Inside Learning Techologies NOV 2009 by Victor Gutierrez

INSIDE

LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES NOVEMBER 2009

Speaking the language of business

How to create a social learning environment All change for learning and development THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE FOR

ISSUE 29 NOVEMBER 2009

CONTENTS

11 EDITOR’S COMMENT

35 W

elcome to another edition of Inside Learning Technologies and the lead up to what will be the 11th Learning Technologies exhibition and conference at Olympia in January.

A lot has happened since the last event and we are delighted to announce that the 2010 event will be co-located with an exciting new event - Learning and Skills 2010. The combination of the two events will give you access to 200 learning suppliers and over 120 free seminars and will be a must-attend for anyone involved in workplace learning and development. Come January both of these events will undoubtedly reflect a fascinating 12 month period in learning. In a very short time, web 2.0 and collaborative learning has gone from a side show to centre stage, affecting everything else around it. If you are interested in producing learning materials, you’ll find that there’s a social-media model for it. The other great change over the past year or so has been the way that rapid development has become part of the learning establishment. Modelled – at least in some cases – on rapid software development techniques, ‘rapid’ has been abused and misunderstood, but is undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with. If it has nothing else, it has forced us all to reconsider how long it takes to create anything, and who needs to be involved in the process.

Speaking the language of business

How to create a social learning environment

How to build a creative workplace

Rapid. Is it faster and cheaper and is it any good?

What do you really, really want from a learning system?

The unification of communications, e-learning and knowledge management

842 miles

Both these trends of course – rapid development and social learning – are part of an increasingly informal approach to learning, where the course is recognised as one part, but only one, of a useful learning mix. The key way of learning, which we all do naturally, is to communicate with each other – in writing, in speech, online and in person. It’s one reason why the Learning and Skills Group, our very own online community and its associated conferences and exhibitions continue to work. We can always, it seems, learn something from each other. Enjoy the issue. Donald H Taylor donaldt@learningandskillsgroup.com

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 1

CONTENTS

67 52 Writing for the reader

Everything you ever wanted to know about e-learning but were afraid to ask

Learning design isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t rocket science

All change for learning and development

Organisations head for DIY authoring

Implementing e-learning for business success

107 LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES

INSIDE

How to design action packed e-learning

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107 Exploit the latest trends in rapid e-learning and agile development

Inside Learning Technologies is the official publication of Learning Technologies 2010 and Learning and Skills 2010, Olympia 2 London, January 27th - 28th 2010.

115 How to turn your classroom training into effective e-learning 120 Final word 2 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

SPEAKING THE

LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS Jay Cross explains why it is vital for Learning and Development to speak so that others in the business – particularly executives – will understand.

hen you plan to pitch a learning and development investment or decision to someone with the power to sign cheques, you may be unsure what to say. If so, ask yourself one question; it will help you find the right approach.

later, he was named superintendent of railroad’s western division. Two years after that, he invested his sleeping car profits in an oil company. At age thirty, he founded a company to build bridges of iron instead of wood.

Andrew Carnegie was born in 1835 in Dunfermline, Scotland. The industrial revolution put his father, a weaver, out of work and drove his family into poverty.

In 1875, Carnegie opened his first steel plant. Fourteen years later, he was earning $25 million a year from steel. In 1901, Carnegie sold his empire to J.P. Morgan for $480 million, becoming the richest man in the world. He spent the rest of his days a philanthropist.

Andrew emigrated to America as a teenager and joined the Pennsylvania Railroad at 18. He took out a bank loan and invested in sleeping cars. Six years

Andrew Carnegie is the quintessential hardnosed businessman. Your objective will often be to do convince Andrew what you say/do is worthy of investment. When in

That question is this: what would Andrew do?

doubt about ROI, just ask yourself “What would Andrew Carnegie do?” YOUR SPONSOR Metrics are measurements that matter. The internal customer for metrics is your sponsor. Your sponsor is the person who pays the bills. I assume your sponsor is a business person. It might be a committee of business people. When you talk with a business person, you must talk like they do. Executives only care about training as it relates to execution. Their interest is in moving the corporation forward. You should share that interest. That is why they pay you. Sponsors are responsible for championing

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 5

SPEAKING THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

the case for change (i.e., the vision), visibly representing the change (i.e, walkthe-talk), and providing reassurance and confidence (i.e., the implementation plan). A couple of years ago, I was leading a webinar for representatives of several dozen training departments at a Fortune 50 high-tech company. Someone interrupted with a question when I was saying that trainers need to be aware of corporate objectives and rate their contributions by their impact on the business. “Wouldn’t that require us to understand how the business worked?” he asked. Yes, of course. How could you do your job right without knowing where the corporation was headed? Several others jumped in, saying essentially that organisational success and helping meet strategic objectives was “not my job.” The days when corporations were larded up with layer upon layer of management whose job was to translate strategic imperatives from above into job descriptions and projects down below are long gone. Now all of us are supposed to sing from the same hymnal without the intermediaries. If you work for a public company, define your job in terms of the issues described in your firm’s annual report. Getting ahead in business requires forming solid working relationships with your sponsor and the other stakeholders it is your duty to support. So before you go any further, ask yourself these questions. First, who is your sponsor? And second, who are your important stakeholders? Once you know the answers to these questions, you are ready to proceed. Without them, you cannot progress. You and your sponsor Measure results throughout your programme, not just before and after. Keep your sponsor informed. Ask people where they bank, and they’ll tell you where they keep their current account. This holds true even if their relationship with their mortgage banker is fifty times larger. Frequency is sometimes more important than content. Monitoring things early on may enable you to make mid-course corrections. The responsibilities you share We’ll get businesslike right away. Peter Drucker is hailed as the father of management. He is a business guru’s guru. Drucker singled out eight characteristics of effective executives.

The days when corporations were larded up with layer upon layer of management whose job was to translate strategic imperatives from above into job descriptions and projects down below are long gone. These are precisely how you and your sponsor are going to address metrics. • They asked, "What needs to be done?" • They asked, "What is right for the enterprise?" • They developed action plans. • They took responsibility for decisions. • They took responsibility for communicating. • They were focused on opportunities rather than problems. • They ran productive meetings. • They thought and said "we" rather than "I." THE METRICS CYCLE There’s no cookie-cutter formula for applying metrics, but there is an underlying process. Generally, you’ll follow these five steps to identify, agree upon, assess, and use metrics. This is not rocket science. It’s the same process you already use to accomplish a lot of things in life. Let’s briefly consider each step. 1. State Desired Outcome. Results do not exist inside the training department. In fact, results do not exist within the business. Results come from outside the

6 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

business. Imagine a no-nonsense businessperson, say, GE’s former boss, Jack Welch. If you can explain yourself to Jack, you’ve mastered this step. 2. Agree How To Measure. The only valid metrics for corporate learning are business metrics. Examples are increased sales, shorter time to market, fewer rejects, and lower costs. How do you decide what measures to apply? You don’t: that’s the responsibility of your business sponsor, the person who signs the cheques. Together you agree on what’s to be done and how you’ll measure success or failure. Once you’ve settled on the project and its metrics, get it in writing. 3. Execute Project(s). The projects could be training and/or an incentive bonus plan and/or more advertising. Training programmes are often part of a larger scheme, and it’s fruitless to try to isolate them. In fact, savvy training directors look for major corporate initiatives they can hitch a ride on. 4. Assess Results. You must evaluate the impact of your efforts with the measures you set up back in step 2. In other words, you are not allowed to mimic Charlie Brown, who would shoot an arrow and then paint the target around it. Why stick with the measures you came up with before? Because that’s how to maintain credibility with your sponsor. You can bring

SPEAKING THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

up unforeseen outcomes or anecdotal evidence, so long as you follow up on those original methods first. 5. Begin Anew. The only thing worse than learning from experience is not learning from experience. Your post-mortem on the completed project should include a section titled “What to do better next time.” This is where you start the cycle anew. Don’t just talk like a business person; become a business person In an article in T+D Magazine titled ‘A Seat at the Table’, Kevin Oakes, then president of SumTotal Systems, masterfully described how speaking the language of business is one of the biggest skill gaps in the learning profession. Kevin quotes two respected industry figures, John Cone, the former CLO of Dell Computers, and Pat Crull, CLO of ToysRUs, that hammer home the point. Here are their original words. “Learning professionals who have the ear of senior management come to the table to talk about business results, not learning pedagogy. They understand the drivers of the business, how the executives think, and the metrics that mean the most to them.

Learning professionals who have the ear of senior management come to the table to talk about business results, not learning pedagogy. They talk about business outcomes, not learning enablers. And they talk about their business using real business language and real data. They talk about revenue, expense, productivity, customer satisfaction, and other quantifiable stuff that business people care about. They’ve learned that every conversation had better include information about money or time saved, revenue or new business generated, or customer problems solved.” John Coné

and said, “Do you know what she said right before she exited? That she didn’t get into the training and development field to worry about the bottom line.” I was stunned. To me, that summed up the biggest problem in our profession today.” Pat Crull

“During my presentation (at an industry conference), I stated that as a CLO, I see myself as an officer of the corporation. I worry about improving shareowner value. If it doesn’t make a difference to the bottom line, then my work has little of no value. At that point, a woman in the audience got up from her seat and left the room.”

• Behave like an officer of the corporation

“Later, during the Q&A section of our presentation, someone who was sitting next to the woman who had left, stood up

In summary, to ‘earn a seat at the table’ where the business managers sit, you must: • Speak the language of business

• Think like a business person • Act like a business person. 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

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 9

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In three issues for Inside Learning Technologies, Jane Hart shares the pros and cons of building three types of social learning environment, and how to deliver them at low or no cost. The focus in this month’s issue is how to create a SLE using best-ofbreed, free-of-charge, public social media tools.

HOW TO CREATE

A SOCIAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

hat is a social learning environment (SLE) and how is it different from a learning management system (LMS)? Most traditional LMS provide the functionality to upload course content, deliver it to learners and track and monitor usage. They generally have very little, if any, social functionality. Where it is present, it only supports social learning within a formal, course context. A SLE on the other hand, is a place where individuals and groups can come together and co-create content, share knowledge and experiences, and learn from one another to improve their personal and professional productivity. It is a place that can be used to extend formal contentbased e-learning for social interaction

between learners and tutors. It underpins informal learning and working in the organisation. A SLE doesn’t manage, control and track users, but rather provides an open environment for working and learning collaboratively. What does a SLE look like? Social learning environments comprise a number of elements, notably: 1 Social networking – this lies at the heart of a SLE, and provides the ability to establish and building online relationships with others. 2 Tagging content – this allows related content to be bound together. 3 Social bookmarking – this provides the functionality for individuals to store and share links to web resources.

4 File-sharing – this supports the creation, storage and/or sharing of files in all formats: pictures, videos, presentations, documents, screencasts, etc . 5 Communicating with others – users can contact one another both in real time via instant messaging for example, chat and in live web meetings, as well as asynchronously via email and in discussion forums. 6 Collaborating with others – this enables users to work and learn together both synchronously or asynchronously to co-create documents, presentations, mind maps etc. 7 Blogging – this supports the reading, commenting or writing of chronological blog posts. Blogs can be used for information sharing or within a formal

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 11

HOW TO CREATE

SOCIAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

context for keeping learners on track with projects. Reading blogs, either internally or externally created, can also provide a regular dripfeed of news, information and instruction.

A SLE is much more than just a social network since it provides a wide range of social functionality, which can be used whenever required.

88 Podcasting – this supports the creation and sharing of audio (MP3) and video (MP4) files. Just like blogs, podcasts can be used for information sharing or instruction.

invited members, and thereby provide a more private space for networking.

9 RSS feeds – this allows users to subscribe to blog, web, news, podcast and other feeds to keep up to date with new content. 10 Micro-blogging – this enables users to send, receive and reply to short messages to keep up to date with others in their network. Is an SLE the same as a social network? A SLE is much more than just a social network since it provides a wide range of social functionality, which can be used whenever required. But more than this it supports the integration of the tools so that they are easily available to users. This might be via a personal dashboard or through an integrated suite of tools within a platform.

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 systems, it makes it easier for users to find related content. 3 Social bookmarking – Delicious – www.delicious.com - is the most popular place to store and share bookmarks to online. Tools like Diigo though – www.diigo.com – provide extra functionality such as annotation and highlighting of content

Note too, that I have avoided Google tools in this list, since they will be the focus of the approach I will describe next month in Part 2. However they can easily be substituted for the following: 1 Social networking: Social utilities like Facebook – www.facebook.com - and LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com - have all the functionality for profiling and relationship building, and the establishment of groups. But the public nature of these sites is seen by many as inappropriate for organisational use. The Ning platform on the other hand – www.ning.com – means that you can create a social network available only to

5 Communicating with others – Some useful tools in this area include: • Skype – www.skype.net - for instant messaging and voice chat • Dimdim – www.dimdim.com - to hold web meetings • Yahoo Mail – mail.yahoo.com – to provide a webmailing system 6 Collaborating with others – There are a number of different collaborative activities, and there are many tools that can support them, for example: • Bubbl.us – www.bubbl.us – for collaborative mind mapping • Wetpaint – www.wetpaint.com – for collaborative document authoring

Of the free, best-of-breed, public social media tools, which are the best? In this approach to building a social learning environment, I am going to suggest a set of best-of-breed tools that could be used to provide all the social functionality cited above. There are a huge number of social media tools available, but the ones I mention here, are considered the most valuable. They have rated highly on the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009 list, compiled from over 200 contributions from learning professionals worldwide. The list can be accessed at www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/index.html. Note that the majority are not dedicated learning tools, but nevertheless have wide applicability for working and learning.

are bandwidth advantages since you are not serving out the media from your own servers, and you can simply link directly to the resource or even embed the resources into web pages or blog postings.

• Etherpad – www.etherpad.com – for real-time collaborative authoring • Udutu – www.udutu.com – for collaborative course authoring

4 File-sharing – There are many sites available for the storage of existing content as well as the creation of content online, for example: • video sharing sites like YouTube – www.youtube.com and Vimeo – www.vimeo.com • picturing sharing sites like Flickr – www.flickr.com - and Photobucket – www.photobucket.com • presentation sharing sites like Slideshare – www.slideshare.com – and Prezi – www.prezi.com • screencast sharing sites like Screencast.com – www.screencast.com and Screentoaster – www.screentoaster.com. Storing files on sites like this means there

12 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

7 Blogging – Blogging has almost become a mainstream activity, with bloggers providing news, opinion and/or commentary on every topic under the sun. You can easily keep up to speed with what others in your field are writing. For example, you can find my selection of ‘100 Featured Learning Professionals’ who write blogs about e-learning: www.c4lpt.co.uk/connexions/100featured.html For those who want to blog there are many tools available, but WordPress – www.wordpress.com is a particular favourite, and can be used for both individual and multi-author blogging. 8 Podcasting – Just like blogging, there are now plenty of places to listen to podcasts, but iTunes www.apple.com/itunes/ - is probably a good place to start. Download the software to organise, browse and play your media, and then access the iTunes Store where you can find both audio and video podcasts in many different categories. Selecting iTunesU will also give you access to some free open courseware. If you want to create podcasts of your own, then Audacity -

HOW TO CREATE

audacity.sourceforge.net/ - is a useful little tool to record audio and (with the extra LAME encoder) convert it into an MP3 file for podcasting. 9 RSS feeds – To keep up to date with blog and podcasts and receive new content when available, you can subscribe to the feeds, and the content comes to you. Bloglines – www.bloglines.com - is an online feed reader that will help you manage your blog, website, wiki, social networking and other feeds, whereas within iTunes you can easily subscribe to audio and video podcasts.

SOCIAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

perhaps using Netvibes Universes (i.e. customised public startpages) or even Netvibes for Enterprise business.netvibes.com/, which provides a personalised face to the front of any enterprise system. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this approach? We need to consider the pros and cons of building a social learning environment in this way. First the advantages: • There is a huge range of tools available to choose from.

10 Micro-blogging – Keeping up to date with what your colleagues and contacts are doing is very easy by signing up to a service like Twitter – www.twitter.com. Simply by following them, you will then receive their tweets, short updates of maximum 140 characters. And anyone who follows you, will receive yours.

• Users can either individually select their own tools to create a personal social learning environment or an organisation can decide which ones it will promote and support.

You can also use Twitter to follow others in your field. My selection of 100 Featured Learning Professionals (mentioned in 7 above) also gives details of their Twitter accounts. If you click on the link on that page, you can go to a TweepML page where you can follow them all (or selected individuals) with one click!

• They don't require any internal IT support.

How can these tools be integrated? The tools mentioned above will provide you with the essential social technologies to build a social learning environment. However, one thing also required is a way of gluing them together in one place. This might be done in one of two ways. Firstly, by individuals setting up their own private dashboard using a tool like Netvibes – www.netvibes.com. This a free web service that brings together your favourite media sources and online services. It lets you display widgets with recent content and allows access to tools on a web page. Secondly, another way of combining resources is via organisational integration,

• The tools are relatively easy to set up and use.

Now for the disadvantages: • If a large number of different tools are in use, this could prove rather overwhelming for someone who is not very social media savvy. Many tools have sophisticated functionality – some of which might be overkill, and they will certainly all have different interfaces. • There is likely to be some duplication of functionality across the different tools. For example many are incorporating social networking functionality, so a user could end up with different profiles on many different systems. • There is no (or very little) interoperability between these tools. There isn’t a single-sign on, so users will need to have different logins to the different tools. • There may also be concerns about the privacy and security of personal and organisational data which is now scattered over the Internet in multiple sites.

• The tools may have limited backup facilities so if they crash important data may be lost. There is also a concern with the viability of a free service. Some services have been known to close down without warning, leaving users high and dry. • There may be worries about how individuals make use of these tools. Their personal, professional and organisational personae on the tools might well overlap, which could result in behaviour that the organisation might consider inappropriate. Bearing all the disadvantages in mind, I therefore think that this approach is best used by individuals to build their own personal or professional social learning environment outside the organisation. This is the way that I use public social media tools - to share and collaborate with colleagues worldwide. As for organisational use, in next month’s issue of Inside Learning Technologies, I will look at how to build a SLE using Google applications. I will show how Google goes part way to resolving some of the disadvantages above. In the conference edition of this magazine, published in January, I will look at the free, open source social publishing engine, Elgg. This platform can be used to create a fully integrated and customised SLE, which addresses many more of the issues raised. Meanwhile if you’d like to find out more about social technologies and social environments, and in particular how to get started yourself, take a look at my Social Learning Sessions at www.C4LPT.co.uk/sls.html. Remember, social media is something you do rather than something you just talk about! 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.

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 15

HOW TO BUILD A

CREATIVE WORKPLACE

There is no quick fix to a creative working environment says Nigel Paine, but four stages will move your organisation from words to actions.

t is hard to enthuse about the wonderful energising power of doing a good job well, when I am surrounded by people complaining about being bored. Boredom brought about by their jobs and not by me I hasten to add. And not just once in a blue moon but again and again. When I talk about learning the reaction is even more despondent: “I just can’t wait for 5.30 to come round when I can start living again,” “a zombie could do my job,” ‘my boss is a psycho”. Learning appears to be just another chore

in order to tick the development box at the performance review or another objective to be crossed off in time for the appraisal meeting. We are a long way from being able to provide fulfiling, productive jobs for the majority. When asked: ‘When was your last idea at work?’ Most reply: ‘When I devised this cunning plan of out how to slink off early without anyone realising.’ Large numbers of people in the workforce neither demand nor expect success and satisfaction. So to talk about learning and creativity is a bit presumptuous and also a bit naive. Workplace creativity is not a single step operation but requires four separate stages. The first stage is signaling the change, stage two is building the right environment, stage three is ‘first steps’ and the final stage is enabling creativity. Obviously this is not a quick fix but a long term commitment. Not for the faint hearted or for the flavourof-the-month. To add insult to injury, this is no job for the learning group or the organisational

development team to tackle on their own, even though their contributory roles are critical from the outset. I want to divert for a moment to a brief case study from a small US media consultant KD Paine and Partners (no nepotism, and no relation unfortunately). This is a list of the company’s shared values that are proudly displayed on the website: • Passion • Aspire to change the world • Sustainability • Social capital, social responsibility and social justice • Intelligence • Open book management • No bazookas • Assets = people • Transparency • Enjoyment Without knowing any more about this

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 17

HOW TO BUILD A CREATIVE WORKPLACE

organisation, many people would want to work there. How do these ten values match up to those where you work? That is, if there are any shared values. KD Paine is trying to build a company that stands out from the crowd by having staff that stand out from their peers. I am sure that KDP would not recruit anyone who did not feel that those values were exciting and challenging. Neither would it retain the services of employees who did not live those values. They are at the heart of what the company is and they define the way it works. As a direct consequence, the joint is jumping. It is a place where learning is shared and creative solutions to internal and external issues are not just valued but expected. The company is at stage four of my model – it enables creativity. But there is a whole lot more to reaching the final stage than simply publishing a list of values on a website. Every value determines behaviour, and every value is applied consistently in the good times and the bad times. Therefore the company performs consistently well in all circumstances and the staff’s relationship with the organisation stays the same over time and in what ever circumstance may befall them. Note that not one of the values uses the word ‘creativity’ or ‘learning’. But they underpin the philosophy and define the major output of a consistent value system. Shouting about being the most creative organisation in the world rarely leads to being anything like that. So the fundamental issue is how to move from words to actions, from words to behaviour, and from words to consistent behaviour. Returning to KD Paine, KD being Katie Delahaye Paine, founder and CEO. As the boss, she has shaped the organisation to reflect her own work values and business ethics. I would like to go back to two of the ten of her listed values: Assets Our assets are people. We acknowledge that we are not just hiring our employees’ brains or brawn, but their hearts as well. We want to build a community, not just a business. Enjoy The time we spend at work - one-third of our lives - should be fun. We will cultivate a work environment that fosters camaraderie among our employees and a passion for what we do. As long as we look forward to coming to work in the morning, serving our customers and working with each other, we will have achieved our goals.

