Inside Learning Technologies DIC 2009 by Victor Gutierrez

INSIDE

LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES DECEMBER 2009

The threats and benefits of social networking in the workplace

How to create a live online learning event

Learning design for effective performance THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE FOR

ISSUE 30 DECEMBER 2009

CONTENTS

EDITOR’S COMMENT

25 W

hat’s new in learning technologies?

Sometimes the news isn’t big. Sometimes it’s just incremental; things have nudged forward a bit. That’s fine. Everything must evolve and we will always need to deepen our understanding of what we know. And sometimes there really is something really new. Big, scary new. It doesn’t happen very often, and usually it takes time to appreciate that it’s happening at all. Revolutions are frequently only understood in retrospect. I think we’re in the middle of a revolution right now.

What’s changing? Oh, just about everything. A look inside this issue demonstrates the major theme: Learning and Development (L&D) is changing fundamentally. It’s now about supporting learners in the business, and for the business, not about delivering training. This may sound like something we’ve talked about for years, but now three things are coming together to make it a reality. First, we have the social learning revolution, which threatens to by-pass much of what the L&D department has been about until now. If nothing else demands a re-think of the way L&D approaches skills development, it is the fact that a great deal of learning takes place without the department’s involvement.

Making business decisions: the heart and the head

Secondly, there is a greater emphasis from executives on skills, as they realise that learning is essential to the organisation. With that, though, comes an increased emphasis on the business accountability, measurability and impact of learning. Along with skills, the L&D department is now more in the spotlight than ever, and it’s time to show we can play our part.

The threats and benefits of social networking in the workplace

Building a social learning environment for free or at low cost

How to create a live online learning event

When numbers talk, the business listens

The new learning architect

Learning design for effective performance

Finally, L&D has to aim higher than ever before. Of course we will always act professionally, but now we have to demonstrate it. We have to show that we have the right frameworks for achieving e-learning maturity, for demonstrating value, for adding to the business. Our content has to be created in line with the best understanding of instructional design. Quite simply, we have to drive each other on to be the best in our field, because the world is watching. Every article is part of that drive towards a thoughtful, growing, professional L&D industry. Enjoy the issue. Donald H Taylor donaldt@learningandskillsgroup.com

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 1

CONTENTS

111 95 Time to engage a new generation of tech-savvy learners

Quality worth waiting for

The talent management dividend

Route map to a learning ecosystem

Putting it all together

What is a learning culture and how do you know if you have one?

Ten years learning about learning

E-learning is the foundation for growth

103

Improving project management skills: a new perspective

111

Learning content management solutions: this time it’s personal

117

Blocking social sites? It’s putting your learning head in the sand!

123

Community-based learning: more hype than happening?

128

Final word

2 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

117 LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES

INSIDE

PUBLISHED BY CloserStill L&D (Principal Media Ltd) 19 Hurst Park, Midhurst, West Sussex, GU29 0BP T 01730 817600 F 01730 817602 E info@learningtechnologies.co.uk W www.learningtechnologies.co.uk

© CloserStill L&D. All rights reserved. Whilst every effort is made to ensure accuracy, the publisher cannot accept responsibility for errors, inaccuracy or for any opinions expressed by the contributors. All trademarks are acknowledged. Inside Learning Technologies is the official publication of Learning Technologies 2010 and Learning and Skills 2010, Olympia 2 London, January 27th - 28th 2010.

MAKING BUSINESS DECISIONS: THE HEART AND THE HEAD Jay Cross examines decision making on learning at work, and gives the lie to some myths about the use of business metrics.

n my last article, I argued that to “earn a seat at the table” where the business managers sit, you must:

• Speak the language of business • Behave like an officer of the corporation • Think like a business person • Act like a business person This applies to any corporation, in the public or private sector. It is vital to understand how a business person makes decisions – and in particular the weight they give (or not) to numbers and facts when doing so. It is equally vital to understand that different officers of your corporation will approach decisions about learning in very different ways depending on their circumstances. Business is about making sound decisions. Every business decision is a trade-off. (If there’s no trade-off, it’s a no-brainer.) An important corollary: There is no free lunch. List the pro’s of doing something and the con’s of doing something else. Be aware of what you’re trading off when making a decision. Every trade-off is a risk. That doesn’t mean you should shy away from risk. Quite the contrary, for no risk means no reward. A decision-maker who disregards risk is a fool, a pauper, or both.

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 5

MAKING BUSINESS DECISIONS: THE HEART AND THE HEAD

Fortune favours the bold. An astute business person seeks the most lucrative balance of risk and reward. Every business decision is made with less than perfect information, and every decision entails taking a risk. Most investment decisions trade off risk and reward. The way to make sound decisions is to judge when you have enough information to move ahead and when the level of risk is acceptable. Saying “We don’t have enough information” is not an acceptable excuse. If the timing is not right, it would be better to say, “The downside is losing $500,000, and we can’t identify the range of probability around that occurring any finer than 25% to 75%.” When you talk about the bottom line, you damn well better know what it is. I don’t mean to insult your intelligence, so permit me to explain that I didn’t understand the difference between profit and revenue until I took a correspondence course in accounting five years after graduating from college. If you are not fully fluent with terms like revenue, earnings, cost, cash flow, margin, and value, find out or get a friend to explain the workings of the basic business model.

Every business decision is made with less than perfect information, and every decision entails taking a risk. Most investment decisions trade off risk and reward.

THE ENVIRONMENT OF BUSINESS Everything is relative, including evidence and ‘hard numbers’. An executive, a manager, a training director, and a worker each have different but valid ways of evaluating the effectiveness of learning. People see what they focus on; they don’t see what’s really there. An alcoholic sees the liquor stores other people breeze by. A foodie always remembers whether or not she has eaten at a particular restaurant. A top executive sees long-term trends; a factory labourer sees the clock. (Training directors see learners; everyone else sees workers or employees.) Let’s walk in the shoes of different people and see what they notice. Knowledge workers The knowledge worker’s objective is to learn what it takes to do the best she can. The learned worker enjoys the fulfilment of a job well done, the rewards that go with high performance, and the accumulation of marketable skills.

patience for irrelevant exercises, be they useless curriculum or teaching what they already know. Their watchwords are “Don’t waste my time” and “Less is more”.

Usually these are the people with the authority and wherewithal to sign the checks. Training cannot rate itself; it doesn’t own the yardstick.

A great industrial worker might be half again as productive as his middle-of-theroad peer. A great knowledge worker can be several hundred times as productive as his peer. These people need the room to excel. They want their organisations to give them the dots but they want to connect the dots for themselves. Workers want learning that is ‘pull’, i.e. they find and use what they feel they need, instead of ‘push’, i.e. someone else decides the subject matter for them.

Business managers set objectives; training directors help achieve them. ‘Proof’ that training is working is when sponsors believe it is.

The incoming generation of knowledge workers demand opportunities to learn through their work; otherwise, they will pick up and go elsewhere. Training directors

Today’s workers are out for themselves. Not selfishly but realistically. Free agents. They recognise that their careers will last many times longer than their employer. Our market driven world drives people to increase their personal marketability.

In the industrial age, the worker was told she was not paid to think. In the knowledge era, workers are paid to think. And they need to keep current with a buzz of things racing by. Workers expect to learn things in small chunks. Learning has shifted from something outside of work to something embedded in work. Stand-up instruction is giving way to peer learning.

Incoming workers are more demanding than previous generations. They have no

The training director’s objective is to help his sponsors achieve their goals. Sponsors?

6 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

Pity the training director. There’s more and more to learn. The old approach to training they’re accustomed to doesn’t work well any more. They must interpret business needs into learning opportunities. And even as knowledge workers take responsibility for their own learning, the training director is likely to be held accountable when learners’ performance is underwhelming. Typical assessment measures – the four or five levels – are at best pieces of a much larger puzzle. “Level Four” will always be out of reach because the instruments of measurement belong to another level in the organisation. The shift from training (we tell you what to learn) to learning (you decide what to learn) increases the scope of the director’s job from classes, workshops, and tests to the broad array of networks, communities, meta-learning, and learning culture. You live your life as if everything is a miracle or nothing’s a miracle; for the

MAKING BUSINESS DECISIONS: THE HEART AND THE HEAD

training director, the sky’s the limit or the job is untenable. Today’s training director must gain control by giving control. Here are some things one might add to any training director’s job description: • Supporting the informal learning process • Creating useful, peer-rated FAQs and knowledge bases • Supplementing self-directed learning with mentors and experts • Using smart tech to make it easier for workers to collaborate and network • Encouraging cross-functional gatherings • Helping workers learn how to improve their learning skills • Explicitly teaching workers how to learn • Enlisting learning coaches to encourage reflection • Calculating life-time value of a learning ‘customer’ • Explaining the know-who, know-how framework • Creating a supportive organisational culture • Setting up a budget for informal learning (There’s no free lunch.) • Positioning learning as a growth experience • Conduct a learning culture audit • Adding learning and teaching goals to job descriptions • Encouraging learning relationships • Supporting participation in professional communities of practice Managers Getting things done is the role of managers. Meeting this quarter’s numbers is the number one priority. ‘Long-term’ means one year. Great execution merits a great bonus and more rapid promotion. Execution is judged by relative success in meeting planned objectives. Common measures are: gain in market share, increased revenue, customer satisfaction, and other business metrics. The manager does not necessarily care what it takes to hit the numbers. If people could gain new skills by popping smart pills instead of training, pharmaceuticals would push training aside. Sometimes the numbers are even manufactured. A couple of hundred years ago, the factory system kicked off the industrial revolution. The need for coordinated action led to

working hours, the urban workforce, specialisation of jobs, the quest for efficiency, and the separation of management and workers. In the West, the educational system adopted German methods of schooling soldiers to convert feisty farmers and hunters into obedient factory workers. Great ideas have a lifecycle. They grow from obscurity among enthusiasts and fanatics to nearly universal acceptance and eventually to decline, as the world passes them by. Business managers cling to ROI and conventional training because they are known entities, not because they are right. These conceptual blinders retard the pace of progress.

market capitalisation. When investors judge that the firm can innovate, improve, and grow, the value of its shares increases, as does the take-home pay of the executive. All learning, informal or formal and anything inbetween, should be evaluated with the same metric: whether people who participate in it are doing the job. Executives realise that competing successfully in business requires teams of inspired employees – mentally equipped to make sound decisions on the fly; able to execute good ideas in a snap; and proactive when it comes to taking initiatives and bringing innovation.

Executive management

Being on the front line dealing with customers, these employees don’t have time to run every idea up the management flagpole. Leaders want to field a team that’s in the game and ahead of the crowd. They want to pile on innovation that meshes smoothly with what people already know. They want organisations that make bold moves and respond to change as if by instinct. The overall goal: an environment where people learn faster and better than the competition.

Top management is led by what creates value for stakeholders. This generally involves innovation, staying power, adherence to corporate values, and sufficient organisational flexibility to keep ahead of the speed of change. Shareholder confidence along these dimensions fuels

Getting there takes more than a lavish investment in training. Time is frequently more important than money. “We are moving from a world in which the big eat the small to a world in which the fast eat the slow," says Klaus Schwab, director of the World Economic Forum.

We recently toured a corporate headquarters where staying late at work was prized by managers. Time on the job was thought to be correlated with output when the job is tending an assembly line. In knowledge work, overwork leads to stress and a reduction in cognitive acumen. It’s better to have a team that leaves on time to exercise than one that is chained to its desks.

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 9

MAKING BUSINESS DECISIONS: THE HEART AND THE HEAD

Let’s look at how senior decisions are really made. The staff has shopped various projects around, gathered the figures, done due diligence on suppliers, run the numbers, assessed the impact of changes in the marketplace, and prepared terse summaries for each scenario. Six business cases for new investments, bound with a clear sheet up front, rest in a pile on the coffee table at the executive vice president’s weekend cabin. (This is going on simultaneously at the CEO’s place by the lake, the COO’s condo, and a few other spots.) A couple of projects are no-brainers; these are so integral to the organisation’s mission, giving a go-ahead is a mere formality. Projects that enter new territory, e-learning for example, warrant more detailed consideration. If you were to eavesdrop on the executive’s internal thought processes, you’d hear something like this: [Inner dialog] “Good Heavens, this effort is going to cost us $8 million and change. But our people are our hope for the future. The analysis shows that we’re already spending nearly that much on training. I wonder what

Mikey thinks. The ROI is better than building another fab plant but some of the underlying numbers are soft. Of course there’s no guarantee that the fab plant wouldn’t be another white elephant when it comes on stream in three years. The breeze is picking up outside. I bet it rains tonight. Without e-Learning, we’ll never become an eBusiness. Some of our systems are pretty creaky right now and would benefit from streamlining. We need to shrink cycle times throughout our organisation. This eLearning infrastructure would give Charlie a platform for broadcasting and reinforcing his message about transforming our organisation. The Net Discounted Cash Flow is $2 million better than if we took this on ourselves. And the real problem there is that our IT staff would be swamped. And this would wait in line behind the other missioncritical projects they’re working on. Keeping up with e-Learning is not a core activity for us; we should outsource as much of it as we can. I wonder what Charlie thinks. The ballgame comes on in about ten minutes. Where do I come out on this one? I’m optimistic about the potential. It feels right. I’ll back it at the Executive Committee Meeting on Monday. I better call the wife to

10 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

let her know I arrived safely. I could use a slug of single malt about now….” Don’t believe it? Most senior executives have more faith in gut feel than numbers. The numbers are input. The decision is broader than that. Five years ago, an Information Week survey revealed that “more companies are justifying their ventures not in terms of ROI but in terms of strategic goals… Creating or maintaining a competitive edge was cited most often as the reason for deploying a business application.” Decision making at work is as much about what the heart says (based on experience and values) as the head (dictated by the numbers). To give yourself a chance to lead on learning in your organisation you need to understand and appeal to both – at all levels.

Jay Cross leads the Internet Time Group (http://internettime.pbworks.com/). This article is an extract from his book What Would Andrew Do? available as an e-book from Lulu, at http://www.lulu.com/content/7196453

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THE THREATS AND BENEFITS OF

SOCIAL NETWORKING IN THE WORKPLACE Social networking offers organisations a framework for innovation, argues Nigel Paine, but only if learning professionals are bold enough to grasp the nettle.

f you sit in the average conference room with say, forty executives from both the public and private sector and enthuse them about the power, speed and empowerment of social networking, you have all the heads nodding in seconds. There are few people out there who think this is all a flash in the pan, and fewer still who fail to recognise the real shift in communication patterns. Take this same enthusiastic and smiling group, and ask them how many people work for companies that restrict access to social networking software, or ban it outright. Chances are that thirty-five hands shoot up and the smiling immediately stops. “Our IT department is paranoid about security,” or “Our chief executive doesn’t get it,” or “Our marketing director says the company must control the brand messages internally and externally.” I do not have to point out the massive contradiction here. And it may be learning that unravels the tangle and helps resolve the ‘to social network or not to social network’ conundrum. Let me explain. There are more and more pieces of software that let you build Facebook, Twitter, blogs and wikis inside your intranet. Microsoft’s SharePoint has been spectacularly successful in delivering enterprise control with loose, flexible apps and freedom for individual employees to choose where to go, if they have permission. But it is quite tentative at the

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 13

THE THREATS AND BENEFITS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING IN THE WORKPLACE

moment and many organisations are just thinking about it. If you are a learning professional, then lead the way! Peter Drucker, in frustration at the over-complex definitions of innovation in companies, came up with his own straightforward rendering. And it works for me too: Change which creates a new dimension of performance That is also the key output for learning in an organisation. Or it should be. Like it or not, if you are in the learning space you are a change agent. You change individuals who change other individuals, who change companies. And you organise change in order to build better individual, team and corporate performance. That is how you should see your role and how you can justify the investment in that role. No place is standing still. Certainly not at the current time or in the current climate. And it does not matter if you are hunkering down to survive, reshaping for the upturn or embracing the new opportunities that have been thrown your way. You are in the process of change in order to add new dimensions of performance - to do what you do better, or to do radically new things. All of this requires bright ideas from the top and a workforce that works with you, in being able to see the need, the benefit and the requirement for personal changes in behaviour. Prior to this though, individuals must be open and receptive to new ideas. None of this can be done by bullying or threats. Whole industries have disappeared because the way forward was blindingly obvious, only no one bothered to convince the workers. The spectacular collapse of the London docks in less than ten years in the 1960s is one of many examples. It happened because the dockers refused to touch containers. Show me a docks complex anywhere in the world now without containers. I wonder if we will look back at a big, contemporary organisation and say ‘no wonder they collapsed, they refused to

I have yet to meet a person who is a creative and innovative asset to his or her company, who is also miserable and unhappy in the job. Almost without exception, the most creative people are also the most enthusiastic about their jobs. touch social networking!’ That may be overegging the cake and the reality is probably a little less dramatic. But the impetus to change the workplace will be as great just wait and see. So there is a remarkable opportunity for the Learning Leader to take ownership at this critical juncture. Developing a learning culture is not only about skills development, however critical. It is also about building a culture that embraces the new and opens people up to change. This is coupled with the speed of change and the willingness of staff to, essentially, develop themselves with a bit of support. If skills are clearly defined and hard, learning culture is soft and emotional. The culture creates the environment that allows learning to flourish and that means that change can be embraced and new dimensions of performance can be achieved quickly. Social networking slots neatly into this model. It can’t happen if you do not trust your people. There is too much traffic to ‘check’ everything. It cannot happen if you do not allow free communication right across the organisation. And it cannot happen unless you incentivise sharing. And

14 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

when it starts there will be an inverse ratio of information and chat to solid content and learning or, if you like, fluff to substance. As the process gets into second gear, that ratio will alter substantially in favour of substance. And if it really takes off and you create an explosion of media and messages wrapped around good practice, and in new directions, you will have made a significant impact in taking the whole organisation forward. According to BT’s head of learning, Peter Butler, what is on offer to staff embraces the whole spectrum of learning opportunity. It stretches from the highly formal and generic, like CBT and simulation, to the highly personalised and informal, like instant messages, staff blogs and podcasts. In other words, the appropriate learning delivered at the point of need, geared to the individual and the circumstances he or she finds him or herself in. On the job, informal learning, is as valid as a course. A tag cloud can be as useful a resource as a complete CBT program. In BT, learning is available all the time, whatever the circumstances, to all staff,

THE THREATS AND BENEFITS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING IN THE WORKPLACE

because the organisation has a massive change agenda on its hands as it moves from a telecommunications to a software services company. The BBC has developed Moo, which is an internal Facebook-like application (but a lot more attractive), that encourages staff to share (any media, any time), blog and inspire. The culture that the BBC wants embodies those that aspire, emulate and stretch each other. Moo is a significant part of that change process and a dramatic realisation of the journey ahead for employees. It is also full of insights, case studies and good practice that are accessible in one click. All of the material has been contributed, ordered and ranked by the users. Moo is a framework that relies on participation and ownership elsewhere for its success. It functions rather like an internal Facebook application but with more media rich resources and with debates that are work based rather than social in nature. In itself it has value, but it also projects an image of the workplace that reflects creativity and openness. The growing impact of social networking on business will manifest itself in a suite of tools aimed specifically at business users. For example it is now possible to post to various Twitter accounts simultaneously and get back an analysis of how many people are reading the information you post, and where they come from. This is of peripheral interest to a single Twitter account user, but vital to measure business impact. More and more product focused user groupings are appearing on Facebook, and there are many blogging and wiki options available to those who do not want the information to be shared with anyone on an open and insecure internet. But these tools are merely part of the process once you have made the commitment. The learning leader’s role is somewhat different and a little in advance of this. He or she will perfect the culture, look at the people implications and perhaps manage a small ‘proof-of-concept’ trial. At the point of ‘go live’, the learning leader’s role necessarily diminishes considerably. Preparation might also form part of the leadership development and general cultural development of the organisation. In an on line poll conducted by BusinessZone, Twitter and LinkedIn were run away winners in a contest about ‘which social networking tools are most useful to your business’. Why is social networking important when the technologies have downsides and the

rules have not yet been firmly established? Here are ten good reasons. 1. Share knowledge instantly 2. Create a buzz around a organisation 3. Share information 4. Build virtual expert groups at all levels of the organisation 5. Find out what customers think 6. Locate experts and temporary staff quickly who come with recommendations 7. Profile your company 8. Appear to be future facing in the eyes of the world 9. Isolate and deal with emerging issues and problems 10. Spot trends Individual organisations need to work out for themselves how much it all adds up to. But I think the learning operation should be the part of the company that marshalls the information and organises the planned way forward. Then someone else can do the metrics! Dan Martin writing in About.Com brings the benefits down to three critical areas. First, build trust; second, find employees or business partners, and third, turn negatives into positives These particularly apply to small businesses who need networks to survive. But they equally apply to large companies attempting to keep in touch with their own more complex networks. Dell announced, recently, that it had secured $3m of business through its Twitter account, which cost virtually nothing to set up and run. Dell releases special sale items and special offers through Twitter and

directs readers to the website. The company has built up a huge following as a result, and monitors the tweets about the company and its products in return. According to PR 2.0 amongst unique users in the US, internet traffic has increased 2% from May 08 to May 09, but social networking traffic increased by 13%. However, this masks the spectacular growth of Facebook: up by 97% to over 170m US users, and Twitter up by a staggering 2, 681% to 17.5m US users. In August, there were 350m unique users visiting Facebook worldwide with the majority, middle income or better, and 58% were aged between 25 and 54. Twitter had 66m unique visitors worldwide in that same month, with 65% aged 25 - 54. This is a considerable shift in the pattern of internet usage and demonstrates the read/ write web in action. And just as businesses who where slow to embrace the internet in the 90s, lost out to more agile competitors, those that fail to embrace social networking will suffer similar losses of credibility, creativity and market intelligence. Let us return to Peter Drucker and his definition of innovation: change which creates a new dimension of performance. Social networking offers a framework for innovation which could shift a business into a new dimension of performance. The guide in this difficult process should be the learning leader, if he or she is willing to grasp the nettle now. Nigel Paine is Managing Director of NigelPaine.com and former Head of Learning at the BBC. Nigel can be contacted at nigel@nigelpaine.com and will be speaking at the Learning Technologies 2010 Conference.

