Search Results for: quip

Quip: Systematic Creativity

16 November 2021 by Clark Leave a Comment

I’ve documented some quips in the past, but apparently not this one yet. Prompted by a nice article by Connie Malamed on creativity, I’m reminded of a saying, and the underlying thinking. Here’s both the quip and some more on systematic creativity. First, the quip:

Systematic creativity is not an oxymoron!

In her article, Connie talks about what creativity is, why it’s important, and then about steps you can take to increase it. I want to dig a wee bit further into the cognitive and formal aspects of this to backstop her points. (Also, of course, to make the point that a cognitive perspective provides important insight.)

As background, I’ve been focused on creating learning experiences. This naturally includes cognition as the basis for learning, experiences, and design. So I’ve taken eclectic investigations on all three. For instruction, I continue to track for insights from behavioral, social, cognitive, post-cognitive, even machine learning. On the engagement side, I continue to explore games, drama, fiction, UI/UX, roleplay, ‘flow’, and more. Similarly, for design my explorations include architecture, software engineering, graphic, product, information, and more.

One of the interesting areas comes from computer science, searching through problem-spaces for solutions. If we think of the solution set as a space, some solutions are better than others. It may not be a smooth continuum, but instead we might have local maxima that are ‘ok’, but there’s another elsewhere that’s better. If we are too lax in our search, we might only find the local maxima. However, there are ways to increase the chances of exploring a broader space, making a more global search. (Of course, this can be multidimensional.)

Practically, this includes several possibilities. For one, having a diverse team increases the likelihood that we’ll be exploring more broadly. (On the flip side, having folks who all think alike mean all but one are redundant. ;). For another, brainstorming properly keeps the group from prematurely converging. We can use lateral random prompts to push us to other areas. And so on. I wrote a series of four posts about design that included a suite of heuristics to increase the likelihood of finding a good solution. Connie’s suggestions do likewise.

I also suppose this is a mental model that we can use to help think about designing. Mental models are bases for predictions and decisions. In this case, having the mental model can assist in thinking through practices that are liable to generate better design practices. How do we keep from staying localized? How do we explore the solution space in a manner that goes broad, but not exhaustively (in general, we’re designing under time and cost constraints).

Creativity is the flip side of innovation. It takes the former to successfully execute on the latter. It’s a probabilistic game, but we can increase our odds by certain practices that emerge from research, theory, and practice. We also want to include emotion in the picture as well, in our design practices as well as in our solutions. When we do, we’re more likely to explore the space effectively, and increase our chances for the best solution. That’s a worthwhile endeavor, I’ll suggest. What are your systematic creativity approaches?

Quip: Learning & Development

5 June 2018 by Clark 4 Comments

I’ve used this quip quite a bit, as it’s essentially the rationale for the Revolution book. And I want to make clear what I’m saying, and then qualify it. It’s about the state of Learning & Development, and sums up one perspective fairly succinctly:

L&D isn’t doing near what it could and should be, and what it is doing it’s doing badly. Other than that, it’s fine.

It’s meant to be a little flip and ‘in your face’, but it’s because I think there’s such potential for L&D! This is my way of characterizing the situation that might spark some reflection, and even action.

L&D is, largely, about courses. And unfortunately, too often they’re about content-dump, and an experience that will rank highly on a smile sheet. Which is historically understandable, but scientifically bereft. Compliance aside (and here’s to a competency shift, away from ‘1 hour / year’ or whatever other time-based basis we might find), our courses should be focused on applying knowledge to meaningful tasks, and meaningful feedback. Sufficient, varied, spaced, and deliberate practice! Of course this isn’t everyone’s L&D, but it certainly appears to be all too present.

The second thing is that L&D could be so much broader! If we’re really worry about organizational performance and continuing improvement (why I suggest L&D should shift to P&D, performance and development), we should do more. Performance support, for instance, should be under the purview of L&D. Otherwise it gets left to chance or those who don’t have the necessary background.

And, then there’s coaching. Recognize that learning takes time, and that we need to continue development beyond the classroom. Thus, coaching’s critical to continued improvement. Again, L&D has a role to play here: developing coaching skills, providing guidance, and tracking.

Then we go beyond formal learning: optimizing the ongoing learning in individuals, teams, and communities. This is organizational learning! There’re processes for individual improvement like PKM, team processes like brainstorming, and community interactions. Leaving these to chance is a mistake, as we can’t assume these skills.

And the outcomes of helping the organization get better beyond the course are big. Not just individual learning, but the organization is learning faster. And that’s a necessity for success, going forward. In short, there’s a lot L&D could be doing that would help the organization that it’s missing now.

Now, complaining as my statement does isn’t necessarily useful, unless it’s constructive, and the point is that we have very comprehensive and specific things we know about doing better. By this quip I don’t mean to criticize; I want to inspire action and improvement. So here’s to revolutionizing L&D. I hope you’ll join us!