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. These values include words being used that we do not often associate with work: ‘hearts’ as well as minds, ‘community’, ‘fun’, ‘camaraderie’ and ‘passion’. But these words are critical for learning and creativity. 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. Creativity emerges out of passion, camaraderie, community and the heart. It rarely emerges out of obligation, rules and constraints, selfish behaviour or bullying. And, by the way, KD Paine’s ten values spell out ‘P A S S I O N A T E’ - the key word that brings the other nine into focus and adds the right common denominator to the work environment. 1 STAGE ONE: SIGNAL THE CHANGE This is a critical stage in moving towards a creative environment. Signaling dictates that ‘things are going to change’ around here. And it can only come from the top. From anyone else it appears undeliverable and insincere. Once the signals have been given then behaviour consistent with the message needs to be strictly enforced and perhaps some specific changes made that imply the bigger shift ahead. This stage needs to last long enough for staff to believe that change is underway but not so long that everyone believes nothing much more will happen. The differences need to be elaborated and shared regularly and the emerging benefits detailed. If some of this comes from staff themselves so much the better, and if a sizable proportion of the benefits are business or output related then that is an advantage too. Internal tinkering for no real reason is greeted with universal cynicism. Changes that focus the business are easy to justify and quantify. 2 STAGE TWO: BUILD THE RIGHT ENVIRONMENT This is the fundamental building block stage. Without this, what you are trying to achieve looks like an empty gesture or, at best, something that can fall away at a moment’s notice. Most staff will be in the ‘wait and see what happens’ category and if the environment has not been built robustly they will hesitate before jumping,

18 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

as they do not want to be caught out if it all flips backwards again. One perfectly reasonable member of staff told me at a change seminar that he has seen it all before: ‘I stay under the table for a good while to see if this is more than a fleeting fancy. I do not emerge until I am certain that this is really going to happen. I have seen too many people pop up too early, stick their neck out and be left high and dry when the tide recedes. It is often the end of their career when it all sweeps back.’ This is an understandable and cynical reaction to wave after wave of change in an organisation. You have to live with it. And if you want to defeat it, a consistent environment is the clearest signal that this is not a flash in the pan but a sea change in the organisation. Once this has been established, lots of heads will pop up from under the table. And it might take months to move from establishment phase to sustained phase. Rush too quickly into stage three and you can undermine the delicate shoots. 3 STAGE THREE: FIRST STEPS Only ‘first steps’ and we are at stage three already! The first steps are to establish and implement the creative processes. This means being absolutely clear regarding what you are trying to achieve, and having the processes in place to make this happen. Creativity is not simply having great thoughts. It is easy to engineer ideas, particularly if you have the other two stages in place. The real art of embedding creativity is to ensure that you have the processes in place to select and implement great ideas. Areas to be considered are: • Are the budgets in place? • How narrow or wide a bottle neck will you establish to filter ideas? • Who makes the decision about what goes and what does not? • What feedback will you give participants? • What are the metrics to establish success? • What kind of development process have you put in place to take this forward? • How will you ensure participation? • How will you sustain this over time?

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HOW TO BUILD A CREATIVE WORKPLACE

The feedback loop is really important. What has been achieved, what difference has this made, who are the heroes of the process? You need, continually, to feed this all back to convince staff that this has made a difference, and that it is valued. Moving from words to actions should be an enjoyable and empowering process for everybody. It should help in the sharing of knowledge, in the generation of a learning culture, and in the building of commitment. 4 STAGE FOUR: ENABLE CREATIVITY If you have got this far, then stage four falls logically into place. In many ways it is the easiest stage as it has the solid foundations of the other three. This is the stage where creativity becomes part of the culture and moves into solid state. It becomes part of the culture and is simply: ‘the way we do things around here’. For new recruits it is an integral part of the organisation and for long standing employees it is a permanent shift in behaviour that has been accepted and

confirmed. The key areas to address here are: • Continually modify the process to ensure optimum efficiency • Regularly review of the impact internally and externally • Supply convincing evidence of the value and success • Endorsement by the top team • Acknowledge the distance travelled Almost without exception, companies with a creative ethos and structure have fared far better in this recession than those whose staff feel undervalued and powerless. This could of course be a reflection of what they do, rather than how they do it, but somehow I suspect not. 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.

CREATIVITY CALLS FOR MAGNETISM NOT MAGIC Greg Dyke, the charismatic former director general of the BBC, wrote about the push for creativity in the BBC: ‘The real point about ‘Making it Happen’ was that it engaged people’s emotions, not just their brains. Culture change is above all an emotional experience, not an intellectual one.’ Making it Happen was a change programme to encourage more openness and creativity. The sad thing is that, after Dyke’s demise. it never got to stage four. For most BBC staff it is a distant memory of what might have been, rather than the beginning of a permanent cultural change. Creativity needs learning and learning needs creativity. These are core components of any kind of modern, knowledge sharing and fast moving organisation. There is no magic formula for workplace creativity. Each organisation has its own unique needs and deadlines. But every organisation must pass through the four stages and take the time to ensure the embedding of one before moving onto the next.

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 21

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RAPID: FASTER AND CHEAPER AND IS IT ANY GOOD? IS IT

Everyone's got an opinion about rapid e-learning. Here Krista Woodley explodes some of the popular myths.

irst of all, what do we mean by rapid e-learning? Often we think of it as anything that's built using a rapid tool. But there are a lot of other tools that can be used in a rapid way – and there are a few self-appointed rapid tools that, by the time you’ve twiddled about trying to work them out, don’t feel very rapid at all. Perhaps a better way to think of rapid is as the process, rather than the tools. Not so much what you do, as the way that you do it. Here we look at the common assumptions about rapid e-learning (tools and process), but first Virginia Barder, director of projects

at Brightwave, outlines two examples of rapid processes in action. “We use two approaches. Firstly, a bespoke method that takes time and thought to set up and tailor to the client’s needs, but then keeps rolling out e-learning quickly and easily over the long-term. Secondly, our own tried-andtested short-run process for one-off quickie projects, which need to get up and running quickly.” Bupa has used both approaches. For the aptly named SWIFT project, Brightwave delivered a bespoke solution of 600 modules over two years. Each module had a twelve day schedule from starting the script to delivering the final signed-off build says Barder: “We spent a lot of time up front on the design, conducting workshops and training sessions, to make sure the project would run smoothly”. A related requirement for competency tests followed the short run process. “In one day, we met Bupa to kick off the project in the morning, agreed the design in the afternoon, and signed it off over a cocktail in the evening.

This is helped by the mutual trust and understanding between both companies.” Of course, you can’t completely separate tools from process. For example, often a decision is made to leave out the step of creating a written script, preferring instead to write straight into a build tool. This being the case, it is helpful to use tools like Atlantic Link, Mohive or the Brightwave BIT issue tracker, which have a facility for reviewers to record comments. Otherwise it can be hard to capture accurate feedback, which can have a knock-on effect later. If you’re thinking about using rapid for the first time, or you're taking a nanosecond to reflect and review, you need to separate the fact from the fiction. RAPID ASSUMPTIONS - QUICK TO JUDGE So what are our common assumptions about rapid e-learning? We often understand rapid to mean 1) fast, 2) cheap, 3) lower quality and 4) anyone can do it. Time, cost and quality form the golden

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 23

RAPID: IS IT FASTER AND CHEAPER AND IS IT ANY GOOD?

or graphics stink - or maybe it just doesn't run properly. So does rapid have to mean low quality? The critics might call it 'vapid' e-learning, but it doesn’t have to be. Anyone who's eaten hot fish and chips on a winter beach, or spent a summer's afternoon lazing in the park, knows that some of the best things in life are simple and cheap. Let's face it, we've all seen high-cost e-learning that didn't hit the spot. The point is that speed and cost are the drivers more often than quality. This being the case, quality is usually nearest the door, to be elbowed out at the first point of compromise. However if ‘fit for purpose’ is the working motto for your project, this doesn’t have to be a problem, if managed right.

triangle of project management. Fiddle with one and you will unbalance the others, so let's look at these assumptions in a bit more detail.

needs to be very high quality. Which leads us neatly to…

ASSUMPTION 1. RAPID IS FAST But rapid is not a rushed job

What is cheap? Cutting unnecessary process and development time can definitely cut costs. These days, the common assumption is that the hourly cost for rapid can be half as much as the cost of bespoke e-learning.

What do we mean by fast? These days, we're talking weeks, rather than months. It's not uncommon for projects to have a 30-day turnaround, from kick-off meeting to the course hitting the user's screen. Does rapid have to be fast? Surely speed is the one thing that rapid has to deliver. It's a tautology, but if this isn’t the case, what is the point? As always there’s scope for tripping yourself up if you try to run before you can walk. We know that rapid tools can cut building time, but this is just one part of the overall process - and fine-tuning the whole process is key to going rapid. Wildly hacking away great chunks out of a schedule just to hit the desired deadline, is always going to end in tears. Skipping early reviews or rushing sign-offs, can mean extra time in the long term. You end up overrunning or adding iterations at the very last minute. On the other hand, making canny decisions about what’s necessary and what’s indulgent can whittle down a schedule. Mostly, rapid is about common sense. Do you really need each stakeholder to review the script six times? What if you don't need the project to be fast? You can still use rapid tools to hasten the course, spending the time saved on getting the script and graphics right first time. Conversely, if your timeframe is very short, even rapid tools might not necessarily cut costs if the product still

ASSUMPTION 2. RAPID IS CHEAP But faster doesn’t always mean cheaper

And does rapid deliver on that promise? If your well-planned rapid project involves less work then it's obviously going to be cheaper. As Steve Rayson, director of elearning consultancy Kineo, points out: “There is a growing recognition that much of the cost of e-learning historically was because of inefficient processes". As with the issue of speed, we're only heading for a happy ending cost-wise if the preparation and groundwork has been done up front. If a rushed job hits the buffers near the delivery date the fix-up work can end up costing more for everyone involved. If we stick with the definition of rapid as something that's simply fast, then that's not necessarily cheaper. A big scope project, or a course that needs to be a dazzling head turner, can still be produced in a short time, but is unlikely to be cheap as chips. ASSUMPTION 3. RAPID IS LOW QUALITY Not if the learning is fit for purpose. What do we mean by low quality? Usually in terms of e-learning, low quality means that the instructional design hasn't been thought through, the target audience has been missed or misunderstood, the script

24 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

Some people point to the templated nature of rapid as a limitation, but if the templates are solid interactions used well, that’s no bad thing. The rapid e-learning tool Articulate for example, has a set of interactions that aren’t jaw-droppingly innovative, but are nevertheless solid and effective. As Articulate works with PowerPoint, you have access to the possible freestyle customisations of a PowerPoint slide. So your options are infinite. There is often a notion that rapid means one person creates the e-learning alone (to be covered in more detail shortly). This leads to a ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’ impression. This adds to concerns about low quality. Lars Hyland, Brightwave’s director of learning services, says: “There is a further consideration - the quality of writing and the meaning and intent of images. These components require huge skill to craft and sequence. Learning can be functionally simple and quick to build with a rapid tool, it can also be time-consuming and expensive to construct the content into a genuinely powerful learning experience. There is a danger that rapid projects generate content of little value resulting in a hugely expensive process." ASSUMPTION 4. ANYONE CAN DO IT Only if ‘good enough’ is good enough Is it true that any e-learning professional, or any business professional can create and build their own e-learning, without any specialist advice or help? Rapid tools have revolutionised what was previously a specialised technical arena, making it much more accessible. This democratisation has given individuals, subject matter experts (SME) in particular, greater freedom and control over the final product – for better or worse.

RAPID: IS IT FASTER AND CHEAPER AND IS IT ANY GOOD?

Not everyone has the right skills set to use rapid tools. The knowledge of a great SME, or the creativity of an excellent graphic artist or scriptwriter, doesn’t always go hand-in-hand with the diligence needed, or the relatively low level technical skills crucial to use rapid tools. If a user is multi-skilled it is (let’s face it) unlikely to be at a very high level across the whole range. ‘Good enough’ skills usually lead to a ‘good enough’ product, with quality the first value to be shuffled out the door. “There is an increased interest in selfauthoring e-learning content, due to the perceived benefits of reduced costs and speed of production”, says Hyland. “However, the skills required to deliver an effective and engaging online learning experience are hard won. There are further skills to acquire when using a selfauthoring tool, all of these contribute to the quality of the end learner experience. For example: when and where to apply interactivity, the choice of supporting imagery, the use of audio and video assets, the technical environment and tracking requirements etc.”

Many people argue that this democratisation is to the detriment of quality and of the progress of the e-learning industry. At the Oxford Union e-learning debate 2009: ‘This house believes that the e-learning of today is essential for the important skills of tomorrow’, Dr Marc Rosenberg argued that e-learning is rocket science, and that rapid tools and processes serve to deprofessionalise the field. (http://cliveshepherd.blogspot.com/2009/09/elearning-debate-2009.html).

Streamlining processes can certainly cut costs and timeframes, without detriment to quality. If the processes are well planned, or tried and tested, the result will be effective, successful e-learning.

Rapid tools undoubtedly open up the field to all-comers and there are obvious risks to quality. If we see rapid as more about the process than the tools, then this can only be a good thing. A finely tuned rapid process that is merely one part of a successful and smooth-running relationship between creator and customer is about as professional as it gets.

• Look around for a tool that fits your needs best

It’s impossible to separate completely, the tools from the process, in rapid e-learning. But an effective tool is no more and no less than that. What makes the critical difference are the methods and processes around using the tools.

TOP TIPS: • Tailor your rapid process to your project, your team and your clients • Or use a tried and tested rapid process

• Make it fit for purpose – if you need high quality, use the best resources available • Use common sense – cut indulgences from your schedule.

Krista Woodley is Senior Learning Designer at Brightwave and can be contacted at krista.woodley@brightwave.co.uk

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 27

WHAT DO

YOU

REALLY, REALLY WANT FROM A LEARNING SYSTEM? Don’t fall into a pit of endless possibility, urges Vaughan Waller. Your dream LMS may be possible, but is it practical?

earning systems are a complex area in the field of technology assisted learning – they always have been and always will be. You could argue, that just like IT systems, they have become even more complex with time. You could also argue that the market has become a lot more fragmented making the choices much more difficult. So where do you start? Visiting an exhibition like Learning Technologies is more likely to confuse than to assist, not because you won’t find the right answers, but because you don’t know the right questions. Since it is so easy to confuse the endless possibilities with the actual

need, the fundamental question is ‘what do you really want?’ In a 1994 film called Swimming with Sharks a young naive assistant to an abusive producer finally gets revenge for the appaling manner in which has been treated. But along the way this boss from hell asks him. ‘what do you really want? He wants to work out just how far this neophyte’s ambition would take him. This is sometimes difficult to answer. Even with your life ahead of you (or with most of it behind you) what you really want is mitigated by so many burgeoning factors. Choosing a learning system (LMS, LCMS) may also seem impossible but should not be. Simply sit down either alone or in a group and discuss what you needs really are. You can throw caution to the wind, cast off the de Bono ‘black hat’, ignore the entreaties of the IT department and literally ask yourself “what does my organisation really need?” Part of the problem is what ex-US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld referred to as “unknown unknowns”. These are as yet unidentified pitfalls just waiting to trip up the unsuspecting learning and development team. Many organisations in the past have invested enormous sums of money in an enterprise learning management system, only to find due to mergers and acquisitions, that it is no longer supported. A small technology change such as installing a new web browser may disable the system overnight. The creation of a custom report can suddenly morph into an expensive project, since there is no one with the skills to run the proprietary software on which the reports are made. Or simply it may be that the small print was not read carefully

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 29

WHAT DO YOU REALLY, REALLY WANT FROM A LEARNING SYSTEM

resulting in costs escalating alarmingly. The trail of disasters in these big IT projects are legion, leaving the bravest of hearts lying awake at night or working 60 hour weeks. It doesn’t need to be this difficult, when all that is needed for a successful implementation is a clear understanding of what is needed. THE ANSWER TO ALL YOUR PRAYERS IS A GLORIFIED DATABASE Learning Management System (LMS) manufacturers will throw up their hands in protest but let’s face it, an LMS is just a database, dressed up to appear to be the answer to all your prayers. Taking compliance as an example, the regulator needs to know who did what course, when they did it, and what they scored. You need all your e-learning modules to be able to send this information into the database for later retrieval in the form of a report that you can show to others. Almost everything else is just convenience for the learner, the manager, or the administrator. Having courses in an easyto-search menu system, being able to access a variety of resources from one central point, the ability to collect learners into groups, send emails all over the place etc. It’s just a database. Even if you want to expand the system to include a training management system, it is still a database. Learning records for every learner, control of learning resources such as rooms and data projectors, attendance logged and reportable - are all just fields in the database. It may be easier said than done but the only thing you need to do is to create a list of all the fields you need, which when matched to the reporting engine of the LMS, will give you all the information you need. I know it is heresy, but the notion that an LMS is necessary to bring meaning to your learning provision, is merely hyperbole. Suppliers would say that wouldn’t they? But you cannot develop a return on investment argument for an LMS since it is just a delivery mechanism. No one learns from an LMS or the reports that it generates. In itself it will not change the performance of an organisation because that role is entirely in the hands of the content. You could have the finest LMS on the planet and if your content is poor then the results will be poor. The LMS will not make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. As the quality of the content is at the heart of the learning system, it is entirely proper and natural to integrate a rapid content authoring system into an LMS. Since the database is already there, why not add the functionality of storing

As the quality of the content is at the heart of the learning system, it is entirely proper and natural to integrate a rapid content authoring system into an LMS. Since the database is already there, why not add the functionality of storing elements of each course, so that they can be used repeatedly? elements of each course, so that they can be used repeatedly? The SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) makes this possible since it is now a common standard enabling the interchange of elements from elsewhere. With these two functions combined you have produced a Learning Content Management System (LCMS). LCMS OR LMS? It could be argued both ways that an LCMS is a content authoring system with an LMS bolted on or vice versa. If you create your content elsewhere then perhaps you just need an LMS. And if you already own an LMS - should you just buy a content authoring system? The answer to this depends on where you are in the scheme of things. Either way it pays to sit back and establish a couple of basics. Who is going to be creating the content, and

30 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

what are their skills in using a content authoring tool? The adage that if anyone can use the tool then it can’t be very powerful, is false. There are subject matter experts in my firm who would not know one end of an authoring tool from the other and they would be the first to admit as much. Therefore, it is likely that the quality of content emanating from these people would not be great, even after training on how to use the tool. There could be an argument for creating a simple template into which the SME could simply drop self-generated text, but would this make effective learning? The pros and cons of rapid content authoring tools is an article in itself. It is argued by some that an LCMS can leverage new business opportunities and sit at the heart of your organisation’s

WHAT DO YOU REALLY, REALLY WANT FROM A LEARNING SYSTEM

THE LEARNING CONTENT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE, NOT THE LEARNING SYSTEM Knowing what you want to achieve with your learning system will make your life a lot easier than trying to formulate a function list. The former will inform the latter enabling you to go straight to identifying the desired deliverables rather than spending a lot of time on how these will be created. Remember, learning management systems have been around a long time, and they all basically do the same job. My advice is to concentrate on the following areas:

Many of the complexities of implementing a learning system are purely IT in nature. These are of concern to your IT personnel and have little to do with the functionality of your learning system.