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 17

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How do you create a social learning environment for free, but without a mishmash of incompatible tools? Jane Hart investigates.

BUILDING A

SOCIAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT FOR FREE OR AT LOW COST

n Part 1, I described a Social Learning Environment (SLE) as (a) a place where individuals can come together to cocreate content, share knowledge and experiences, and learn from one another to improve their personal and professional productivity; and (b) a place that can be used both to extend formal content-based e-learning to provide social interaction with the learners and tutors, as well as to underpin informal learning and working in the organisation. The key thing is that an

SLE doesn’t focus on managing, controlling and tracking users but rather on providing an open environment for them to work and learn collaboratively. In Part 1, I listed what I considered to be 10 key elements of an SLE: social networking, tagging, social bookmarking, file sharing, communication, collaboration, blogging, podcasting, RSS syndication and microblogging. I also showed how a SLE could be built using best-of-breed, free, public, social

media tools and ‘integrated’ using a personal dashboard service. However, although there were great advantages in this approach – namely the huge range of tools available to choose from, and the relative ease to set up and use them - I identified a number of significant disadvantages for organisational use. Examples of these include the possible duplication of functionality across the different tools, with users ending up

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 19

BUILDING A SOCIAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT - FOR FREE OR AT LOW COST

maintaining different profiles on different systems, the fact that there is little if no interoperability between these tools, and no single-sign on, which means that users will need to have different logins to the different tools. So in this second part of the series I take a look at how these disadvantages might be addressed using the range of Google tools. First I take a quick look at how the different Google tools themselves can provide the essential elements of a social learning environment. 1 Social networking: This lies at the heart of a SLE, and provides the ability to establish and build online relationships. Google has a couple of tools in this category. Orkut – www.orkut.com – is Google’s public social network and operates in a similar way to Facebook, whereas Google Groups – www.google.com/groups – lets users set up private groups for members to discuss issues as well as upload files and pages into a group space. 2 Tagging content: Most, if not all the tools mentioned here support the tagging of content. Although content can’t easily be bound together across the different tools, if the same tag(s) are used within the different tools, it would be relatively easy for users to find related content. 3 Social bookmarking: The functionality for individuals to save links to web resources is provided through Google Bookmarks – www.google.com/bookmarks – which lets you save links online, rather than on your own computer, although these are not sharable, but it is possible to share links using other tools too. 4 File sharing: The facility to create, store and/or share files in different formats is provided through a number of Google

services, e.g. video sharing is available through Google Video –www.google.com/video – and YouTube – www.youtube.com; photo sharing through Picasa – www.google.com/picasa; file (and folder) sharing through Google Docs – www.google.com/docs – which supports the sharing of documents, presentations and spreadsheets; calendar sharing through Google Calendar – www.google.com/calendar; and map sharing through Google Maps – www.google.com/maps. The resources from these file sharing services can also be easily embedded into web or blog pages. 5 Communicating with others: Many Google tools allow users to communicate with one another. There is Gmail (or Google Mail as it is known in the UK) – www.gmail.com – which provides an effective webmail service with lots of storage space, and Google Talk – www.google.com/talk – which provides a real time instant messaging and video and voice chat service over the Internet either from the desktop or within Gmail when it is known as Gmail Chat. 6 Collaborating with others: One of the major Google tools that enables users to work and learn together to co-create documents and presentations has already been mentioned: Google Docs. It can also be used in conjunction with Google Talk to present synchronously to a group of individuals. Google also has a wiki tool, called Google Sites – www.google.com/sites – where you can easily create a group web site. A recent Google SideWiki – www.google.com/sidewiki – also provides a way of contributing information to any page on the web. 7 Blogging: Blogger – www.blogger.com – is Google’s own blogging tool, and allows users to quickly and easily set up their own blog and start posting straightaway. Blogs can be set up to provide information or instruction, perhaps to help keep learners on track with their studies. 8 Podcasting: Google has a service where you can upload and share podcasts called Google Base – www.google.com/basepages/ podcasting.html 9 RSS feeds: RSS (short for Really Simple Syndication) allows individuals to subscribe to blog, web, news, podcast and other feeds to keep up to date with new content. Reading feeds can provide a regular ‘drip feed’ of news, information and instruction. Google Reader – www.google.com/reader – is the place to do this. You can also share postings within Google Reader with other users. 10 Micro-blogging: This enables users to send, receive and reply to short messages to keep up to date with others in their network. Google’s micro-blogging platform is Jaiku – www.jaiku.com. It offers a way to

20 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

connect with people by sharing updates with them on the Web, instant messaging and SMS. All the tools mentioned above will provide the essential social technologies to build a social learning environment based on the Google product set, but the beauty is that they only require one Google account to be set up which can be used to access all the Google tools. Once you have logged into your account, there are several ways in which you can access the tools or the content within them: • Via the My Account link, where you can also change your profile and personal settings. • Via the Google menu bar, which is visible at the top of many of the Google tools, providing you with links to the other main tools such as Mail, Calendar, Documents, Reader etc. This provides a quick way to move from tool to tool. iGoogle iGoogle – www.google.com/ig – is an online service where you can create a customised version of the Google Search page by aggregating content from your tools using gadgets such as the Google Reader gadget to read your RSS feeds, the Google Docs gadget to view your active Google documents, the Gmail gadget to display the mail in your Gmail/Google Mail inbox, as well as chat with your Google contacts. There is also a range of ‘social’ gadgets that let you share and collaborate with others. You can also customise the look and feel of your iGoogle page, and set up a ‘sharable’ tab, which provides yet another way to share content with others. Google Apps Whereas all the tools mentioned above are available for free for individual use, Google Apps – www.google.com/apps – is a service to both businesses and education that provides a branded suite of communication and collaboration applications. Although for education this is free, for other organisations there is a cost, but it is nevertheless becoming a popular way for organisations – large and small – to quickly set up a social environment for individuals to learn and work collaboratively. Google Wave Any discussion of Google has to include mention of their new real-time communication platform, Google Wave – www.google.com/wave. A wave is described as being ‘both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text,

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photos, videos, maps, and more’. Google Wave combines aspects of email, instant messaging, wikis, chat and social networking, and it is primarily a way for a group of individuals to communicate, collaborate and share – key aspects of our social learning environment. At the time of writing this article (October 2009) Google Wave is still in limited preview, but there has been a lot of speculation about how important this platform will become – particularly for learning. It clearly opens up enormous possibilities for real-time teaching of groups in ‘‘learning waves’’ which are yet to be exploited. As it won’t be till 2010 that we will really see the full potential of Google Wave, when it will be widely in use, this discussion of a Google-based SLE unfortunately can’t include it. So finally, let’s consider the advantages and disadvantages of building a social learning environment with the different tools mentioned earlier.

create a personal learning environment or by a team or an organisation to create a social learning environment. • As all the tools are hosted, they are very easy to set up and use, and don't require any internal IT support. • In the case of Google Apps, Google recognises the importance of the privacy and security of corporate data in their care. • The content from the different tools can easily be ‘glued together’ or ‘integrated’ within a personalised dashboard using iGoogle. • A user only requires one Google account, and one set of login credentials, to access all the Google tools. Disadvantages Now for the disadvantages:

First the advantages:

• Each of the tools is very sophisticated and has its own interface; it could prove quite overwhelming for someone who is not very social media savvy to use each of the tools effectively and efficiently.

• Google offers the full range of social media functionality across its suite of tools, which can be used by individuals either to

• It is not easy to move or share content between the different tools (although with Google Wave this will become easier).

Advantages

• Organisations may still be worried about how individuals make use of these tools, since their personal, professional and organisational identities on the public tools could still overlap, which could result in what might be considered ‘inappropriate’ online behaviour. To summarise then, the versatility and sophistication of the full range of Google online tools is unbeatable, however, for some teams or organisations the disadvantages may still outweigh the advantages. In the next article in this series, I will address these disadvantages and take a look at how to create a fully integrated, seamless and customised social learning environment that provides a secure and private place for individuals to work and learn together – using the open source social engine, Elgg. Meanwhile if you’d like to find out more about social technologies and social learning environments, take a look at my social learning resources at www.C4LPT.co.uk/sls.html. Jane Hart is a social learning consultant and founder of the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies. Jane will be speaking at the Learning Technologies 2010 Conference.

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 23

HOW TO CREATE A

LIVE ONLINE LEARNING EVENT

In part one of this two-part article, Phil Green unravels the mysteries of live online learning and teaching. He examines how a skilled online trainer can balance words, sounds, images and activities to make the difference between a lesson and a lecture.

classroom is very different from a lecture theatre. In a lecture the content is typically presented by a speaker who is an acknowledged authority in their subject. Those who take part are generally known as the audience. The word ‘lecture’ literally means ‘reading’. ‘Audience’ has as its root the Latin verb ‘audio’, which means simply I hear or I listen. Thus in a lecture, one party reads and the other parties listen. In the classroom, the participant is in the mode of learner rather than listener and so is likely to engage with others who can help to locate and use learning materials, perform tasks, establish hypotheses, conduct experiments, test theories, reach conclusions, exchange ideas and so on. By the crudest of comparisons a classroom is a sit-up-andtake-part experience whereas a lecture is more sit-back-and-take-notes. We might make a similar comparison between a webinar and a virtual classroom. Typically a webinar is aimed at a relatively large audience which naturally limits the scope of any interaction. This is not to

suggest this makes it visually sterile and lacking in personality or humour. However this does make it quite different from an online lesson in a virtual classroom with a smaller group. But how must trainers adapt in order to exploit the virtual classroom? PLANNING YOUR SESSION Whenever we ask people to devote time to any kind of training, we enter a fierce competition, as we are up against all sorts of other operational demands and distractions. In education we must prevail over all the other ways that students can obtain their objectives for learning and qualifications. In order to align our solution to really hold the attention of our audience, we must clearly show how it delivers some advantage that our customers and clients really crave. So the first steps in the design of any sort of learning intervention must be to answer two fundamental questions: what are we trying to do and why are we trying to do it? Later we can probe deeper into motives by asking: why are we doing it this way, and how we will know if we've succeeded?

Whatever process you use, build a clear, accurate picture to signpost where your design is heading. Do not acquiesce to the objection that there is no time for analysis. To quote King Lear: "Nothing comes of nothing". You cannot design an appropriate solution without reference to your target population: how many people and where are they based? How motivated are they likely to be to participate in this intervention? What prior knowledge or skills do they already possess? How independent are they as learners? What preferences do they have for particular methods or media? Your design decisions will also be heavily influenced by the practical constraints and opportunities – the budget, deadline, policies, technology and facilities. Not to mention the available L&D skills. In many cases, a successful solution requires a range of methods and media - usually called a blended solution. A virtual classroom plays a useful role when you require an ingredient that is both live and

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 25

HOW TO CREATE A LIVE ONLINE LEARNING EVENT

There are good pedagogical reasons why learning online might work better in certain circumstances. According to Parkinson’s Law ‘work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion’. online. There are good reasons for including a live element in your solution. Learners can a) more easily build relationships with each other, b) obtain speedy answers to any questions, c) work together on collaborative group activities and d) freely discuss any issues that arise. Of course live events are traditionally held face-to-face but there is a strong business case for conducting at least some live sessions online. Cut back on the face-toface events and you’ll reduce the time, effort, risks and costs associated with travel, not to mention the environmental damage. There are good pedagogical reasons why learning online might work better in certain circumstances. According to Parkinson’s Law ‘work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion’. Sessions in real classrooms follow the same pattern, and tend to be lengthy in order to fill the available time and justify the travel. By contrast in a virtual classroom, short sessions enable learning to occur in manageable chunks, with the potential for much improved integration with real work issues. Because breaks don't involve catering and moving around, all of the time can be dedicated to learning. It is sad but true that some learners (especially adults) have a fear of exposure when learning, often due to early childhood experiences of classrooms. This fear may be reduced or eliminated in an environment where you have no physical presence. The immediacy of online communication is a great advantage. This makes it easy for learners and facilitators to meet in realtime, regardless of location. People are only involved if they need to be and no time is spent unnecessarily. One might expect online learning to be a wholly satisfying experience with deep engagement, meaningful and satisfying activity, and the collaborative construction of knowledge. However these are not automatic; they are the product of wellconceived and creative design, and more than a little forward planning and preparation. Some find it easy to suppose that web conferencing must limit the scope of your design for learning, but this is not so. Great teachers see no apparent limits to what you can do in a classroom, whether bricks and mortar, or virtual. The software for web-

meetings provides you with many opportunities (as well as some constraints) but it does not dictate the content or composition of your lesson - that’s down to you. Whatever you decide to do in your session, preparation is vital. You’ll want to plan what you’re going to say, prepare visual aids, design activities and assessments, prepare polls and other interactions, and allocate roles to colleagues running the session with you. COMMUNICATING USING SLIDES Slides are not essential to every virtual classroom session. There is also the option to share applications, tour web sites together and do interactive things in whiteboards for example. Any of these might serve as the primary focus of attention. However, slides can be useful not only as visual aids but also as signposts, as long as they are used properly. The phrase 'death by PowerPoint' has long since passed into workplace language because we all know what it feels like. We should not underestimate the power of visuals. Research shows that students learn better from words and pictures than from words alone, which is not surprising when you consider that the majority of our sensory input is visual. Pictures are as powerful as they are memorable, but it matters what pictures you use (see box out). Be careful when re-using slides which you normally employ for live presentations. Your slides are likely to be displayed in a smaller window and may degrade in quality when they are converted to the system's own format. Keep them simple and bold. You should also be prepared for the possibility that your transitions and animations will not be carried over. This means any builds will have to be displayed as a sequence of individual slides. BUILD IN BRAIN-FRIENDLY INTERACTIVITY Interaction isn't absolutely essential to the learning process. After all, we have probably all learned something useful from what is essentially a passive experience, such as reading a book, watching TV or film, listening to the radio or a lecture. You may argue that we supply our own interactivity by taking notes, pondering and reflecting, discussing with others, but there

26 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

is no formally structured interaction. However, we would probably also agree that externally-mediated interaction, of the sort provided by a teacher, trainer or coach, can certainly help to promote learning. It attracts the learner’s attention to ideas that may be relevant; it encourages the learner to work with new ideas; it increases the likelihood that the content will be remembered. It also helps the learner to make multiple connections to the new ideas thereby improving retrieval. Interactivity is very brain-friendly. In the virtual classroom interactivity is doubly important. Here you have an audience that is very easily distracted by events around them, by interruptions, and by alternative options on their computers. It is also largely an invisible audience. How are you to know if each participant is actively engaged? Interactivity proves that communication is taking place. Without it, you just hope for the best. Most web conferencing packages provide a host of opportunities for interaction. TEXT CHAT The chat facility operates alongside the virtual classroom session, available any time. It can be used by participants to answer questions posed by the facilitator or to ask questions of the facilitator. It can be used by participants as a 'back channel' for communication between themselves. Some facilitators may find this a little strange. After all, we would probably feel uncomfortable if students passed messages to each other during a session in a real classroom. However, many participants find this channel of great use. They exchange contact details, links, thoughts and

HOW TO CREATE A LIVE ONLINE LEARNING EVENT

COMMUNICATING USING SLIDES Pictures are as powerful as they are memorable but only if you use the right ones. Choose your visuals depending on the type of information you need to convey. Consider some of the following to convey with clarity: • Photos of yourself and other speakers • Diagrams to represent processes, principles, structures, layouts • Photos to represent people, events and objects • Photos or illustrations to represent abstract concepts • Screen grabs to show software applications • Charts to represent numeric data

comments. They help to move the learning process along without the intervention of the facilitator. TICKS AND CROSSES Most systems provide a way for facilitators to obtain simple yes/no responses from participants, totalling up the responses automatically. Facilitators can use this mechanism to obtain confirmations: Can you hear me clearly? Shall I move on? or to conduct simple polls: Have you used this system before?, Do you have your own blog?

picture showing how you're feeling about this topic, or for structured questions: What are your objectives for this course? To avoid everyone typing or drawing on top of each other, the facilitator can prepare a slide with sections allocated to each of the participants. A whiteboard is perhaps the most underdeveloped and ill-used element of virtual classrooms. It has the potential to support a rich diversity of collaborative and constructivist learning. It is a topic worthy of a paper in its own right, and we're working on this right now.

VOICE

POLLS

For participants to respond vocally they must have microphones as well as headphones or speakers. This is not a costly solution as integrated headsets can cost as little as £10. The advantages of using voice are obvious. The communication is natural and spontaneous and there is no need for typing. However, some moderation is required to avoid everyone speaking at once. Most systems use a hands-up facility, which allows participants to signify that they want to speak. It is up to the facilitator to turn the microphone on, or otherwise indicate that the participant can speak.

Polls allow you to ask multiple-choice questions, to profile participants or to survey opinion. They are usually set up in advance, although most systems will allow you to modify or add new questions on the fly. An advantage of online polling is that you can obtain totalled-up responses instantly, allowing you to act immediately on the information.

WHITEBOARD In the context of web conferencing, a whiteboard is a blank screen or a prepared slide, on which participants draw or type. Whatever is placed on whiteboards can be seen by all participants. You can use them for ice-breaking activities: Indicate on this map where you are located, for brainstorming: In what ways could we use web conferencing?, for assessing how things are going: Draw a

BREAKOUT ROOMS Some systems provide you with the facility to allocate participants to groups, have them undertake group activities, monitor each group, and then conduct a group review in plenary. It goes without saying that interactivity should not be used for its own sake. Each interaction should be meaningful and challenging, and this requires planning and preparation. SHARING RESOURCES All web conferencing systems allow the

Audio is likely to be the primary verbal channel, so don't confuse the participant with a second verbal channel in the form of text on the screen. The participant won't know whether to listen or read. As we can read much faster than we listen, participants will probably tune out what you’re saying. The golden rule is use text sparingly on slides. For example: • An agenda. • Titles, which signpost the current topic. • Anything the participant might want to make a note of, such as terms, URLs, names or quotes. • Labels for diagrams, photos or charts. • Lists - bulleted or numbered. Note that when you are presenting items in a list, it is not good practice to show items you have yet to cover. Reveal these in subsequent slides. Don't be tempted to use bullets as a script an online presenter. If you need a script, have this on paper in front of you, or in a separate window. If you cannot avoid presenting lots of text, distribute it as a separate document, or provide a link to materials to reference before or after the session.

facilitator or any of the participants to share an application on their own desktop. They can also pass control to another participant. This feature has a number of important uses. Participants can jointly review documents. The facilitator can

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 29

HOW TO CREATE A LIVE ONLINE LEARNING EVENT

demonstrate how to use a software application and have participants take turns using it. Presentations can be shared without being uploaded in advance into the web conferencing system's own format. This ensures all the functionality of the original presentation is maintained. The downside of application sharing is that it demands a fast broadband connection if it is not to appear jerky and disjointed. Some systems also allow the facilitator to lead participants in exploring a particular web site. This is useful in that it allows online content to be employed without it being uploaded into the system in advance. This content could include animations and video, which are not normally available within uploaded slides. PULLING YOUR DESIGN TOGETHER A typical virtual classroom session is likely to last between thirty and ninety minutes. Beyond this and you will find it hard to maintain attention and energy. If you need to cover a lot of ground in a single day, then provide a number of short sessions interspersed with asynchronous activities.

Without experience, it can be hard to judge just how much to cover in a single session – how much new content, how many activities? If in doubt, err on the side of caution, too little rather than too much content, if you are to avoid cognitive overload. Without experience, it can be hard to judge just how much to cover in a single session – how much new content, how many activities? If in doubt, err on the side of caution, too little rather than too much content, if you are to avoid cognitive overload. If you finish ahead of schedule, everyone can get on with something else! It’s up to you just how much you document your design. If you’re a less experienced facilitator, then you’ll probably benefit from a detailed outline, which clearly explains who does what and when, and for how long. You may even write some of the things you intend to say work-for-word. Perhaps just your opening gambit and the questions you intend to ask. Beware of over-scripting as it will be difficult for you to respond spontaneously and you could sound stilted.

30 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

In the second part of this article, to be published in the next issue of this magazine, we turn our attention to the online session itself, and the skills you’ll require to make it a success. This article draws upon the e-book Live Online Learning; a Facilitator's Guide written by Phil Green, Barry Sampson and Clive Shepherd. To obtain a free copy visit www.onlignment.com where we hope you will also take part in our two-minute survey. Phil Green is a Director of Optimum Learning Ltd, and co-founder of Onlignment, www.onlignment.com. Phil will be a Track Chair at the Learning Technologies 2010 Conference.

www.im-c.com

Let your numbers do the talking and demonstrate the value of learning by talking the language of the business. Laura Overton explains.

