acquired skill), and learning how to make direct contact with application vendors by using e-mail and/or telephone calls (and wish you luck for the receipt of meaningful responses). In other words, "give a man a fish" and he can feed his family for a day. "Teach the man how to fish" and he can feed his family for the rest of his life.
- The second question is the really tough one:
Unfortunately, as physicists learned a long time ago, trying to learn something by measuring it is an impossible task. You cannot measure something without disturbing it and changing what you have measured. Hence, after you have performed the measurement, it no longer will be what it was when you measured it.
That is true for sub-atomic particles, and it is true for training people. If you measure their performance of a task before they have been trained, the mere act of measuring their performance will change their performance. That is what is known as "The Hawthorn effect."
To make "measurement" even less meaningful, after people have been trained, they no longer will perform all of the same tasks they used to perform and will embark on performing new tasks that were neither planned or expected to be performed before the training, and hence were not measured. Hence, there can be no baseline against which the measure the effectiveness of the training.
If one were to want to prevent changes in the kinds of tasks being performed, then the best strategy would be to avoid teaching anything new to those performing the tasks. Ignorance is bliss.
Of course, none of the above will stop bureaucrats opposed to spending money on the training from demanding accountability. Alas, I have no suggestions for how to circumvent bureaucrats or squash bugs. Both always will exact their toll.
Thank you Dan for lessons on training, fishing and bug squashing (I think?!)
Influential Trends is a great forum for you to ask questions and share your ideas. Please send your questions or answers to hfisk@influent.com. We will publish these in a future issue of Trends.
Thanks!
3. Upcoming events
Here are some upcoming events that are of interest:
**** Conferences and Symposia ****
New Media Instructional Design Symposium
November 8-11, 1999
Washington, DC.
http://www.influent.com/nmid99/
Computer Training World- Europe
February 1-2, 2000
London, England
The only event in Europe for those responsible for the management or implentation of information technology training. Submissions for presentations are being accepted. For more information contact Heidi Fisk at hfisk@influent.com
WBT Producer Conference & Expo
April 26-28
San Diego, California, USA
Submissions for presenting are now being accepted. Please send an email to hfisk@influent.com if you would like to receive information on how to submit your proposal. You can find out more about this event by visiting the conference Web site at http://www.influent.com/wbt2000/.
**** Seminars ****
## NEW ##
Needs Assessment -- Instructor: Dr. Allison Rossett
December 7-8, 1999
San Francisco, CA
http://www.influent.com/seminars/needs.htm
New class added! Contact the customer service department at (508) 651-9531 to register for this December class or register online by visiting the above Web site.
Wanted! Your ideas and issues and questions..
Do you have a question about your technology training challenges? In need of a resource or idea to solve a specific computer training problem? Looking to connect with others in the IT Training industry? This e-newsletter is meant to be a resource for you to find the answers you need to help you survive and thrive in our industry. Readers of this e-newsletter are encouraged to send in questions, ideas, resource links or articles to hfisk@influent.com
That's all for now,
Heidi Fisk