1 THE LEARNER How will they perceive the LMS? How will it change their learning experience for the better? What can’t they do now that will be possible in the future? 2 THE MANAGER

business strategy. Learning would create the means whereby competitive advantage could be acquired and maintained making the organisation better than its competitors. I would argue that it is our inherent ability to learn, acquire and develop new skills, which empowers us to perform for the benefit of our team, our department and our organisation. Undoubtedly, the whole process will be substantially aided by having an IT system automating the otherwise complex data processes - that is what electronic systems are meant to do. But it is the learning content that will make the difference and not the learning system. If by now you have a learning system which is an LMS with training management functionality, and a content authoring tool added in, you may still be saying to yourself that you also have a big compliance tracking need. Should you also look at a compliance management system at the same time? In law and accountancy practices for example, there is a need for continuing professional development to be tracked too. TALK TO THE IT CROWD Many of the complexities of implementing a learning system are purely IT in nature. These are of concern to your IT personnel and have little to do with the functionality of your learning system. For example, how the learning is hosted and accessed from remote locations, how to integrate it into

your human resources information system, using single sign-on so users do not have to repeat themselves, etc. With this in mind, when creating your project team, make sure there is a senior member of the IT division included. Many organisations have someone responsible for ensuring that IT systems can exchange data and do not conflict. Seek out this person from the start, for they will save you a lot of time and energy by distinguishing the possible from the impossible. So as I said at the start you need to decide what you really want out of a learning system and this in essence is a definition of what you want to achieve. I have worked at this stage with several organisations. Some of them have sent questionnaires to all the stakeholders of the project, some say that they just sat down with a blank sheet of paper and some have created a full list and then prioritised each function until they have their core functionality. Everyone is different and I cannot say which method works best. What is important is that this process is given as much time as is necessary and that as many people as possible are consulted. But don’t take too long because if you take two years to implement, by the time you get to the end you will need to start all over again to keep up with change.

How will the LMS enable managers to create better learning for the organisation as a whole? Will these aims be justifiable given the inevitable costs and resource implications or are most of them ‘would be nice’ objectives? 3 THE LEARNING CONTENT How will the LMS present the content? Will it make it more useable or will everything have to be modified to make it work? One trick is to put yourself in the shoes of the learner, the manager, and the learning. It is worthwhile remembering that an LMS (or whatever you choose) is meant to make your life easier and your department run with greater efficiency. If all you end up with is a system that causes you more work than before, then much time and effort will have been wasted.

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

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 33

Piers Lea, Patrick Dunn and Ian Leader throw out a challenge to boards, management and policy-makers. Wake up to the extreme competitive advantages of unification – the capture of working knowledge and experience, which is then automated and shared.

THE

UNIFICATION OF

COMMUNICATIONS, E-LEARNING AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

wo pressures dominate organisational development today: speed and complexity. The pace of modern business demands that everything is done faster. Technology, legislation and competitordriven change mean people deal with increased complexity every day. These pressures fall heavily on the training function which often buckles under the strain. People need to know more and they need to get that knowledge faster. This calls for a different approach, and one which radically changes the mix of ‘foundation training’ and ‘working knowledge’. They need access to the knowledge - what, when and where they need it. And this has often been delivered under the banner of Knowledge Management (KM).

We have long argued that learning and KM need to be conceived and delivered by one design authority. You can’t deliver the kind of ‘access’ required to solve today’s business needs without technology. And the people who use technology do not recognise the barriers between learning, KM, and communications. They just need what they need, when they need it. BACK TO THE FUTURE Just over ten years ago we proposed and delivered a successful large scale project that delivered on the promise of blending learning, KM and communications. The intention was to recommend to businesses, how to bring the complementary methods of cultivating learning to improve performance. In other

words to roll out large-scale, but strategic ‘access’ to global organisations. The result was ‘ecademie’ for PricewaterhouseCoopers Consultants, which won an ‘e-business transformation award’ sponsored by the Institute of Directors in 2002. The whole scheme was taken into IBM and formed the core of how BCS (Business Consultant Services) learning was delivered. Now in IBM, you struggle to find a conventional training course. Everything is blended and available, and uses the optimum method of technology or classroom to suit the situation. Achieving this was a fascinating if somewhat frustrating process. While there was a clear distinction between the disciplines or camps, there was much talk at high levels of potential synergies,

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 35

THE UNIFICATION OF COMMUNICATIONS, E-LEARNING AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

exciting technologies and new theoretical approaches that might lead to a successful union. Needless to say, down at the coal face, such erudite discourse was drowned out by the need to deliver content and systems. It now seems that technological, organisational and most powerfully, economic pressures have raised the issue of a possible union of KM and e-learning to a high priority. Organisations need an integrated, coherent approach to learning if they are to survive in difficult times. Perhaps this is why we are experiencing a high level of interest from clients in this area. An interest sometimes expressed with a degree of exasperation, that there do not appear to be simple, well established ways of addressing their problems. In 2002-04, we spent considerable effort defining KM and e-learning. A summary of our definitions of that time looks something like this: • The aim of e-learning is to use technology to provide training and coaching for employees so that they can learn what they need, when they need it. The production of e-learning involves creating content for people to learn in a structured, managed way. The flow of knowledge is largely uni-directional: from a small number of people who know to a large number of people who don’t. • The aim of KM is to use technology to make knowledge available to people when they need it. KM provides the facilities for people to share knowledge with others, rather than create content. The learning that results is largely unstructured, and on-demand. The table below shows a summary of the benefits of unification – blending e-learning and KM. IT’S ALL ABOUT NETWORKS Technology has changed enormously in the last five years. YouTube, Flickr and similar platforms have transformed how we view

E-learning

The most profound changes in both learning and technology have been about helping people to learn by putting them in contact with each other at the same time as providing content relevant to the context.

and share media. Facebook, Linked In and Twitter tie our personal and professional networks together; mobile devices are everywhere. Second Life, Habbo Hotel and Club Penguin offer us alternative spaces in which to live. Software has been ‘rapidised’ so that techno-novices can now swiftly carry out tasks that five years ago would have required IT graduates. From today’s perspective, 2004 looks profoundly disconnected, slow-moving and media-blind. And the learning industry has new pre-occupations: informal learning, serious gaming, collaboration and communities, user-generated content, rapid tools, mobile learning, etc. And ever more complex and ambitious blending that learning professionals could not have imagined five years ago.

To use Seely-Brown’s brilliant phrase: ‘knowledge sticks to people’. So the guiding principle of the new KM now appears to be that ‘knowledge is shared and cultivated, through human contact, in well-functioning communities’. While the KM industry is still driven principally by the provision of software tools to large clients, it is striking how these tools have shifted their focus from information storage to communications and dialogue. While the e-learning camp has also been widely affected by networking and social media, the overall picture of how such media is implemented, is less clear.

Of course, a significant proportion of this is hype. A level-headed assessment reveals that most e-learning organisations still earn the majority of their income from products similar to those they developed in 2004. the same goes for most KM consultancies and tool providers.

Most e-learning is still about creating content which learners study individually. But a significant and growing minority, particularly in higher education and commercial professional services, use blogging, discussion boards, podcasts and networked learning, in ways that would be very familiar to a KM consultant.

But one critical feature stands out when you take even a cursory glance at the landscape. The most profound changes in both learning and technology have been about helping people to learn by putting them in contact with each other at the same time as providing content relevant to the context.

And even rapid authoring tools – the darling of the e-learning industry over the last few years – have potential to turn the tables on centralised training departments, by allowing users and local experts to develop and deploy learning experiences as and when they need them. Isn’t that KM?

This has affected KM, e-learning and communications, in ways that at least in theory, should lead to unification. Significantly influenced by visionaries such as Wenger, Snowden and Denning, the KM

YouTube is, after all, just a form of rapid tool, and every day hundreds of thousands of new items are created and added by people who are also e-learners. POINTS OF RESISTANCE

STRENGTH

WEAKNESS

BENEFITS OF UNIFICATION

• Considers how people learn and change.

• Can be rigid.

• Increased relevance, ownership and dynamism.

• Too focussed on content.

• Structured and managed. KM

industry has accelerated its move away from its core assumption that knowledge can be stored as small pieces in big databases, to be later accessed on demand.

• Current • Dynamic • Participative

• Less training required. • May ignore how people learn and change

• Increased learning effectiveness and direction.

• May lose sight of organisational priorities.

• Less searching and contributing required.

36 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

If you go into a typical organisation that uses both KM and e-learning, are you likely to find an integrated approach? In general, although there are exceptions, the answer is likely to be ‘no’. You are still likely to find distinct areas, using different methods and technologies. There are various reasons for this:

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THE UNIFICATION OF COMMUNICATIONS, E-LEARNING AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Just in case

• Pedagogical – in spite of the recent convergence, the assumptions about how people learn still remain somewhat at odds (‘you learn from information you share’ versus ‘you learn from content we give you’). Underlying cultural values can serve to preserve existing organisational barriers.

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Sharing Stories (UGC)

Coaching

E-learning Kick Starts

• Technological – while many integrated platforms exist to serve the needs of both camps, (complemented by a huge raft of middleware and open source solutions), the legacy of previous investments can take many years to work through. In light of this, is it correct to say that KM and e-learning are merging? Are they the same thing? Possibly. At some point in the future, they may well become indistinct. But that is increasingly becoming a question for academics, not practitioners. This debate has largely been overtaken by the evolution of blended learning, under which both e-learning and KM increasingly fall. THE LEARNING MAP The role of the ‘blended learning architect’ is to map the approaches to learning across the organisation, and to assemble them in ways that deal with the key performance issues the organisation faces. One possible approach to this mapping, one which bridges KM and e-learning seamlessly, is shown in the diagram opposite. It distinguishes learning approaches broadly along two dimensions:

• whether learning is foundation knowledge or working knowledge

Other face-to-face learning

Diagnostic

• Professional – the people working in either camp regard themselves as arriving from different professional origins. They attend different conferences, read different journals and worship at the feet of different gurus.

• whether learning is just-in-time or just-in-case

Working knowledge

Capturing Stories (journalistic UGC)

Micro Games

M-Learning FAQ Tool

Knowledge Objects

Key Learning Summaries

Just in time

• Structural – KM departments typically grew up from within IT. E-learning typically evolved within HR and training. While cost pressures for rationalisation are increasingly strong, it can be difficult to break down such long-term barriers.

Foundation

Clearly, this is only one way of representing learning within an organisation. Its aim is to articulate clearly a unified, integrated view of learning, and it recognises no division between out-ofdate labels. It provides a unified vision as a basis for pragmatic action.

people work and think, rather than expecting people to change their working behaviours to match the technology.

THE SOLUTION

By delaying their intervention in an attempt to prevent it, the industry allowed people to become accustomed to downloading illegally. In the networked world, people become impatient and rather than wait to be told what to do, they just get on with finding a solution.

Returning to the problems of speed and complexity, the solution we envisage is a lowering of the bar for foundation training - which currently occupies too much training time - leaving a larger proportion of necessary knowledge, to be treated as working knowledge. By definition, working knowledge needs to be attained fast and at the point and time of need. This means well defined groups of learning, communications and knowledge that can come together to match a need. And this requires a much cleverer use of technology. No organisation starts with a clean sheet when it comes to technology and infrastructure. Part of the skill needed in providing an appropriate solution, lies in designing the right service using components of existing technologies and introducing new ones as needed, or building joining structures. Effective search is the key to unlock the organisation’s existing knowledge. To deliver it at the point of need, and embed it in to workflow, involves a movement from ‘push’ to ‘pull’. This puts the learner at the centre of the experience. Systems must be designed to match the way

We can learn a lot from the recent shenanigans in the music industry with the mismanagement of the issue of illegal downloading.

Similarly, people will use the networked environment – the tools they are familiar with, like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Blogger – to learn what they want, how they want. Organisations that embrace the mess, fragmentation and diversity of potential learning technology solutions will be better able to map and integrate them in ways that serve their aims. Just one final warning. If organisations do not plan, manage and control the change in how their people learn, as in the music industry it is liable to happen anyway, without their influence or sanction. Piers Lea and Ian Leader are CEO and Managing Director, Central Europe of LINE Communications - www.line.co.uk, and Patrick Dunn is a consultant at Networked Learning Design patrickdunn.squarespace.com.

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 39

842 MILES

With the right instructional design, geographic boundaries and cultural chasms pose no problem. Phil Green argues the case for a flexible curriculum to deliver occupational skills to a pan-European workforce.

his year sees the opening of the world's longest golf course. It embraces 842 miles of desolate outback from the South to the West of Australia. You’d need something more than a golf buggy to travel from hole to hole. Give the cheery greeting “’G’day” at each watering hole from Ceduna to Kalgoorlie, and people are sure to understand. Let’s say you set out from El Paso in the USA, walk 842 miles, eight hours a day at three mph. You might reach Port Arthur in five weeks. Now put yourself in London and walk those same 842 miles across Europe. From El Paso you could easily remain within the State of Texas. In Australia you might never leave the golf course. And there, in a nutshell, is the challenge of designing learning in Europe. But travel in an easterly direction from

London and you might cross twelve or more sovereign states. Multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-lingual Europe is home to half a billion citizens; twelve percent of the world’s population1. At its peak one in four human beings lived here. Europe is open for business, too. Paris hosts 27 of the largest companies in the World, second only to Tokyo and marginally ahead of New York. London comes fourth with 23 Fortune Global 500 companies. Between the two cities of Munich and Dusseldorf, Germany has eleven. Madrid and Zurich each have seven, and Rome has five of the Global 500 2. On your trek from London to Linz, your cheery “Hi” might have been answered by many a “Wilkommen”, “Bienvenue” and

“Welcome”. According to the European Commission3 there are 23 official tongues. But in the big cities, literally hundreds of different languages are spoken. You might assume that English is most common; you’d be mistaken. Almost one in five Europeans (19%) are born in a country where German is the first language. Leaving aside Russia which, with its population of 142 million is outside the EU, it is France which occupies the largest territory. Thirteen percent of Europeans speak French. English (12%) comes only third in the list of languages spoken in Europe. Indeed a 2000 survey of children in London’s schools found that 29 percent were not native speakers of English. The languages most in evidence after English were those from families of Asian immigrants followed by those whose

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 41

842 MILES

There is a cycle of ‘ignorant reinvention’ with blended learning, human performance technology, informal learning, serious games and learning by discovery parents had been born in the Middle East, Turkey and countries of Africa and the Caribbean4. Europe is facing significant social, political and economic challenges. As in many other parts of the developed world, Europeans are living longer. Add together an aging but itinerant population and a decline in birth rates, and the sum is a big problem. Education, training and employment are just some of the challenges that lie ahead. The pressures affect social and welfare funding, particularly pensions. Thus ‘lifelong learning’ is not just a nice-to-have skill, but an essential ability for those whose working lives may stretch beyond the age of seventy. NOT EVERYONE IN EUROPE VIEWS INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN IN THE SAME LIGHT In the course of some of my recent research, I have spoken with many associates from around Europe. I wanted to know their views on the work of instructional designers in Europe. What do they do well? What do they find difficult? What beliefs and theories shape their practices? How were they selected, inducted and trained? What did they embrace and what did they avoid? What value did they add to the organisations they served? This last question was the most contentious. Many expressed the view that instructional designers actually damage prosperity by adhering rigidly to outmoded ‘waterfall models’ borrowed from the world of engineering and software development. Some cited ADDIE, the five-stage generic process traditionally used by instructional designers (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation), as an example of this. Those who were strong advocates of e-learning spoke of an agile development approach. They described a consultative and iterative process which resulted in analyst/designer together with clients, customers and other stakeholders working together. The group produce a succession of realisations of the potential solution, until it came as close to fit for purpose as possible. It sounded like ADDIE to me, but they were adamant that it was something more flexible and less bureaucratic.

EUROPE NEEDS GOOD INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN Everyone was in agreement on one issue. There is an urgent and acute need to build a flexible curriculum throughout Europe. The need is twofold – to help individuals to function in rapidly changing societies and to give them occupational skills. The solution is to provide blended learning which, as everyone knows, was invented one fine Thursday in the late 20th century. I am reminded of the work of a great thinker from early in the 20th Century. Emphasising the benefits of eclecticism in 1912, Edward L Thorndike, the American psychologist who helped lay the scientific foundation for modern educational psychology, wrote: “The best teacher uses books and appliances as well as his own insight, sympathy, and magnetism.” As I’ve been judging projects for annual awards it struck me that the finest examples of designed instruction seen in Europe, must have captured this insight, sympathy, and magnetism. So it's not just the ergonomic sorting of facts, concepts, thoughts and ideas which makes the difference. Reading a libretto and building a collection of recordings can be great fun for someone who has a passion for opera, but if you take away live performance then the rest becomes a compulsion rather than enrichment. Unless we are careful we shall lose forever the wonder and warmth of interpersonal engagement. The French lent us the phrase, ‘plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose’ (the more things change, the more they stay the same). Outsiders and newcomers might believe that everything we do in L&D is new and current. There is a cycle of ‘ignorant reinvention’ with blended

42 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

learning, human performance technology, informal learning, serious games and learning by discovery. Whenever suppliers tell me that their approach to e-learning is entirely original, I quote Thorndike’s words, “If, by a miracle of mechanical ingenuity, a book could be so arranged so that only to him who had done what was directed on page one would page two become visible, and so on, much that now requires personal instruction could be accomplished by print.” Remember he wrote this before the First World War. Had he been around a little more recently he might have added the words “or screen” to the end of his text. I then bring the suppliers forward forty years to the swinging sixties, just before the Beatles, when AutoTutor inventor Norman Crowder, introduced his technique of intrinsic programming. It is still found in the worst examples of electronic page-turning, where the instructional designer failed to understand the concept of modular and did not recognise the particular advantages the computer can offer. The basic premise is sound. What comes next in a learning programme depends on what the learner has done with the previous exercise. This happened twenty years before general-purpose desktop computers were feasible and so Crowder used text. You read a little and then you answered a multiple choice question. Your response determined which page you saw next. The learner did not see content that he did not need to see. This clearly demanded instructional design to profile the learner and create a hierarchy from the teaching points.

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842 MILES

LESSONS FROM THE WORLDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S LARGEST RETAILER As Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m on a theme of cultural plurality as it manifests itself in Europe, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to finish with a cautionary tale. The American company Wal-Mart, the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest and most successful retailer, has 1.8 million employees around the world, and many operations around Europe. In 2006 it announced its intention to cease operating in Germany, after almost ten years of toil. It seemed incredible that anyone could resist Wal-Martâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s low prices, rigorous stock control and huge variety of goods. But Germany has its own home-grown discount chains, and shoppers declined to shift their loyalties. With hindsight it was a mistake to attempt to Americanise foreign parts of the organisation. It was probably already too late by the time Wal-Mart withdrew its policy of demanding that sales assistants smile at customers. A red-blooded male in Germany or Italy might put a particular construction upon a smile from an unknown female. In a country where many still hold living memories of the worst consequences of

group hysteria, the requirement for staff to chant the corporate litany at the start of each working day must have had deeply uncomfortable undertones. â&#x20AC;&#x153;People found these things strange. Germans just donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t behave that way,â&#x20AC;? remarked the secretary of the Verdi union, which represents more than 3 million workers in Germany.5

http://www.battlebridge.com/mlc.html Baker, P. and Eversley, J. (eds) (2000) Multilingual Capital, London: Battlebridge 5.http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/02/bu siness/worldbusiness/02walmart.html?ex= 1312171200&en=e05e99bb093724c5&ei =5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Of course instructional design was not to blame. But when a designer is commissioned to build instruction and support for workers across geographic boundaries and cultural chasms like these, there is far more involved than just following the party line or simply sitting in a quiet room with a clean sheet, sucking the end of a pencil and waiting for divine inspiration. 1. 830.4 million according to the United Nations see http://esa.un.org/unpp/ 2.http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortun e/global500/2006/cities/ 3.http://ec.europa.eu/education/language s/languages-of-europe/index_en.htm 4. Source website:

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.

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November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 45

WRITING FOR

THE READER Banish business speak, urges Stephanie Dedhar and energise your e-learning by writing for the reader.

eople learn best when they receive information in a conversational tone, not when they are confronted with fancy grammatical constructions, intimidating legalese and incomprehensible jargon. Let me venture outside the world of learning and training to give you a more literary example. Unless you’re of primary school age or the parent of someone who is, this quote probably doesn’t ring any bells for you: “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book”.1 You’d be forgiven for questioning the wisdom of choosing these as the opening words of your book, but this is the first line from Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. For those of you unfamiliar with Mr Snicket, he – along with the Baudelaire orphans and the ruthless, unscrupulous Count Olaf – has been the biggest thing to hit children’s bookshelves since Harry Potter.