WHEN NUMBERS TALK,

THE BUSINESS LISTENS

have attended countless webinars, conferences and workshops this year, and the conversation always includes the following question. What is the best way to capture the attention of the business so that they really understand the value we add? In the last twelve months there has been more focus in L&D about demonstrating value than ever before. With the pressure on to deliver greater efficiency and improved results, L&D needs to engage with the business and demonstrate its worth. The dictionary definition of value has three elements to consider, 1) a fair price or return, 2) worth in usefulness or importance to the possessor, 3) a particular number or amount. Different organisations appreciate different aspects of value. For example, many public sector organisations favour improved efficiency and reduced costs. It is important that our

interventions are priced fairly, and can be linked to budget or time savings. Others want to establish a link to improved sales. For other companies, savings or revenue is less relevant than the demonstration of usefulness. This could take the form of feedback on the application of new skills, innovation, staff confidence, and customer services – all equally difficult to quantify. Adding value is one thing, the important difference is the way that we demonstrate our value back to business. The Towards Maturity Benchmark Research reveals some basic strengths within organisations that are able to demonstrate value. The firms that report the most impact, take-up and staff satisfaction resulting from their learning technology implementation, consistently display the following characteristics: they understand learner context, understand work context,

build the capability of L&D staff, and define the needs of the business and the individuals. Based on these findings, here are my five top tips to help you demonstrate value back to the business. 1 KEEP IT RELEVANT At a recent event Jane Massey, CEO of Abdi Ltd, experts in the evaluation of L&D, reminded the delegates: ‘a solution is only a solution in the eye of the customer’. In L&D our customers are diverse and include nurses, care workers, financial advisors, marketers and sales people, IT professionals and secretaries. In other words, they are not students or course participants. Our customers include their bosses, their team and project managers, and those responsible for rolling out new systems and processes. Our learning solutions need to solve their problems if we are to add value. However, in Towards Maturity’s benchmark

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 33

WHEN NUMBERS TALK, THE BUSINESS LISTENS

survey last year we found that 40% of participating organisations (all of whom had invested in learning technologies) were not sure that their learning interventions were relevant to the business they were supporting. Too often we are asked to put on a course or deliver a piece of e-learning content and we respond without asking why. You need the answers to these questions before you start: Who are your customers? What does value look like to them? The award-winning Get Up To Speed onboarding portal at Sky (see case study below) is a great example of customer needs being considered up front. The portal is aimed at technically savvy new recruits with the aim of moving the business forward.

CASE STUDY - SKY The Get Up To Speed onboarding portal helps Sky’s large volume of new contact centre staff deliver excellent customer service to nearly ten million customers by building product and company knowledge in a fun way before they start work. It particularly appeals to the company’s large number of Generation Y recruits – those born between 1979 and 1999 – by using social networking and blogs to connect staff to new recruits, and interactive games. The online portal uses a video belt and simulated customer scenarios. Incentive mechanisms are used to encourage repeated completion through a real-time leader board. To date Sky's onboarding portal has accelerated time-to-target performance, reduced induction time by a quarter, halved staff attrition, fully engaged staff (100 percent completion), and improved sales conversions. Kenny Henderson, head of talent development operations: "Working on a project with such a broad range of stakeholders is always challenging but the Get Up To Speed initiative gained universal support across Sky”. Kenny Henderson will be presenting the project at Learning Technologies 2010. The programme won the Customer Contact Association’s Most Effective Training Programme 2009 Excellence Award for Sky and e-learning partner Brightwave.

2 START WITH THE RESULTS Begin the consultation process with the end goal, and keep it in sight, as demonstrated by Sky. The only way to do this is to engage with key stakeholders. Yet according to our research, only one third of respondents agree up front the specific business metrics up front in partnership with senior management. Only thirty percent involve line management in the design of e-learning and yet these activities all correlate to business impact. Successful L&D organisations are twice as likely to do this as those that don’t. Care Management Group (see case study, right) recently picked up an e-learning award for widespread adoption – their success was partly due to the fact that they went through a process of engaging stakeholders, however that adoption allowed them to demonstrate value back to the businesses in terms of business benefit and bottom line results. 3 MEASURE WHAT YOU CAN Two thirds of survey participants said that feedback is an important indicator of the perception of the solution and is useful for L&D staff. Only 24 percent of respondents however, sought the opinion of line managers, on the impact of their solution on staff and business. Whilst feedback and surveys are important for L&D staff, it is the numbers that engage the business. I would strongly recommend revisiting Jay Cross’s article Speaking the Language of Business in last month’s Inside Learning Technologies magazine – in particular his underlying process for looking at metrics. The reason I want to underline Jay’s comments is because so few of us do this. Only 30 percent set measurable targets for learning. Only 26 percent use specific business metrics when evaluating e-learning. Towards Maturity has just launched a research programme Evidence for Change. This came about as a result of requests to provide hard facts to illustrate how learning technology adds to the bottom line. Some examples of metrics that we have come across regularly in this programme include: Time to competency, Time to first sale, Sales improvement, Improvements in billable hours, Reduction in staff turnover, Improvements in quality, Carbon savings. I know that this is a tough area but… are we having the conversation about what success looks like? Are we gathering even anecdotal evidence of success to get the ball rolling? Enough said!

34 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

CASE STUDY - CARE MANAGEMENT GROUP Care Management Group (CMG) needed to increase efficiency and consistency of learning across their network of over one hundred care homes. Learning technologies had not been used before. However key stakeholders were involved from the beginning to help shape the offering. The adoption has been phenomenal with over 10,000 hours of learning delivered in the first six months. This has paved the way for e-learning to deliver real business impact and return on investment, with a drastic reduction in the direct cost of training. Other benefits include simplified staff rostering and the reduced corporate risk. L&D demonstrates value to the business believes managing director Peter Kinsey: “E-learning supports a virtuous circle within the company in which a compassionate and competent staff member delivers higher quality work. This in turn promotes greater satisfaction for CMG’s service users ,and greater fulfilment for staff.” Learn more about the Care Management Group case study at the Learning Technologies 2010 Conference.

4 DEMONSTRATE EFFICIENCY What will success will look like to you? I do appreciate that this question can be difficult. But learning technologies have always contributed to cost savings and efficiencies. However our latest survey (to be published at Learning Technologies 2010 in January) highlights that only 30 percent of the 150 organisations surveyed actually measures the savings made by implementing learning technologies. This is a simple measure that is within our control – how much is our learning technology solution costing us? How much would this cost us in the classroom? It is imperative to fully load the equation here regarding the cost of learning technologies, to avoid hyping up the numbers. For example, include staff costs such as development and administration time, and don’t forget ongoing maintenance fees and support costs. Knowing exactly how much the programme would have cost, using alternative media, is very powerful.

WHEN NUMBERS TALK, THE BUSINESS LISTENS

Let the numbers speak for themselves! All of our research highlights that the more hard evidence you have, and the more you use it, the more support you will receive. 5 COMMUNICATE SUCCESS It is surprising that even when we do understand the value and success of our offering, we do not communicate it to stakeholders. Only 37 percent of our benchmark participants regularly communicate e-learning successes to line managers and supervisors. And just 34 percent report against the target set for e-learning.

Let the numbers speak for themselves! All of our research highlights that the more hard evidence you have, and the more you use it, the more support you will receive.

Mature adopters of learning technologies however, are twice as likely to report against target as sporadic ones. Here are some examples of how to communicate success: a) peer to peer stories of how your solution has helped, b) social network sites that encourage staff to reflect on their changed behaviour, c) external award programmes that recognise success, increase the internal perception of value, d) newsletters, team briefings and presentations.

In the meantime I hope these hints and tips provide a useful place to get started. Let us know all about your evaluation experiences in the Evidence for Change forum on the Learning & Skills Group website.

In the next edition of Inside Learning Technologies, I will share more numbers from our Efficiency Indicator Survey. This should provide you with additional evidence to help you to support change and engage your stakeholders.

Laura Overton is Managing Director of Towards Maturity and will be a Track Chair at the Learning Technologies 2010 Conference. Laura can be contacted at laura@towardsmaturity.org

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December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 37

THE NEW LEARNING ARCHITECT

• What is the nature of the learning requirement? What knowledge, skills and attitudes is the employer (the client) wishing to engender in their employees in the business, division or department in question? How will this learning contribute to effective performance? • What jobs are carried out in the target area? How many people are involved? What are these people like in terms of their demographics, prior learning, ability to learn independently, their motivation and preferences? • Under what constraints must this learning take place? How geographically dispersed is the population? How much time and money are available? What equipment and facilities can be deployed to support the learning? Architects of learning also have a professional responsibility to clients. This requires them to be fully conversant with current thinking in terms of learning methods, acquainted with the latest learning media and up-to-date with developments in the science of learning. As none of these is intuitive and obvious, the client can not be expected to have this expertise. And for this reason, it is neither sufficient nor excusable for the learning architect to act as an order taker. The responsibility of the learning architect is to their client. As with the architect of buildings, other motives can come into play such as the desire to experiment and innovate, loyalty to the latest fads and fashions and the glamour and glitz of the awards ceremonies. But if they are tempted, they too risk compromising their duty to the client. 'Architect' might sound like a grand title for someone other than a head of learning and development (or what the Americans call a Chief Learning Officer) but

You don’t become a learning architect simply by acquiring the title; you also have to behave like one. Architects of buildings do not carry the bricks or paint the walls, although they do keep a watchful eye on these activities in case their plans need to be revised or updated. remember that architects of buildings tackle small jobs like extensions as well as office blocks and whole housing estates. They start off working with other architects and they gain experience over time. You don’t become a learning architect simply by acquiring the title; you also have to behave like one. Architects of buildings do not carry the bricks or paint the walls, although they do keep a watchful eye on these activities in case their plans need to be revised or updated. They don’t have to supervise every activity, but they do need to watch the numbers, so they can react if budgets and timeframes are being exceeded. The learning architect does not need to directly facilitate learning or be present in all those situations in which learning might be taking place. However, they must know whether or not the learning is in line with their plans and their client’s requirements. They need to know that all this is happening at an acceptable speed and cost. And because the only constant in the modern workplace is change, they must be agile enough to respond to shifting requirements, new pressures and emerging opportunities. LEARNING OCCURS IN MANY CONTEXTS Most of us go to work in order to perform tasks in return for some mix of money, status, recognition and job satisfaction. We may be lucky enough to have a job that allows us also to contribute to some greater good; we may enjoy the work itself and the company of our fellow employees, customers or suppliers; we may also choose a particular job because it has the potential to satisfy our career learning objectives. Learning may or may not be the reason we go to work, but it is an inevitable consequence, whether or not the employer or employee makes a deliberate attempt to promote it. The learning architect has to appreciate the many contexts in which learning takes place within the working environment:

40 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

Learning can be formalised, in the sense that it is packaged up as a ‘course’, with pre-defined entry requirements, a structured curriculum and content, professional facilitation and some form of assessment. Formalised learning interventions can be based on individual study or group work; they can be delivered face-to-face or online, or as some blend of all of these. They play a valuable role in ensuring that employees obtain the critical skills they need to carry out their jobs, although only a small fraction of what employees learn in their working careers can be traced back to these interventions. Learning can be proactive, in that it prepares employees to carry out their current or some future job responsibilities, but without being so formalised as to constitute a ‘course’. One-to-one approaches, such as on-job instruction, coaching and mentoring constitute the majority of proactive learning, although employers may also choose to run conferences and short workshops for groups of employees, or to provide resources, such as white papers, podcasts and videos for individual use. Learning can be reactive, in the sense that it occurs as an immediate response to a work-related problem, rather than in advance; it is ‘just-in-time’ rather than ‘just-in case’. In many jobs there is now more to know than can ever be known and such a rapid turnover of knowledge that it simply makes no sense to try to ‘teach’ every aspect of every job up front. Reactive learning can be supported from

THE NEW

LEARNING ARCHITECT

Architects do not need to be carpenters or plumbers to create living environments, just as learning architects do not need to specialise in each new technology. They do however, need to know the opportunities and limitations as Clive Shepherd explains.

rchitects as we usually know them, create plans from which others build. Although they design environments for living, they rarely design one in which they themselves will live.

building? What activities will they be carrying out? What are these people like?

More typically they respond to a specific brief that reflects a particular requirement. Before they put pen to paper, the architect simply has to know the following:

Architects of buildings have a professional responsibility to their clients. They are expected to be up-to-date regarding current materials and methods, and in-theknow concerning the latest developments within science and engineering as they relate to construction. They use this knowledge to provide clients with a building that will be safe, durable, maintainable and efficient, while meeting

• What type of building is required – a home, an office, a factory, a school, a hospital? What functions must this building perform? • How many people will be using this

• What constraints are placed on the design in terms of budget, time, quality, regulations?

the requirements of the brief within the given constraints. They could be swayed by other motives – their own desire to experiment and innovate, allegiances to current fashions and philosophies, perhaps the prospect of winning an award. But if they are diverted, they risk compromising their duty to the client. ARCHITECTS BUT NOT AS WE KNOW THEM Meet the learning architect – someone who designs environments for learning. Like the architect for buildings, the learning architect will be responding to a specific brief:

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 39

THE NEW LEARNING ARCHITECT

The learning architect has to strike the right balance in each case between formalised, proactive, reactive and incidental learning to meet the particular learning requirement for the particular target audience, and in consideration of the practical constraints and opportunities.

the top-down through the provision of performance support materials and help desks, or facilitated as a bottom-up activity through search engines, forums and wikis. Learning can be incidental. Much of what we learn at work does not occur deliberately, as we ‘learn to do something’ to meet a current or future need. Rather it occurs as we ‘learn from our own experiences’ and what we observe of the experiences of others. Incidental learning can be allowed to just happen of its own accord, but the new learning architect will want to help create an environment in which it flourishes, to create the true ‘learning organisation’. Employers can support incidental learning in many ways: through job enrichment and rotation, through performance appraisals and project reviews. They can also encourage employees to reflect on their experiences through techniques such as blogging. THE LEARNING ARCHITECT IS A PROFESSIONAL When you are a professional, others seek you out for your particular expertise in a field or discipline. They will expect you to behave in accordance with the ethics of your profession, with their interests to the foremost. The learning architect will be familiar with the tools of their trade, in particular the methods and media that can be used to facilitate learning. Educational and training methods are relatively timeless, even though we sometimes update the labels (‘job aids’ become ‘performance support materials’). So Socrates would have had much the same choices available when designing his ‘interventions’ as we do now. However, we are constantly rethinking the methods we should use in particular situations, in the light of new thinking about the process of learning at work,

continuing research into learning psychology and, more recently, huge advances in the field of neuroscience. An L&D specialist who was inducted into the profession thirty years ago would now be seriously out-of-step with current thinking if they had not engaged in continuing professional development (CPD). Keeping up-to-date is especially important when you consider that L&D has been saddled with more than its fair share of pop psychology, much of which has gone unchallenged for far too long. Educational and training methods are important because they determine the effectiveness of an intervention. The learning architect has to understand which methods will work in which situations, or risk pouring yet more hard-earned corporate cash down the drain. Each organisation is different and each functional area within each organisation is likely to be different too. The learning architect has to strike the right balance in each case between formalised, proactive, reactive and incidental learning to meet the particular learning requirement for the particular target audience, and in consideration of the practical constraints and opportunities. They also have to make a judgement on how much of this design for learning needs to rely on top-down initiatives from management and how much can be managed effectively from the bottom up by employees. The learning architect has to be up-to-date with developments in learning media, the technologies through which learning strategies are realised. Our hypothetical L&D specialist of thirty years back would have been fully conversant with all the available media of the time, the flip charts and whiteboards, overhead projectors and video players.

have many more choices when it comes to delivery. Do you want to hold that discussion in a face-to-face workshop, in a live online session, through a teleconference or via a forum? If you want to share some content do you print a booklet, stick it on a web page or record it as a podcast? The learning architect does not have to be an expert in each new technology, just as an architect of buildings does not need to be a skilled carpenter or glazier. But they do need to know the essential characteristics and properties of each medium, the opportunities and limitations that these afford and the applications for which they are best suited. There can be no such thing as a technophobic learning architect, any more than there is an buildings architect who hasn’t come to terms with plumbing and electrics. WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A PROFESSIONAL To be a professional means a lot more than simply doing whatever the client wants. You wouldn't hire an interior designer only to inform them that you've already chosen all the colour schemes and furnishings; you wouldn't engage an accountant and then explain how you want them to process your figures (unless of course you worked at Enron); you wouldn't employ a fitness trainer and then tell them what to include in your workout. You wouldn't buy a dog and do all your own barking.

Unfortunately for the learning professional, learning media do not stand still like methods; we have seen an almost exponential growth in available media as computers and mobile devices interact over high-speed networks. Whichever method you intend to use, you December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 43

THE NEW LEARNING ARCHITECT

So why, then, do we continue to encounter situations in which line managers tell the guys from L&D exactly what they want in terms of learning interventions, with the expectation that they'll simply take these instructions and run. You'd like a six-hour e-learning package to train customer service staff to sell over the telephone? A two-day workshop to teach every detail of a new company system to all employees, regardless of whether or not they will be using it? A one-hour podcast to teach manual handling skills? No problem. That's what we're here for, to meet your requirements. Hang on a minute, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re probably thinking. This isn't an encounter between a professional and a client, it's simply order taking. When asked to jump, a professional does not ask â&#x20AC;&#x153;how high?â&#x20AC;? They say, "Let's talk about this a little, because jumping may not be the best solution in this situation." And if this tactic doesn't work and the professional is told in no uncertain terms that jumping is the only acceptable option, then he or she has two choices. Either they resign and get another job where their role

Learning and development isn't common sense; it isn't intuitive. If it was then experts wouldn't lecture at novices for hours on end; they wouldn't insist on passing on everything they know, however irrelevant, however incomprehensible. as a professional is properly valued; or they agree to go ahead, but only after having expressed quite clearly in writing that jumping is against their best advice. Learning and development isn't common sense; it isn't intuitive. If it was then experts wouldn't lecture at novices for hours on end; they wouldn't insist on passing on everything they know, however irrelevant, however incomprehensible. That's why we have L&D professionals, so they can explain, in terms that the lay person can clearly understand, how people acquire knowledge and develop skills, and how best to support this process. If the customer doesn't hear this advice, they will assume that the people in L&D are just the builders, not the architects; and, if no-one seems to be offering architectural services, they'll tackle the task themselves.

44 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

Clive Shepherd is a consultant specialising in the application of technology to workplace learning. Clive will be a Track Chair at the Learning Technologies 2010 Conference.

LEARNING DESIGN FOR

EFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE Nigel Harrison illustrates the importance of working with high performers rather than subject matter experts.

he following conversations are based on my opinions from twenty years experience in instructional design and e-learning. My approach is a little provocative and simplistic to drive home the learning points. Firstly the tale of Leon, the new e-learning manager, shocked by how his design team works solely with subject matter experts. Secondly is Steve’s story, a new e-learning manager impressed by how his new team works with high performers. LEON’S NEW TEAM It was Leon’s second day at work as the new e-learning manager at BX Finance. He wanted to get a better idea of how the team designed their solutions. He asked Sam, a senior e- learning consultant and most experienced member of his new team, to talk him through a recent project.

Sam: “Well. The business partners tell us when their clients have an e-learning project. Either I or Gloria, my senior e-learning consultant, goes to the client to discover their requirements. Then we allocate a developer to the project to work with the client’s subject matter experts (SMEs) and they develop the e-learning.” Leon: “Tell me more about a recent project and how our developer worked with the SMEs?” Sam: “Sure. Do you remember the health and safety (H&S) e-learning that we talked about last time? The HR department wanted to reach all 12,000 employees with a consistent message about company policy. The business partner identified Celia as the SME and we allocated Dave as the developer. They worked together to develop the e-learning.” Leon: “How long is the course?”

Sam: “The whole thing lasts six hours and covers the whole H&S policy. We wanted it shorter but Celia insisted that it all went in. We tried to make it friendlier by having this graphic of a typical office - you can click on areas where there might be a hazard.” Leon: “What do you mean ‘the whole thing’?” Sam: “The whole H&S policy. Luckily Celia already had some PowerPoint presentations and we had the policy itself as a Word document”. In fact this was lucky because Celia is based in Canary Wharf and Dave is in Leeds. I remember that Celia sent the stuff up to Dave and they had a few telephone calls as to the approach. I think Dave came up with the idea of the office graphic.” Leon gets Dave to join the conversation and explain his role on the project.

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 47

LEARNING DESIGN FOR EFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE

Dave: “Yes - Celia was great to work with. She had a clear idea of what she wanted (unlike some of our experts) it was just a matter of taking her presentations and converting into Flesh with some better graphics. I asked her to design some multiple choice questions and then made sure it all worked on our LMS. We were near the deadline and there was lots of content to convert, so I didn’t have time to test it, but she signed it off. “Then just when we were going live, her boss saw it and insisted on adding something on European Law. We had to work overtime to include it so we managed to hit the delivery date. It is out on the LMS now. I have handed over to Jim for the edits. We have had a few problems and not many people seem to be using it. I am working on the Xtra project now. That’s another big job!” Leon had heard enough. He now knew his team was over-reliant on working with SMEs and didn’t have the methodology or the skills needed to design effective elearning. Little wonder all the course were too long and very few people finished! He was amazed that Sam and Dave saw their role in such a limited way. He wondered how his mate Steve was getting on. They had left their previous employer on the same day, to take new jobs as e-learning managers. For the second day running, he was shocked at how his design team worked. He hoped Steve was fairing better. STEVE’S NEW TEAM It was Steve’s second day at YX Finance. He was impressed by Sonia, the senior elearning consultant and most experienced member of his new team, so he asked her to describe a recent project so he could find out how the team worked. Sonia: “Dave I go and see the client with the business partner. We complete the performance problem analysis to the basic solution design. These are usually very creative sessions. We run a three to four hour workshop to agree the high level solution. Once we have a good picture of the desired performance the next critical step is to ask the client to identify high performers who are role models for the whole group. At this point we usually end the meeting because it is our job to take the analysis to the next step.” Steve: “Tell me about a real case. How about the Group Personal Pensions (GPPs) programme? I was very impressed with that.” Sonia: “Well that was an interesting one. We could not find one single high

performer who managed to sell GPPs using the correct process, and also hit their sales targets! This was telling, wasn’t it? So I asked the client if firstly, he could identify sellers who followed the process correctly and secondly, to identify sellers who hit their targets. “He agreed, and Sarah and Malek were put forward as his top performers – in fact he rang them immediately to tell them how important it was to him that they worked with us. We set up a one-day workshop in London for the next week.”

the post-its and pens. We then asked ‘What do sales people need to reach that objective?’ It’s a technique called pyramid analysis which just means that you start at the top and work down.” Steve: “What about non-learning solutions, surely a high performer will come up with other solutions that are nothing to do with L&D. They might want to change processes for example?”

