I was contacted yesterday by a relatively new ID person, who was in a tough spot.   This person understood the principles of Tony Karrer’s “Before You Ask” post, as the situation was well laid out.   Some help was asked for (clearly no expectation other than, perhaps, a thoughtful reply; the circumstances were quite clear).

The situation is that this person is the support for an LMS across multiple geographic locations.   The ID was hired to do ‘training’ on the system, but access to SMEs is limited at beast, the uses in the different contexts were different enough that a course model isn’t a viable solution, yet this person wasn’t clear on what alternatives to take: “I am beginning to think that the position is flawed in its design.”

For what it’s worth, here’s what I replied (slightly modified for clarity and anonymity):

First, I’d offer a pointer to John Carroll’s minimalist instruction (via “The Nurnberg Funnel”).   He taught a word processing system via a set of cards that trumped the instructionally designed manual by focusing on the learners’ existing knowledge and goals.   It’d be one way to ‘teach photography’ instead of ‘the camera’.

Of course, I also recommend teaching ‘the model’, not the software *nor* the task. That is, what is the LMS’s underlying model, and how does it lead you to predict how to do x, y, and z.   If you can teach the model, and through a couple of examples and practice get them to be able to infer how to do other tasks, you’ve minimized ‘training’ and maximized their long-term success.   Your lack of access to SMEs means you have to become one, however, I reckon.   Doing good ID does mean more responsibility on the designer in any case.   Sorry.

On top of either approach (common tasks, or model-based learning) consider that your role is to put out some basic materials (don’t think training, think job aids), and then serve as a ‘consultant’.   Have them come to you to ask how to do things, and either create FAQ’s or more job aids, depending on their need and your assessment of the value proposition in either.   So don’t think your only solution is ‘training’.

Also consider gestating a ‘community’ to surround your wiki, and grow it into a self-help resource that people can get into to the level they can handle.   Have discussion board where people can post questions. You’ll be busy at first, but if they find value, it can grow to be self-sustaining.   People will often self-help, if it’s easy enough.

BTW, another organization had some success many years ago starting with a central office, bringing in and training local ‘champions’ who gradually moved the locus of responsibility back to their unit.   Of course, they got buy-in to do so, but you might try to work with your early adopters and help them become the local resources.

Overall, don’t try to accomplish everything with ‘the course’, but look to the broader range of performance ecosystem components (if you’ve followed my blog, you know I’m talking job aids, ecommunity, etc) and balance your efforts appropriately.

The response was that this was, indeed, helpful.   I feel for the person in the situation of having to do a particular role when the ‘received wisdom’ about how to do it is at odds with what really is useful, and is underresourced to boot. A too-frequent situation, and probably not decreasing, sigh.   But taking the broader performance perspective is a useful framework I also found useful in another recent engagement, professional development for teachers.   Don’t just worry about getting them the basics, and develop them as practitioners, even into experts, as well.   Moreover, help them help themselves!

This is just the type of situation where taking a step back and looking at what is being done can yield ways to rethink, or even just fine-tune the approach.   I typically find that it’s the case that there *are* such opportunities, and it’s an easy path to better outcomes.   Of course, I also find that years of experience and a wealth of relevant frameworks makes that easier ;).   What is your experience in adapting to circumstances and improving situations?

While I’ve lots more to say, I put a short version of my vision of elearning strategy in Michael Allen’s 2009 e-Learning Annual.   It’s about both getting the individual elements right, and establishing the connections between the elements to achieve synergy, not irrelevance (or worse).

This doesn’t include assessments, action plans, or more (I’m planning that for my pre-conference workshop on strategy at ASTD’s International Conference & Exposition), but it does lay out some of the reasoning and history behind the approach, the elements and some of the ways they go right (and wrong), and why they need to be tied together.

The whole book has a wonderful collection of articles.   It includes authors like Jay Cross, Karl Kapp, Lance Dublin, Bob Mosher, Ruth Colvin Clark, Marc Prensky, Saul Carliner & Margaret Driscoll, just to mention the ones I’ve met.   And important topics like Appreciative Inquiry, Performance Support, ROI, implementation, the value of research for design, virtual world design, and more.   It’s a great collection, and recommended.

However, I did want to make my chapter available, and am happy to say that I’ve done so. You can download the article (PDF).   I’d welcome your thoughts and feedback.

Over at the TogetherLearn site, I’ve added a post about ‘what it takes‘.   I guess it’s the ‘how do we make this work’ in me, but I wanted to wrap some concrete definition about their ‘the future of   the training department‘.   I very much agree with their view, but was concerned it could be viewed as too difficult.

Note that they are largely talking about a move to a self-help environment, as I discussed in my last post on the training department of the future.   I reckon, however, that a truly deep revisit and rethink will look at formal learning, portals, content governance and more, as well as the social learning component.   Still, the process is largely the same, it’s just that the scope is larger.   Just doing the social component, however, is likely to be the best short-term investment to get large benefits from a small step.

Realize that the roadmap isn’t going to be as specific as might be desired, but it helps to take an objective look from an experienced perspective and at least line up some near-term goals as well as some long-term desires, and figure out some steps that will take you there.   I can’t see an alternative, can   you?