Why is this? It might be the tales of murderous money-grabbers and absurd adventures that keep the kids entertained, but parents have become just as devoted fans because of Lemony’s ability to tap into how people think. Someone tells you not to blink, you blink. Someone warns you not to press the flashing red button, you want to press it. Someone tells you not to read their book, and suddenly it’s unputdownable. I imagine there’s a big part of you asking why this is relevant to e-learning (although I bet there’s also a little part of you itching to Google ‘Lemony Snicket’). The reason is that I believe we can all learn a lot from this master of rhetoric. There’s a lot of talk these days about making engaging training course and that tends to mean using the latest technology, blending it with some social networking site or another, doing something new and exciting with video or taking user interaction to the next level. That’s all well and good, but all this glitz

and gadgetry can mean that we forget about the most basic building block of a training course – the word. PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE, WHATEVER THEY’RE READING… Think about an advert you’ve seen lately – in a magazine, on a billboard, on the side of a bus. The chances are there’s a memorable image, maybe a famous face. And almost certainly a catchphrase, slogan or pithy saying. The marketing and advertising industries never underestimate the power of language, so why do we? I’m not alone in thinking this. In his excellent book The Online Copywriter’s Handbook (which, although focused on website or online marketing copywriting, is well worth a read by anyone writing online training material), Robert W. Bly says much the same thing: The old saying among direct marketers is ‘copy is king’. Words make the sale and get

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 47

WRITING FOR THE READER

the order. Layout and graphics serve primarily to make the copy more readable and are not the key drivers. But in the online world, the attitude toward copy is completely different. Copy and copywriters rank – mistakenly so, in my opinion – low on the totem pole. 2 Bly, who has a real way with words, goes on to say that ‘people are not fundamentally different beings when they go online; people remain people.’3 And indeed, people are not fundamentally different at work and outside work. If you met one of your people in the staffroom you wouldn’t bombard them with sentences of 30 words or more and you wouldn’t fire jargon at them. So why do it in a training course? Too much e-learning is full of industry jargon and legalese; too many learners have to battle through screen after screen of text that is, at best, too formal and, at worst, hard to understand or just plain dull. Often the overwhelming tone is one of businesses covering their backs. Most people don’t read instruction manuals or academic textbooks in their leisure time; they watch Friends or Coronation Street, they read novels and magazines, they share anecdotes and gossip over drinks with friends. What we as instructional designers need to do is recognise this and create a training course that appeals to its audience as people. INJECT A LITTLE LIFE INTO LEARNING Clive Shepherd is not only a prolific blogger on all things learning related, he’s also a great example of an engaging writer, as evidenced by this passage which sums up the problem and raises a smile at the same time: “They do say that selling training is like selling dog food – you sell it to the owner not the dog. The dog gets what their owner thinks will be good for them. Likewise, most training is sold to the management … not the learner. Management think they know best. They are sure learners prefer their training to have a serious, businesslike tone. They believe, mistakenly, that people can learn any number of abstract facts, rules and procedures just by seeing and hearing about them…They are wrong. Who’s supposed to put them right? The training department. Do they? No”.4 The authors of e-Learning and the Science of Instruction suggest that ‘the rationale for putting words in formal style is that conversational style can detract from the seriousness of the message.’5 It’s tempting to believe that in order for what you say to hold any weight and authority, your tone has to be formal and intellectual. This is a myth.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past decade, and regardless of whether or not you’re a fan of smoothies, you’ve probably heard of Innocent. And even if you’re not into the drinks, it’s hard not to like the brand. Perhaps its biggest selling point is its personality – there’s something a bit hippy, a bit playful, in everything it produces (just as Lemony Snicket taps into the naughty, rebellious streak in all of us, Innocent taps into the child in us). It’s not just the advertising: the ingredients list on the bottle, the contact address (Fruit Towers), the annual report – nothing is too unimportant or too important for the Innocent treatment. So if Innocent, one of the real success stories of the past decade, can inject a little life into the blandest or most official of documents and still get the important messages across, why can’t we? STRIKE THE RIGHT TONE Clark and Mayer devote an entire chapter to the personalisation principle. Put simply, this principle is based on the fact that ‘people work harder to understand material when they feel they are in a conversation with a partner rather than simply receiving information.’ 6 This is nothing new – these days the term ‘e-learning’ (as opposed to ‘e-telling’) implies a level of user involvement and the rise of blended learning has led to the development of highly interactive training

48 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

programmes. Online coaches or ‘pedagogical agents’7 are an accepted and commonly used feature of e-learning. Clearly, then, certain personalisation techniques have been widely and warmly adopted by the learning and training community. But people still seem reluctant to let go of their long words, longer sentences and technical or legal jargon. Think back to your student days and you’ll probably appreciate Victor Stachura’s claim that ‘it’s difficult to pay attention to material written in a formal tone (like most textbooks) even though you may want to understand it.’8 So when you’re the one writing the material, give the user a break and make what you’re saying easy to understand and remember. HOW TO PUT IT IN TO PRACTICE It’s one thing to be convinced of the value of writing in a conversational tone – it’s quite another to do it well. There’s a lot of literature out there on how to do it (Stachura and Bly both offer useful tips),9 and there’s definitely an element of personal style, but I think there are a few key rules that are a good starting point: • Write the way you talk. We’ve usually been so trained in academic or business writing which ranges from the stilted to the pretentious, with several levels in between, that it can be hard to stop. But that’s exactly what’s needed when you’re trying to engage a time pressured employee with a course about performance management,

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WRITING FOR THE READER

fraud prevention or health and safety. What’s the point in writing in a way that seems determined to turn the reader off? Instead, you should cultivate a tone that’s friendly, appealing, helpful and – above all – normal. In speech it’s not uncommon to start a sentence with ’and’ or ‘but’ and natural conversations are peppered with contractions – so do the same in your writing. • Keep it short and sweet. There’s been a lot of research done on the way we read online. Your typical learner won’t want screens crammed with text or sentences spanning several lines. So take care to modularise your content, break it up into short units, manageable screens and bite sized chunks of text. Give your sentences the ‘breath test’: if you can’t read a sentence aloud without running out of breath, it’s too long. • Pitch to the right level and remember your objectives. If you’re writing an elearning course, you’re probably getting input from anywhere between two and twenty people. Each time you send out a draft, more must-have information is thrown in. Be brutal and flex your editor’s elbow. If it’s not directly relevant and

doesn’t help you meet your learning outcomes, cut it out. Then put your course through the ‘gist test’. Give it to someone who doesn’t have any prior knowledge of the topic. Can they get the gist of what’s going on or are they drowning in legalese and reaching for the dictionary? START SMALL AND TAKE A RISK Of course, as with everything in life, it’s all about balance. You want to give the learner something interesting, engaging and even – dare I say it? – fun. Equally you need to be wary of distracting them with excessive colloquialisms or undermining your material with your witticisms. Ultimately you’re writing for your reader, so put yourself in their shoes and keep them in mind. It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing an induction or compliance course, whether it’s for newbies or senior management – take a leaf out of Lemony’s book and be a little daring. Start small (think ‘we’ instead of ‘the company’ and ‘what’s coming up’ instead of ‘course objectives’), break some bad habits and banish the business speak. You might not win a Pulitzer prize or rival Lemony Snicket

on the bestsellers list, but with any luck you’ll soon be a breath of fresh air to jaded learners. 1 Lemony Snicket. A Series of Unfortunate Events –

Book the First: The Bad Beginning. Egmont Books 2003. p1. 2 Robert W. Bly. The Online Copywriter’s

Handbook. McGraw-Hill 2002. p3. 3 Ibid. p5. 4 Clive Shepherd. ‘Learners know best.’

http://www.fastrakconsulting.co.uk/clives_columns.pdf. p20. 5 Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard E. Mayer.

e-Learning and the Science of Instruction. Pfeiffer 2003. p135. 6 Ibid. p136. 7 Ibid. p139. 8 Victor Stachura. ‘Improve Your Writing With A

Conversation Tone.’ 08/01/08. http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/improveyour-writing-with-a-conversation-tone/ 9 Bly. pp10-16 and p57.

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

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 51

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EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT E-LEARNING

BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK

It’s increasingly difficult to keep up with the dramatic increase in new media options. No wonder trainers have become alienated from technology. Clive Shepherd and Laura Overton outline what everyone should know about the role of technology in e-learning.

CHANGE AND OPPORTUNITY

urprising as it may seem, most educational and training methods are relatively timeless. Familiar options, whether that's providing instruction, leading discussions, delivering case studies, running role plays, simulations and apprenticeships, coaching and so on, have been practised for hundreds, if not thousands of years. True, our choices are different now as we learn more about learning. We're less likely to deliver lectures. We're more likely to engage learners in work-based projects. But the options stay pretty consistent. Learning media options, on the other hand, have been growing exponentially. Put yourself in the shoes of a trainer, just thirty years ago. You'd have felt lucky to have such a plethora of media choices available to you - including blackboards, flip charts, film and video, slides, books and posters. You'd have been familiar with all these media, because in those days, no

trainer would have regarded any of these to be particularly specialised - they were the basic tools of the job. But with the arrival of PCs, mobile devices and in particular the Internet, the media options have increased so dramatically that it has been hard for the trainer to keep up. As a result, many of the tasks associated with the use of technology for learning have been left to specialists, and many trainers have become disengaged, perhaps even alienated from technology. Technology has already transformed our personal and business lives, but its impact on learning and development has been patchy. Yes, e-learning has grown steadily, but only a few of its possibilities have been exploited and far too few trainers feel they have any role to play in its usage. PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE It is likely that an understanding of the role of technology in learning is going to

be critical in the future. In 2008, Training Journal (TJ) undertook a research project, alongside the Institute of Employment Studies, called L&D2020, to look at the future of workplace learning and what may lie ahead for L&D specialists. The report makes interesting reading. Debbie Carter, editor of TJ, summarises: “Learning is moving towards a more continuous and social process, where informality replaces the more structured interventions of the past. The need for organisations to adapt and change quickly as the world develops at an ever increasing pace demands different solutions, and they are likely to encourage their people to take greater responsibility for their own learning. This informality is likely to be supported by technology, with the role of the line manager becoming increasingly more central to the success of learning initiatives.” The report highlights a number of key skills

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 53

EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT E-LEARNING BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK

that will be needed in the future to address these themes, including strategic business understanding and analysis; the design of organisation development solutions; initiating, managing and embedding change; innovating; researching and horizon scanning; marketing; evaluation; creating and managing learning infrastructures; designing specific, discrete interventions; and, of course, an in-depth understanding of how technology can support and will be a critical component of this new world. However, getting to this point may prove interesting. Learning technologies have been around for quite some time and the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development 2009 Learning and Development Survey highlights that 74 percent of organisations are now using some form of e-learning. Just because technology is widely available, does not mean that we are yet using it successfully. Towards Maturity is an independent, notfor-profit organisation to improve the impact of learning technologies at work. Its 2008 survey ‘Towards Maturity Benchmark Review’, found that when it comes to the barriers to successful implementation of e-learning, ‘reluctance by staff to adopt new technologies’ came in at number one. A ‘lack of knowledge about its potential use and implementation’ and the ‘lack of skills

For as long as we have had computers, we've been trying to find ways to use all that speed and power to try and bring efficiencies to the worlds of education and training. amongst staff to implement and manage e-learning’ were also in the top three, beating the previous year’s top barriers cost and IT infrastructure.

caught up in geek world. We have a way to go.

Despite significant changes in technology, availability, and increased research into good practice, ‘poor past experience of e-learning’ has increased as a barrier compared to previous years. This is not surprising given that, in the survey, only 45 percent agreed that they trained their trainers in how to implement blended learning solutions. Furthermore, only 43 percent agreed that their face-to-face training courses actively exploited the knowledge that a learner gained through e-learning.

Of course, e-learning is just a new name for an old idea. For as long as we have had computers, we've been trying to find ways to use all that speed and power to try and bring efficiencies to the worlds of education and training. Some of these initiatives have been extremely successful, although in the early days they were severely hampered by several shortcomings. These included high hardware and software costs, a lack of IT skills amongst teachers and learners, and limitations imposed by stand-alone devices unable to talk to each other.

These figures are staggering given that respondents had already invested in learning technologies and already had some experience. Many more L&D professionals are very nervous indeed of technology. This is probably driven by a fear of the unknown, but underpinned in some cases by bad past experience and overzealous providers and colleagues, all

NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF

All that has changed dramatically. Computers, in their various forms – as PCs, laptops, mobile phones and other handheld devices, games consoles, TV set-top boxes, DVD players and much more – are now so inexpensive as to be available to almost everyone. At the same time computer literacy has grown significantly, particularly

WHAT EVERY L&D PROFESSIONAL NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT E-LEARNING This free 20-page booklet is provided with your copy of Inside Learning Technologies. It highlights the extraordinary opportunities for improving the impact, accessibility, flexibility, timeliness, costeffectiveness and environmental friendliness of our learning interventions. Most importantly, it shows how L&D professionals can play a vital role in bringing this all about. Inside you’ll discover an independent view of the new opportunities organised into six key areas: • Self-paced content • Live online sessions • Online distance learning • Knowledge sharing • Simulation and virtual worlds • Computers in the classroom Find out what can be achieved, when they work best, and when it

54 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

might be better to avoid them. There are plenty of real world examples, both in the booklet and via the dynamic links, of each approach in action in a wide range of work environments. How to use this booklet in your organisation Use it to open up a wider discussion with the L&D professionals in your organisation to make the most of the opportunities and changes discussed in this article. How to get more copies Your own copy is free with this edition of Inside Learning Technologies. It is also free to download via sponsors – www.towardsmaturity.org, www.learningandskillsgroup.com, www.trainingzone.co.uk or via www.towardsmaturityenterprises.com. It has been created to support Next Generation Learning in the workplace, a national initiative to improve the awareness of the benefits of adopting technology in learning. www.nextgenerationlearning.org.uk/work

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EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT E-LEARNING BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK

amongst the young, and the Internet now allows any computer to be connected to billions of others around the world at high speed. While early computer-assisted learning was limited to the delivery of self-paced lessons to individual learners, increased connectivity means e-learning now has a much broader scope.While it's still extremely useful to be able to connect learners to relevant learning content, perhaps the greatest benefits come from the connections that can be made between learners and trainers, and between learners and their colleagues. Think about the way your own use of the internet has changed over the last ten years: chances are that you now spend as much time interacting with other users, through technologies such as email, social networking and instant messaging, as you do hunting down information or making transactions. Learning is no different, except perhaps in that communication is even more important. Both the power of modern computers and the increased availability of high speed broadband connectivity have also helped progress e-learning from its early, textheavy and relatively static beginnings. Expect to see increasing use of 3D graphics

to create immersive and life-like simulations, as well as rich and engaging audio, video and animations. And you won't be limited to sitting at your desk to take advantage of all these possibilities mobile devices such as smart phones, PDAs and iPods allow access to reference material and engage in learning wherever you are. SO WHATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S THE BIG DEAL? Technology now provides so many opportunities for development, that it is no longer viable for trainers to keep their distance, leaving new media to the geeks and the digital natives (people brought up in the land of computers, as opposed to most of us, who've immigrated there). The pace of change is so fast that those who keep their distance stand to be permanently marginalised. The new learning technologies provide opportunities for every trainer to play an active role, whether that's as an online tutor, facilitator, moderator, or as a content designer or developer. All that is needed is a willingness to get engaged, adapt and apply. Without the involvement of those who really understand adult learning

and how it applies to their workplace, e-learning could easily be applied inappropriately, as it has in the past. With every trainer engaged, new media options can be properly integrated with existing approaches in the form of blended solutions that deliver effective results. In some ways e-learning is no big deal. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just a new channel for learning materials to be made available to learners, and for learners to communicate with peers and with trainers. But it would be a mistake to play down the consequences of this new channel, because it is capable of delivering learning interventions to more people, more quickly, more cheaply and more flexibly than any technology we've encountered before. In 2010, when we face greater challenges at work than we have in a generation, e-learning is a very big deal indeed. Clive Shepherd is a consultant specialising in the application of technology to workplace learning. Laura Overton is MD of Towards Maturity and specialises in implementation and change management. Both Clive and Laura will be Track Chairs at the Learning Technologies 2010 Conference.

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 57

LEARNING DESIGN

ISN’T ROCKET SCIENCE

So why do so many organisations get it wrong? Effective learning design should focus on performance, not subject matter expertise or delivery tools, argues Nigel Harrison.

one of what follows is true. It is my opinion based on twenty years involvement in Instructional design and e-learning. Please take from it whatever resonates with your view of the world. Apply your own filters to get close to what is true to you. My aim is to be a little provocative and simplistic, and to try and make some learning points. My premise is this. To design effective learning materials we must concentrate on performance. Only then will we free the creativity of our instructional designers and the power of our learning tools. Let me tell you two stories. Firstly, the tale of Leon, the new e-learning manager shocked by how his design team works. The second tells of Steve the new e-learning manager who is pleasantly surprised. LEON’S NEW TEAM It was Leon’s first day at work as the new e-learning manager at BX Finance. He knew that he had inherited a team of ten e-learning developers. In the interview he had seen short examples of their work. It looked lively and entertaining but he had had very little time to ask questions about its effectiveness. He had been told by the HR director that he had been selected because the department needed ‘a good shake up, our clients are not getting what they want, users hate e-learning and they only do it if they have to’.

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 59

LEARNING DESIGN ISN’T ROCKET SCIENCE

On his first day Leon was determined to keep an open mind and hear what his new team had to say. The first person to greet him was Sam, a senior e-learning consultant and the most experienced member of the team. Leon had asked to meet him for an hour to get a heads-up before meeting the rest of the team. After the pleasantries and rapport building (Sam was a fellow Forest supporter) Leon asked Sam what they did in the team? Sam: “We develop e-learning for the global organisation mainly using Copyvate with Flesh and PGL code delivered on a Doodle LMS.” Leon guessed that Sam was strong on the technical side. Leon asked how the team was structured. Sam drew the following chart.

Leon e-Learning Manager

Sam and Gloria Senior e-Learning Consultants

e-Learning Developers x 8

How work comes into Leon’s new team Sam: “Well the Business Partners tell us when their clients have an e-learning project.Gloria or I go and see them, get their requirements and produce a requirements definition form (RDF). Then we allocate a developer to work with the subject matter experts (SMEs) and they develop the e-learning. Our developer makes sure that it fits our template for design. We tend to re-use our own graphic characters to save time and we use Copyvate to capture screen grabs and key strokes in applications. The client is usually too rushed for proper testing but they usually get what they asked for on the LMS. We tweak it when the error reports come in.” Sam reported that the team is very busy. Each developer works hard to get projects out of the door. There is a backlog of three RTF’s which are six weeks behind delivery date. The clients are starting to do their own stuff using Copyvate and increasingly the team perform a fix to make it work with

Leon looked at some other ‘courses’. They were also content rich, had flashy graphics, few questions and lasted too long. It was obvious that the content had been dictated by an SME. the LMS. Leon asked if he could see some examples of their work.

Leon: “Has anyone had any Instructional design training?”

Sam: “This is the latest Health & Safety (H&S) e-learning for the HR department. They wanted to reach all 12,000 employees with a consistent message about the company’s policy. The Business Partner recognised the opportunity for e-learning as it would have cost a fortune to deliver by other methods.

Sam: “We’ve had train-the-trainer, a one-day workshop on screen design, and a five-day project management course.”

Leon: “How long does it take?” Sam: “To cover the whole H&S policy takes six hours. We wanted to keep it shorter but the SME insisted it all went in. We made it friendlier with this graphic of a typical office. You can click on areas where there might be a hazard. It took Dan hours to get the animation to work. Look how this drawer opens - he couldn’t do this in Flesh so he programmed it in a new tool DoubleD.” Leon looked at some other ‘courses’. They were also content rich, had flashy graphics, few questions and lasted too long. It was obvious that the content had been dictated by an SME. He wondered if the users ever completed a course. He spotted an attractive-looking course on e-mail etiquette and Sam informed him that about 1,000 people had tried it. He admitted that they didn’t employ criterion tests, as the users didn’t like to be tested, but he could tell Leon that fourteen people managed to complete the whole fifty minutes. Leon had seen enough of the products and he asked Sam to outline the experience of the team:

Leon: “Do we have a design methodology?” Sam: “What do you mean? We’re asked to develop e-learning and we do it. Everyone does a bit of everything. We’re flexible and agile, and good at adjusting to the clients changing needs.” Leon: “Just one last question. I don’t suppose you have a design team anywhere? One that designs the e-learning before you develop it?” Sam: “We do the design from the SME content, but I guess we call it development.” Leon had heard enough. He now knew that this team didn’t have the methodology or appropriate skills to design and deliver effective e-learning that supported business performance. 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. He was shocked at how his design team worked and he hoped that Steve was faring better. STEVE’S NEW TEAM Steve had recently started at YX Finance. In the interview he had seen short examples of the team’s work and had been impressed. He liked the social networking site for new sales people to swap success stories, the easy access on-line

LEON’S DESIGN TEAM SAM Senior e-learning consultant

Ex-IT, he commissioned the LMS and moved across to L&D.