Steve: “Tell me about how you ran that workshop.”

Sonia: “Good question; that does happen, but at this stage we are looking at all solutions that might close the gap. We do not want to focus on knowledge and skills too early.

Sonia: “Well we booked a quiet meeting room with a blank wall. My colleague Dee covered the wall with flip chart paper and we had lots of post-its and coloured pens for the design. I had written the desired performance in the form of a rough objective:

“In this case it was a bit crazy because Sarah and Malek saw the problem on different ways. Malek concentrated on the incentive to sell the product and the importance of a speedy fact-find. Sarah focused on the importance of professional selling and completing the process in the correct way.

Conditions:

“It soon became obvious we had a conflict between the two approaches. Our wall was headed up Objective: Sell GPPS following the correct process, and looked a bit like this (figure 1 below):”

1. the target learners are level 3 YX sales person with annual sales targets 2. they are given a suitable client list

OBJECTIVE: SELL GPP’S FOLLOWING THE CORRECT PROCESS Getting a quote back whilst you are with the client

Recognising that these products carry a good commission

Being able to do a fast fact find

Checking for compliance

Collecting accurate company data

Completing fact find 3345 form Figure 1

3. they have access to the GPP product information

Steve: “This does not seem like an L&D problem to me.”

Performance:

Sonia: “You are right - but we needed to get this sorted so we knew what to put in the learning. In fact, we called the client into the meeting and she agreed that it was okay to use a BlackBerry short version on the fact-find in front of the client. She also agreed that sales people would get a return quote in ten minutes so that the deal could be closed and business won. This resulted in changes to the way they worked in order to achieve their objectives.

1. they must be able to discover client needs for the product 2. they must be able to close deals 3. they must follow the correct process. Standards: 1. customers are delighted 2. the annual target for GPPs is met 3. the correct process is followed.” Steve: “So how did you work with Sarah and Malek to design the learning activities needed to achieve that objective?” Sonia: “Well. We stuck the objective on the top of the blank wall and gave everyone

48 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

“We usually structure the solutions around four areas: knowledge, skill, motivation and environment. We could now proceed. We were tasked with the knowledge and skill solutions, whilst the client took responsibility for the motivation and environmental solutions.”

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LEARNING DESIGN FOR EFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE

OBJECTIVE: SELL GPP’S FOLLOWING THE CORRECT PROCESS

4. Making sure the full quote is compliant

2. Using your Blackberry to do a fast fact find

Steve: “How is the GPP learning doing?”

2b. Collecting the essential data 1. Why sell GPPs? Recognising that these products carry a good commission Figure 2

Sonia: “After the client had left the meeting, we worked with Sarah and Malek on moving the post-its around until we came up with four learning modules. It was headed up: Objective - sell GPPs following the correct process, and looked something like this (figure 2 above).” Steve: “How did you design the content for these four modules?” Sonia: “Actually we used the same approach, just module by module. That is we identified a high performer for each module, wrote an objective, and asked what

the salespeople needed to reach each objective. This is what we came up with (figure 3 below). “We managed to do most of the design on the first day workshop but had to run another one with Monty and Malek on the Blackberry fact find and demo. We tested all the solutions in a pilot workshop but

HIGH PERFORMER

SOLUTION

Why sell Group Pension Malek Plans? Recognising that these products carry a good commission

- Short video of Malek describing how these products may take longer to sell but carry good commissions

2a. Using your BlackBerry to do a fast fact find

- Malek to demonstrate a use with screen capture sequence

Malek and Monty

- e-mail from the sales director

- Monty to produce a cut down version of the fact-find for the BlackBerry 2b. Collecting essential and accurate company data

Sarah

- Sarah to suggest a compliant cut down version of the fact find

3. Closing the business with Malek an immediate provisional quote

- Video from Malek demonstrating a successful sales call

4. Making sure the full quote is compliant

- New step-by-step, sign-off checklist

Sarah

Sonia: “Well everyone has just been through it and the sales director is delighted! We have exceeded our GPP target this year but you will have to ask the business partner for the proper evaluation. She is due to report back to us next week on the business benefit.”

Steve had heard enough. He knew that his team was very competent. They designed effective e-learning solutions that supported business performance.

Figure 3 MODULE

Steve: “I am very impressed and do you use subject matter experts at all?” Sonia: “Yes we use them to check and sign off the content after we have designed it. The made very few amendments. We used to work with them to design the content but we found it was always too long and theoretical. Our content is now only ten percent as long as the old SME designs.”

3. How to close the business with an immediate provisional quote

Steve: “What happened next?”

found that people we did not need any training. The learning solutions were launched by the Sales Director and the Sales Managers.”

Steve: “I will. Thank you for your time Sonia.” Steve had heard enough. He knew that his team was very competent. They designed effective e-learning solutions that supported business performance. They built solutions that helped people reach objectives rather than sticking to what an L&D department might traditionally do. He wondered how his mate Leon was doing? An over-reliance on subject matter experts can lead to long-winded courses that do not result in business improvement. An effective learning design team needs to work with clients, high performers and business partners to design integrated performance support and e-learning objects that will help the target audience to achieve the desired performance in the quickest possible time. Next issue I continue with part three of the story: how the two teams work to evaluate their success and achieve credibility.

Nigel Harrison is a chartered business psychologist and author. His latest book “How to be a true Business Partner” is available from Amazon or www.performconsult.co.uk.

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 51

The generation now entering the workforce is unlike any before it. They’ve been brought up on gadgets and gizmos and they’re tech-savvy with greater expectations of technology. Charles Gould argues that employers must offer engaging learning or suffer the consequences.

he last decade has seen the rise of ubiquitous learning management systems so what’s in store for the next ten years? We must motivate the latest generation of learners and provide employers with the metrics they need for the business.

Sometimes, I know I have to learn – for compliance reasons for example – so I know about new policies, systems and products. Sometimes, though, I simply want to learn – for problem solving – so I can do my job better or enhance my career. Sometimes I need to learn just for the intellectual hell of it.

If I want to learn, I can turn to a myriad of tools available which barely existed ten years ago. I Google a question and receive a factual answer in seconds. I also expect instant access to a full range of news, opinion and debate on any subject.

For those times I have to learn I need structure – give me the knowledge as quickly, painlessly and efficiently as possible. Just distil the necessary information into a simple package. Yes, a course damn it – why not?

If I feel like it I can be entertained by videos on YouTube. I can quickly source handy hints and tips, find practical skills, and unearth expert communities for help with my own naive questions. I can explore complex subjects in great depth using specialist wikis. My expectation is to be able to obtain such resources to help me in the workplace. Am I getting what I need from my employer and if not, why not?

While you’re at it, I want you to make sure my boss knows I've done it so I can tick the boxes and move on. This is what most learning management systems are designed for. Don't get me wrong, there's a place for expertly designed easy-to-swallow pills of knowledge that provide just the right amount of learning. For those times I want to learn I must be

TIME TO ENGAGE A NEW GENERATION OF

TECH-SAVVY LEARNERS

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 53

TIME TO ENGAGE A NEW GENERATION OF TECH-SAVVY LEARNERS

and accelerating new team members) for companies like Sky and Vodafone have front-ends that look nothing like a dull, data-centric LMSs. The portals are organised around performance needs and engage the learner through video, competitions, simulations and social network forums. Yet they still have the behind-the-scenes power of an LMS. Our local government e-learning service allows every council to design its own user front-end while sharing knowledge and learning common to all. A good learning service doesn’t just support bottom-up learning. Recent research points out, that the majority of CEOs want evidence of the business impact of learning, but only a small minority currently see it in their own organisations. The new learning and performance portals meet this challenge.

allowed to explore, to move from high-level awareness to in-depth knowledge. I want it to meet my own specific needs and help solve whatever problem I'm working on right now. I would like to know what other people think and then make up my own mind. I'd like to test my ideas by discussing them with others. Would the corporate LMS be my first port of call? Am I getting what I need to learn from my employer and if not, why not? ENGAGED EMPLOYEE OR JADED AUTOMATON? What does the employer want from a learning system? They might take the view: ‘to hell with what staff want to learn, just make them learn what they have to!’ In that case any number of LMSs will do. But more enlightened employers will know that engaging the minds of the workforce will yield far better results than treating them like automatons. Organisations want ways of aligning employee motivation with business goals. Then they'll want to offer a range of tools and media that lets employees get on and learn. Employees that do so will succeed, those that don't won't. There's been a lot of discussion recently about informal versus formal learning. I prefer to see it as a spectrum with chattingat-the-water-cooler at one end and classroom lectures at the other. Formal learning is planned and organised to suit the employer. Spontaneous and informal learning by definition, can't be organised. But it can be encouraged and cultivated. And that's the challenge for LMSs in the next decade - to move along the spectrum to support the spontaneous and fortify the informal.

Let's ditch the term LMS. Let's be honest – they’re mostly compliance management systems. Instead let's think instead in terms of learning services or learning and performance portals. Let’s treat our staff as customers of learning. Smart employers will present a market place of learning opportunities. They will put the onus of knowledge firmly on the learner. They will remove excuses and barriers. They will give them the responsibility to learn and expect accountability. What of L&D professionals – where do they fit into this informal approach? One would hope they will act as valued advisers. Surely their role will be to inject life into learning services. They will seed discussions, facilitate webinars, encourage sharing. They will select the best tools and the best suppliers. At the risk of stretching the market place metaphor too far, they will display the goods to bring in the customers (the learners). Systems that let L&D professionals do this with the minimum of technical fuss will be the ones to meet the needs of organisations post-2010. LMSs EVOLVE TO LEARNING SERVICE PLATFORMS So, what should a corporate learning service look like? It will include Facebook, YouTube and eBay features, offering recommendations, feedback, sharing and networking. It will clarify what you have to do and encourage you to learn. It will align your personal incentives and goals with those of the business. It will be relevant to your job, your workplace and your industry. We have recently created learning services that we think move beyond the conventional LMS. Our onboarding portals (for acquiring, accommodating, assimilating

54 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

Where mission critical change is needed portals can be used to support specific campaigns. For example, a performance portal for a new product launch. One set up recently for a client is also an LMS, though their learners don’t realise this. Games, simulations, video clips and adverts were brought together to capture the product and immerse the learner in the skills and knowledge to use, sell and support it. Underpinning the system is some seriously sophisticated data to provide evidence of return on investment. Recently, we've built the concept of a campaign into our learning service platform. Learners are guided through a series of communications that progress through to a clear statement of performance, such as a test. If they get distracted or forgetful, the tool can be configured to prompt them. METRICS AND MOTIVATION WORK TOGETHER The new generation entering the workforce for the first time are sophisticated managers of information who use and expect the full gamut of online tools and resources. Employers must offer similar and equally effective services to engage them to learn for performance. From 2010, successful learning service platforms will meet the needs of learners and employers alike. They'll support 'bottom-up' learning through tools, resources and informal networks. And they'll meet business goals by making it clear to the learner what they need to do and why. They'll make the learner want to learn what the business needs them to learn.

Charles Gould is Managing Director of bespoke e-learning solutions provider Brightwave and can be contacted at charles.gould@brightwave.co.uk

Unbelievable... At Learning Technologies, SMART brings you the tools to transform your training techniques. Learn more. Visit: unbelievabletechnology.com

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Stephanie Dedhar explores why effective rapid development takes time.

QUALITY WORTH WAITING FOR LOOKING FOR MORE, FOR LESS

here’s a mobile phone advert on TV at the moment arguing against the age old claim that patience is a virtue.1 Impatience, it says, is what encourages progress and innovation. In fact, impatience and a desire to have everything quicker have become ingrained in our lifestyle these days. We’ve grown used to having things at our fingertips and accessing them as and when we want or need them. Thanks to BlackBerrys and iPhones we can reply to emails at any time, day or night. Television has moved online so we can watch what we want, when we want. We can even time our lunch breaks to coincide with the bakery bringing out a fresh batch thanks to Twitter. In some ways, this modern desire for speed has been intensified by the recent turmoil hitting the financial markets and the resulting chaos across the business world. Businesses are making more short term plans, budgets are being monitored more

closely and confirmed at shorter notice (and reduced if they aren’t used), and compliance crackdowns mean more training is needed more quickly. Now, more than ever, businesses want things faster and cheaper – training included. This is good news for e-learning as abandoning classroom training sessions immediately cuts down on travel and overhead costs. And it’s no surprise that rapid development tools in particular have enjoyed a surge in popularity over the last couple of years. It’s not hard to see why – at first glance the choice between paying a third party to develop your e-learning or simply giving your subject matter experts the (cheaper) tools they need to put their knowledge online themselves seems a no-brainer. Developing e-learning via a rapid authoring tool seems the obvious compromise between bespoke and off the shelf: it’s still tailored to your organisation but comes at a lower cost and has a quicker development cycle because everything’s already built; all

the SMEs need to do is put in their content – isn’t it? From where I’m standing, it’s not quite that simple. SOMETHING’S GOT TO GIVE Haven’t we all been brought up to understand that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, that if something seems too good to be true it usually is? Or perhaps we’ve been spoilt by not having to count the pennies quite so carefully during the boom years and now we’re having to learn those lessons all over again the hard way. Either way, there is undoubtedly a place for rapid development tools in the market: not every organisation can afford a complex bespoke solution every time, and not every training project demands one. Particularly in these turbulent times of tightened purse strings and ‘we need it yesterday’ deadlines, organisations are looking for the two things these products sell themselves on: high speed and low cost. But, surely, alongside these criteria organisations are still looking

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 57

QUALITY WORTH WAITING FOR:

for something that actually does the job well? This, for me, is the crux of the matter. It’s generally acknowledged that high speed, low cost and good quality aren’t blissful bedfellows – two of the three is the most you can hope to achieve. To put it quite simply, something’s got to give. IF SOMETHING’S WORTH DOING, IT’S WORTH DOING WELL So the big question is, when it comes to training, which of the three are you prepared to compromise on? Yes, you want training quickly. And yes, the cheaper the better. But the true cost of training doesn’t lie in the development. As former Harvard University president Derek Bok is reputed to have said, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” The true cost comes when the training doesn’t work. Let’s take customer service training as an example. A customer service course, whether online or in the classroom, might cost a few thousand pounds. But if it’s not effective and your people still make basic (or big) mistakes when dealing with customers, not only have you wasted those few thousand, the actual cost (taking everything into account, including loss of business, regulatory fines and reputational damage, for instance) could run into the millions. So it’s critical that any learning intervention you invest in has the best chance of returning the results and delivering the benefits you need. Otherwise, what’s the point? What it comes down to is that quality matters and is worth paying for. I’m not suggesting that ‘quality’ is synonymous with ‘bespoke’, and it goes without saying that there is such thing as quality training produced using rapid development tools. But there’s no point using a cheap tool to develop content quickly if that content doesn’t have the desired impact on business performance. BRINGING EVERYTHING TOGETHER WITH INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN So, whilst there certainly is a place for rapid development tools in the world of learning and training, we’ve established that in this (as in everything) there is a compromise to be made and that, when it comes to training your people, quality (by which we mean effectiveness) is the one thing you can’t afford to sacrifice. Rapid development tools can of course deliver effective training – but not alone. The average bespoke project will have a team including at least one subject matter expert, an instructional designer, a graphic

Engaging graphics and flawless functionality will enhance the learning experience, but a course that demonstrates sound instructional design will achieve its learning objectives with or without these enhancements. designer and a developer. Now, on a rapid development project, the tool provides the technical capabilities and so largely eradicates the need for a dedicated developer and graphic designer. The SME provides the knowledge, exactly as on a bespoke project. What’s missing is the instructional designer or, to put it another way, the learning expert. A good training course, however it is developed, is necessarily the product of many people and an instructional designer alone can’t produce something visually innovative and technically advanced. But let’s return to the all important question of effectiveness – that is, the imperative to deliver something that actually makes a difference to the organisation and changes people’s attitudes and behaviour. Engaging graphics and flawless functionality will enhance the learning experience, but a course that demonstrates sound instructional design will achieve its learning objectives with or without these enhancements. In the end, the effectiveness of the training doesn’t hang on the functionality, graphics or raw material; it hinges on the instructional design. A BEGINNER’S GUIDE There’s more to instructional design than common sense, which is why there’s also a place in the market for more expensive bespoke projects, but the basics can definitely be taught. I say let’s give those SMEs turned instructional designers the tools they need to turn their expert knowledge and content into effective training material. Let’s give those training managers feeling the pinch the tools they need to ensure that they aren’t throwing money down the drain but rather are bagging themselves a bargain. So here are my top tips for excellent instructional design; things that anyone can implement whether they are building

58 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

complex bespoke e-learning or using a tool in a rapid development project. 1.1 Set testable, behavioural learning outcomes Learning outcomes are the building blocks of any effective training course, and the most effective are based on outcomes relating to behaviour rather than knowledge: do you really want learners to know or state something, or do you want them to take action? 2 Put yourself in the learners’ shoes A good instructional designer designs a course that meets the needs and expectations of end users as well as stakeholders. Take the time to ask what learners already know about the subject and what questions they might have. Then make sure you answer those questions in the training. 3 Emulate the best in classroom training Who says great classroom techniques can’t be transferred to e-learning? Draw on case studies and testimonials, ask questions instead of giving lectures, build up a dialogue; by emulating the best in classroom training you’ll be well on your way to producing the best in online training. 4 Remember: content is king As is often said, ‘tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I’ll remember, involve me and I’ll understand’ – all good learning is interactive. But interactions must be driven by content, not vice versa. Each one should be based on a key point related to a behavioural learning outcome. 5 Be tough but fair with questions Testing learners in the right way on the right things is harder than it sounds, but it’s worth the effort. You can read my question

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QUALITY WORTH WAITING FOR:

writing tips on the Spicy Learning Blog 2 and I can’t recommend Cathy Moore’s illustration of the most common mistakes strongly enough.3 6 Include learn by doing scenarios If you want to change behaviours, put the learners in realistic situations, ask them to make decisions or identify problems, and give them constructive feedback (much like classroom role play). This lets them learn from their mistakes and equips them to do the right thing in real life. 7 Test and tell, don’t tell and test Test understanding rather than memory by using questions to make learners reach the answers themselves, instead of just giving them the information. They’re more likely to understand the key message, to remember it, and ultimately to put it into practice in their day-to-day work. 8 Make it easy for learners The most engaging content or innovative design can be undermined if the course isn’t user friendly. Make sure you use consistent language and avoid jargon, take the time to explain navigation and

interactions, and always consider the environment learners will take the course in. 9 Speak the learners’ language The words you use are just as important as what you say, so don’t forget you’re writing a training course not an instruction manual. Banish the business speak and inject a little life into your e-learning – you’ll be amazed at how much difference it makes.4

development timeline slightly. But ask yourself this: if something has to give (which it almost always does), which can you really afford to compromise on in today’s world – speed, cost, or quality? 1 See the Samsung Jet ‘Impatience is a virtue’

advert at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= s8tWLEsLpxs 2 http://www.saffroninteractive.com/2009/blog/

top-ten-tips-for-writing-effective-questions/

10 Get a second opinion

3 http://blog.cathy-moore.com/2007/08/can-

It’s hard to be objective when you’re the one who wrote the content, especially if you’re also the SME, so always get a second opinion. Colleagues, friends and family members can all offer a fresh perspective; their first impression will give you a good idea of how learners will react later.

you-answer-these-6-questions-about-multiplechoice-questions/

TIME WELL SPENT So there you have it – my top tips for excellent instructional design.5 You might well be thinking that this all takes time, and you’d be right. An hour’s worth of material can’t be transformed into effective online content overnight, and paying this much attention to the instructional design in all likelihood will extend your overall

4 Read my full article on this at http://www.saffron

interactive.com/wpcontent/uploads/2009/08/ad vance_article_25_stephanie_dedhar_online.pdf 5 Find and download a summary of these, as well

as tips on a whole range of topics related to learning and development, on the Spicy Learning Blog at http://www.saffroninteractive.com/ category/blog/top-tip/

Stephanie Dedhar is Senior Instructional Designer at Saffron Interactive and can be contacted at stephanie@saffroninteractive.com

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 61

THE

TALENT MANAGEMENT DIVIDEND Forward-thinking organisations have discovered that talent management is not just traditional HR with a makeover. Vincent Belliveau explains how the integration of business goals with performance, learning and succession, is a formula for success.

any organisations state that their people give them a competitive advantage. But talent must be identified, developed and utilised in the right roles for this to hold true. Unfortunately, this happens in very few organisations, and it is not hard to see why.

a number of separate teams working on specific tasks such as learning and development, recruitment, induction and workforce planning. These activities have their own systems and processes. Teams may not be integrated sufficiently to deliver the information the organisation needs for true talent management.