Quip: learning & instruction

15 May 2018 by Clark Leave a Comment

I spoke at the ATD International Conference last week on myths. I said a number of things (and a number were said about it, too :). However, one comment seems to be getting more traction than others. Moreover, it’s something I say regularly. So I thought I should add it to my collection of Quinn Quips.

The statement is simple:

Learning is action and reflection; instruction is designed action and guided reflection.

What do I mean here? In life, things happen. We make choices, and there are consequences. When we observe them, and reflect, we begin to notice patterns. Some of this can happen unconsciously, but if we want to improve fastest, reflecting helps. This can involve just thinking, or writing, or diagramming, or other ways of representing the contingencies and emerging models.

However, when we want to guide learning, e.g. instruct, one of the tasks we can undertake is creating a problem, and asking the learner to solve it. If we provide resources, and support the thinking afterwards, we increase the likelihood of learning outcomes.

A critical feature of this statement is that the choices of action that we design, and the choices of resources to support reflection (content and representation tools), are critical. And, of course, we might need a series of activities (or application opportunities) to support learning.

An interesting option that emerges here is the opportunity for contextual learning. When an individual is engaged in a task relevant for learning, we can take advantage of it. With resources and reflection facilitation, a performance requirement becomes a learning opportunity!

It’s important that we understand the difference, but recognize (and reflect) the core.

Quip: tuning

1 March 2011 by Clark 2 Comments

You can’t declare it’s a game, your learners will tell you if it is or not.

I found a game for my iPad that I really liked. A casual gamer, so that while it has a story, I can play it without having to get too crazy about learning timing issues or complicated commands.

I played it through, and several different times again with different characters, and eagerly awaited the sequel. Which finally occurred and I was again progressing through the game. Er, until the end, and that’s where this story begins.

When I got to the last boss, suddenly I couldn’t finish. I couldn’t beat the boss! Instead of happily progressing, suddenly I was grinding to get my character to level up, and trying again, while looking for more special equipment. It was suddenly frustrating, not fun.

Now, I’d pretty well just bashed my way through: no finesse in movement. But that had worked. So if I was supposed to pick up more nuanced movements and commands, there had been no incentive. Well, I finally beat the boss after numerous attempts, and then the game was over, but I hadn’t really found out what I’d done that worked.

Again, I started with a different character, and again it was fun. Up until the end, and again I was faced with the unbeatable boss. Again I ground, and again I finally succeeded, but it was still an anti-climax after so much fun prior to that point.

The point here is not to complain about this particular game, but to point out that getting the experience right matters. When I run my game design lectures and/or workshops, I point out that as Will Wright once told me, tuning is 9/10ths of the work. And it’s got to go all the way through, with the right audience. It may be that they didn’t test the end with a casual gamer like me, but it was a jarring ending to what had been.

Now, in most of the formal learning situations we design for, we have sticks as well as carrots, so we aren’t expecting our learners to pay for the privilege of completing our learning experience, but it’s important to understand what learner experience we think would be reasonable and shoot for achieving that. It’s subjective, so asking them is just fine, but you want to set metrics for the user experience (tested for after you ensure usability isn’t a barrier and you are achieving your learning outcomes) and then tune until you get them. Or, of course, until you find out you won’t on your current budget and adjust your expectations, but doing so consciously.

As I say, you don’t turn a scenario into a game, you tune it into a game. And even when you are not shooting for a game, this applies to learning experience design as well. Emotions and subjective experience matters, so do consider testing and tuning until you achieve the experience you need.

Quip: design

11 February 2011 by Clark Leave a Comment

If you get the design right, there are lots of ways to implement it; if you don’t get the design right, it doesn’t matter how you implement it.

Too often, people under design and overproduce, resulting in great looking products that are worthless. This is certainly the case in elearning, but you see it in other fields, too.

Similarly, I’ve found that if you get the design right, you don’t need lots of production. In an example cited in my Engaging Learning book, we designed a game for kids that need to learn how to live on their own. The first version looked like it was done by lame 3rd graders, but the play was right; as a consequence, we got some funding to tart up the graphics. On the other hand, if the play hadn’t been right, it wouldn’t have gotten used.

One of the reasons to tout this is so many people are concerned about what tool to use. I don’t really systematically study tools, because once you’ve got the design, you can probably implement it in a variety of tool solutions. And the tools will change, but the need for quality design won’t.

The focus has to be on the learning experience design first, and then you can worry about how you might build the delivery environment. So, please, get design, and get the design right. Then we can talk about how to develop it.

Quip: tradeoffs

10 February 2011 by Clark 1 Comment

There are no right answers, only tradeoffs.