GLORIA Senior e-learning consultant

Ex-supervisor, she became a stand-up trainer and had taken to e-learning development.

JIM, JON AND JAN e-learning developers

All ex-sales trainers, they developed the sales curriculum and continue to build e-learning for it.

DAVE, DEVINE AND DEMI e-learning developers

All ex-stand up trainers.

ROBIN AND BOBBY e-learning developers

Both computer graphic artists who drifted into e-learning.

60 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

LEARNING DESIGN ISN’T ROCKET SCIENCE

Steve found his new team tends to take on the first two areas: knowledge and skills. The client tends to take on the second two: motivation and environmental. performance support, and the eight-minute learning object game about the bonus scheme.

evaluation meetings scheduled to measure the success of the whole project.

The first person to greet him was Sonia, the senior e-learning consultant and most experienced member of his new design and development team. After the pleasantries and rapport building (Sonia was a fellow Town supporter) Leon asked her about his new team.

Dave and I go and see the client with the business partner. We complete the performance problem analysis down to the solution design level. Our job is to work with the client on the learning solution as part of their strategy to reach the desired performance. These are usually very creative sessions.

Sonia: “We are part of Learning and Development (L&D). We work with business partners, clients and high performers to design learning solutions that help improve business performance.” Leon asked how the team was structured. Sonia drew an organisation chart.

We run a high-level workshop for three to four hours. Once we have a good picture of the desired performance, the next step is for the client to identify high performers, who set the benchmark performance for the whole group.

STEVE E-LEARNING MANAGER

ANALYSIS

CLIENTS HIGH PERFORMERS SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS

AUDREY, MITCH PROJECT MANAGERS

E – LEARNING DEVELOPERS THREE EXTERNAL SUPPLIER COMPANIES

The business partners alert the team when there is likely to be a learning element to a performance problem.

Steve found his new team tends to take on the first two areas: knowledge and skills. The client tends to take on the second two: motivation and environmental. For example, on the latest sales project a web site was created in order to swap success stories. Sales worked on the new incentives, and then the team combined them both in an online game, to illustrate the new bonus scheme. Steve asked what happens next. Sonia: “After the design workshop the instructional designer completes the learning design specification and project plan which is used to commission the developers of any e-learning content. Most of our solutions involve content and material delivered over our Intranet, so we have our own webmaster, Sally, who works closely with IT to set up sites. Social networking on work topics is a big growth area.”

Sonia: “Well we used to work with them to design the content but we found it was always too long and theoretical. Instead, we work with high performers to design the content and we only use SMEs to check for technical correctness. Our content is now ninety percent shorter than the old SME’s content”. Steve: “I notice you do not have in-house developers?”

SALLY WEB MASTER

How work comes into Steve’s new team

Sonia: “That’s a good question, and it does happen, but at this stage we are looking at all solutions that might close the gap. We usually structure the solutions around four key areas: knowledge, motivation, skill and environment.

Steve: “How do you use SMEs?”

SONIA AND DAVE SENIOR LEARNING DAVE, DEE, DOSY, MICKY INSTRUCTIONAL

L&D. They might want to change processes for example?”

Then it is our job to take the analysis to the next step, working with the high performers on what credible solutions. Steve: “What happens next?”

They have all been trained in the same performance gap analysis process - the same one we use. We always know the cost of the performance gap and the description of the desired performance.

Sonia: “Well the next step is usually to work with two to three high performers and an instructional designer in a one-day workshop where we design the solutions including outline learning content.”

The business partner will have done this with the client already. And they will have pre-set success measures and level one

Steve: “What about non-learning solutions, surely a high performer will come up with other solutions that are nothing to do with

Sonia: “We used to, but frankly they became a bottle neck. We now have three proven suppliers who know our standards. They can flex as our demand increases so we deliver on time to our clients”. Steve’s new team is working on projects adding £40m of value to the business. There is a turnaround time of six weeks from request to delivery though there is a bit of problem with over demand at the moment. For example, the latest H&S e-learning for all staff, addresses a problem unearthed by the performance analysis. Out of nearly 12,000 employees, there were around 500 avoidable injuries, costing the company £2 million a year in lost work. The performance analysis was carried out with the three high performing managers with the lowest injury rates. It came to light that their staff had been educated

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 63

LEARNING DESIGN ISN’T ROCKET SCIENCE

about correct posture and lifting. A straightforward video was made with staff describing how to adjust office chairs and lift packages. The video was distributed on the Intranet, including a lively three-minute interactive quiz. All staff viewed the video, did the quiz and were to then report any hazards and strains via the site. They could also order better chairs. Injury statistics were published, along with a target to reduce them by 50%. The bottom line is that last year there were 234 H&S injuries resulting in a saving of £1m in lost work time. The cost of new chairs was £200,000 resulting in a contribution of £800,000. This represents a lower value intervention but very worthwhile. Sonia explained that the team continues to work with H&S to reduce the figure even further. Sonia: “There are two videos of three minutes and two e-learning quizzes of three minutes each, but people can access the web site whenever they want, order chairs and look up policy.”

Steve: “What are your usage rates for this course?”

DESIGN

EVALUATION

Steve had seen enough of the products so he asked Sonia to outline the experience of the team. Steve had heard enough. He now knew his team was competent, had a shared methodology, and designed and delivered e-learning that supported the business. He wondered how his mate Leon was getting on?

IMPLEMENTATION

SUMMARY As you can see, an over-reliance on subject matter experts and e-learning tools leads

DEVELOPMENT

TESTING AND EDITING

SONIA AND DAVE Senior learning analysis

Ex–line managers, trained in performance problem analysis and consulting skills, with the business partners. Trained in the same design methodology as the instructional designers.

DAVE, DEE, DOZY, MICKY Instructional designers

Ex–trainers, trained in performance problem analysis and consulting skills, with the business partners. Trained in instructional design methodology and project management. Qualified project managers, trained in instructional design methodology and project management. Background working in suppliers companies.

SALLY Webmaster

to long-winded courses that do not result in business improvement.

STEVE’S DESIGN TEAM

AUDREY AND MITCH Project managers

Sonia: “Well everyone has to do it, so 12,000 people have completed the quizzes successfully.”

ANALYSIS

Ex IT Qualified web designer

64 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

Effective e-learning design teams must work in partnership with clients, high performers and business partners to design integrated performance support and e-learning objects. Only then will the workforce achieve the desired performance. This is the first of a three-part series on performance-focused design. In the next issue, find out how the two teams work with subject matter experts and high performers. 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.

delivering what the learning and development world wants right now everything

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For free entry to the exhibition, conference booking and all the latest event information:

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Co-located with:

And this powerful two event combination will put you in touch with 200 leading suppliers and an incredible 120 free seminars – making it the most important two days in the learning industry’s calendar. In short: the must-attend event for all learning and development professionals.

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ALL CHANGE LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT FOR

Mobile learning is about more than putting an e-learning course in your pocket, says Ara Ohanian.

rganisational learning is at an inflexion point. Things are going to change very dramatically from the way they have been for years, and the reason is simple. New ways of working, supported by new technologies, demand new ways of learning. TOP-DOWN STRUCTURED LEARNING IS NO LONGER ENOUGH. Historically, organisations’ approach to imparting their workforce with knowledge was to train them. Typically, learning and development departments decided what should be taught, who should teach it, and how workers should be graded after

completion. And learners enjoyed timely access to calendar-based, structured learning activities. If this sounds like the 19th century, it isn’t. It all applies as equally to training in the past few years as it did to the Victorian era. Delivery mechanisms certainly have changed in the past few decades or so (with the addition of e-learning and webinars, for example), but the centralised, prescriptive model of organisational learning has remained unaltered. Perhaps, until recently, this approach was sufficient and this may have been for two reasons. First, there was no external driver, pushing a more effective model. Second,

even if the demand had been there, the systems and technology to support a different model of learning weren’t. Essentially the only way to get people trained was as we had done it in the past – albeit perhaps with a slight technical twist added. Today things are different. The exploding speed of communications in today’s world forces organisations in the public and private sector to keep up with those that consume their services or use their products. The old standby of ‘just-intime training’ is no longer adequate. Simply making more knowledge available faster won’t do. Learners need the right

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 67

ALL CHANGE FOR LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT

By 2011, over one billion workers world-wide will be equipped with mobile devices connected to the Internet via WIFI and 4G networks. Enhanced processing power combined with broadband connectivity and GPS is already revolutionising many people’s expectations of their mobile phones.

These L&D departments recognise that knowledge mobility requires much more than simply putting e-learning on a mobile device. A mobile learning solution must take into consideration the worker’s environment and state of mind. The worker ‘on the go’ has less time to learn and more urgent knowledge needs to fulfil. Consequently, the source of knowledge is often not the lesson. Instead, relevant knowledge can be generated from a variety of sources in a multitude of forms. The ability to access knowledge from structured and unstructured sources in multiple formats is an approach that we call the ‘Fluid Model of Learning’ or FML.

• From curriculum-driven to search-driven • From lesson-driven to knowledge-driven • From employee-centred to audiencecentred (including customers) • From teacher-driven to SME-driven • From subject-teaching to knowledgesharing For FML to be effective, two key innovations are required. One is the development of an intelligent search function designed to fetch and deliver content to smart phones. The other is a Categorisation Engine that will aggregate, analyse and present the content in a relevant and useful manner on mobile devices and smart phones. Without this, the smart phone user will be presented with an unmanageable mess of information that he or she can make no sense of, and get no value from.

FLUID MODEL OF LEARNING - FML

information, delivered in a timely way that is responsive to them. THE RACE FOR SMART MOBILITY Globally, knowledge workers are rapidly arming themselves with powerful mobile devices that deliver capabilities far in excess of mere mobile telephony. And this goes well beyond playing a few games on your iPhone. By 2011, over one billion workers worldwide will be equipped with mobile devices connected to the Internet via WIFI and 4G networks. Enhanced processing power combined with broadband connectivity and GPS is already revolutionising many people’s expectations of their mobile phones. This trend will rapidly reach a tipping point, as smart mobile devices/phones permeate every aspect of our life – personal and professional. Increasingly, organisations which need to keep employees always informed and in collaborative communication are looking for some method of managing knowledge across the enterprise. Where knowledge management is synonymous with document control, things are not going to change. In some forward-looking organisations, however, the Learning and Development function is stepping forward to assume this important role.

FML provides the knowledge worker with a knowledge acquisition experience where the learner is in control. He or she is perpetually both a learner and a teacher, as are the other members of his or her community. And any person can be a member of multiple communities. This learning experience is characterised by the learner’s ability to find precise knowledge in multiple formats, from various sources. Whatever sources are appropriate, the learner finds the information they need to overcome the specific knowledge challenge they face. FML augments traditional learning approaches in which learning takes place ‘just in case’. The following provide examples of areas in which FML broadens the learning experience to more readily, more rapidly access more useful and up-to-date knowledge: • From formal learning content to informal learning content • From structured learning content to unstructured learning content • From individual-based learning to community-based learning • From training-driven to performancesupport-driven

68 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

The combination of Intelligent Search and the Categorisation Engine will present content of multiple types within a configurable interface. Not only do users now expect to be able to configure the interfaces of devices they use, this userdriven adaptability is essential. This enables the user to find the information they want in the way they expect, and put it to use immediately. Different users will want to vary how they receive information – whether they give more emphasis at a particular time to a

ALL CHANGE FOR LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT

him/her to a relevant SME’s mobile telephone for a live discussion.

There is so much information available that the best filter for it is the user’s own decision, based on the right channel for a particular occasion.

This approach works to the strengths of the smart phone, rather than presenting users with a cut-down version of elearning. We are now seeing mobile devices evolve into knowledge-based performance support tools, where their very portability and connectivity give them an edge over desktop computers. They can deliver context-sensitive information and connections exactly at the point of need.

These combined engines will not only serve content based on what is being searched but will also find relevant and hivalue knowledge links and present them to the user. Such links can connect the user with content in multiple formats coming from blogs, wikis, videos, audio, documents libraries, podcasts, or even structured lessons. Furthermore, since the system will recognise which community is most relevant to the user, it can connect

This is not some far-off vision of mobile learning in the future. It is a picture of learning that we can expect to see emerging in 2010. It is fluid, it is ultra-relevant, and it is dramatically different from the course-

based learning presented by most organisational learning systems today. The reason this form of learning will evolve is simple: people expect it, organisations need it and now, finally, the technology exists to supply it. Get ready for a mobile, fluid, learning future. Ara Ohanian is CEO of CERTPOINT Systems. For more information please visit www.certpointsystems.com.

Is your organisation achieving its full potential? Identify strengths and weaknesses across your organisation Measure your organisation’s skill levels against national standards Assign learning to specific skills gaps Tailor assessments to fit your organisation’s development strategy Generate powerful reports for moment-of-need talent management Contact us today on 01904 659465 or visit www.capabilitymatrix.com to book a demonstration.

Your people are your future

See it in action at Learning Technologies 2010 November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 71

ORGANISATIONS HEAD FOR

DIY AUTHORING David Wilson examines the seismic shift in the way organisations produce and maintain e-learning content, and explains why the shift is here to stay.

he corporate approach to e-learning production has changed immensely over the last ten years. In the nineties and the days of computer-based training production was often outsourced to specialist companies. But many large organisations had their own in-house development teams creating content in products like Authorware. Following the advent of e-learning in 1999/2000, the use of external vendors has proved to be the dominant model. Most internal CBT development teams disappeared completely, or morphed into an e-learning group that project-managed external production. Consequently, the teams are smaller. In the last couple of years the dominance of this approach to e-learning production

has been questioned. In-house production, once again, is well on the way to universal acceptance. We have tracked and interpreted this development for some time, along with associated trends. These include the growth of rapid e-learning, the evolution of collaborative authoring tools and the advance of learning content management systems (LCMS). We believe this shift is here to stay resulting in a hybrid internalexternal production model. This shift in the e-learning authoring landscape is influencing established e-learning consumers as well as new entrants. It pre-dates the economic crisis of the past 12-18 months as it was already well underway before the bottom dropped out of banking. However the economic crisis magnified the trend. Using e-learning

to deliver major programmes, had become the only option for many large organisations, working with restricted training and travel budgets. Now the production of e-learning is also impacted by tighter budgets, forcing organisations to consider different options to reduce external costs. RETHINKING THE OLD MODELS Outsourcing e-learning production has traditionally been the approach for the majority of organisations. Specialist custom content developers create organisationally-specific solutions. This has tended to be a ‘black box’ approach: • Vendors perform all key roles • Vendors choose the tools to develop the e-learning

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ORGANISATIONS HEAD FOR DIY AUTHORING

• The customer agrees key areas such as budget, design, scripts, and deliverables • Internally the project is managed by either the e-learning team (where it exists), or by an L&D or business project manager The internal production team was the traditional alternative and had many similarities to the ‘black box’ approach: • A dedicated internal team performs all key roles • The internal team chooses the tools • Their ‘customer’ agrees key areas such as budget, design, scripts, and deliverables • The internal team may use contract resource for supporting specialist roles, e.g. scripting or asset creation These models were almost identical – the only difference being the location of the resources. The internal team is constrained by capability and capacity, and headcount and cost are more visible. On the plus side, product and tool knowledge is retained within the company, and the production process is more transparent to the internal ‘client’. The internal model should be more cost effective - although in our view this is often overestimated. THE DRIVERS OF CHANGE These models have served us well for the past ten years, so what has changed? Firstly, and most critically, all the corporates we talk to want more e-learning, faster production and delivery, and less cost. The drivers are fuelled by basic economics – there is less time and money and fewer internal resources. Cost is an issue, but time even more so. Secondly, corporates are changing the way they produce e-learning simply because they can. This might sound a bit trite, but we shouldn’t underestimate the impact of lowering the barriers to DIY e-learning. The new tools, have made it possible for the less skilled to produce e-learning, thereby lowering costs. Thirdly, the growth of e-learning as a mainstream delivery channel, has led to the increased acceptance of goodenough solutions for basic needs. Whilst contentious for some, for most it is simply a function of scale and finances. E-learning leaders would love their content to be compelling and excellently designed, but most recognise that this is not necessary for many basic needs. Fit-

for-purpose can be simple – just because the format is basic, doesn’t mean the content is basic. This often becomes apparent when Subject-Matter Experts (SMEs) produce their own e-learning content. Other drivers are brought into the equation by the question of scalability. Scaling the production also means scaling the internal team and the SMEs involved in commissioning and approving the content both what goes in and what comes out of the process - leading to more people in more locations. In complex multi-business units, in multi-regional companies, it is tough to manage or scale production via a single centralised group. This need for the wider distribution of e-learning production

is a major force for change in its own right. The diversification of e-learning is another driver. There is diversity in terms of duration – with the proliferation of short duration modules or knowledge bytes, e-learning is no longer the one-hour block e-course. There is the diversity of subject matter resulting from the growth of e-learning for basic product or process knowledge. There is a growing recognition that e-learning is often the only viable solution for many learning needs and we’d just like to be able to say’ yes’ more often when asked to deliver. The final driver emerging from our corporate research is the desire to better manage and maintain e-learning without

Figure 1: NEW E-LEARNING AUTHORING STRATEGIES Here are the new models for corporate e-learning authoring and their impact on resources, skills and the choice of authoring platforms/tools. STRATEGY

DESCRIPTION

RESOURCES

Local Rapid

Small-scale local • Primary – Internal development using – 1 to 5 (L&D) small teams trained • Contractors for to use a rapid or specialist tasks/ collaborative tool. supporting assets Potentially multiple small teams.

TOOLS

PROCESS

• Individual or • Collapsed process. collaborative tools One person does • Templated everything development • Working with SME • Disconnected if multi-team

User-generated User(SME)-driven Content (SME content creation Production) facilitated by standardised tools

• Primary – Internal (Business) • Self-managed • Enabled by internal team

Distributed Content Process

Distributed devt using embedded resources and standardised tools

• Primary – Internal, • LCMS or distributed collaborative tools • Contractors for supplemented specialist tasks with management • Some central systems and facilitation shared repositories

Content Factory

Larger scale • Primary – internal production based 10-50 around automated • Internal capability process and systems for specialist tasks/supporting roles

• LCMS or collaborative tools supplemented with management systems and shared repositories

• Highly structured • Highly automated • Multiple person team • Specialist roles in process

Rapid Partner

Larger scale rapid • Primary – external • Individual or devt model using • Internally facilitated collaborative tools external partner to • Includes specialist • Templated accelerate capability skills (partner) devt • Scale depends on partner

• Segmented collapsed • Internally facilitated • Joint team • One person (partner) led

Partiallyoutsourced (by task)

Hybrid where vendors are engaged to support specific roles in the process, but not to manage whole project

Fullyoutsourced (traditional external)

External vendor who • Primary – External • Chosen by vendor, • Largely blackprovides whole devt • Internally managed or mandated by boxed capability • One stop shop corporate • Multiple person • Scale depends on • Supporting Devt team partner tools chosen by • Specialist roles in vendor process

74 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

• Mix of Internal and External based on requirements

• Individual or • User-driven collaborative tools • Template/tool (user friendly) facilitates devt • Templated devt process • Supporting QA/upload • Structured • Automated workflow • Some central facilitation

• Mandated by • Structured corporate • Specialist roles • Could be individual, collaborative or LCMS • Shared (based on task division)

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 75

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ORGANISATIONS HEAD FOR DIY AUTHORING

relying on external companies. What happens when the content hits its use-by date? Must it be disposed of or can it be recycled? How can it be re-branded and redefined? How can it be maintained and kept current? Are there better ways of sharing it across the business? But most of all, how can we do it ourselves? The new e-learning authoring strategies are defined in figure 1. These models are rooted in our research with leading companies, all major e-learning producers and consumers. Whilst organisations will sometimes adopt a hybrid approach, combining a couple of these scenarios, often one strategy will be dominant. The choice of strategy also tends to be a cultural decision linked to legacy and organisational priorities, rather than to industry. Similar companies in the same market sector may choose quite different approaches, even though you would expect they have very similar needs. Regardless of the approach to e-learning production, the critical factor is to have a strategy in the first place.

Too often, an organisations move to internal production is driven by their choice of e-learning authoring tool, not the other way around. Given that the selection of most tools is driven by the preferences of individual developers, this choice may not be scalable or sustainable longer term. WHICH AUTHORING TOOL? It is not possible to write an article like this, without at some point talking about authoring tools. For many organisations selecting a tool is often the entry point to the question of authoring strategy. The choice can also be highly controversial especially when an organisation is considering a collaborative tool or LCMS. When it comes to the best choice of authoring tool, everyone has a view, and many decisions are tactical rather than strategic. The trade-off between tactical and strategic decision making is often most apparent in LCMS-related decisions. I liken this to an artisan versus factory conflict. Developers (the artisans) have specific views on all the tools they try. Experienced

Figure 2: WHICH AUTHORING STRATEGY IS RIGHT FOR YOUR ORGANISATION? Here is a summary of some key factors for consideration when determining your corporate strategy for e-learning production.