Smaller companies are often too focused on delivering immediate business performance to really look to the future. Larger organisations can be better staffed and organised but they often lack a holistic approach. A large HR function may contain

Definitions of ‘talent management’ may be debated but fundamentally it involves tracking the performance of individuals, teams and the workforce as a whole. This includes identifying and analysing knowledge, skills and competencies,

succession planning and enterprise collaboration tools. What is not up for debate is the dividend that this approach can deliver. In its HR Systems Survey 2008/2009, application support specialist CedarCrestone, found that adopting an integrated approach to talent management produces a revenue growth rate that is 44 percent above average. Bersin & Associates’ Talent Management fact book for 2009 concurs: ‘companies with mature, integrated talent management strategies have experienced less downsizing through the economic recession, though they have

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 63

THE TALENT MANAGEMENT DIVIDEND

significantly lower turnover, their revenue per employee is 26 percent higher than companies without an integrated talent management strategy.’ The Bersin study also suggests that, while only five percent of companies are at an advanced stage in the implementation of talent management technology, only 15 percent of companies have yet to implement a strategy, down from 26 percent in 2008. From a budgetary perspective, it seems counter-intuitive that companies invest more in talent management during a recession. Traditionally, training and HR budgets are among the first to be cut. Perhaps chief executives are finally standing by the oft-cited assertion ‘our people are our greatest asset’. But business decisions are invariably rooted in the impact on business performance and the bottom line, and there is an increasing recognition that people management is more important when the headcount is frozen or reduced. The CedarCrestone Survey advises that ‘in times of economic decline, focus on developing, evaluating and retaining talent. Key technologies are learning and performance management, career planning and compensation management’. Currently many organisations are trying to cut costs while still maintaining high performance and customer service. There is less focus on expensive and often lengthy recruitment . The focus now is on making the most of the people already in place – measuring, developing and retaining existing talent. It is this that has most raised the profile of talent management.

being able to track an individual through the employment lifecycle is essential to managing talent effectively.” Bersin & Associates in 2007 observed: “Only when the various talent management processes and systems are integrated can an organisation be fully effective.” These days, the available technology allows any organisation to implement a coherent, co-ordinated system that also facilitates collaboration across HR functions. These systems operate across the entire lifecycle of employees. They include induction, development of learning, knowledge, skills and competencies, skills gap analysis, succession planning, and so on until retirement and exit interviews.

It’s also true that the latest talent management solutions are simply better easier to implement and able to deliver enhanced functionality. The arrival of truly integrated solutions is linking the critical HR functions under the one umbrella system.

Organisations which have adopted such a systematic strategy claim to be experiencing tangible, positive business benefits. They can identify skills gaps and address them through blended learning, engage in and encourage informal learning via enterprise social networks and collaboration tools, identify and develop future leaders, and retain high performers by providing them with personal and career development opportunities.

Until relatively recently, the various elements that comprise talent management tended to be viewed in isolation or at best, in small topic groups. This was partly due to custom and practice, but mainly due to the lack of automatic processes permitting the different HR activities to be integrated into one coherent process. As market analyst Gartner recently commented: “One of the biggest challenges is that HR has many functional silos. Managers want a seamless end-to-end process experience. Process thinking must become pervasive if HR is to be an effective partner with the business.”

Effective talent management is no longer a theoretical discussion among the HR industry. The link between performance, learning and succession is increasing in importance in both the public and private sector. However, it is important that expectations are managed effectively. Any system is only as good as the functionality – and the information – it contains. Data captured in performance is used to make decisions during other processes, such as succession planning. These dependencies underline how critical it is to capture quality.

Research consultancy Business Intelligence UK, reported in 2009: “The importance of

Organisations must realise that the corporate learning function does not stand

TALENT MANAGEMENT COMES OF AGE

64 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

alone. Learning and development programmes need to be linked to talent management programmes. Talent management is not just a re-labelling of traditional HR processes. It requires process redesign, new governance models, new systems – and a dedicated champion. Studies show that companies with a dedicated talent management executive perform better at nearly every aspect of talent management. EMPOWERING YOUR TALENT Talent management is just as much about the individual as it is about the process. And talented people often want to be involved in their own development. In many organisations, employees are now empowered to take greater control of their own destiny. This type of strategy has evolved through a number of different phases. A decade or more ago, employees may have been offered a degree of choice from a set menu of training courses. Then came the roll out of web-enabled learning management systems. E-learning content heralded the age of self-service learning, where employees could access and complete a variety of training courses at any time. Now we are seeing a further development. For example, HML, a third party mortgage service which is part of the Skipton Building Society Group, is deploying what they term ‘a self-service people development system’. The company places a great deal of emphasis on employee engagement to consistently deliver bottom line improvements. It felt that an integrated learning and talent management solution could be rolled out to employees to drive this by building employee engagement. This self-service solution covers performance and talent management, and provides

THE TALENT MANAGEMENT DIVIDEND

access to learning. Individuals proactively take steps to further their own personal and professional development. HML found that within five months it had delivered savings equal to its cost. The new system reduced employee time-tocompetency, ensured compliance, and streamlined business processes. It also helped the company to rid itself of out-ofdate information, harmonise its HR processes and produce a great deal of ‘joined-up’ data. The future looks talented even with limited budgets and resources. The evidence shows that integrated talent management delivers quantifiable results in both the public and the private sectors.

CASE STUDY: KELLY SERVICES Investing in people is a core value for recruitment agency Kelly Services – after all, people are its business. The worldwide company provides workforce management services and human resources solutions and has a large and diverse employee base. It has 650,000 candidates and employs 8,900 field and corporate staff. When Kelly’s global learning team decided to update their legacy learning management system, it saw an opportunity to partner with colleagues in the company’s other HR functions to select a single, integrated application platform to meet their combined needs. Each team agreed that integration offered greater insight into its workforce and allowed them to devise and implement more effective initiatives. The teams also recognised that a single system would be more user-friendly for candidates and employees, leading to improved customer service. Kelly required a solution that would be flexible, scalable and configurable, in order to serve its large global network. But it also had to be simple to deploy and maintain.

The organisations that align human capital with their overall goals create efficiencies and attract, cultivate and retain highperformers. They are the ones that are better positioned for success once global markets return to growth.

Providing employees with easy, anytime/anywhere access to their learning and career information was critical. And the adoption of the software-as-a-service system has led to other, unexpected efficiency improvements. Allison Kerska, director of global learning: “We have found a host of efficiencies – even the integrated online forms have led to a significant streamlining of employee compliance processes. It offers a low cost of ownership and doesn’t require additional hardware or IT support.”

Vincent Belliveau is General Manager (EMEA), Cornerstone OnDemand and can be contacted at vbelliveau@cornerstoneondemand.com

Kelly Services’ suite includes platforms for induction, learning, performance, succession, compensation and extended enterprise. This is believed to be the largest global implementation to date of any software-as-a-service application.

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 67

ROUTE MAP TO

A LEARNING ECOSYSTEM

How can you best deploy learning technologies within your organisation to cultivate a thriving learning ecosystem? The best place to start is to know exactly where you’re going, argues Alan Bellinger.

f you don’t know exactly where you’re going, any route will get you there. And whilst this may be self-evident, actually knowing where you’re going in the longer term (the strategy as opposed to the tactics) isn’t always easy. Developing plans to address immediate priorities is one thing but having a clear vision of the use of learning technologies three to five years out is quite a challenge. This is why the Institute of IT Training (IITT) has developed its ‘Learning Technologies Maturity Model’. The elementary model takes five evolving states, within which are three key variables (in the full model there are seven more). In each cell is the answer to the question ‘what will it look like when we get there?’

You may find you disagree with some of the descriptions and if you do, that’s good news. This is not a one-size-fits-all model. It does however provide a great basis for evaluating where your organisation sits on the maturity model matrix. The key point is this: the maturity model shows your position and clarifies the direction of travel. It highlights those areas

on which you need to focus. The route map then identifies the actions you need to take to ensure you reach your destination. Let’s look at each stage and clarify exactly what is going on. LEVEL 1 – BASIC Your Learning Technologies Group responsible for deployment is relatively unknown by key stakeholders. The perception of the group depends on whether a business unit has used your services and the resulting experience. Business units may refer to the Learning Technologies Group if they have tactical skills needs but more often they’ll just ‘do their own thing’. The Group tends to focus on its budget, key operational issues and staffing. And the main factors that determine the organisation’s perception of the Group typically revolve around its responsiveness and reliability. From a learning technologies perspective, the Group’s focus tends to be on generic e-learning, although, with the rise in acceptance of rapid e-learning, it may well

include the deployment of some bespoke content. This tends to lead to a project focus within the Group; and a high percentage of the time is spent addressing the core issue of gaining acceptance for the use of learning technologies across the enterprise. The Learning Technologies Group networking tends to focus on internal relationships – and specifically on relationships with members of the L&D organisation. There can be quite a powerplay within L&D over whether to use learning technologies or stick with the tried and tested classroom. In addition to getting e-learning established in the organisation, the Group will be focusing on credibility issues; that involves gaining credibility in the technology as well as getting the confidence of the business unit managers in the team. In the riskaverse environment we experience today, creating trust involves demonstrating that risks are under control. This means showing that the technology is inherently low risk and there is expertise in the Group to manage any issues.

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ROUTE MAP TO A LEARNING ECOSYSTEM

LEVEL 2 – DEVELOPING The Learning Technologies Group at the developing level is starting to gain recognition from business units regarding its contribution to organisational performance. Business units will start to identify that service delivery is becoming more consistent and that its activities turn out to be repeatable. But business units still remain sceptical about the use of learning technologies and the value add is still seen as tactical. The Group tends to be called upon as a last resort when other alternatives have been ruled out. The Group tends to focus on its communications programmes, on increasing its visibility within the organisation and on marketing its services. It’ll also be preoccupied with addressing sourcing issues, the perennial problems of whether to insource or outsource, and the department’s role in the procurement process. The perception of the managers within the organisation tends to be determined by the Group’s record on identifying problems and resolving them. At this stage there is a wider deployment of learning technologies and a better understanding of the depth of technologies that can be implemented. Tensions tend to build up between the Learning Technologies Group and the IT department over storage, bandwidth and support issues. Typically, the Group will have set up an LMS, and they’ll be using it to concentrate on other shared services that it could provide across the organisation. As such, the Group is starting to be recognised as a cross function organisation that can contribute to breaking down the stovepipes. (A stovepipe organisation restricts the flow of information which inhibits cross function communication.)

Group lacks the political clout to deal with cross-function collaboration unless it is part of a larger function. As the Learning Technologies Group matures, its modus operandi becomes established, and its growing credibility ensures it is able to handle the politics. As the Group becomes accepted, it is acknowledged as a specialist operation that acts in a professional manner and is a key part of the organisation. The Group’s processes are recognised and followed, and the Group is seen to provide real value add (up to this point it tends to be perceived more as an operational necessity). One of the questions that tends to be at the forefront at this stage is that of the Group’s alignment to organisational goals. The Group tends to present itself as service-driven and demonstrates a commitment to the organisation’s values and goals. There is often a focus on competency frameworks and employee readiness, and the Group demonstrates that it is highly competent in handling supplier management. The general perception of the Learning Technologies Group is that it is business aware, and is priority driven – even if the business unit managers don’t always accept that it has the right priorities. The Group tends to have a clearer framework for developing both formal and informal learning interventions, and has become quite sophisticated in its use of measurement and assessment processes. The deployment of mandatory training has been replaced by assessment techniques

The Group’s network is widening significantly at this point as they look to infiltrate the L&D community both within and outside the organisation. The Group will be focused on professionalism as part of its determination to be accepted. Business unit managers will still be sceptical about the deployment of learning technologies, but will be aware that it has been used successfully by some of their peers, and they’ll rely on the experience of the Learning Technologies Group to overcome any issues that may arise. LEVEL 3 – MATURE As the Learning Technologies Group matures, issues about whether or not the Group is really part of L&D tend to fade away as the Group establishes credibility in its own right. The core issue is that the 70 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

allowing training events to be targeted specifically at learner needs. The Learning Technologies Group now networks widely and finds that its peers tend to include many more business unit and functional managers. It has finally established itself outside L&D and is benefiting from its new-found freedom. This is the point at which learning technologies are accepted organisation. Push-back has become a past phenomenon and any paranoia over risk has completely subsided. LEVEL 4 – ADVANCED But being mature is only one step along the route – there are still two more to go. So it’s not yet time to sit back on the laurels of past success. Now, the Learning Technologies Group is trusted by functional management, and that is a significant milestone. It may seem trivial to progress from being accepted to being respected but it’s a major advance. The trusted status only comes after a strong track record – and it can disappear in moments with one failed project. The advanced Learning Technologies Group has strong stakeholder engagement and is acknowledged as a team that deploys open governance programmes. Business units now regularly engage and involve the Group in their staff planning and development activities. Indeed, it is at this point that the Group evolves from being seen as learning technology experts to business consultants specialising in performance. The Group will have been closely

ROUTE MAP TO A LEARNING ECOSYSTEM

associated with the deployment of the performance management system that provides comprehensive metrics on individual, team and corporate performance. Learning objects will be directly linked to the system and it is this move that begins the key next step – to integrate learning and work.

moved from a position of respect to one in which it is simply taken for granted. Both the Group itself, and individual members, will be an integral part of the organisation’s DNA. So much so that both their fundamental raison d’être and their modus operandi will be seen as an integral part of the fabric of the organisation.

The staff within the Learning Technologies Group have become experts in business operations. The growth has been from training professionals through learning professionals to business experts. They are recognised as individuals who provide guidance on performance and business matters and not just on skills. As a result of this breadth of experience, members of the Group are regularly assigned to non-L&D roles, especially as part of a crossfunctional team that is brought together to focus on transformation.

The Group is now a core part of the management team. Its contribution to overall competitive readiness and performance is light years away from the politics and territorial issues that dogged the early stages of the maturity model.

Both the Group itself, and individual members, look for external recognition and will be called on to share their expertise with like-minded peers. LEVEL 5 - EXEMPLAR By level 5 a number of interesting changes will have occurred. The Group will have

The holy grail has been found – and learning now is totally incorporated with work. Achieving such a level of integration would not be possible without the use of learning technologies; and each of those technologies is now fully integrated into a learning ecosystem. This is how the Gartner Group defines the learning ecosystem: “The set of relationships between learners, resources and knowledge providers that enables knowledge sharing in structured and non-structured ways to achieve corporate performance goals. It relies on informal activities in addition to the

structured training activities that allow people to gain the knowledge they need to successfully complete their jobs. “These informal activities include mentoring, participating in communities of practice, collaborating with peers and accessing content that is critical to their job. The key attributes of a learning ecosystem are personalisation of learning experiences, collaboration between learning stakeholders, and the management of those resources and relationships. The main goal is to leverage existing training resources, learning content and e-learning software into a managed learning experience.” It’s been a long journey to get here and when you reach the summit of one mountain, another one comes into view. Although I can’t imagine what the vision is like when we reach this exemplary level perhaps we’ll have a clearer view next year. See you at Olympia! Alan Bellinger is Executive Consultant at the Institute of IT Training and can be contacted at abellinger@iitt.org.uk. Alan will be a Track Chair at the Learning Technologies 2010 Conference.

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 73

PUTTING IT ALL

TOGETHER

Ara Ohanian explains how closer ties between management, operations and training make for higher impact learning, faster.

oday, an enterprise’s people have never been more important to its success, something that executives and managers increasingly understand. They are looking to their Learning and Development (L&D) departments for help, asking them to take a lead in ensuring relevant competence and knowledge throughout the enterprise and beyond.

BEYOND BLENDED LEARNING Traditionally, the training department was a service provider to the rest of the organisation. Largely, it was only concerned with providing courses at the request of HR and of management. Its focus, therefore, was on internal efficiency – in particular, on making classroom delivery as efficient as possible.

In the past, the learning and development profession has seen fads focused on both technologies and on methodologies. However, technologies and methods are only individual components of a broader approach to organisational learning, an approach which some companies are already deploying to great effect. In these organisations, frontline operations are supported by both management focus and by training delivery. The result: a new approach to organisational learning, with L&D directly serving key operations to deliver impact at the front line of the enterprise, and beyond. This approach is called ‘integrated learning’.

Training

Training requests and fulfilment

Frontline operations

Management and leadership

Many organisations still train this way, but this isolated form of training delivery, slow to respond to business need, no longer provides training that is rapid or focused enough for today’s world. In time, as the training department changed into the learning and development (L&D) department, it became clear that L&D was about more than simply delivering training, and that learning could occur outside the classroom. The result was ‘blended learning’. At first nothing more than a classroom course with the addition of a book or some online reading materials, blended learning has rapidly become the standard delivery mechanism for learning materials in most organisations. It remains, however, just that: a delivery mechanism, not an integral part of the organisation. Today, this style of blended learning is no longer enough, not by itself. It focuses on delivery rather than on results, and on materials, not

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PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

performance. But the successful L&D department of today is not a separate body from the rest of the organisation, like the traditional training department. It works closely with other departments. In particular it has close links with front line operational departments such as Sales and Production, where enhanced performance has a direct effect on organisational effectiveness. It also works closely with leadership to meet organisational goals. Going beyond blended learning takes the L&D department into integrated learning.

people who have the most effect on organisational success. Although a systematic integration of corporate goals into learning is core to integrated learning, this does not mean that an integrated approach requires massive investment in systems. Some technology is required, but it is as important to invest in understanding the needs of the rest of the organisation, and working with it. The key factor behind successful integrated learning is the attitude of the L&D department. It has to be a department that steps outside its own domain. Integrated learning begins with conversations with the other departments (sales, operations, production, marketing, etc.) that make up the organisation, and which make it a success.

Learning and development

INTEGRATING LEARNING IN YOUR ORGANISATION Frontline operations

Management and leadership

INTEGRATED LEARNING Integrated learning helps organisations remain effective by putting the knowledge of the organisation to work faster than traditional classroom training, and by ensuring at the same time that the skills and knowledge delivered are entirely relevant to organisational goals.

Integrated learning rests on four crucial pillars: 1. Focus on results and speed 2. Integrate with management 3. Integrate with learners

Integrated learning, therefore, both includes the blended learning approach to delivery and goes beyond it, incorporating organisational goals as a key driver to its activity.

4. Support by technology

Learning and development

Core L&D activity, including content creation, storage and delivery

In an integrated approach to learning, each area concentrates on its own core role and the L&D department supports the other departments as appropriate, see example on the right. While blended learning focuses on the delivery mechanism of training, integrated learning focuses on the performance results of the organisation. The top priority is improving the effectiveness of those in frontline operations, the

Integrated learning involves taking learning from the province of L&D out into other departments. The result is pervasive learning throughout an enterprise. But it is only possible for L&D to do this effectively by focusing on what unites it with these other departments: the goals of the organisation, and achieving them as rapidly as possible.

1. Focus on results and speed The front line operations in your organisation have targets to meet and will work closely with any L&D initiative that helps them achieve those targets rapidly. For example, the rental company Aaron’s Rents wanted to maintain and improve sales across 1,500 outlets in the US. Part of their approach to this was to implement a new sales staff training programme. Once this route had been identified, each day of delay before well-trained staff stepped onto the shop floor was a day of potentially lower sales revenue. Aaron’s opted to deliver the training through a rapidly-deployed, integrated Learning Management System that included LMS, LCMS and web 2.0 collaboration. The result: the L&D department working with operations and sales to design, deploy and implement the LMS in just three weeks. That’s a focus on results at work! 2. Integrate with management In the past, the training department was able to work to its own schedule, producing courses for the organisation to consume, knowing that the content would match the largely unchanged needs of the business. With today’s rapid rate of change, this method is inadequate. Instead, L&D has to work closely with organisational management and leadership to ensure not only that the right content is developed, but also that it is deployed in ways that meet the sometimes conflicting needs of the organisation – with the conflict usually between a need for skills on the job, and time taken off to learn them. Understanding organisational goals and meeting them quickly is one area in which it is crucial to integrate with management. Another is working intelligently with existing management procedures and information. For example, the executive may have called in external specialists to build a competency framework for the organisation.