This is something I frequently say in my design workshops (games, mobile, whatever). When you are doing a design, there are many factors to be considered, and many alternatives. The question is not “what is the right answer”, the question is “what is the right answer for now, in this context”. The reason being that there are many possible answers, and you will have to consider several alternatives.

When we do an analysis, we have to decide whether it’s a skill, knowledge, attitude, or something else. Then we can decide whether to address it with training, job aids, interface redesign, or something else. And usually it could be one or the other but we eventually converge on a solution.

In the interface design space, there arose an approach called a ‘design rationale‘ just to keep new folks on the team from revisiting prior decisions. There were even tools created to document these. There are a lot of factors that affect a solution, including audience, current environment (tech, sociocultural, resources, etc), and goals. There will be tensions between them, and the solution will end up being a compromise that is the best guess at a solution space.

Or, as I depicted it a while ago, the potential solution space is large, and various factors end up constraining that space down to a solution (if we end up with the empty set, we have to relax one or more of the constraints). It helps to have constraints. Some of the solutions are better than others, but seldom is any one so dominantly optimal. Just think of the problem of what car to buy? Economy, style, reliability, current sales incentives, there are lots of factors, and you probably ended up choosing among several possibilities.

On a side note, this is an important way the real world differs from ‘schooling’. I like what David Jonassen says about how the problems we give our kids in class don’t bear any relation to the problems they face in the world (and his focus on changing the problems seen in schools).

And, as m’lady likes to say, there should be no ‘coulda shoulda woulda’s. You made the best decision at the time (right?), and then if it later turns out to have been wrong you had no way to know or you would’ve factored it into your decision at the time. Unless you missed something you could and should have seen then, you still made the right decision.

This is why consultants typically answer with ‘it depends’ when asked for specifics beforehand (much to potential customers dismay). When the expert realizes the myriad factors that could affect the choices and outcomes, it’s naive to give a pat answer to the client who needs help. There are likely parameters that affect the decision and may help to constrain it to a range, and the experience may allow a qualified guess, but don’t expect a binding agreement until a scoping exercise has been performed.

It is important to be explicit about this, rather than assume you can make a perfect decision. Recognizing the process allows you to be open in your evaluations and honest in your assessment of the solution. Make the best tradeoffs you can, recognize that you can be wrong, and move ahead.

Quip: Quality

4 October 2010 by Clark 5 Comments

I had the (dubious) pleasure of picking up an award for a client at an eLearning awards ceremony a number of years back. There’s been some apt criticism of the whole awards industry thing overall, but it did give me a chance to see what was passing as award-winning content. And I was dismayed. One memorable example had traditional HR policy drill-and-kill tarted up into a ‘country fair’ theme. It was, frankly, quite well produced and visually attractive. And complete dreck, instructionally. Yet, it had won an award!

My client typically fights the good fight when they can (hey, they use me ;), but sometimes they can’t convince the client or know not to bother. In another instance, I actually took on the design for a project, and at the end the client’s manager asked what was so special. After I walked him through it, he was singing the hallelujah chorus, but there’s an important point here. I’ve heard this tale from many of my colleagues as well, and it indicates a problem.

Quality design is hard to distinguish from well-produced but under-designed content.

To the layperson, or even perhaps the ordinary instructional designer, the nuances of good content aren’t obvious. If the learning objective is focused on knowledge, it’s because that’s what the SME told us was important. So what if the emotional engagement is extrinsic, not intrinsic, it’s still engaging, right? We cover the content, show an example, and then ensure they know it. That’s what we do.

SO not. Frankly, if you don’t really understand the underlying important elements that constitute the components of learning, if you can’t distinguish good from ordinary, you’re wasting your time and money. If that were the only consequence,well, shame on the buyer. But if there’s a Great eLearning Garbage Patch, it gets harder to pitch quality. If you don’t care that it ‘sticks’ and leads to meaningful behavior change in the workplace, you shouldn’t even start. If you do care, then you have to do more.

Hey, low production values aren’t what make the learning occur, it’s just to minimize barriers (“ooh, this is so ugly”). Learning is really a probability game (you can’t make a learner learn), and every element you under-design knocks something like 10-50% off the likelihood it’ll lead to change. Several of those combined and you’ve dropped your odds to darn near zero (ending up working only for those who’ll figure it out no matter what you do to them).

And the problem is, your client, your audience, doesn’t know. So you can lose out to someone who shows flashy content but knows bugger all about learning. You see it everywhere.

So, we have to do more. We have to educate our clients, partners, and the audience. It’s not easy, but if we don’t, we’ll continue to be awash in garbage content. We’ll be wasting time and money, and our effort will be unappreciated.

If you’re a designer, get on top of it, and get good at explaining it. If you’re a customer, ask them to explain how their content actually achieves learning outcomes. Or get some independent evaluation. There are still vulnerabilities, but it’s a push in the right direction. We need more better learning!