STRATEGY

PROCESS

• • • • • •

• Collapsed or structured • Centralisation or decentralisation • Flexibility • Impact • Scaleability

Goals and alignment Capacity and planning Funding model Impact Sustainability Risks

RESOURCES

TOOLS

• • • • • •

Internal and contract External partners Enablement Control and availability Roles Flexibility

Target users and skill levels Fit to process Content limitations Output limitations Workflow and sharing Language support

developers in particular, are highly motivated to choose tools that a) maximise the flexibility and impact of their e-learning, and b) allow them to retain the maximum amount of artistic freedom. That’s all well and good if all you are considering is the output of a single person. But companies look at LCMS solution because they want to scale up production and have automated processes for managing and maintaining content. They also want to manage the quality of the up-scaled output and recognise that automation is critical to achieving this (the factory). What is needed is a strategy for scaled e-learning production and an assumed operating model of how it will be achieved. For examples, see the strategies in Figure 2, deployed by companies that recognise the attraction of LCMS-like solutions. Just because ‘management’ views the opportunity to scale as paramount, it doesn’t follow that e-learning developers are comfortable with either the tools, or the compromises required in order to achieve it. When it comes down to it, these decisions are about strategic conflict. Resolve this, and the decision about which tools to select, becomes much clearer. It is almost impossible to do it the other way around. With an increasing demand for faster and cheaper e-learning in greater scale, corporate e-learning production is heading for major change. The advent of rapid, subject-matter expert authoring, collaborative and LCMS tools, have lowered barriers and increased scalability. Bring the economic crisis and slashed training and travel budgets into the frame and you have all the reasons you need to take a fresh look at how your company produces e-learning. The ‘mostly outsourced’ model of the past is giving way to a range of hybrid or internally driven development strategies. Their choice of e-learning authoring tool is often a false start for many companies. Tools are critical but they must align with process, resources, and strategy. A series of research papers will be published in the coming months with more detail on the points raised in this article. Please also see previous research papers on rapid e-learning and learning content management available at: http://www.elearnity.com.

David Wilson is Managing Director at Elearnity and can be contacted at davidw@elearnity.com. David will be speaking at the Learning Technologies 2010 Conference.

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IMPLEMENTING E-LEARNING FOR

BUSINESS SUCCESS Care Management Group has successfully implemented e-learning in its care-focused business. Here, Dr Owen Rose shares some practical steps on how to move away from a classroom training model, straining to keep up with an expanding business.

technologies to be this well received? This comment was echoed by hundreds of her colleagues in an evaluation that followed the introduction of a new corporate e-learning programme.

Lead support worker Shernette Graham: “I found e-learning very effective in updating my skills in the working place. I loved every moment and thank you all very much!” Wouldn’t we all love our learning

So how did CMG achieve the transition from technology-free environment to an enthusiastically adopted corporate e-learning platform? Firstly, by partnering with e-learning company Information Transfer, experts in helping clients embed learning technology within their businesses. Secondly, by developing ‘Fulfiling Potential’ CMG’s e-learning solution that captured the needs of the business and the needs of the stakeholders. And thirdly, by engaging those stakeholders with the potential benefits.

he enthusiastic and widespread adoption of e-learning at Care Management Group (CMG) has transformed training provision and is delivering value across the entire business. The extent to which learning technologies have been adopted by this organisation is all the more remarkable when you consider the working environment. CMG cares for adults and children with learning disabilities through a network of over 100 care homes. The staff are carers - people people - who don’t use technology as a regular part of their work.

ALIGNMENT WITH BUSINESS NEED Stakeholder engagement began with an extensive consultation of staff at all levels across a selection of CMG’s care homes. Undertaken by CMG project leader Alison Innes-Farquhar (now an independent consultant with Mainstay Solutions), the consultation produced an audit of current training provision and emerging needs. The picture was one of an existing classroom training model straining to keep up with an expanding business, greater specialist training needs and increasing regulation. “Existing training was good quality, but we needed to increase efficiency and consistency across the homes,” says InnesFarquhar. “E-learning offered huge potential, if we could make it work at CMG. A key

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outcome of the initial consultation was a programme for e-learning content development and delivery. This was designed to address immediate business needs in mandatory training areas, before expanding the platform to specialist training.” A critical function of the initial consultation was to align the learning technology with the technical infrastructure available to care homes. Twelve months ago, this infrastructure was very limited and the homes had no access to a network, internet or e-mail – not the most promising platform on which to launch corporate e-learning. Fortunately, this issue was rapidly being addressed by CMG, with the rollout of a new network across the business. During the preliminary consultation, specifications for e-learning management and delivery were aligned with the capabilities of the new network. TOP-LEVEL SUPPORT The close alliance of e-learning with core business needs was exemplified by the level of support given to the project by the senior stakeholders. Board members were significant contributors and played an important role in shaping the e-learning and communicating its value to staff. “There is a virtuous circle via which a competent and passionate staff member delivers higher quality work, which in turn promotes greater satisfaction for our

Understanding how learning technologies will be deployed in the learner’s workplace is obvious but often overlooked. The history of e-learning implementations is littered with stories of wonderful learning content withering unused. service users and greater fulfilment for our staff,” says managing director Peter Kinsey. “We strongly believed that e-learning could play a crucial role in supporting this circle, if we could only embed it into our culture.” ALIGNING WITH LEARNER NEED A stakeholder workshop was used to investigate the specific needs of learners – CMG’s front-line care staff. This day-long workshop, attended by care staff from across the business, gave them the opportunity to contribute to the project design and development. Staff shared their views on what would make e-learning effective for them. Which formats would work best? What multimedia would be most valuable? What learning styles would be encountered? How did the different care homes differ in their learning needs? How to build trust in e-learning among staff? How to communicate with staff most effectively? The engagement with learning technologies was identified as a key barrier to successful adoption. So the feedback on these questions was critical in shaping the style, appearance and functionality of the

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e-learning interface. The emphasis was on three areas: firstly, to create super-intuitive interfaces, secondly, to build trust in the learning content, and thirdly, to address both generic and local learning requirements. Post-launch evaluation of the e-learning shows that this attention to learner needs paid off. This response from Home Manager Faye Gallagher is typical: “Some of my staff didn’t like using computers and they were a bit worried about it. Funnily enough, the ones who were most scared absolutely love it – it’s really brought them to life! Their IT skills are improving, and it’s making them more confident in their work.” ALIGNING WITH WORKING ENVIRONMENT Understanding how learning technologies will be deployed in the learner’s workplace is obvious but often overlooked. The history of e-learning implementations is littered with stories of wonderful learning content withering unused. Either because learners weren’t given time to complete it, or because sound wasn’t enabled on their PC, or because they didn’t have access to a networked computer, and so on.

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IMPLEMENTING E-LEARNING FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS

The care-focussed working environment at CMG certainly presented challenges in terms of access to networked computers. This was being addressed through the technology upgrade that saw a new network and new computers installed in every care home. This same environment also provided one of the greatest opportunities for e-learning. By far the single greatest cost of CMG’s existing classroom training model was the ‘backfill’ cost of covering for staff attending training sessions when on shift. By reducing the time taken for staff to complete their training, and by allowing them to do it in the care home during quiet periods, e-learning has eliminated backfill costs. “‘Fulfiling Potential’ has really reduced staff costs, because I’m not paying for another member staff to cover when somebody else is out for a day on training,” says home manager Christine Charlton. “Now staff can complete training in quiet times on shift – like when service users are out at day-care, or in the evening on a sleep-in.” COMMUNICATING CHANGE AND BENEFIT Based on the consultation findings and involvement of stakeholders throughout the organisation, CMG’s e-learning solution was taking shape. Structured e-learning modules addressing key mandatory learning needs would be delivered from a bespoke learning management system. Both the content and learning management functionality were extensively informed by business goals, learner needs and the working environment. It was now time to prepare the ground for the effective launch and embedding of

Creating a strong identity is a staple of effective communication and marketing, and there’s no reason for the ‘selling’ of an e-learning solution to be any different. e-learning. Information Transfer worked closely with CMG to create a formal plan to guide communication and change management activity across the organisation. The purpose of the plan was to define the key audiences with the business, the messages that each audience needed to hear and the communication channels that would be used to deliver them. This meant more than just ‘selling’ e-learning to learners. It meant helping line managers understand the benefits for them, and how they would support their staff in using learning technologies. It meant demonstrating to regional directors the benefits of championing e-learning to local managers and so on, for all relevant audiences both inside and outside the organisation. For CMG, the outcome of the plan was a timetable of practical communication activity leading up to and beyond launch of the programme. Specific activity included cascade briefings, a poster campaign, a staff competition, e-learning road-shows, site visits and a promotional movie. A SENSE OF IDENTITY Creating a strong identity is a staple of effective communication and marketing, and there’s no reason for the ‘selling’ of an e-learning solution to be any different. E-learning was intended to transform the experience of training for all staff and to embed a revived corporate culture. These bold aspirations were captured in a strong and memorable brand identity for the e-learning: ‘Fulfiling Potential’. This name, and its accompanying set of visuals were at the heart of all the communications messages and materials. The brand also defines the appearance of the e-learning content and management interfaces. It is more than just a coherent link between the many aspects of the project, the name ‘Fulfiling Potential’ links into the key values of CMG. “We are committed to our staff; to their personal development and fulfilment,” says Kinsey. “We want them to be proud to work for the company because they understand what we do and what this means to the lives of service users.” POTENTIAL FULFILED The programme launched in February 2009, after a whirlwind four-month development period. Staff enthusiastically engaged with

a range of e-learning content and linked offline activities through a bespoke learning management system. And all this via a computer and network infrastructure that had only been in place for a few weeks. Learning technologies have well and truly arrived at CMG. Post-launch evaluations reveal outstanding levels of adoption by staff. Over seven and a half thousand modules have been completed in the first six months, representing more than ten thousand training hours delivered. An online evaluation of the user experience showed sky-high approval ratings and generated an avalanche of positive feedback, exemplified by the comments like this from lead support worker Olufunke Dare. “The modules brought my work to life, with the real people, case studies, and solutions offered. Such a brilliant way to learn!” This adoption has provided the platform for e-learning to deliver real business impact and outstanding return on investment. The direct cost of training has been drastically reduced. Staff rostering has been simplified. Corporate risk has been reduced through rigorous monitoring of mandatory training delivery. This approach can apply to any learning technology in any business. It allows e-learning to become embedded, and when it does, the benefits are great. “‘Fulfiling Potential’ has had a huge impact for CMG. And beyond learning and development, that impact goes right to the core of our values,” says Commercial Director David Spruzen. All of this practical activity has driven the successful adoption of e-learning at CMG. At the heart was the recognition of the uniqueness of the company and an understanding of the barriers to the effective use of learning technologies. By taking a bespoke approach to content, to technology, to usability and to communication, these barriers became opportunities.

Dr Owen Rose is a Managing Partner at Information Transfer and can be contacted at owen@intran.co.uk. David Spruzen from CMG will be speaking at the Learning Technologies 2010 Conference.

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HOW TO DESIGN

ACTION-PACKED E-LEARNING Banish boring e-learning. Cathy Moore describes how a simple shift in perspective can help you dump the humdrum.

o your clients or colleagues ask you to ‘put this material online?’ If so, they’ve succumbed to the common misconception that e-learning design is information design. If our goal is really just to put information online, we could slap a basic HTML site on the web and call it a day. To create compelling, effective elearning, we have to look beyond the client's pile of content to uncover the real need for the material, then focus our design on that.

STEP 11: What is the business goal? Step Your client or contact might say that their goal is to get people to know something: ‘They need to know the new regulations’ or ‘They need to know all the product features.’ If you accept this, you're already sliding down a steep slope to a boring information dump. ‘Knowledge goals’ are problematic for two reasons: 1. Typically, no one sets a limit on the amount of information you could provide. A stakeholder can add whatever they feel is necessary, leading to unhealthy bloat. 2. You’re encouraged to focus on the content, not on the ways that the content will be used. This is why we have so many simplistic, fact-based quizzes that are instantly forgotten. To keep your e-learning lean and lively, ask more questions to uncover the business need. For example: Why do learners need to know all the product features? What will happen if they don't know the regulations? Your goal is to be able to answer the question: ‘How will the organisation benefit from this e-learning project?’ The strongest goal is a measurable one, such as ‘sales will increase 5% by Q4’ or ‘fines will decrease 20% by 2011.’ Of course, your project isn't likely to meet this goal all by itself. But to justify its November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 85

HOW TO DESIGN ACTION-PACKED E-LEARNING

existence and focus its design, you need to show how your project will clearly and directly support a specific business strategy. STEP 2: 2 What do people need to do to reach that goal? Knowledge alone doesn't accomplish anything - we need action. Once you've identified a business goal, identify the specific, on-the-job actions that people must take to be able to reach it. For example, if your goal is to increase sales, it's not enough for sales people to know all the product features. They need to use that knowledge to identify the best product for the customer, and then sell it to them. Make sure you break the bigger actions down into smaller steps. For example, to identify the best product for the customer, our sales person needs to cover four areas. Firstly, uncover the customer's needs, secondly discover which product features will meet those needs, then to identify the product that has the greatest number of those features, and lastly explain how each feature will benefit the customer.

help you keep out the extraneous information that stakeholders invariably want to include. Keeping in mind your goal, the real-world actions needed and your practice activities, you will need to:

You'll also want to consider why people aren't taking these steps. If the learners need information, can it be provided with a simple checklist or other job aid? If the learners lack important skills, which of those skills can be taught online?

• Decide whether that information should go in your elearning materials (must memorise) or a job aid (its OK to look it up on the job).

STEP 3: 3 How can we help learners practice those actions? Once you have a detailed list of on-the-job actions, brainstorm online activities that will help learners practice those actions. Try to come up with at least one online practice activity for each real-world action. These activities should mirror reality as much as possible, which means a scenario is often a good choice. Even if your design tool limits you to multiple-choice questions, you can create a realistic scenario. For example, your learners could practice uncovering a customer's needs by choosing questions to ask. They could practice identifying the best product, by selecting a product for a fictional customer, and by justifying their choice. A fact-based quiz like a Jeopardy game isn't a realistic practice activity unless your learners actually play Jeopardy on the job. STEP 4: 4 What information do learners really, really need to complete the practice activities? The work you've done to this point has tightened your project's focus. This should

• Identify the minimum information your learners need to complete each activity not the nice to know stuff.

• Keep stakeholders from adding superfluous information by reminding them of the goal and real-world actions you're trying to support. Let activities, not information, determine the design In Step 2, you brainstormed online activities that will help learners practice what they need to do in the real world. Use these activities to establish the structure of your materials and to put boundaries around the information. This can be a big change for many designers. Instead of putting information first, you'll start with an activity and provide information as learners need it to complete the assignment. For example, if we took a traditional approach to our sales course, we would present the products and their features first, followed by a game or quiz. In our activity-first approach, we could start immediately with a compelling scenario: You're talking to a customer who wants a lightweight WonderWidget that doesn't use a lot of electricity and that will clean out his refrigerator. Which product do you recommend? You pause the scenario and

86 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

click the product feature guide to see what might be best. If learners will have job aids in the real world, ensure they use the job aid in the online activity. You're not an information designer! E-learning designers are often told to put lipstick on the pig - make the information pleasant to look at online. To create lean, lively elearning, we have to break free of this and make clear that we're performance consultants, not information designers. This means asking more questions than we might be asking now, and creating activities that will change real-world behaviour. The following questions are designed to focus your elearning project to your organisation's strategy and create realworld change. 1. What's the business goal? 2. What do people need to do to reach that goal? 3. How can we help learners practice those actions? 4. What information do learners really, really need to complete the practice activities? These questions are the core of a process that I call action mapping, which uses mind mapping to build a simple, visual design that will focus any elearning project. The benefits will be compelling activities which are much more likely to have a measurable business impact. Cathy Moore is an e-learning design consultant. Action mapping is part of the Elearning Blueprint, an online process aid for instructional designers. For more ideas visit www.MakingChangeBlog.com.

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 87

BEST PRACTICE IS A LIFELINE IN A

SINK OR SWIM ECONOMY Why hesitate to adopt best practice models asks Eddie Kilkelly, when a change of mindset and methodology could haul you clear of troubled water?

hen the economy is growing, companies develop new products and services, increase headcount and open new offices. With the recent economic decline, organisations have been buffeted by the combined winds of the credit crunch and the recession, they have had to restructure, reduce headcount, and exit from certain markets. How can management be sure they are following the most beneficial and profitable course of action, regardless of economic conditions? Without an

appropriate framework the quality and outcomes of decision-making is undermined. Many claim that the organisation is too busy or resource-constrained. However, these models are all about managing the change and maximising the resources at the heart of every organisation. Now is exactly the right time to implement a best practice model, when the implementation of new frameworks and processes can be part of the overall process of change in response to the recession. However, it is important to select the model that best reflects the organisationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s needs.

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BEST PRACTICE IS A LIFELINE IN A SINK OR SWIM ECONOMY

Three of the best known and most respected models are: 1. Managing Successful Programmes (MSP™), which comprises a set of principles and processes for managing business change. 2. PRINCE2® which is a process-based approach for project management and increasing efficiency (and the de facto standard for project management in the UK). 3. ITIL®, which outlines a best practice approach to the delivery of efficient operations in commercial IT services. Contrary to common perceptions, there are very few mandatory expenses associated with implementing best practice. The models are detailed in reference books costing £60-£70 (for MSP™ and PRINCE2®), or £300 for the full series of books on ITIL®, which Version 3. An

If the organisation wants its employees to gain accreditation, the cost of studying and taking the relevant exams is minimal. An organisation may decide to tailor the model to its own circumstances and will require a bespoke learning programme to train employees in applying the model. individual can apply the principles as soon as they have read the books, and the books can be circulated around a number of employees, increasing the return on investment. If the organisation wants its employees to gain accreditation, the cost of studying and taking the relevant exams is minimal. An organisation may decide to tailor the model to its own circumstances and will require a bespoke learning programme to train employees in applying the model.

There may also be opportunity costs associated with a short term reduction in efficiency while individuals become used to new processes, but this will be outweighed by the longer term benefits post-implementation. HOW BEST PRACTICE DELIVERS BENEFITS Best practice models are built upon years of management experience of what works – and what does not - in project management or service delivery. In effect, the organisation can avoid the pitfalls that have caught others before them. In addition, the emphasis on documentation and continual improvement of processes enable the organisation to build up its own repository of shortcuts and handy hints that can be used to improve the delivery of future projects. Best practice can help a commercial business focus on the activities that deliver the greatest benefit and financial contribution. Equally, it can help public sector organisations increase efficiencies and control costs – which is likely to become increasingly important as public sector budgets are cut. In fact, any organisation or individual can benefit from understanding how to work more efficiently and there is specific guidance on how each model may be applied to small, medium or large organisations. The latter is likely to utilise more aspects or processes of each method, with a greater degree of rigour. However, if a smaller company is delivering a substantial project for a larger organisation, the more formal adoption of best practice methods can help it to work and communicate more effectively with its customer. It may even help to win the business in the first place. Accreditation enables smaller businesses to differentiate themselves in the marketplace as a more efficient business partner or supplier. Conversely, a larger organisation may decide not to apply full best practice to a smaller project. GAINS THROUGH TRAINING The headline processes of Best Practice models like MSP™, PRINCE2® and ITIL® mislead some managers to think they are

90 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 91

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BEST PRACTICE IS A LIFELINE IN A SINK OR SWIM ECONOMY

just common sense. While they adopt a common sense approach, the true value of these models lies in the integral frameworks and concepts that have been developed and honed over years of practical application. They can generally be customised to suit the particular needs and terminology of the organisation. If this is the case, it is useful to identify the external trainers or consultants, who can recommend or deliver high-quality, bespoke learning that will help embed the change. It is important not to skimp on training as it increases the level of understanding and compliance. For example, the practice of ‘train the trainer’ delivers perfectly acceptable results for many learning topics, though organisations consistently find it difficult to take this approach with best practice training.It is such a complex, specialist subject that there is a large gulf between understanding the topic and being able to explain it to another. This is why so many organisations turn to external trainers. However it is important to work with accredited suppliers who have the correct experience and knowledge. CONSULTING AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT Organisations that believe employee training marks the end of the implementation process will not reap the full benefits. In reality, If the organisation is serious about using best practice to continually improve performance, the training is just part of the journey. An external consultant can review how the model has been applied and highlight how it can be tailored more effectively to specific needs. Whether the economy is in growth or recession, we need to be effective in managing change and efficient in maximising the return from resources. Best practice approaches can deliver a rapid step change in business performance. To achieve the best results though, the organisation must adopt a three-stage comprehensive approach. Firstly, tailor the best practice to the organisation’s own needs and terminology. Secondly, train the whole organisation in applying the model. Lastly, invest in ongoing consultancy to ensure the change is properly embedded. There is never an ideal time for fundamental change. But if not now, then when? For further information about accreditation programmes visit http://www.apmgroup.co.uk and the Best Practice User Group is available at http://www.usergroup.org.uk

Eddie Kilkelly is Chief Operating Officer at ILX Group plc. For more information please visit www.ilxgroup.com

THE MAIN PRINCIPLES OF BEST PRACTICE Applied correctly, best practice models help the organisation to: 1.1

Focus on the right things – What are the business benefits of a particular course of action? Are we making the best use of resources or capacity? What delivers the biggest savings or best contribution?