Training Learning and management support systems systems Competency Sales based L&D planning Core activities Performance including target Production management setting, delegation and reporting Frontline operations

76 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

Management and leadership

It might be tempting to try to incorporate the entire framework into L&D operations, to provide a complete mapping of courses to the competencies identified as organisationally essential. It would be

78 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

There are two essential ways to integrate L&D with learners. The first is to encourage their contribution. Adding learner input not only boosts the content available in a system, it also increases learning through stronger engagement. tempting, but not the best use of valuable time. This is a process that could take months. Instead, work with management to understand where the introduction of competencies into L&D could have the greatest effect. Probably the core 20% of competencies, applied to L&D for the essential 20% of frontline personnel will make a substantial difference to frontline results. 3. Integrate with learners There are two essential ways to integrate L&D with learners. The first is to encourage their contribution. Adding learner input not only boosts the content available in a system, it also increases learning through stronger engagement. Collaborative technologies such as blogs, wikis, Microsoft SharePoint, and online meetings are now part of many people’s working lives, and they expect to be able to use them in e-learning. However, remember the need to focus on speed and results. Any time spent integrating this technology with other systems is time not spent delivering results. Instead, look for learning platform technologies that already incorporate collaborative functionality and are preconfigured to integrate with other tools. This means you don’t have to pay for integration. More importantly, though, it means you can keep focused on results. A larger, crucial part of integration with learners is your adoption plan. When introducing any learning to an organisation, include these points in your plan to ensure that your learners are on board:

• understand your audience • build ‘champion’ groups • go for quick wins • get expert help and funding • build credibility and kudos internally • get external recognition • maintain the motivation 4. Support by technology None of the above is possible without technology - but what technology? As seen above, the need to focus on speed and results means that whatever technology is deployed, it must: • be quick to deploy • be fairly priced

content brought together over time. Such organisations will want to consider replacing these time-consuming combinations of tools with an all-in-one system that includes the LMS and LCMS functionality that they need to move to integrated learning. The system must be able to import existing learner data and course content. Organisations that already have an LMS in place have until recently faced a similar choice: to strip out the LMS and replace it with a more comprehensive solution, or to try to make it work in conjunction with a variety of content management tools. An alternative solution exists, however: integration with a single tool which combines LMS capability with a Learning Content Management System (LCMS). Working together with other departments will lead, eventually, to demands for other forms of integration. Any learning system must also be able to work with your existing legacy HR and ERP software, because sooner or later you may be asked to establish a link between the two.

• include training tailored to the functionality that will be used

Nobody wants two systems carrying personnel data, and a system that is open to integration with, for example, SAP and Oracle/PeopleSoft will enable you to save your own time and to leverage the investment your organisation has already made.

• incorporate collaborative learning tools

LEARNING BEYOND THE ENTERPRISE

• integrate with third party learning tools

Companies such as Black & Decker have extended their L&D operations beyond their own organisations and included partners in the extended enterprise. This is in keeping with the web 2.0 world, where people expect openness and transparency, and easily accessible information.

• be manageable by the L&D department, not by external consultants • include the functionality you need, not the bells and whistles you don’t

With good technology support, it is possible to make the transition from the traditional training department to integrated learning. Given that most organisations already have some learning systems in place, how does this help or hinder them in moving to integrated learning? Many L&D departments work with homegrown systems, combinations of tools and

Innovative organisations are now going further, using their LMS to open up their learning not only to partners, but also to clients. This is using L&D not merely to support the frontline, but to extend it.

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 79

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Giving clients direct access to quality learning about products and services not only reduces support and maintenance calls, it enhances customer loyalty and sets competitors a barrier to entry.

Giving clients direct access to quality learning not only reduces support and maintenance calls, it enhances customer loyalty and sets competitors a barrier to entry.

This approach of extending learning to clients as well as its partners leads to a larger view of integrated learning:

CONCLUSION

Clients and partners

Frontline operations

Integrated learning is essential to meeting the needs of modern organisations in both the public and private sectors.

Learning and development

Management and leadership

Integrated learning has three hallmarks. Learning and development, although still controlled centrally by the L&D department, is integrated into the operations of the business. This results in the second characteristic: a management-driven focus on speed and on results, on practical business results achieved in unison,

rather than over-engineered systematic learning perfection produced in isolation. Such close integration demands the third characteristic: integrated technological support, particularly of learning content. To be truly focused on speed, the L&D department cannot spend its time on implementation, administration and tinkering with technical maintenance of several different systems. Only with the right technical support can an organisation truly benefit from integrated learning.

Ara Ohanian is CEO of CERTPOINT Systems. This is an extract from the CERTPOINT white paper on Integrated Learning, one of a series of papers available at http://bit.ly/CPNTWhitePapers

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See it in action at Learning Technologies 2010 80 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

Vaughan Waller explains why his quest to find a learning culture turned out to be a fool’s errand.

WHAT IS A

LEARNING CULTURE AND HOW DO YOU KNOW

IF YOU HAVE ONE?

e have all heard of the term ‘culture of learning’ and most learning professionals would agree that it is a desirable objective for any organisation. I’m not going to challenge this but I was recently asked whether my firm has a learning culture and if not, how can we acquire one. Little did I know at the time, that this was a wild-goose chase, but I will come to that later. My first task was to understand what a learning culture is and how to recognise its existence in my firm. I found an online questionnaire which purported to settle the matter one way or the other. To no one’s surprise the survey proved unequivocally that my firm was anti-learning - even though the results were not linked to any cultural factors at

all. Instead, it concentrated on perceptions of the value of learning, the willingness to exchange information, how individuals treat mistakes and other questions that I felt were valid, but still missed the target. To follow my quest I searched for the answers to three questions: 1) what exactly is a learning culture, 2) how do you know you have one, and if not 3) how do you acquire one? So what is a learning culture? Many quote Nonaka and Takeuchi, who were first to suggest that enterprise knowledge is the key to competitive advantage. From their 1995 book The Knowledge Creating Company: ‘a learning culture is the capability of a company as a whole to create new knowledge, disseminate it

throughout the organisation and embody it in products, services and systems. This statement directly links knowledge (an outcome of learning) and the context (business performance). This is spot on but does not mention people. Since this process works via individuals, I feel the need to delve deeper. You get a new insight if you split the term and define culture separately from learning. The three most common definitions of culture are: 1. The aesthetic appreciation of fine arts good taste etc 2. A pattern of human knowledge, beliefs and behaviours acquired through learning

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 83

WHAT IS A LEARNING CULTURE AND HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU HAVE ONE?

3. The shared values, traditions, languages that distinguish one group of individuals from others. The second of these is interesting in the context of this article since this brings in cognitive psychology. Throughout our lives we learn to learn both in a pedagogical sense and through social learning via our peers. During our working lives we are asked to undergo training which is designed, among other things, to improve the way we work by developing skills. If all goes to plan this improves the fortunes of the business. Well that’s the plan anyway. As an instructional designer, I design learning to make these goals a reality but have no control over the way people learn. There are numerous theories about individual preferences and learning styles but as we all know, the final learning

So changing an individual’s culture is difficult at the best of times. Perhaps it is best to design learning with the aim of changing corporate culture, and hope that hearts and minds will follow. rapidly during for instance, periods of organisational change. Culture should not be confused with personality which is unique to an individual, nor should it be confused with human nature, which is universal. In a multi-national firm like mine, culture is specific only to a group of people, and is learnt throughout the life of the individual. Therefore, I could be dealing with numerous cultures: individual, corporate and national, and even a number of subcultures too.

THE CULTURE OF LEARNERS

Inherited and learned

Personality Specific to a group or category

Universal

Culture

Source: Geert Hofstede, SRIC-BI

programme compromises on many of these. There is much finger crossing that it will work for every learner. I am aware of the impact of graphic design, interaction, blending platforms and all the other factors, but there isn’t a lot I can do about them in a global firm covering 93 countries.

Inherited

WHY DO PEOPLE SAY ONE THING AND DO ANOTHER? Figure 2: Corporate culture Artefacts Espoused values

The one certainty was this: the existence of a positive learning culture throughout my firm would enable my programmes to be embraced. But this contention assumes all learning professionals know what lies behind a learning culture. I had to admit at the time that I found this a bit fuzzy. When designing learning it is important to take into account the third of the three definitions of culture above (the culture of learners – figure 1). This is vital to ensure that learning happens, the learning is retained and that learning can take place

“All of this explains why people can say one thing then do another. It also explains why it is hard to use an e-learning programme to change people’s basic, underlying beliefs and assumptions.”

Learned

Human nature

They have a strong control over behaviour and they are the slowest to change. Secondly, there are espoused values which are essentially strategies, goals and reasoning which are explicitly chosen - and these may differ from (and even contradict) a person’s basic beliefs. Lastly, and most visibly, are artefacts which include visible organisational structures and processes. Speaking at an eLearning Network conference, Rob Edmonds of Strategic Business Insights (formerly SRI Business Intelligence), said: “You cannot detect a person’s basic beliefs from their espoused values, and it is even harder to guess these beliefs from the artefacts (structures and processes).

Figure 1: Culture should not be confused with personality (unique to the individual) or human nature (universal to all). Specific to individual

All these various cultures have three defined layers (figure 2). Firstly, at the core are people’s basic, underlying assumptions. These are unconscious, taken-for-granted beliefs, perceptions, thoughts and feelings.

Basic underlying assumptions

Source: Edgar Schein, SRIC-BI

84 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

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86 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

WHAT IS A LEARNING CULTURE AND HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU HAVE ONE?

Your ability to change your learning culture depends upon your ability to ensure the learning relates to something the learners personally care about. Your learning design should then do the rest. THE FOUR CULTURE ORIENTATIONS Figure 3

Egalitarian

Fulfilment

Project

Person

Task Person

Heirachical

1. Fulfilment-orientated culture This sort of organisation enjoys working in groups so collaborative learning works well here. This could mean live online learning, virtual classrooms etc. 2. Project-orientated culture This is where deadlines or targets are prominent and hence learning is pushed to the back. Here small nugget-type programmes and performance support systems work well. 3. Person-orientated culture The classroom approach works best in this culture. People learn in groups from someone in authority and prefer a central command-and-control push of learning, rather than a learner-centric pull. 4. Role-orientated culture This is the traditional culture for a UK organisation. It often indicates that employees are concerned about their position in the hierarchy. This in turn may mean that they prefer learning integrated into the work processes, with plenty of assessment which people know is tracked and logged. Thus learning is directly linked to job security and prospects.

To make learning work across cultures it is imperative to make it accessible to all, using as many media, platforms etc. as you can. There should be as much variety as possible – making hundreds of modules that all look the same because they are based on the same template, is fatal. The material should be relevant for the target audience. This is especially important in financial services. If anti-money laundering training is based in a bank, and the learner is an auditor, then it will not be as effective as it could be. Interactivity is key because if it is just page turning attention will be lost quickly. And then we come back to where we started with the link between learning and performance.

Role

Source: Trompensaars & Hampden-Turner

Organisations are or should be focused on their staff and what they do and this gives rise to four distinct types of culture orientation. This can be shown on two axes which identify the orientation of the culture in each of the four quadrants as you can see in Figure 3 above.

extreme. These trainees had now joined the real world and wished to be treated as such. So it is not necessary to create learning for different age groups. I had imagined that I should departmentalise the firm’s staff and design for each group. This is the wrong approach.

There isn’t the space here to describe how to identify the culture of your organisation although I hope this whets your appetite to find out. What this does show is that if you want learning that works, find out first who you are designing for. This may not be easy but it is worth the effort. It is clear that organisational culture can depend on the national culture, so designing learning across borders is somewhat difficult. But what about other factors such as age? There has been much discussion recently about how the so-called Generation X and Generation Y are adept at games and simulations because they have spent many hours playing games in front of screens. Similarly, their much publicised penchant for social networking websites has invited suggestions that we should utilise these platforms for learning. To make these age groups feel at home. I had begun to think of these characteristics as a sub-culture but a recent experience dispelled these myths. Each year my firm takes on a batch of trainees who then complete their accountancy training with us. I had the opportunity to quiz them and was surprised at some of the answers. Most of them are aged 19-25 and 100% use social networking sites. I asked if they thought blocking access to sites such as Facebook at work was reasonable, and 100% agreed it was. Further questions reinforced the fact that they were on the same wavelength as everyone else. Any thought of presenting them with special learning programmes designed for their age group would be patronising in the

People of all ages need to know that what they do has some goal or purpose. They need to know how it is to be used – is it a course or is it a resource. If it is mandatory then why is this so. This may sound obvious but without an explanation it can negate the enjoyment of the learning and prove to be a chore. This negativity then seeps into other training programmes. An example of this is the mandatory requirement for staff in some local authorities to pass the ECDL exam when they have little or no need for it. Then it dawned on me. The mission to acquire a learning culture is a fool’s errand because your learning culture already exists. It has been in existence for as long as your organisation has existed because it came with your staff, whether you employ two, or two thousand people. So it is not a question of whether you have one, but whether it is positive or negative. Your ability to change your learning culture depends upon your ability to ensure the learning relates to something the learners personally care about. Your learning design should then do the rest. Is it desirable to have a culture of learning? The answer is yes, but only if it is positive. It is our job as learning and development professionals to ensure that it is. Vaughan Waller is Senior Instructional Designer at Moore Stephens LLP. Vaughan will be a Track Chair at the Learning Technologies 2010 Conference and can be contacted at vaughan.waller@moorestephens.com

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 87

TEN YEARS LEARNING

ABOUT LEARNING

Over the past 10 years, learndirect has transformed how thousands of adults learn, giving many a second chance at developing themselves. Kirstie Donnelly reflects on a decade of lessons learnt.

the people at the ceremony saw and heard it, in abundance. Some even talked about never having used a computer before they started their learning and being worried about how they would get on.

The winners talked about confidence, pride, self-esteem and motivation, as well as the sense of achievement from taking and passing a course. These can be difficult, intangible things to define but you know when you see and hear it, and believe me

But progress they did, and for many this has resulted in their first qualification ever. In fact, during the academic year 2008/2009 more than 65,000 people achieved a first maths or English qualification with learndirect. Another 13,000 achieved a National Vocational Qualification (NVQ).

few weeks ago learndirect hosted its third Annual Achievement Awards. Set up to celebrate the incredible journeys our learners have travelled, the ceremony really brought home to me, yet again, just how much learning can transform peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lives.

These huge numbers make all of us involved in learndirect immensely proud. We are helping people all around the country who have been let down by other forms of formal education, or people still with basic skills needs or who have not as yet gained a vocation or who need to upskill. Typically they are people who had a bad experience at school, leaving them feeling intimidated by traditional face-toface teaching. They are people who deserve a second chance. It is also for people who do not see the need to be tied to a timetable, or to a

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 89

TEN YEARS LEARNING ABOUT LEARNING

course that only starts only once or twice a year. Employees who might be running a family or caring for a relative at the same time as working, but still need to improve their skills, or desire another string to their bow. You may know that learndirect pioneered large scale delivery of learning supported by people and enabled by technology. You may not know that learndirect is the only organisation in the world - even in 2009 - deploying the best of online learning on a national scale. Reflecting on the last ten years got me thinking about how far we’d already come, and how far we have yet to go, as we make our plans for the next ten years. There’s no doubt learndirect is different to other e-learning, organisations and organisations which deliver qualification-based learning, such as colleges. What we do is ‘normalise’ the high-level technology and pedagogical debates and develop them into something meaningful to the end user. Something that delivers a sense of achievement and progression, whilst acknowledging the value of informal learning to be as valid as formal qualification programmes. And we deliver all this on a mass scale. As befits a true learning organisation, we ourselves are always learning, and always developing. So, here are my six key lessons we have learnt in last ten years. 11 ENGAGEMENT IS CRUCIAL – HAVE A CLEAR PURPOSE To get people motivated, interested and most likely to complete their course you have to get them engaged and learning quickly. This means before they even start a course, especially for those with little confidence in themselves and their ability to learn. Tools to help people use the technology must be available. People who have no experience of technology can learn the ropes very quickly if they have a clear purpose, like learning to read, write or do

To get people motivated, interested and most likely to complete their course you have to get them engaged and learning quickly. maths, particularly if it is to help their children. We have also learnt that giving people the digital skills they need to operate in today’s digital world has enabled us to maximise on developing highly effective engagement content that we can put on our website but also other websites. Go to your customers, don’t expect them to come to you! 2 PERSONALISATION - YES IT IS POSSIBLE TO INDIVIDUALISE TO A MASS MARKET At learndirect we have created our own definition of personalisation and what it means to us and, more importantly, to our learners. The essence of this is cultivating a ‘learner centric’ view. We provide tools, content, support and guidance, and structure but learners are encouraged to drive their learning themselves, at their own pace and in the order they want. We know that learners who have not succeeded in a traditional classroom setting feel safer where they don't feel judged by their peers or teachers. We have learnt that technology allows for a more personal learning experience than can be normally achieved in the classroom, but also a more consistent one. The relationship between an online learner and their online tutor/ assessor is a personal one-to-one connection. Then, when you add in the functionality of a community and social learning network, you add the benefit of one-to-many and peer-to-peer collaboration as well. Time, pace, choice and creating a ‘sense of place’ online, where learners can connect and share, are some of the features of successful personalisation.

90 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

3 NOT JUST COURSES OR TECHNOLOGY, LEARNDIRECT IS A SERVICE Another lesson learnt: we are a service. We don’t just deliver the technology. The technology is just one of the critical enablers to learning. Nor do we just deliver courses. We bring people, content, and processes together to deliver a service. Key to this is the monitoring and instrumentation activities we undertake, which makes the difference between running a system and running a service. The former may not deliver a quality experience. Also, as in any internet-delivered service, having direct control of your software and infrastructure saves money and increases quality. We have successfully demonstrated this approach within the learning sector gaining a Grade 2 (good) for our delivery, from the learning inspector Ofsted. 4 UNDERSTANDING LEARNERS The majority of research and expertise surrounding e-learning relates to higherlevel, academic and corporate learning. This is at best irrelevant to the needs of our audience and can be, at worst, detrimental to them. In other words, if we had applied accepted wisdom regarding the design and deployment of e-learning within the context of our market, we would probably have failed. Over the past decade we have learnt what our target audience wants, through our experience and understanding, and build our service accordingly. This is demonstrated by the high level of satisfaction we get in learner surveys and, most recently, being

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December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 91

92 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

TEN YEARS LEARNING ABOUT LEARNING

awarded the best performing Public Sector Contact Centre in the country. 5 CHANGE IS INEVITABLE Operating in a government-funded environment is complex and can make life difficult to plan. As government priorities change so do the activities, and the courses, they are willing to fund. New guidance on curricula and audit has been a constant in the last ten years. And changes in our inspection regime and how that is undertaken have altered how we operate. Alongside political change, we have changed our delivery model introducing new courses and platforms, and entering into new qualification markets. The pace of change is relentless and continuing. But it doesn’t affect what we achieve. We hit our government targets, but more importantly, we do this in conjunction with high learner satisfaction rates (95 percent or more). The lesson here: you must have adaptable staff and systems. 6 LEARNDIRECT HAS TRANSFORMED HOW ADULTS LEARN Around 240,000 people learn with us every year, some 10,000 log on to their homepage on any given day. The web has given us the medium to achieve this, totally transforming the delivery of a traditional, centuries-old concept of learning. It still surprises me, however, that policy makers and politicians have yet to

work out how to deploy the web to transform other public services and organisations. The potential is huge. learndirect has shown how technology can deliver on a mass scale which can, ultimately, lead to bottom-line efficiencies. There’s no doubt that commercial organisations have worked this out in their markets, just look at Amazon, Monster or First Direct. These are some of the lessons from the evolutionary journey. Now what? Our original vision to deliver learning online, supported by web, phone and communities as well as online tutors, has really started to make its mark. Now we have people looking at how we can design and build a service which will take our learners on their journey from initial engagement, through a skills assessment and a detailed diagnostic check, through registration and onto courses, and support them remotely using the web, customer contact centres and peer-to-peer communities of learners. Indeed, we have some of this happening already and the results are coming through. Although the numbers are small by comparison to our normal delivery size, some learners have already accomplished a maths or English qualification in this way, and some achieved NVQs in Childcare. We are learning every day about what our learners want and how they are best served. This will help us build the next

iteration of learndirect, enabling us to reach out to millions more people by giving them the flexibility, personalisation, quality and consistency they demand. Technology, systems, contents, courses, qualifications – these are all very well but at the end of the day learning is about the individuals. People like Margaret Rose who told us through the Achievement Awards: “Part of me was woken up when I did my literacy course. It has opened doors and made me realise I’m not stupid and that I can actually do so much. “It’s a fantastic feeling to be able to sit with my grandson and help him to do his homework. I’m now hungry to learn more and can’t imagine doing anything other than continuing to do just that. It is my dream to write a book one day and my time with learndirect helped me see this could become a reality.” Or learners like Erica Flowers, who has recently completed her NVQ in Childcare totally online, using the learndirect Childcare Portal: “I found it daunting as I had never used a computer before, but I soon got used to it. Everything you need is there once you log on. I can look at my work, contact my tutor and read about the latest changes in the industry. “When I was on the portal if I was stuck I could discuss with other learners and we were really learning from each other. Even though I have finished my NVQ I am still using the portal. You can get things done a lot quicker with the portal rather than at set times going to college. I loved it.” To date, around 2.7 million people have taken a learndirect course, with 290,000 achieving a first maths or English qualification. We have ambitious plans to help even more people. Plans which will take us on a completely new journey using the technology and systems our target group are familiar with. Services like Facebook, YouTube and other social networking sites. These are hugely popular with our learners and we want to integrate these services into learning, again on a mass scale. We think the time is right for learndirect to do this. Technology has caught up – or is it more a case of we have caught up with how best to use the technology enablers available, perhaps? And of course more and more people are living and working their lives through the web so the sociological factors are changing in favour of a new approach to help people fulfil their potential. Kirstie Donnelly is director of products and marketing at learndirect. www.ufi.com

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 93

94 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

E-LEARNING IS THE FOUNDATION FOR

GROWTH

E-learning is more than a way of education at The Priory Group, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a way of life. Owen Rose describes how learning technology is a platform for competitive advantage in the healthcare business.

he Independent mental health care specialist, The Priory Group, provides professional education, specialist care, neurorehabilitation and psychiatric services for people with addictions, eating disorders, depressive illnesses and psychoses. The Group also operates a national network of residential care for older people including nursing or specialist dementia care. The enterprise has adopted learning technologies to the extent that e-learning is embedded into every aspect of the business. Its award-winning corporate blended learning programme, called Foundations for Growth (FFG), has now been in operation for five years and has e-learning at its heart. After a successful pilot, FFG was launched to 5000 staff across over fifty sites. The programme delivered eighteen structured e-learning modules, each with linked offline learning activities. Over 33,000 module

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 95

E-LEARNING IS THE FOUNDATION FOR GROWTH

completions were recorded within the first six months, and extensive evaluations showed exceptionally high approval ratings from learners and managers. There are thirty-nine bespoke modules currently in use. They are testament to how learning technologies can evolve from an L&D tool to a value-add business partner. The focus on stakeholder equirements, communication and change management is credited with the outstanding level of adoption. FFG has saved Priory over £5 million in direct training costs since its launch four years ago. The e-learning programme delivers enormous business impact and provides a platform for sustained corporate advantage says chief operating officer Matthew Franzidis: “We aim to deliver consistent services of the highest quality, and this programme is vital. It is wonderful to go to any Priory site and see staff of all grades using FFG as part their work. The result is better trained staff, improved service delivery and higher patient satisfaction.” Foundations for Growth was created in 2005 in response to pressing business needs. A period of rapid acquisition and expansion had placed intense pressure on training resources. Scaling up an existing classroom training model for core skills led to inconsistency, inefficiency and risk of non-compliance, untenable in such a tightly regulated sector.

There are thirty-nine bespoke modules currently in use. They are testament to how learning technologies can evolve from an L&D tool to a value-add business partner.

Priory’s leadership team wanted to harness the power of e-learning to create a scalable and accessible platform for learning. However, the team was aware of the significant barriers to implementing learning technologies in an working environment focussed on people, with low levels of PC literacy, and limited technical infrastructure. The Group appointed us to create a solution that would overcome these barriers. We are known for our ability to work with complex businesses, to produce bespoke learning solutions, and for results through stake-holder engagement. The success of the project was rooted in four key interventions. Firstly, extensive consultation with stakeholders across the business, from housekeeper to the CEO. This led to an understanding of business needs, learner needs and working environment. Secondly, a twenty-strong working party of staff from across Priory was appointed to guide all aspects of the development. Thirdly, key training needs were identified, in both mandatory and specialist training areas. Lastly, a strong and

memorable identity was created (Foundations for Growth), to spearhead extensive communication and change management activity. This initial success was recognised by the industry when The Priory Group’s Foundation for Growth programme won the 2006 E-learning Award for the best e-learning project securing widespread adoption. Since then, the story has been one of ongoing enhancement and development which has made e-learning an essential business partner. EXTENDING AND ENHANCING ONLINE CONTENT Over the past four years, there has been continuous development of new e-learning content to meet changing business needs. As a result, more content requests now originate from business managers than from L&D. This demonstrates that the learning culture created is closely integrated with the needs of the business. The Group has not relied on one format however, and increasingly lets the training need determine the delivery choice. For example, podcasts were created to educate staff on patient experiences and Learning and Development staff are trained to record and produce their own podcasts inhouse. Compliance modules were re-fitted with a pre-test to allow staff to demonstrate their knowledge of compliance without having to regularly complete the same learning module. The FFG learning management platform is now an essential business system at Priory, supporting operational activity across the organisation. The initial creation and subsequent enhancements have been guided by the needs of L&D. Significant development of the learning management system however, has been driven by specific business units such as finance, regulatory and operations as well as the senior management team. A networked corporate service has been launched, which has opened up an important channel of communication. All staff are engaged and use the service as part of their everyday work. Consequently, when Priory sought to revamp its corporate intranet, FFG was integrated into the interface. This helped

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place the learning and development at the heart of corporate communication. The remarkable early adoption of FFG, and its subsequent enhancement, has made e-learning an everyday part of working life at Priory.

E-learning is used to complement or replace classroom training which has reduced the cost of training by five million pounds since its launch in 2005. And this estimate is on the conservative side.

CLINICAL RISK ASSESSMENT In the demanding and potentially dangerous environment of mental healthcare, effective clinical risk management is critical. Poorly managed risk has serious implications: suicide, selfharm, aggression and danger for other patients, staff or visitors. A business benefit that has resulted from FFG is exemplified by the e-learning module Clinical Risk Assessment (CRA) E-learning is used to deliver a corporate CRA training programme. It provides a consistent and comprehensive introduction to the subject across all healthcare sites. The course is bespoke, and capitalises on the knowledge and experience of subject matter experts (SMEs), and uses a blend of e-learning with linked observation exercises. The CRA e-learning was audited through patient-observation practice and recordkeeping at Priory’s clinical sites. In all cases, improved practice was demonstrated following the launch of the e-learning. Approval ratings from learners were high and a telephone survey of managers revealed widespread positive impact of the new training. The success of the CRA course was recognised through a National Training Award for the South East Region in 2007.

All of the e-learning modules capture best practice from Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), and other key opinion leaders, and embeds it into a consistent and accessible training platform. The programme has had a huge impact on staff performance and service quality says head of HR, Jacolyn Ferguson: “FFG has helped ensure stability in the business by promoting staff development which has improved our services to our clients, pupils and residents. We are meeting the training needs of the business and we are setting higher standards of care for the healthcare and education sectors.” E-learning is used to complement or replace classroom training which has reduced the cost of training by five million pounds since its launch in 2005. And this estimate is on the conservative side. Pre FFG, the ‘standard model’ for training at Priory was half-day classroom-based training sessions, delivered by external providers, or Priory SMEs. Added to the cost of trainer, venue and travel, the most significant outlay by far was for backfill (cover) for delegates. Post-FFG, backfill costs have been largely eliminated, as staff complete e-learning modules during quiet periods on shift. The e-learning is carefully

blended with other training channels, and in many cases provides brand new opportunities, in addition to existing formats. FFG IS A USP Whilst FFG has revolutionised training and saved a fortune in the process, its value and influence extends beyond these benefits. The quality, flexibility and scalability of e-learning supports the existing business model and drives business growth. A critical component of Priory’s business development is the acquisition of contracts to provide specialist healthcare and education services for Primary Care Trusts and local authorities. Contracts are awarded through competitive tender and FFG provides Priory with a unique selling point in the bid process says commercial development manager, Sarah Keeton: “Foundations for Growth is always an integral element of the bids that we submit to public sector organisations to secure new business. ”Clients require us to demonstrate our approach to learning and development and how we use it to ensure service quality, as well as personal and professional development for our employees. FFG gives us an edge as it proves our commitment to quality and innovation.” The Group is currently expanding into the elderly care sector through an ambitious nine-month programme. It intends to open nine purpose-built seventy-bed care homes, each employing up to one hundred staff. Ensuring that new staff receive the required mandatory and specialist training is key to effective expansion, and vital for the new units to operate safely and effectively from day one. Bhavna Jones, managing director of Priory’s Care Homes Division: “When we open a new unit we have a huge training load to ensure that all staff have appropriate capabilities and comply with regulatory requirements. Only then can the home can be registered by the Care Quality Commission. FFG provides an incredibly flexible and straightforward means of delivering this core training. It’s intuitive and easy to use for new staff, and allows us to certify key training in the shortest possible time.”

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The widespread adoption of FFG has driven the use of online technology across the business. This has allowed the corporate culture to be embedded across a widely distributed and rapidly expanding organisation. LESS RISK A key driver for implementing FFG was to reduce corporate risk by enhancing the consistency and availability of mandatory training as well as the timeliness and accuracy of compliance reporting to inspecting bodies. FFG has reduced L&D actions following inspection to virtually zero, and has won praise from the regulators. Its impact is captured by Sally Carmody, director of operations: “Monitoring compliance at all sites is easier, faster and more accurate. Before, all information was held locally, which increased the likelihood of disorganisation and mistakes. FFG has reduced this risk and improved how the quality and compliance team operate.” The widespread adoption of FFG has driven the use of online technology across the

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business. This has allowed the corporate culture to be embedded across a widely distributed and rapidly expanding organisation. The vision and values of the organisation are literally written into the bespoke learning content, and best practice is shared consistently. It is this penetration of Priory’s corporate culture that really signifies its success. In a people- and care-based environment, the sensitive use of learning technologies has transformed the business.

Dr Owen Rose is a Managing Partner at Information Transfer and can be contacted at owen@intran.co.uk.

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IMPROVING PROJECT MANAGEMENT SKILLS:

A NEW PERSPECTIVE Project managers have never been better equipped to succeed. So why do so many projects continue to fail to deliver or meet expectations? Eddie Kilkelly investigates.

ince the late 1980s, many public and private sector organisations have recognised the importance of formal project management, particularly in what was once a niche role in the delivery of large-scale construction or IT projects. Project management went mainstream in the late 1990s, when many organisations appointed project teams to deal with the much-hyped Millennium Bug. While the Millennium Bug has faded

into history, the terminology and concepts of project management have taken hold across a growing audience. Now there are numerous textbooks, training courses and online forums dedicated to project management and the methods they describe are applied to ever-increasing numbers and types of projects, from IT implementations to organisational change. So with more guidance available than ever

before and greater organisational experience of running projects, why do so many still fail? And what can training professionals do to bridge that gap? CHANGES TO PROJECTS AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT The Office of Government Commerce has published a list of common reasons for the failure of Government projects, which

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applies to most organisations. Yet the business environment itself is also a potential barrier to success. The rate of change in many organisations has accelerated because of the increased use of technology, reduced product life cycles, the emergence of new competitors from developing economies and the need to deal with changes caused by the recession. Business strategies have to be flexible as organisations look to adapt quickly to retain competitive advantage. As a result, the organisation’s needs may change before the project manager delivers the outcomes originally specified. Similarly, there has been an increase in the number of projects concerning softer issues like cultural change that typically have fewer tangible outcomes, where it is more difficult to prove success. If the number and type of projects have grown, so has the number of professional project managers, yet resourcing to handle these projects has also changed radically. In the past, large-scale projects were run by dedicated teams, but attempts to optimise staffing levels mean project managers now have fewer direct reports. Rather, they are often responsible for delivering projects without direct managerial control over how organisational resources are allocated or over other members of the project team (who may have been seconded from other departments). So projects may be less clearly defined, the goalposts are likely to move during the course of the project and the project manager may have no direct authority over the resources needed to get

Business strategies have to be flexible as organisations look to adapt quickly to retain competitive advantage. As a result, the organisation’s needs may change before the project manager delivers the outcomes originally specified. the job done – no wonder so many projects fail. Yet a highly-skilled and experienced project manager will be better placed to tackle these problems than one with little or no training or experience. METHODOLOGIES AND EVOLVING TECHNOLOGIES

Software tools are available to help HR and training professionals assess skills gaps by these APM standards. In addition, gaps may be identified during the appraisal process or at the end of a project, when the reasons for any project failings are identified.

3.Achievement through professional qualifications and a portfolio of evidence,

Perhaps the most obvious starting point is to check whether the individual has been trained in a best practice project management model such as PRINCE2®. Organisations have come to appreciate that training offers much greater depth of understanding and an increased ability to apply the methodology of PRINCE2® than simply reading the appropriate textbooks. Yet while some organisations have used PRINCE2® for over a decade, very little has changed in the training of project managers over the same period. Traditionally, this involves a five-day training course on the fundamentals of the process and how they may be applied – at which point learners are expected to implement what they have learned in real life.

4.Commitment through Continuing Professional Development, and

TRANSFERRING THE MODEL TO REAL LIFE

The Association of Project Management (APM) runs an accreditation scheme that can help HR and training professionals identify gaps in organisational and individual project management skills. The APM defines five dimensions of project management professionalism, most of which are linked to learning and development, and each of which is supported by a related APM standard: 1.Breadth of understanding as defined by the APM Body of Knowledge, 2.Depth of ability in line with the APM Competence Framework,

5.Accountability, through APM membership and the APM Code of Professional Conduct.

This is a major fault-line when it comes to implementing project management methods such as PRINCE2®. People can understand the concepts and how they may be applied in theory. Yet these methodologies are flexible enough to adapt to the needs of many different types of organisations and projects, and this lack of hard and fast rules can be confusing, particularly for inexperienced project managers. In addition, it can be difficult to justify attending a five-day course if the project manager is running several projects. The classroom course provides the learner with a solid foundation in the theory and prepares them for the accreditation exam, which is useful for personal career development and organisational APM accreditation. Yet arguably project managers need a different solution to reinforce this learning and help them translate the theory into practice. So what strategies can be deployed by HR and training professionals to increase the effectiveness of learning project management skills? Coaching and mentoring on a project-byproject basis is highly effective for

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broadening understanding and can be delivered by external consultants or internal champions. In addition, the organisation can benefit from establishing a formal project management office. This enables a core team to become highly proficient in implementing models and processes consistently across the organisation, creating a more tailored roadmap of effective project management practices. Crucially, it also creates a centre of excellence where more junior project managers may be coached on the job by more experienced colleagues. Alternatively, interactive and flexible e-learning can be tailored and made available in short, manageable modules that may be completed at the appropriate stage of the project as initial instruction or refresher training. This just-in-time learning is far more effective, timely and efficient than generic learning and may be complemented by telephone coaching from internal or external experts, depending upon preference and budget. Again, this helps to tailor the learning content – and project management practice – to the organisation’s specific needs.

WHY PROJECTS FAIL AND HOW SKILLS DEVELOPMENT CAN HELP The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) identified eight key reasons why projects fail: 1

Lack of clear links between the project and the organisation's key strategic priorities, including agreed measures of success.

Lack of clear senior management ownership and leadership.

Lack of effective engagement with stakeholders.

Lack of skills and proven approach to project management and risk management.

Too little attention to breaking development and implementation into manageable steps.

Evaluation of proposals driven by initial price rather than long-term value for money (especially securing delivery of business benefits).

Lack of understanding of, and contact with, the supply industry at senior levels in the organisation.

Lack of effective project team integration between clients, the supplier team and the supply chain.

Source: ”Common Causes of Project Failure”, Office of Government Commerce, 2005

Indeed, leveraging internal expertise is actually integral to good project management; most processes advocate the development of a record of best practice and problems to avoid. The use of mentoring, coaching or buddy systems takes that practice into proactive skills development. Ideally, the organisation will use the best of both worlds with a blended package of up-front training to develop a basic level of understanding followed by targeted e-learning, mobile learning, and project-based mentoring, coaching and support to embed effective project management skills. The iterative nature of most projects means that project managers can encounter stumbling blocks throughout the course of the project. Having ongoing support means they are able to access assistance in overcoming these problems and further developing their skills as and when required. This can deliver real improvements in every aspect of project management, from correctly visualising the desired outcomes – particularly if they change during the course of the project – to managing the often competing needs of different stakeholders and securing their support. MAKING THE BUSINESS CASE

proof of skills gaps will help, but HR professionals should engage with colleagues to identify the real financial, operational and reputational costs associated with failed projects. For example, the UK Government revealed in 2008 that it had cancelled £273m worth of major IT projects in the previous five years. That is a high-profile example, but most organisations should be able to estimate the cost of ineffective or cancelled projects, which are likely to dwarf the cost of proposed project management training programmes.

Embedding best practice within the organisation can be costly, so HR Managers will need to convince senior managers of the associated business benefits. Audited

This strategy offers a cost/benefit justification for training, but alternatively HR professionals may work with operations managers to integrate tailored

project management training into the budgets for new projects. This has two main benefits: first, it means the programme does not go through budget approvals as a standalone training project, which is more likely to be cut when cashflow is tight. Second, it reinforces the fact that the training is a means of meeting specific business objectives, underlining its value to the business. TRAINING MAKES THE DIFFERENCE The government has identified the lack of project management skills as a key reason for project failure, but it also leads to many of the other common causes of failure. For example, well-trained project managers should be better able to identify

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Project management is central to the effective management of change and resources in modern organisations, yet there are significant barriers to success and what we mean by best practice changes subtly over time. the real goals of the project and to recognise the necessary measures for success and specify the project plan, including major milestones and interactions with stakeholders. In addition to these fundamental, functional project management skills, the project manager needs to have good soft skills to communicate effectively and engage successfully with internal and external stakeholders. Thus, the number and degree of project failures may be reduced by improving project management and interpersonal skills through training or coaching. Furthermore, project management is arguably the single most prevalent role in business today, so it should be seen as a key competence within the organisation, as finance is. Which business would employ an untrained and unqualified finance director or corporate lawyer?

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Project management is central to the effective management of change and resources in modern organisations, yet there are significant barriers to success and what we mean by best practice changes subtly over time. As such, it is important to see project management training as an ongoing process rather than a one-off, five-day training event. The potential savings in terms of operational efficiency, cost management and improvements in the organisationâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s reputation are too high for project management skills to not be considered a worthwhile investment in any organisation. Eddie Kilkelly is Chief Operating Officer at ILX Group plc. For more information please visit www.ilxgroup.com

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European organisations can’t afford their learning to lag behind if they’re to survive global competition from unexpected sources. Bob Little says it’s time to get up close and personal to learners.

LEARNING CONTENT MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS -

THIS TIME IT’S PERSONAL

lthough blended learning has been around for a long time, the latest developments in media and skills-personalisation technology have the power to produce materials progressively more tailored to individuals. In the past, digital repositories and learning content management systems separated the acquisition and provision of content from delivery platforms. Then, rapid e-learning production tools and architectures allowed organisations to create their own content and reduce costs. Today, in order to take advantage of the much-hoped-for economic recovery, leading organisations are re-tooling their learning departments towards greater personalisation and customisation.

To survive in the emerging global economies, Western organisations must identify their workers’ existing skills, knowledge and competencies. They must pinpoint and fill the gaps as quickly as possible to remain competitive in the worldwide marketplace and this means supporting their workforce via any available device. To be effective, the support must take into account the learner’s personal preferences, their location, and the context in which they are working. Thankfully, the technology needed to provide this support – personalised learning content management (PLCM) – is finally coming on stream. PLCM empowers organisations to develop their workforce,

faster and more effectively, critical in the light of recent research. It is sobering to learn that sixty percent of organisations that were pre-economiccrisis leaders, will not be primary players post-crisis. European Learning Industry Group (ELIG) is a professional association and pressure group tasked with promoting innovation in learning in Europe. Chair of the Group, Fabrizio Cardinali is adamant that European corporations must understand that they can’t afford to lag behind in creativity and innovation. “We all need to recognise that competition could be coming from unexpected sources and we must be able to counter it to be successful.”

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At the ELIG’s recent AGM in Lausanne, Switzerland, Cardinali referred to the US aerospace industry in the 1960s, which was spurred into action following the unexpected launch of the USSR’s Sputnik. “Today large organisations in the West, in industries such as publishing, manufacturing and telecommunications, face a new wave of challenges to their traditional market dominance. These challenges are fuelled by the removal of traditional market barriers – the internationalising of markets – brought about by the evolution of the internet.” The iTunes takeover of the music marketplace due to the advent of MP3, and the subsequent reshaping of the entire industry, was also cited by Cardinali to show how leading organisations will suffer substantial loss of market share if they don’t innovate. “Amazon and Apple represent a modern day ‘Sputnik ghost’ for large European and American publishers. These organisations are currently retooling to take into account the eBook wave. “With new information and communications technology enabled tools, we can tap the knowledge-workers’ brainpower in new ways. It is these workers who will accelerate the next wave of creativity towards economic growth for Europe and its economies.” The latest innovations in media and skills personalisation technologies enable organisations to provide tailored learning to individual employees as never before. With the ability to perform simple customisation algorithms automatically, blended learning will continue to develop more open standards and enterprise architectures, based on interoperability. Cardinali, who is also CEO of learning content management solution provider, Giunti Labs said: “We are developing personal ambient learning services (PALs) which will be added to our learn eXact LCMS platform. PALs will bring personalised learning and knowledge content at the press of a button to mobile devices such as iPhones and BlackBerrys.” These devices will adapt the material to the learner’s context to take into account the location, the available time, the type of device etc. The material will also adapt to competencies (micro gaps in skills profiles and proficiency levels), and to portfolio (learning history, likes and dislikes). This personalisation is currently being deployed within financial services, construction, telecoms, eGovernment and labour organisations worldwide. The deployment includes skills management and methodology, skill

The latest innovations in media and skills personalisation technologies enable organisations to provide tailored learning to individual employees as never before.

validation processes, monitoring apprenticeships, monitoring employability, lifelong learning perspectives and language training for immigrants. This year it was successfully trialled in thirty municipalities in Southern Sweden. Ola Badersten, managing director of Giunti Labs Scandinavia: “The software enables organisations such as employment agencies, social welfare, educational bodies and the immigration agency to communicate with each other, in order to monitor learners’ progress. It provides a system for matching traditional skills management, gap and training analysis, succession planning and performance management, with remediation content personalisation.” It is important to develop and store learning content so that it is conducive to being used dynamically. PALs is able to repackage itself and interoperate with media and skills-based personalisation systems within the enterprise. This allows

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the materials to adapt, in real time, to the learner’s personality, perspective and learning preferences. “The content must be delivered easily from the central enterprise repository or a federated network of corporate repositories,” says. JJ van Delsen, sales director, Giunti Labs UK. “It can be delivered via any delivery mechanism – from digital boards in classroom based learning through mobile devices. The information is presented in a contextsensitive, personalised manner – augmenting and extending the concept of blended learning. To do this, you need the appropriate processes and standards for meta-tagging each piece of remediation and assessment content, between enterprise systems.” This allows your content to be stored, retrieved and combined effectively with other pieces of content says van Delsen: “Each blended learning project has its own

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Organisations value the benefits of combining various delivery methods – especially mobile learning – as this doesn’t hijack bandwidth. Staff access the learning materials and updates, on-demand and just-in-time. informal learning. So any system for allocating, accessing and monitoring learning must be able to cope. Organisations value the benefits of combining various delivery methods – especially mobile learning – as this doesn’t hijack bandwidth. Staff access the learning materials and updates, on-demand and just-in-time. Any change in regulations in industries such as financial services, only involves updating the relevant module, not the entire course. audience and context. Each project is therefore different, and needs a unique blend of delivery methods to help the learner gain the maximum benefit.” Aligning the materials and their delivery with the learner’s lifestyle and learning preferences can result in an increase of

While individuals often don’t have the time to spend on a forty-minute e-learning course, they can easily find time to take in a ten-minute chunk via their mobile. “Mobile and traditional e-learning are complementary formats,” says van Delsen. “The challenge is to deliver knowledge and information to time-pressured

professionals, and a mobile device is an ideal way to meet it. It doesn’t completely replace the need for in-depth learning but that’s where blended learning comes in.” In every area – education and academia, the public and private sectors – personalised blended learning and personalised learning records is a trend that will prove vital to Western economies facing worldwide competition. Fabrizio Cardinali, Chair of European Learning Industry Group (ELIG) and CEO of Giunti Labs, will present at the Learning Technologies 2010 exhibition.