Ensure the appropriate people are involved – Does the team contain the right skills to deliver the right tasks at the right time? Do individuals have the right technical skills to be effective in their role? Are we engaging with the right stakeholders to minimise risk and maximise the chances of success?

Adopt the correct approach – Are we applying the most up to date, best practice to ensure that projects or services are well structured, manageable, visible and well communicated?

4. 4

Undertake regular reviews – Are we reviewing the project at the end of each stage to ensure that the project is on track and remains in the best interests of business?

BEST PRACTICE The search for best practice needn’t be difficult, just follow some basic steps:

STEP 1 Make the business case Embedding best practice requires an investment of time, effort and cost. While not excessive, this still needs to be justified, just like any other business project. STEP 2 Engage with stakeholders Use the business case drawn up in Step 1 to raise awareness of the method and its benefits among key decision makers. STEP 3 Map a plan Have a structure for implementing best practice. If introducing more than one method, decide which should be introduced first. ITIL® should be first, if introduced into a stable business environment. Adopt PRICE2® or MSP™ first to address fundamental business change. STEP 4 Engage with the experts Engage with external consultants, training companies, accrediting organisations like The APM group, and the Best Practice User Group, to make implementation easier. STEP 5 Define how best practice will affect each process Specify how existing processes may need to change to comply. Best practice models can be highly customised at the practical application level. STEP 6 Start implementation Users find it valuable to complete a generic, foundation level introduction to the best practice. This prepares them for the second stage of their training, the practical application to their jobs and processes, once the definition process is complete. Accelerating implementation in this way enables the organisation to reap the benefits more quickly. STEP 7 Review the programme regularly Measure the success of the implementation against the original business case, so users and stakeholders can identify the benefits of retaining the model. November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 93

94 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

DON’T JUST LOOK AT ROI, LOOK AT

THE VALUE It’s tough to determine the return on investment of training. It’s easy to look at the value instead. But only if you know what to look for, argues Alan Bellinger.

sk anyone involved in Learning & Development (L&D) about the value of training and they'll think Return on Investment (ROI), Kirkpatrick and Philips. This involves holding back a control group and doing the analysis after a learning intervention. It is based on a rigorous analysis of the performance of trained versus the untrained. Valid, but after the event no-one cares – because there’s nothing you can do about it anyway!

That’s why the Insitute of IT Training has launched its new Value of Learning programme; and what it comes down to is that with just 5 numbers (actually only 3 in many circumstances) you can establish the value of a learning intervention before it takes place. The only pre-requisite is that you need to know which numbers you're looking for. The first step in trying to assess the value of a learning intervention is to establish the type of intervention. This is illustrated in the chart overleaf.

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TYPES OF LEARNING INTERVENTIONS Routine Functions

Performance Improvement

Radical Change

COST

PAYBACK

CHANGE

Transformation

High

Initiative-related

Contribution to performance objectives

System Roll-out

Routine functions

Remedial

Induction Compliance

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT The five numbers you need for a performance improvement intervention are:

Low

Induction – training new recruits, has one simple function – to get them to proficiency as quickly as possible. It may be focused on different ways of doing tasks, and may be as simple as who’s who! Remedial – these learning interventions address problems – e.g. behavioural, professional, technical or process. Although they occur mostly after a problem has been detected, this is not always the case. Problems may be anticipated or even prevented. Developmental – such interventions represent the normal development and enhancement of an individual. They may be associated with promotion, career change or simply progression. System Roll-out – there is a fascinating phase between the introduction of a new system and its acceptance by the staff using it. The length of this stage is rarely a function of the system’s complexity.

Consequently, all the costs (licences, retraining, and disruption) were driven by risk mitigation and not productivity. For a performance/productivity intervention you only need to know five numbers; and for a risk mitigation intervention you only need three.

Developmental

Compliance – this sits at the low end of value for one reason only. It represents the delta between doing it anyway and doing it in a way that satisfies the assessors. Take C. Difficile training as a example. It may be that it’s being done as part of an initiative to improve hygiene – it which case, it would probably represent high value. Alternatively, the training might be done differently in order to satisfy compliance requirements.

A great example is that of an Office 2007 rollout I was advising on recently. When I asked about the productivity gain, I got the answer: “We’re not expecting one. We’re doing it because our current version of Office will soon be un-supported.”

Analysis of the different types of learning interventions is a practical starting point in the debate about the value of incremental skills – it provides a useful framework and a means of classification. It also is a great way to clarify objectives. THE BOTTOM LINE But to cut to the chase, any intervention – from a major new system roll-out for 5,000 people to a three-minute remedial course for one individual – will be conducted for one of two purposes: 1. for performance/productivity 2. for risk mitigation. It is critical to understand the distinction between the two as they are sometimes difficult to distinguish.

1. audience size 2. learner costs 3. overheads 4. productivity gain 5. delivery costs. Of these five, four are straightforward. Productivity gain is the tricky one. The best way to nail it is in a discussion with the sponsor(s). The first response is likely to be “I don’t know”. But bearing in mind this is a forecast no-one knows for certain - it is what we expect to happen. There is a proven technique to establish even the most difficult forecast. Understand the best case and worst case – and base your expectations in the middle.

THE VALUE OF A PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT INTERVENTION Establish the following facts. Audience size

50 people

Learner costs and overheads

£30K per annum salary, plus overheads at 66% = £50K per annum

Productivity gain

20%

Delivery costs

£125,000

Initiative Related – many learning interventions result from new initiatives, generated both centrally or locally. Whether they really come this high on the value-add curve depends on how realistic and desirable the initiative – but let’s not get into that debate here!

So as each person costs us £50,000, we can assume that they add at least £50,000 of value each year (if they don’t, why employ them?). And since the learning intervention improves their performance by 20% we will now be able to generate £10K of additional value each year – directly as a result of the learning intervention.

Transformation – such initiatives are rarer than the others, although they do command a high level of focus when they occur.

There’s an obvious outcome to an analysis like this – anyone can dispute the figures, but no-one can dispute the logic!

We assumed that 50 people were involved in this learning intervention, representing a gain of £500,000 against a delivery cost of £125,000. In other words, a return of 4:1.

96 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 97

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DON’T JUST LOOK AT ROI, LOOK AT THE VALUE

RISK INTERVENTIONS The three numbers you need for a risk mitigation intervention are: 1. Size of the risk exposure 2. the reduction in risk 3. delivery costs. And this is an example of the calculation. If we assume that the cost of the exposure to risk is £1m, and we have assessed our current exposure to this risk at 15%. Further, we have concluded that, once the learning intervention has been completed, we will have reduced the risk to 5%. It is now clear that the value of the intervention was £100,000 (10% 0f £1m). If we find we have delivery costs of £50K then we would be looking at a return of 2:1. Let’s go back to that Office 2007 rollout I mentioned earlier. To make the upgrade worthwhile they must have put a very high valuation indeed, on the risk of exposure to unsupported software! AN EXAMPLE Take floor-walking as an example. A typical situation would be one in which a

knowledge worker has been asked to do an analysis which really requires the use of a pivot table – but they’ve forgotten how to do it. A floor-walker supported intervention means that they complete the task in thirty minutes whilst, on their own they would have taken two and a half hours. This means that the floor-walking benefit is two extra hours of productivity. Now we have to answer the following questions: • How long are we providing the floorwalking service? Answer: twelve months. • How many people are we providing it to? Answer: audience of 2,500. • How many interventions, such as the one above, would the average person receive over the course of the floor-walking programme? Answer: three interventions per person, per year. • Is this intervention typical, or is the two hour gain either too long or too short? Answer: a two hour gain is typical. • What’s the average cost of the floorwalking audience (direct cost/overheads /margin contribution)? Answer: average loaded cost – £50K per annum. • What’s the cost of delivering the floor

walking service? Answer: Cost of delivery is three people at £40,000 each (fully loaded). The facts establish the value of the floorwalking. Therefore, at £50K per year and assuming 200 working days a year, the average member of the audience generates a value of £250 per day. So, if the average intervention saves 1/4 of a day, then the value of those two hours is £62.50. And over the course of one year we generate a value of £187.50 per person or £468,750 in total, whilst the cost of delivery is £120K. The value ratio is therefore 3.9:1. One of the biggest challenges that L&D professionals face is that there is no time to train. Yet most learning interventions generate a very substantial pay-back. This type of value analysis enables an organisation to determine where it should put its focus. It provides a framework in which L&D can demonstrate how it adds value, rather than how it consumes resources! 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.

e th at us sit Vi ow sh

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November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 99

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Changing demographics are increasing the burden on NHS services just as budgets are being cut or frozen, says Arif Ahmed. The real value of training measurement lies not in simply having the data, but in being able to use it.

TRAINING MEASUREMENT IS

CRITICAL IN THE HEALTH SECTOR

hen you understand the importance of learning in the health sector, it is easy to see why training measurement is vital. Although training is essential for a skilled workforce, continuous professional development, compliance and ensuring patient care, resources are always constrained. In the past decade, several Department of Health (DoH) initiatives have underlined the importance of learning and competence. The high-profile 2008 report by Lord Darzi â&#x20AC;&#x201C; High Quality Care For All, devoted a whole

chapter to the topic of learning and enabling healthcare professionals to make the best use of their talents. Building upon this report, the Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) agenda is now being adopted across many healthcare trusts, encouraging NHS staff to become more innovative and improve productivity and quality of care without increasing costs. Yet each new initiative generally requires more training - and more reporting.

training delivery, such as quantitative information on the number of course registrations or completions, or the cost of particular courses. While this provides simple headline information, modern healthcare organisations need to focus greater attention on the qualitative aspects of the data. This will facilitate organisational planning, compliance, risk management and staff development.

Traditionally, measurement has generated metrics that reflect the mechanics of

Healthcare organisations are subject to regulatory schemes, including the Clinical

OPERATIONAL IMPERATIVES

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Negligence Scheme for Trusts (CNST) and the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which use mandatory training completions as a proxy measure for compliance. This means it is essential that learning activity is tracked and recorded accurately so the organisation has the evidence to prove training completions. Failure to do so may have negative consequences; under the CNST, the organisation may have to pay larger insurance premiums, diverting cash away from the delivery of front-line patient services. Under the CQC, it could lead to the organisation being named-and-shamed, fined, prosecuted, or even closed down. There are also operational imperatives for measuring training. The DoH strategy of de-coupling service commissioning from service provision has increased the number of private companies providing services within NHS organisations, and NHS trusts may also bid to provide services to other trusts. In both cases, the supplier may be responsible for training relevant staff, impacting the commissioning organisation’s ability to identify whether the workforce is appropriately trained, compliant and to manage risk. However, this may be resolved if the supplier has robust training programmes and is granted secure access to update the commissioning organisation’s training records. Similarly, the push to deliver more health and social care in the community makes it easier for patients to access treatment, but adds to the complexity of learning management. Information and training must be delivered via laptops and mobile devices, with the corresponding records on the organisation’s Learning Management System (LMS) or Electronic Knowledge and Skills Framework (e-KSF) updated automatically via secure communications links. Informal, on the job training plays a huge role in developing competence among healthcare staff – particularly in the community – but few organisations make sufficient effort to measure and record this type of learning. Arguably this is one of the biggest challenges that must be addressed. Healthcare organisations can also use training information to help plan workforce teams now and in anticipation of changing patient needs. For example, if sufficient staff are not trained in a particular area of patient care, should the organisation up-skill or pass the affected patients onto other providers? Most NHS trusts have to treat increasing numbers of older patients and people with chronic health problems who are living longer with multiple, complex health conditions. Trusts need to train more staff

to deal with elderly patients in a multidisciplinary way that meets their multiple needs. Records help identify candidates with the most relevant knowledge and skills. In addition, the trust may use training data to assess and manage risk, design training services and set personal development plans. CAPTURING RELEVANT INFORMATION So there are good reasons to record more and more detailed information on the learning of permanent and contract staff and students. The organisation needs to consider how the training helps it to: • Comply with regulatory requirements at an individual, team and organisational level • Increase levels of patient satisfaction • Adopt a more intelligent and robust risk management strategy • Ensure staff in the right posts have the right skills and knowledge • Enable staff to attain the goals in their Personal Development Plans (PDPs) • Identify knowledge and skills gaps in the organisation – and plan how to fill those gaps in order to improve patient care • Identify staff who might easily be reskilled to meet changing patient needs

102 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

To generate the qualitative view it needs, the organisation must ensure that it is capturing a true and comprehensive picture of formal and informal learning. This may mean devolving responsibility for entering the details of training completions to managers or specialist booking desk administrators. A methodology should be implemented to capture and measure informal learning. Individuals should be encouraged to verify and update their own training records. Data on e-learning completions should be updated automatically on the relevant systems, including the e-KSF. This will require a formal LMS that offers an elearning platform and secure, distributed access that also facilitates the rollout of self-service learning. The LMS should interface with other management information systems to enable the develop-ment of sophisticated, crossreferenced reports. The real value lies not in simply having the data, but in being able to use it to meet the organisation’s information needs. The L&D team must ensure that the data is readily available and can be manipulated easily in order to generate specific reports that inform mission-critical decision making. For example, by comparing training completions in a particular department to levels of patient satisfaction on the

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November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 103

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104 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

TRAINING MEASUREMENT IS CRITICAL IN THE HEALTH SECTOR

corresponding wards, it is possible to build a detailed picture of whether expenditure has generated the expected benefits. A good LMS should be able to generate complex reports in a matter of minutes. THE FUTURE When the NHS was founded, people assumed it would become cheaper to run over time; more effective disease management would mean fewer people relying on NHS treatment. However, demographic changes have had the opposite effect. Yet a report issued in June 2009 by the NHS Confederation, forecasts that the rising cost of providing care, combined with the impact of the recession, means the NHS will face a budget shortfall in real terms of £15billion, in the five years from 2011. If the NHS cannot afford to employ more staff, existing personnel will need to work more flexibly and effectively. The need for training and training measurement that ensures the best use of resources has never been greater. Arif Ahmed is co-founder and director of ikonami and can be contacted at arif@ikonami.com.

MONEY AS A MOTIVATOR MONEY AS A MOTIVATOR In a cash-strapped NHS, money is a major motivation to improve training measurement and reporting:

• Initiatives such as extended choice enable patients to choose where they are treated, so organisations that rank poorly when assessed by a body like the CQC may lose patients to trust that is better at providing and measuring training. Thanks to NHS funding structures the organisation’s budget may be reduced accordingly. •

Similarly, poor measurement can lead to increased premiums under the CNST.

• As public debate rages over NHS budgets, it’s important that healthcare organisations are able to demonstrate value when scrutinised by bodies like the National Audit Office, with learning and development (L&D) expenditure shown to have improved service quality and patient care and safety. • Effective measurement can also help the organisation to claw back funds allocated to medical and dental training. Universities and colleges are provided with contracts to deliver a set number of qualified staff, with clauses that enable the trust or strategic health authority to recoup monies allocated against students who subsequently drop out. Most do not track the training of these students and effectively over-pay for fewer qualified staff at the end of the course. • Most importantly, NHS organisations need staff competent in delivering the services needed by the local population. The right information can help to identify skills gaps and highlight how those gaps may be closed more cost-effectively by up-skilling rather than recruiting.

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www.3di-info.com November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 105

EXPLOIT THE LATEST TRENDS IN

RAPID-E-LEARNING

AGILE DEVELOPMENT AND

A culture willing to embrace both agile theory and rapid e-learning technologies will launch your organisation into the next decade, says Margaret Kelsey.

eâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve all heard the rumours that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re coming out of recession. But how we learn and how accessible we make our learning will be the primary factors influencing whether or not our enterprises succeed in the next decade. The model for businesses to grow and thrive is simple. Organisations need to understand and anticipate the needs of their audiences and customers, or face the economic consequences. They must harness their intellectual capital, respond to new opportunities with fresh ideas and perspectives, and channel these into improved services and products. How will businesses achieve this? With a highly sophisticated, innovative group of instructional designers leading a three-stage charge towards agility! Firstly by ensuring knowledge is accessible; secondly, by applying this knowledge to everyday problems and anticipated opportunities (to achieve anticipatory and responsive learning versus reactive learning); and lastly by implementing rapid e-learning methodologies and practices. HOW AGILE IS YOUR ORGANISATION? Here we explore trends in organisational development and learning technologies, and share how rapid e-learning and agile development can benefit your enterprise. A few key historical timelines have converged,

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leading to a highly opportunistic period in the way organisations embrace e-learning. It will continue to evolve, informing new pedagogical and andragogical practices.

In many ways, technology is advancing far beyond our intellectual capacity, and the main drawback we face is the limit of our own imaginations.

The Technology Continuum Information and communication technologies emerged in the 1950s-60s. This in turn facilitated the introduction of Computer Based Training (CBT). PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations) was the first generalised computer instructed system, designed to automate and expand access to education, largely in response to Sputnik. By the 1970s, more than 1,000 terminals were available worldwide with CBT. The primary limitation to developing and deploying early CBTs was computer memory and storage. By the mid 80s, as computer and networking technology evolved, so too did CBT. The introduction of the desktop PC with increased memory, disc space and eventually CD ROM, made it possible to produce more involving and interactive CBT. While memory and storage had become less of an issue, these programmes only offered asynchronous learning. The Internet followed in the 90s, paving the way for distance education programmes and web-based seminars. Thus anytimeanyplace learning engagements could be deployed via a web server and web browser. Advances in both learning design technology (programs that support graphically rich and dynamic content), and increased computer memory and storage, heralded increasingly sophisticated CBT and WBT. But there was something lacking in these advanced programmes - the opportunity for broader connection between learners. This shortfall gave rise to broadband access

and the call for Web 2.0, which is a paradigm shift in how and when learning happens. A synergy of communication, information and learning technologies has made it possible for instruction to be provided in a myriad of ways. From asynchronous to synchronous, from smartphones to BlackBerrys, and from Kindles to desktops and web servers. We’ve moved from a push-based to a pullbased culture of knowledge and skill acquisition. Clive Shepherd commented earlier this year: “Apart from some e-learning developers who are unjustifiably worried about their jobs, almost everyone seems to agree. The future will see a blurred distinction between teachers and learners, and between publishers and their audiences. Everyone will be a teacher.” In many ways, technology is advancing far beyond our intellectual capacity, and the main drawback we face is the limit of our own imaginations. How do we work with all these dynamic, evolving technologies? And how will they shape the evolution of business theory and development in these post-recession times? To shed a light on these questions, let’s consider some points along the learning organisation timeline. Prior to the 1960s, where manufacturing was the primary source of gross national product, the de facto management style was top-down and autocratic, a derivative of Scientific Management, theorised by Frederick Winslow Taylor, a US mechanical engineer who sought to improve industrial

Figure 1: Learning technology timeline 1950’s

1990’s

CBTs

WBTs

< 1950’s Industrial Age F.W. Taylor Scientific Management Fordism Top-down Management (production management)

2000 web 2.0 + social media

> 1960’s Information Age Social/organisational behaviour theories emerged Hertzberg: “motivated to work” McGregor: Human side of enterprise; Theory X/Theory Y Rise in matrix Management: (management by project/purpose)

108 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

efficiency in the late 1890s. After watching individuals at work, he deduced that decisions based on rules of thumb should be replaced with precise procedures enforced by management. This gave way to the adage: ‘There’s one best way to fix a problem’. This reinforced the notion that experts must manage the work. In the 1940s this was further fuelled by Fordism, named after the introduction of the Ford’s Model T car, that the learning organisation was designed to support mass production and consumption. But who would be ultimately satisfied with that? In the 1960s two great eras emerged: Information Technology and Social/Behavioural Science, when white collar jobs began to outnumber blue collar jobs. Two organisational theorists, Frederick Herzberg and Douglas McGregor, introduced ideologies that shed light on human performance and behaviour. Unsurprisingly this coincides with the introduction of the personal computer. In The Motivation To Work, published in 1959, Herzberg theorised that workers’ satisfaction is extracted from different factors than dissatisfaction. Satisfaction comes from factors that deal with doing the job versus factors that define the context of the job. Therefore, achievement, recognition, opportunity and advancement lead to satisfaction. Whereas relationship to peers, managers, policies and conditions are factors that effect dissatisfaction.

In the 1960s, Douglas McGregor contributed his Theory X and Theory Y. Theory X reflects authoritarian management, whereby the average person dislikes work and will avoid it if at all possible. Therefore 2010+ most people must be forced with the threat of infinity + beyond punishment to work towards organisational objectives. The average person prefers > 2000 Post Information Age to be directed, to avoid Coincides with greater and responsibility, lacks ambition, greater focus on and wants security above Faciliative/Collaborative all else. Management Theory Y suggests participative management, whereby effort in work is as natural as work and play. People will apply self-control

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and self-direction in the pursuit of organisational objectives, without external control or the threat of punishment. Their commitment to objectives is a function of rewards associated with their achievement. Such people often seek responsibility, demonstrate a high degree of imagination, ingenuity and creativity in problem solving, which is widely, not narrowly, distributed in the population. Moreover, in industry, the intellectual potential of the average person is only partly utilised. Arguably, Theory Y has begun to infuse business and learning practices slowly but steadily. Starting with the rise in matrix management (management by project and purpose), and continuing with a postInformation Age focus on collaborative management, performance-based cultures are redefining business operations. Is it any surprise that the monolithic businesses that have not abandoned the top-down industrial style of management, are falling like dominos? We are in a global economic recession because we are in a critical period of colliding continuums. This is how Tony Buzan kicked off the 2009 Learning Technologies conference: “We are not in a global recession - we are in a global revolution.” This year, we’re not only in a global revolution, we are in a perpetual state of pedagogical re-invention. How we learn and how we make training available will be the primary factor influencing whether or not businesses succeed or fail in the next decade. How does this rich legacy impact rapid e-learning and agile theory? Rapid e-learning describes the production of e-learning modules (typically in less than three weeks) leveraging the knowledge of subject matter experts. The term rapid is derived from the Latin rapere, meaning ‘to take by force’. Here is a definition of e-learning by learning champion, Jay Cross: “The use of network technologies to create, foster, deliver, and facilitate learning, anytime and anywhere. E-learning delivers accountability, accessibility, and opportunity. It allows us to keep up with the rapid changes that define the Internet world. It is a force that gives people and organisations the competitive edge to keep ahead of the rapidly changing global economy.” Is it any surprise that Jay Cross’s definition includes this word ‘force’? From prior articles and conference themes, most of us know all too well how organisations benefit from rapid e-learning. a) It allows your organisation to adapt more quickly to continual change,

b) It allows shorter production and process life cycles to stay competitive, c) it enables a ready transfer of knowledge to a distributed workforce, and d) it places you and your organisation at the cutting edge of innovation. AREAS OF RAPID ADOPTION The success of rapid e-learning is a function of three organisational and instructional dynamics: firstly, the audience size; secondly, the content variability; and lastly, the purpose of the content. Accordingly, it offers the highest return on investment when it is adopted for larger audiences, where the content is highly variable, and when the purpose of the content is well defined. An organisation presents approximately five levels or needs of training: 1. orientation and onboarding material 2. compliance training 3. policy, product and process updates 4. system simulations

RAPID E-LEARNING CHECKLIST Which projects should you consider for rapid e-learning? • Will it promote knowledge awareness over soft and hard skill development? • Is the content clear and light in scope? • Is the purpose and anticipated impact to behaviour well-defined? • Are subject matter experts onboard and able to commit 24 hours per 30 minute module from inception to deployment? • Is the timeline tight? • Is the budget small? Does your organisation ascribe to Theory Y? If you live and work in a culture where accessing GoogleDocs, YouTube or Wikipedia is viewed by management as a threat to employee productivity, then you’ll be forever stuck in the attempt to make rapid e-learning happen. Give it up and head to the pub!

5. niche training. Looking at these, rapid e-learning will have the greatest impact from the bottom-up. For example, developing a rapid e-learning tool on a new performance management process, or health and safety training for thousands of employees, is far more effective than attempting to train the same learners with instructor-led content, particularly when it leverages content from the multitude of resources that already exist. Whereas, the costs of developing e-learning that simulates a new surgical procedure for an elite group of cardiothoracic surgeons would be prohibitive and inefficient.

• The work stops if the output is broken. The production team revisits and reviews what needs to be scrapped and starts again. • Everyone adheres to work hours and limits. Late-nights in front of the computer selecting the right font and animation, are banished and replaced by the sound of bed time stories being read to the children. • The pace of production is fixed but the scope is elastic. The point is to hit iterative goals rather than a defined end point.

Agile v waterfall

To cement the agile methodology, let’s take an example of building an e-learning module on a new performance management process.

Does your organisation recognise the value and benefit of adopting an agile approach to design and development? The waterfall development model is a sequential process, with progress seen as flowing steadily downwards. Agile is the opposite of waterfall development and rests upon these tenants:

In the traditional waterfall development approach, the subject matter expert (SME typically someone on the HR team in Organisational Development) requests the e-learning development team to produce a captivating new module on the new performance process, to be implemented across all lines of business.

• The production team leave egos at the door and attachment to a finished polished product are banished to the corner. This allows a higher consciousness to emerge for the good of the learner. • The team always builds something testable and therefore has many prototypes.

The SME provides hard copy of materials they’ve used to introduce and develop this new process, they are willing to provide a few hours of input, expecting the internal team to put forward a storyboard, a prototype, a build to review and a final build. The project does not advance until the SME signs off each stage and presents it to their bosses to sign off.

• The team always builds something functional.

Ultimately, the final, final, final build is presented to top executives in the HR

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department, maybe even the CEO, who give their nod of approval or potential recommendations for modification. Even worse, they suddenly scrap the idea because a new strategic initiative has taken priority. Weeks of effort potentially wasted. A typical waterfall production cycle spans sixteen weeks for a thirty-minute module and includes the following phases: Scoping, Procurement, Design, Development, Testing, Deployment and Evaluation. Contrast this with an agile, rapid approach, SMEs are responsible for identifying the learning objectives and initial content. A designer or developer takes this and appropriately package the content for learners using a rapid e-learning authoring tool. With some initial training, the SME is informed of the tools features and benefits up front, so there is an understanding of it’s limitations and capabilities. Potentially they can even get involved in production. The designer/developer build the module in portions, presents to the SME, who then weighs in with feedback which is woven into the next build. The final build is subsequently finished with very few surprises. The SME is also empowered to

make final decisions about when and how it should be deployed, assuming all risks and rewards for its impact. Layers of sign-off are obviated. This rapid, agile production cycle spans four to five for a thirty-minute module and includes these phases: scoping and procurement, design, develop and review, deployment and evaluation. Besides the obvious reduction in the number of team members involved, the success of the agile approach hinges upon one other crucial factor: the willingness to empower your SMEs and allow them to assume accountability for the finished product. Based on my experience of working with clients who need levels of approval and sign-off to support the waterfall process, the amount of time and resources wasted is just gross. Accountability is distributed to the point where no one really assumes responsibility for the programme. Yet organisations still wonder why projects go beyond scope and budget and employees are burdened with working on the weekends. Let’s assume you’re working for an organisation that’s currently undergoing such a project (for example, training on

SMART objectives - a hot post-recession topic). Why not empower the HR organisational development SME to significantly influence the design and development of the module? Call me radical, but why not let them assume accountability for improving and effecting the change such an e-learning program is designed to promote? The agile-rapid approach, if fully adopted will allow you to build something your learner actually needs, and will allow your team to run a successful project, on task and on purpose. If that alone doesn’t sell you on the advantages just stand back and take a good look at the cost savings. For rapid e-learning to be truly and fully adopted, organisations need to examine just how agile they are. A culture willing to embrace both agile theory and rapid e-learning technologies will undoubtedly lead us into the next decade.

Margaret Kelsey is Principal at Kelsey +Co and will be speaking at the Learning Technologies 2010 Conference.

RAPID E-LEARNING. HOW MUCH WILL YOU SAVE? The chart below shows the cost comparison of traditional waterfall e-learning roles against rapid e-learning roles. Production time on projects can be reduced by two thirds, and costs can be slashed by fifty percent. It’s a no-brainer. Traditional e-learning roles 65k - project manager 55k - instructional designer 40k - storyboard writer 55k - flash/interactivity designer

Rapid e-learning roles lead instructional designer - 70k

Hourly - audio narrator ? - SME 45k - graphics designer ?- tester 55k - LMS/deployment manager

Salary costs: 300k 112 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

SME - ? graphics designer - 45k/hourly pilot group - free implementer - 55k

Salary costs: 150k

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114 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

HOW TO TURN YOUR

CLASSROOM TRAINING INTO

As credit-crunched organisations look to reduce costs, Louise Pasterfield asks what must they do to transform their classroom training into effective e-learning.

EFFECTIVE E-LEARNING

long with the need to reduce costs by deploying e-learning there may be environmental reasons for making the switch. Reduced travel and energy for example when delivering training over wide geographic areas. Yet there are many pitfalls for organisations making their first foray into developing bespoke e-learning. To be successful, they need to appreciate two key points. Firstly, that e-learning is not just classroom training, ported onto a PC. The team needs to run the project as if they are developing

a new course, with the appropriate project planning, content development and attention to the learnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s needs. Secondly, e-learning is not universally appropriate. It is most effective where large numbers of people need to be trained on the same topic, where it can deliver really significant cost efficiencies, or where the training requires the urgent communication of information around business systems, compliance, processes, induction or policy changes. So how can the organisation translate suitable classroom-based courses into e-learning?

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PEOPLE DELIVER SUCCESS The first priority is to assemble a team that includes a selection of subject matter experts, designers, e-learning development experts and end-users. A combination of these skills is more likely to deliver a good end result, but each team member buys into the process and commits the necessary time. The team also needs to consider whether it wants to create the e-learning in house, or work with a supplier. If time is of the essence, a supplier will have the expertise to generate good results quickly, particularly if it is the organisation’s first attempt at designing bespoke e-learning. In-house staff can build their knowledge and expertise during the course of the project, with a view to handling the next project unsupported. Even if the organisation wants to do it all in-house, it is worthwhile bringing an expert on board as a consultant to the project. They will be able to use their expertise to advise the team on the length, structure and development of the training. Once the team is established, it should then focus on its audience – the learners. The creation of a new e-learning intervention provides an excellent opportunity to take a fresh look at learners and their needs. What does the learner really need to learn in order to fulfil the purpose of the training? Did previous feedback indicate any gaps in the classroom training? What is the best way of ensuring the user can retain and apply the learning? GET THE DESIGN AND CONTENT RIGHT From this initial analysis, the team should develop clear and comprehensive learning

Even if the organisation wants to do it all in-house, it is worthwhile bringing an expert on board as a consultant to the project. They will be able to use their expertise to advise the team on the length, structure and development of the training. objectives that can be used as the basis for designing the e-learning. These objectives should form the basis of the topics you want to cover. Once this is established, the team will be able to calculate the number of screens that must be developed. On average, three hours of classroom training normally equates to one hour of e-learning and as a general rule of thumb, e-learning should deliver one screen every minute. However, busy employees rarely have the time to complete even an hour of e-learning, so it is now much more common to develop twenty, thirty or forty minute courses. This has significant implications on how the subject matter will break down, so the learner can develop a good level of understanding within a comparatively short space of time. The team should ensure that the order and content of each screen leads the user through the subject matter logically that helps to develop comprehension. Each screen needs to strike a balance between brevity and detail. This is unlikely to be achieved by populating an e-learning authoring tool with classroom training content. PowerPoint slides will be insufficiently detailed to develop understanding without the accompanying narrative. Similarly, the trainer’s notes are likely to be too long and detailed to fit onto a screen.

While classroom learning materials cannot be directly ported to e-learning, the team should review the content to see what can be re-used. Make sure that the content is up to date, with facts and figures checked for accuracy. Conversely, any superfluous content should be discarded. E-learning must be relevant from beginning to end. CREATING ENGAGING INTERACTIONS TO REINFORCE LEARNING It is important to build quizzes, real life scenarios and situational exercises into the e-learning, to reinforce and embed the content. It’s considered good practice to use an interaction every three to four screens. Research indicates that people read twenty eight percent slower when reading from a screen, so include graphics, photographs and video content for a more visual and less text-heavy experience. It’s important to integrate an assessment at the end of the learning to measure comprehension and retention, with feedback that helps the learner to understand what they got right and wrong. The team will need to decide the number of questions to be asked along with the pass rate. WIDER CONSIDERATIONS If the e-learning relates to a professional qualification or accreditation, the team will need to liaise with the relevant body to ensure compliance of content, testing, and timeliness of reporting. Another key consideration is conformity to corporate branding and messaging in advance of the build, by engaging with the Marketing and Communications department. Finally, it’s worth considering the organisation’s other learning objectives. If modules may be re-used in future e-learning, this will increase the return on investment. TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS Even the best learning content can be let down by poor delivery, whether in the classroom or on a PC. Take care with usability and navigation, so the learner does not switch off, metaphorically or literally. Accessibility is another key consideration. Learners may have sight or hearing impairments that must be factored into the design, with adjustable fonts, or the script of audio or video transcripts needs to be made available. Ensure the e-learning is made available to all relevant learners, whether via fixed or mobile

116 Inside Learning Technologies November 2009

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November 2009 Inside Learning Technologies 117

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Bite-Sized Training In just 90 minutes, our highly-flexible Rapid Results速速 sessions cut to the heart of a topic and deliver focused, practical learning. Interactive and thought provoking. Packed with insights, tips and techniques. Now over 36 sessions encompassing Management & Leadership Personal Development Communication Meet us on stand 175 at the Learning and Skills Exhibition 27-28 January 2010, Olympia 2 London Creativedge Training & Development Tel: 01908 424 351 www.creativedgetraining.co.uk

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Even the best learning content can be let down by poor delivery, whether in the classroom or on a PC. Take care with usability and navigation, so the learner does not switch off, metaphorically or literally. devices, and that training completions are recorded automatically and accurately. Consider the communications links over which the e-learning will be accessed. Multimedia-rich e-learning will run slowly over lowâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;speed connections, which is detrimental to the learning experience. Where learners access e-learning remotely, say from their own homes, this has real design and content implications. Finally, make sure that the e-learning complies with Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) standards. This will enable the e-learning to run on any SCORM-compliant learning management system and facilitates the tracking and recording of learner activity and assessments. MANAGE THE PROJECT EFFECTIVELY The team should set out and follow a detailed project plan, including checks for

each issue outlined in this article. Be realistic about the amount of time it will take. An hour of high-quality interactive e-learning normally requires eight to twelve weeks of definition, design, scripting, building and testing. In particular, the team needs to build in enough time for scripts to be checked and prototypes to be tested. A module should be tested up to three times by a small user group, until the team is certain that it is fit for purpose. This means any usability or content issues can be resolved before go-live. A key measure of effective e-learning is that when it is completed, the learner can apply what they have learned straight away. By applying best practice in developing e-learning, the team stands a much improved chance of delivering on that objective.

NOT JUST CLASSROOM TRAINING PORTED TO A PC The three most important factors in creating effective e-learning are all about people rather than technology: 1. At the outset, put together a good project team with the right blend of skills and abilities, including users. Make sure each person really commits to the project. 2. Focus on the learner. Mapping out a comprehensive profile and learning objectives can save time, effort and cost, while improving the e-learning. 3. Engage your audience with real life scenarios, practical exercises and interactions. They will pay more attention if they are engaged rather than simply instructed. By bringing the topic to life, it will be a more enjoyable experience and ensure the learning is retained far more effectively.

Louise Pasterfield is Managing Director at Sponge UK and can be contacted at louise@spongeuk.com.

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FINAL WORD

Fabrizio Cardinali

PERSONALISING LEARNING AND KNOWLEDGE CONTENT MANAGEMENT IN THE LAST CHANCE SALOON

n a world of rapidly developing competition, large companies need to re-invent their leadership style and strategy if they are to keep their talents and competencies up-to-speed. Moreover, they need to strengthen their heritage knowledge and make it more readily available throughout the organisation. This means futureproofing knowledge systems - beyond the current single and closed turnkey ‘knowledge platforms’. These futureproof systems will include content personalisation across different platforms. They will incorporate services that can interoperate with each other, making content adapt - rapidly and radically - to employees’ emerging needs, while adapting to their skills and competences, background portfolio of experience and record of performance. Additionally such ‘knowledge on demand’ should understand which of many possible devices the learner is using. Moreover, it should be able to deliver adequate and appropriate information to users, when and where required – and just-in-time to provide valuable performance support. These open and interoperable ecosystems bringing together open learning, talent and skills development - are now emerging in corporate, vocational and governmental initiatives. They are based on the availability of new generation content aggregation and personalisation standards, such as IMS Common Content Cartridge and ADL’s SCORM 2004. These aim to deliver new generation content personalisation and empower improved information access for learners, to help them develop new skills and competencies at the pace needed by our rapidly evolving societies. Only by standardising and blending open and interoperable archives of competencies, testing and remediation materials can corporations survive increasing global competition.

First generation e-learning offered little more than electronic page-turning and so didn’t provide much advance from the individual ‘massification’ of classroomdelivered learning. Second generation elearning encouraged learners to develop their own contents and sharing it with peers. It was a type of self-induced personalisation empowered by web 2.0 and its social and viral networking power. The new – third – wave of e-learning will see learning personalisation. At Giunti Labs Research, we are working on personal ambient learning services (PALs). This involves adding portfolio, skills and mobile learning to our Learn eXact LCMS and HarvestRoad Hive digital repository (DR) solutions to provide content personalisation. PALs will bring personalised learning and knowledge content at the press of a button on iPhones and Blackberrys. They will adapt the learning material to the learner’s context (such as time, device and location) and portfolio (learning history, skills and competencies). As the widespread application of electricity boosted the Industrial Revolution, advancing personal ambient learning will boost today’s Knowledge Revolution. One of the key pieces in this jigsaw is the standards community. Developing new generation e-learning standards beyond and within SCORM is vital. First generation standards freed e-learning contents from being locked to the hardware system that ran them. In the future, content packaging and publishing will be served by automated processes,, allowing LCMS solutions to create and publish content automatically, at the ‘speed of need’. This requires ‘open’, plug and play architectural components working together and exchanging data through services oriented architectures (SOAs). An example of an SOA standardisation attempt is MIT’s Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI). OKI breaks e-learning into single components, allowing platform designers to choose

120 Inside Learning Technologies October 2009

elements for their learning ecosystem and, then, enabling all these components to exchange data towards content personalisation. This is helping to lower the cost of producing these components and, thus, the overall system cost - as well as integrating new components, such as mobile and virtual learning worlds, into content personalisation. In tandem with the development of open standards, recent technological advances such as grid and cloud computing - are making all this happen faster. Since 2000, we – at Giunti Labs - have worked on more than 50 international research and development projects in this field, including the 12.9m Euro IRMOS Project. IRMOS is developing PALs involving ‘real-time’ interaction between people and applications in virtual and mobile learning scenarios over a service oriented infrastructure (SOI), where processing, storage and networking need to be combined and delivered with guaranteed levels of service. This enables ‘extended geo-learning’, delivered ‘in-class’, ‘in-house’, ‘in campus and ‘in building’ on an urban, suburban and global GPS basis. Eventually, IRMOS will blend open source learning platforms, such as Sakai or Moodle, with Giunti Labs' online and mobile learning content management technologies, Learn eXact LCMS and HarvestRoad Hive. As a sector, we are at the start of the journey to achieve technology-delivered personal ambient learning content personalisation. It is vital that we succeed because this will give our workers access to the new knowledge that they will need if our industries – and their leaders - are to remain competitive in global markets. Fabrizio Cardinali is the founder of Giunti Labs and one of Europe’s experts in e-learning and knowledge management. For more information please visit www.giuntilabs.com.

last year it was unthinkable to miss learning technologies this year it’s unimaginable

In today’s fast-moving, technology-driven business climate the need to stay ahead of the organisational learning curve is vital.

For free entry to the exhibition, conference booking and all the latest event information:

Technology supported learning is now central to the success of any business and a visit to Learning Technologies 2010 will give you all the inspiration your business needs to thrive in today’s changing learning environment. The 2010 event will be the biggest ever, with more than 130 exhibitors, 60 free seminars, endless networking opportunities and a world-renowned conference – making it Europe’s leading showcase of technology supported workplace learning.

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But there’s more… In 2010 Learning Technologies will be co-located with an exciting new event, Learning and Skills – covering the entire spectrum of methods, products and services available for workplace learning and development. With even more exhibitors and a further 60 free seminars, it adds up to two of the most important days in the learning industry’s calendar. Can you really imagine missing it?

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