Bob Little is a learning industry commentator and can be contacted at bob.little@boblittlepr.com

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BLOCKING SOCIAL SITES? IT’S PUTTING YOUR LEARNING HEAD IN THE SAND! Neil Lasher used to hate social media. Now he’s converted to the learning power of micro-blogging.

as social media changed the audience for learning? It has certainly changed the nature of the interaction from the ‘stand and deliver’ of the classroom. The interaction itself is often just a 140 character broadcast or reply as a part of a wide open conversation. And it is showing extremely positive results. Some threads in discussions on social media suggest that it has brought about a change in human nature. I think not, but it has changed human behaviour. The search facility in social sites means we can find better, more in-depth and relevant conversations than we once could. Social networks also mean far more people can join in the conversation than could just a few years ago. The effect of this is to improve the quality of information transfer dramatically. As a result it is impossible to get involved in one-sided communication. No more unanswered emails, no more threads in discussion groups without reply.

I was recently asked my thoughts on what constituted a change from information transfer to learning when using social media sites. The question was posed by a believer in the use of social media for learning who was having trouble explaining the benefits to a potential customer, whose IT department had blocked all social networks. Unlike my normal style of having an immediate response, I had to think and research for a couple of days before responding. The answer, in the end, was simple. Because social media is user-driven, it is not about the ‘push’ of information transfer at all. In social media, learning takes place when the receiving party asks a question and gets a reply. Social media is more than just telling the world what you are doing (the question that until recently Twitter asked users to December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 117

BLOCKING SOCIAL SITES? IT’S PUTTING YOUR LEARNING HEAD IN THE SAND!

answer). It is asking for the information you need when you need it. I have been surprised at the speed of response to many questions I have posed on Twitter. There is no shortage of people with lots of information willing to share, on almost any subject. LIKE ME, WERE YOU A DISBELIEVER? At the outset I was a firm disbeliever in the use of social networks for learning and at the Learning and Skills Group conference in June I had many conversations, heated at times, with Jane Hart and Jay Cross, trying to ascertain their worth. I have had my eyes opened and am now advocating the use of these tools for learning. Unfortunately, supporters of social media here in the UK have found the use of public tools such as Facebook and Twitter banned from corporate networks. My first question to business leaders is: why are you banning such tools? If your answer is because the IT director or some other IT person deems them to be either ‘dangerous’, or, ‘personal software out of place at work’ or something similar, think again, and think quick! The IT department has slipped from being the business enabler to the gatekeeper. Decisions are being taken to ban services without knowledge of the power they bring to the workplace. And if you do allow these tools, do not try to control their use. Trust your staff to use them to best benefit and not for other purposes. If you don’t then you are missing out! The community spirit in the workforce is invaluable. If you stifle communication or try to control it then employees are not allowed to help or learn from each other.

if not millions of dollars. Now researchers are using social tools to converse with peers who have previously undertaken such research and are sharing the information. Duplication is reducing and these researchers are talking to each other as never before. Many of these tools are available on the mobile phone, Blackberry or iPhone giving staff permanent access to information as and when they need it. IS THERE A REAL TAKE UP? The list of uses of social media tools is now so long that Jane Hart’s C4LPT.co.uk has listed over 100 business uses for social networks (http://c4lpt.co.uk/handbook/ examples.html). There are many different forms of social media tools for learning, but the ones which are arguably the easiest to use, and which have the most immediate impact, are micro blogs. Not all follow the model of Twitter, which now has more daily searches than Google. They all provide a different format and level of control to the user. Note I said ‘user’, not ‘organisation’. This learning is personal. I have found myself conversing with fellow learning designers across the globe on a daily basis using Twitter, sharing insights which have led to increased business and greater knowledge, while challenging my thoughts at every level. Twitter has become for some the new email. We have become slaves to systems such as SMS and email, where we have forgotten how to converse. These sites are reversing that trend. Other new micro blog systems such as Yammer allow for longer conversation and for a very small fee allow private, behind the firewall installation.

SOCIAL MEDIA AT WORK Here are a couple of recent examples where learning communities in organisations have brought benefit: A major hotel chain has provided an internal social system allowing for the seeding of daily and weekly questions to their senior management team. Senior managers help each other to solve business problems and managers demand snippets of learning based on questions posed in the social environment. This approach has proved so valuable that they are expanding the use of such systems to the rest of the business. Effectively, this is replacing the formal LMS in a huge multinational business with an informal LMS that users are unaware of using – they are simply asking questions and receiving answers. A pharmaceutical organisation has had a similar social scene for researchers. It was realised very early on that duplicate research was costing hundreds of thousands 118 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

THE FLOW OF INFORMATION IS ENDLESS, THE LEARNING IS NOW! In November, the US DevLearn conference for Technology Learning Developers hosted for the first time a live #lrnchat. Using a hashtag such as ‘#lrnchat’ (for ‘learn chat’) allows you to see all conversations on a particular subject on Twitter. A #lrnchat is held each Thursday from the USA and is a free-for-all chat for many hundreds of learning professionals from around the globe. The information exchanged and resources available are enormous. Consider how valuable a system like this could be internally in your company. New products in this market are appearing all the time. One micro blog from Problem Solutions in Chicago, although in its infancy, is working on information exchange using micro blogs. This product has been designed from the ground up as a web 2.0 information sharing system for both internal and internet use. The way it creates threads of questions and comments on any posted subject is quite extraordinary. A user can add new projects, post questions and make comments to other questions posed. A new strategic way of communication in organisations and learning, all in one simple to find mobile and desk-based environment. Context-based learning delivery tools, previously known as EPSS (Electronic Performance Support Systems) are coming into play in a new way. The pattern of social learners is very common. After reading and searching a micro blog, a user often turns to a web search to find out more, especially where the link in the micro blog is insufficient for their need, but has whetted the appetite.

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Context tools can now detect searched terms in tools such as Google or Wikipedia and deliver internal, focussed material from an organisation’s own learning content repository that best meet the learner’s needs. The EPSS informs the user of the availability of the information and offers them a choice to continue on to the search or look at the material in the repository at a single click of the mouse. Some are even suggesting that the LMS is a learning feature of the past, with these EPSS systems recording, where required, individual usage of learning content. There is an inevitable question from this line of thought. Why do we need such cumbersome LMS systems when there are simple systems designed by clever young entrepreneurs who have designed free tools like Facebook, handling several million exchanges each day? The resulting conclusion is that the learning system of the near future will be similar to Facebook, keeping your learning record and CV all in one place. Your current employer will be able, with your permission, to add information to your record, which will be transferable from employer to

employer. Your learning record will travel with you. DO YOU HAVE TIME FOR IT?

and gets replies almost immediately, this fulfils all the requirements of a learning intervention. Why would we even consider blocking such business improvement?

Could Twitter be taking focus away from work? If you follow 480 people and read everything they post, I calculate that would take eight hours a day, leaving no time for work. Some Twitter users follow many thousands of users, but are still apparently working, so what is happening? The answer: most users do not actually read all or even most of the Tweets of those they follow. They filter what is written to ensure they only see what they consider of interest. Here hashtags are an invaluable tool: a search on #lt10uk already begins to show results from those attending Learning Technologies in January 2010.

Still not sure? Even MP’s are getting in on the act. The UK government regularly makes use of micro blogging as a way to talk to the public: questions are asked and answered. There is literally no subject you cannot find and the quality of the response is as good as any I have found elsewhere.

WHAT IS IN IT FOR YOU?

Any executive that wants to block staff from this technology is missing out on an extraordinary revolution in communication and learning.

Those embracing micro blogging technologies are seeing almost immediate results. Great instructional design is based on understanding the user and their current need, then delivering to it, finding the emotional significance and creating engaging content that satisfies the user. Social sites communicate directly and since the user asks questions at the time of need,

Am I convinced? Yes I am. I was a sceptic for a long while, but as these systems become more widely accepted, they have found a place in my daily continuing professional development. It is quicker than email, it is multi-dimensional and as my network grows I have a research tool better than anything I have used before.

Neil Lasher is MD of Trainer1 and chair of the ASTD Global Network UK. Neil can be contacted at neil@trainer1.com and at http://twitter.com/neillasher

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122 Inside Learning Technologies December 2009

COMMUNITY-BASED LEARNING:

MORE HYPE THAN HAPPENING? Robin Hoyle questions the hoopla around community-based social learning.

colleague of mine has recently returned from the United States where he was attending a major learning technologies conference. In the accompanying exhibition he saw many technology platforms boasting social networking features which claimed to bring some form of community-based, informal learning into the blend of learning offered. The drive towards e-learning based on web 2.0 seems to have settled in the Facebook/MySpace zone and yet I’m struggling to see the evidence that these features, probably developed at great expense and offered to customers at a premium, are actually providing a similar level of value for their inflated cost. We all know that the original large enterprise Learning Management Systems (LMS) were rolled out with more features than you could wave a rolled up flip chart at. Everything from calculating the usage of marker pens in training rooms booked

through the system to building bulletin boards, were standard functionality. Over the years, many users have also recognised that they have paid for features which they either never use, don’t work that well and from which learners themselves derive little if any benefit. Could we be going down the same route with our Facebook-lite applications? EMPTY FORUMS Now, I should point out that I’ve always been a little sceptical about online communities. I’ve seen very many launched and read the posts about “how cool this new forum is” and then a few weeks later I’ve logged back on to see those same posts created in the first flush of enthusiasm and nothing since. I was at an event some months ago where someone advocating the use of Facebook as a learning tool urged the audience to sign up to the e-learning developers group on

the social networking site. I took a look and lo and behold there had been nothing new on there for some months. I took another look a few days ago and the original group seems to have disappeared but a new one has been created. What was interesting was that the discussion forum contained 10 threads between May and November 2009. Of those, eight contained a single post – in other words a community member had posted a question or comment and of the 251 group members, not one person had felt moved to answer. The single response made to the other two threads came from the same person and he was flogging a product. If a self-defined group of e-learning professionals don’t engage with this stuff, why should we expect a time-poor learner, required to manage their own learning, to be bothered about joining in this kind of cyber socialising? I accept that there are some communities

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online that work - though I’ve found few examples which are not primarily run by and for techies, or have a membership so passionate about a subject that their evangelical zeal carries forward the debates and discussions. I accept that when incorporated into a development programme, some kind of connectivity between learners effectively doing the same course can be useful, but I question whether that burning enthusiasm is present amongst the audience of most work-related learning activities. Overall, I’m left wondering what value the much-vaunted social networking tools in current e-learning platforms add to the learner experience which they couldn’t just as easily gain via email. The problems lie, I believe, with the idea of ‘social’ networking. When university courses urged students to join Facebook groups associated with their courses, the students balked at making the university lecturers their Facebook ‘friends’ and the idea was soon dropped. Imagine the scene: “Joel was too wasted last night to do his essay.”

Professor Jones likes this. Many organisations ban access to Facebook via their internal networks because the ‘social’ domain of shared pictures, updates about nights out and hangover-inspired bleak Friday mornings have no perceived value in the world of work. They have recognised that the social of social networking is why people use these sites and work is, by definition, not primarily part of the social sphere. WHY ‘SOCIAL’ NETWORKING? So, is social networking the model to follow?

contribute to the shopping experience with reviews of products, ratings for vendors, wishlists and feedback. The model of these sites is that there is a clear recognition that there will be three types of user. The first is the active contributor – the people who enter detailed reviews, the person who always comments on the hotel they have stayed in on TripAdvisor and rates and congratulates the efficient eBay seller. The second group is the active recipients – they may enter a rating giving a product one or more stars but they’re not going to spend hours crafting a pithy review of why you should select or avoid this product, hotel room, or eBay seller. The majority – and by some significant margin – is the passive recipient. The consumer of the reviews of others, the person who chooses to read and watch rather than participate. This is the heart of the transactional websites that most of us use and which have become features of our daily lives. Whereas social networking relies on everyone being an active recipient at best and preferably an active contributor, the transactional sites recognise and are geared towards an experience which relies on only a handful of active users.

It may not surprise you to hear that I think not; but I don’t rule out opportunities to network between learners and between learners and trainers, subject matter experts and coaches. Quite the contrary; I think so long as this connectivity is not portrayed or perceived as a cheap alternative to attending workshops and actually spending time face to face, then I’m all for it. But the model is not ‘social’ networking, but what we might call ‘transactional’ networking. If we unpack that term for a moment, we can recognise that seeking and giving information in a work-related context is a kind of transaction.

Now consider the networks used in learning and development. Are these so different? Don’t the majority want to enter a search term, look up some information and move on? Isn’t their use of our networking facility more similar to their use of Amazon or TripAdvisor than it is to Facebook or MySpace?

Transactional use of the web makes sense to most internet users. Over 94 percent of internet users have made a purchase online. The most popular purchase sites such as Amazon and eBay come with a complex set of web 2.0 tools enabling users to

In order to encourage increased numbers of contributors, some forward thinking companies such as Ocado and Virgin will employ people especially to review user feedback and make suggestions for improvements to services and product lines.

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Could we create a feedback loop enabling comments and recommendations to help improve the modules offered and the information provided? Using a transparent response to learner comments should generate additional contribution as those who feel strongly about something positively or negatively can see that their engagement with the network results in welcome change. If it is, then it requires us to ask whether we have actively managed the set up of the ‘community’, if that term is still relevant. Have we ensured that we have sufficient people with useful knowledge, understanding and preparedness to be active contributors to ensure a valuable experience for our passive recipients? In simple terms, is anyone generating the content for the passive recipients to access? KNOWLEDGE OR KNOW-HOW? And what of that content? How well organised is it? Knowledge management was a big buzz phrase a few years ago which seems to have slightly slipped down the corporate agenda. However, learning from in-house experts and creating the opportunity for them to share their experience and insight with others in the organisation is probably more relevant than ever. Unfortunately we have to accept that the contributions made to some of the ‘learning communities’ I’ve seen have been more like someone uploading the whole of their hard drive than trying to shed light on a particular topic. Posting up the 120 slides of PowerPoint you used at the last management meeting without speaker notes is of marginal benefit to someone who is new to a topic or trying to grasp the fundamentals. And yet it is rare for the contributors on which the success or

December 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 125

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COMMUNITY-BASED LEARNING: MORE HYPE THAN HAPPENING?

failure of our network so significantly depends, to take a role in editing their knowledge into chunks which might be useful for learners and passive recipients who are at the early stages of their understanding, or who may even be completely fresh to a subject. In these situations where existing documentation is shared ad nauseam, the conversations tend to be between experts rather than between learned and learner. For this knowledge sharing to work in a learning context, we need to move beyond knowledge management – i.e. sharing everything I know about something – to know-how management – sharing just what you need to know at a particular point in your understanding and development. However, we need to recognise that this is not a fixed point and individuals in different roles or categories don’t necessarily all need the same information or have the same learning needs. A smart transactional tool, like Amazon, builds a profile as you go and compares your choices with those of other users, making smart suggestions for further information, more details or associated recommendations. Can’t an LMS do that as well?

If we venture into transactional networking, our potential learners will have expectations based on their online shopping experience. This creates a challenge about how we index this material and present it. What media should we use? Do podcasts, video casts and narrated PowerPoints work better than read-only materials? How do we allow progressive exploration where someone starts at a relatively low level of understanding and wants to, and is enabled to, move up through the levels of information they seek through the structure of the site and how the totality of the available information is presented? Do we have an overview or a headline like an online news site which facilitates a user to choose which nuggets of information they access? Do we make it relevant and easy for the experienced staff member to access information at a more advanced level than the person going through induction? How do learners who may be unconsciously incompetent – that is, they do not know what they do not know – interrogate the available data if they have no base knowledge to help formulate their questions? Until providers can answer these questions, I will constantly be walked through

technology solutions with the phrase “What you can do is...” uppermost in the conversation. I long for the conversation to start with “What people are doing is....” The conclusion that I inevitably draw is that there is significant work to be done in the areas of taxonomy and information design which the pat descriptions of social networking tools in learning platforms ignores.To understand the most effective use of communication has always been and will continue to be a key role of skilled learning designers. Perhaps their role is even more relevant in the world of democratised web 2.0 than it was in the one-way world of web 1.0. There is also a demanding role to be fulfilled in weaving the availability of usergenerated content into the learning blend. Meeting this demand will be the key factor in whether a community-based learning tool is a successful addition to the training armoury or remains a flashy, gimmick-laden distraction to the real business of helping people to learn. Robin Hoyle is the Head of Learning at Infinity Learning Ltd. For more information go to www.infinitylearning.co.uk.

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FINAL WORD

Piers Lea

EVALUATION: TIME TO TAKE A STRATEGIC APPROACH Evaluation is an essential part of learning, says Piers Lea, but it needs to be done right.

t is time for organisations to share their stories and evidence of learning success, time for our industry to focus on what has been achieved in learning, and how it has been achieved, rather than solely on the efficacy or otherwise of particular technology tools and conceptual models. Why is this results focus so important? In learning and communications, as in other fields of human endeavour, it’s not enough to achieve results. You also have to demonstrate results. It helps, as well, if the results you demonstrate bear some relation to what you set out to accomplish. Any type of training has results of some kind. The result of your training might be that its recipients feel it was so irrelevant to their needs that applications for training go down across the organisation. That would be a result – but a bad result. Then again you might produce a programme that has a good – but irrelevant – result: your programme might make everybody feel positive about themselves (good), but have no positive effect whatsoever on behaviours that are dragging the organisation down (bad). The best possible result, and the most impressive one to be able to demonstrate, is one that impacts directly on organisational performance, whether this be in sales volumes, profitability, or ethical operation – in other words, a result aligned with the strategic priorities of the organisation. So much, so obvious, perhaps. Why is it then that so few organisations evaluate their results, and so little of the learning & development they do is effectively aligned with strategic objectives? Don’t get me wrong, not every project has to have a company-wide strategic focus to be valuable. The issue is this: has a proper framework been set up to judge success, so that we can implement good,

strategically placed blended learning and communications programmes? The best approach is to set a framework for programmes at the outset that includes impact and ROI measures. If you can do this before anything else, you have a much greater chance of getting results. E-learning is front-loaded in terms of costs – in cash-strapped times this makes it hard to do, so people are asking for proof of efficacy, and quite rightly so. However, instructor-led training, the more traditional model, has not previously had the same sort of questions asked as to whether it actually works. So standards of comparison are often lacking that could inform proper judgements about how and when to deploy one or the other. Neither is it a binary choice: whether ‘e-‘ or ‘classroom’ is the better solution is not the issue. In the twenty-first century, learning & development should embrace all delivery methods, and the question of which channel or channel mix should be deployed must be judged according to a strategy which takes into account the particular needs, aspirations and resources of the organisation in question, not according to prejudice or some arbitrary rule of thumb. So how can organisations make sensible decisions about how to move forward? You might say that learning and development within the organisation needs a vision – but where this word tends to conjure up something rather numinous and vague, I would want to substitute the metaphor of a map; but not an old fashioned map – one more like those of TeleAtlas (who supply the Google maps we know so well). In these you can see the globe, but easily zoom into areas that are felt to be of strategic importance, and also see overlays of different types of data. In learning and communications terms this means data that relates to all the varieties of ‘intellectual capital’ in the organisation

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and which also reaches individuals when and where they want it. This is the picture to build up in creating a learning and development strategy…and evaluation plays a central role. It’s central because whatever anyone might say, as no one knows what will work between one culture and the next, you will need to try different routes and test their efficacy. Without the map – which functions as the summary of all you want to achieve – how can you establish appropriate measurements for your results? How will you know when you’re succeeding (or failing)? One major car manufacturer began setting out its map in 2007, building up the picture and the aspirations it embodies. The heart of the ongoing process is a set of measures based on key performance indicators across a broad range, including time-to-market and measuring costeffectiveness at cost point. The system has feedback loops in place to allow the L&D function to refine what it delivers to learners. Across a global audience comprising tens of thousands of staff, it has segmented those learners in response to cultural differences and level of understanding. Feedback is essential in refining and steering this programme. Technology is not just for delivery: it can also be used to listen. The drive in this strategic-level work is to set a framework to establish measures which show how a blended learning picture is building. HR is often heard to want a place at the top table of strategic decision-making. Approaching L&D strategically, aligning it with the needs of the organisation, is one of the changes which will give HR a more strategic role. Evaluation is far too important a part of this to be overlooked.

Piers Lea is CEO of LINE Communications. For more information, visit www.line.co.uk