In addition to working on the technology plan for my school district, I’ve also been assisting a not-for-profit trying to get strategic about technology.   The struggles are instructive, but looking across these two separate instances as well as the previous organizations I’ve assisted, I’m realizing that there are some common barriers.

The obvious one is time. The old saying about alligators and draining the swamp is too true, and it’s only getting worse.   Despite an economic stimulus package for the US and other countries, and (finally) a budget in my own state, things are not likely to get better soon.   Even if companies could hire back everyone they’ve laid off, the transition time would be significant.   It’s hard to sit back and reflect when you’re tackling more work with less resources.   Yet, we must.

The second part is more problematic.   Strategic thinking isn’t easy or obvious, at least to all.   For some it’s probably in their nature, but I reckon for most it takes a breadth of experience and an ability to abstract from that experience to take a broader perspective.   Abstraction, I know from my PhD research on analogy, isn’t well done without support.   Aligning that perspective with organizational goals simultaneously adds to the task.   Doing it keeping both short- and long-term values, for several different layers of stakeholders, and you’re talking some serious cognitive overhead.

We do need to take the time to be strategic.   As I was just explaining on a call, you don’t want to be taking small steps that aren’t working together towards a longer-term goal.   If you’re investing in X, and Y, and Z, and each one doesn’t build on each other, you’re missing an opportunity. If you’ve alternatives A & B, and A seems more expedient, if you haven’t looked to the future you might miss that B is a better long term investment.   If you don’t evaluate what else is going on, and leverage those initiatives because you’re just meeting your immediate needs, you’re not making the best investment for the organization, and putting yourself at risk.   You need to find a way to address the strategic position, at least for a percentage of your time (and that percentage goes up with your level in the organization).

To cope, we use frameworks and tools to help reduce the load, and follow processes to support systematicity and thoroughness. The performance ecosystem framework is one specific to use of technology to improve organizational learning, innovation, and problem-solving, but there are others.   Sometimes we bring in outside expertise to help, as we may be too tightly bound to the context and an external perspective can be more objective.

You can totally outsource it, to a big consulting company, but I reckon that the principle of ‘least assistance‘ holds here too.     You want to bring in top thinking in a lightweight way, rather than ending up with a bunch of interns trying to tie themselves to you at the wrist and ankles.   What can you do that will provide just the amount of help you need to make progress?   I have found that a lightweight approach can work in engagements with clients, so I know it can be done.   Regardless, however of wWhether you do it yourself, with partners, or bring in outside help, don’t abandon the forest for the trees, do take the time.   You need to be strategic, so be strategic about it!

For sins in my past, I’ve been invited on to our school district’s technology committee.   So, yesterday evening I was there as we were reviewing and rewriting the technology plan (being new to the committee, I wasn’t there when the existing one was drafted).   Broken up into five parts, including curriculum, infrastructure, funding, I was on the professional development section, with a teacher and a library media specialist.   Bear with me, as the principles here are broader than schools.

The good news: they’d broken up goals into two categories, the teacher’s tech skills, and the integration of tech into the curriculum. And they were measuring the tech skills.

The bad news: they were measuring things like percentage of teachers who’d put up a web page (using the district’s licensed software), and the use of the district’s electronic grading system. And their professional development didn’t include support for revising lesson plans.

Houston, we have some disconnects!

So, let’s take a step back.   What matters?   What are we trying to achieve?   It’s that kids learn to use technology as a tool in achieving their goals: research, problem-solving, communication.   That means, their lessons need to naturally include technology use.   You don’t teach the tool, except as ancillary to doing things with it!

What would indicate we were achieving that goal?   An increase in the use of lesson plans that incorporate technology into non-technology topics would be the most direct indicator.   Systematically, across the grade levels.   One of the problems I’ve seen is that some teachers don’t feel comfortable with the technology, and then for a year their students don’t get that repeated exposure.   That’s a real handicap.

However, teacher’s lesson plans aren’t evaluated (!).   They range from systematic to adhoc.   The way teachers are evaluated is that they have to set two action research plans for the year, and they take steps and assess the outcomes (and are observed twice), and that constitutes their development and evaluation.   So, we determined that we could make one of those action research projects focus on incorporating technology (if, as the teacher in our group suggested, we can get the union to agree).

Then we needed to figure out how to get teachers the skills they need.   They were assessed on their computer skills once a year, and courses were available.   However, there was no link between the assessment and courses.   A teacher complained that the test was a waste of time, and then revealed that it’s 15-30 minutes once a year.   The issue wasn’t really the time, it’s that the assessment wasn’t used for the teachers.

And instead of just tech courses, I want them to be working on lesson plans, and, ideally, using the tools to do so.   So instead of courses on software, I suggested that they need to get together regularly (they already meet by grade level, so all fifth grade teachers at a school meet together once a week) and work together on new lesson plans.   Actually, I think they need to dissect some good examples, then take an existing lesson plan and work to infuse it with appropriate technology, and then move towards creating new lesson plans.   To do so, of course, they’ll need to de-emphasize something.

Naturally, I suggested that they use wikis to share the efforts across the schools in the district, but that’s probably a faint hope.   We need to drive them into using the tools, so it would be a great requirement, but the level of technology skills is woefully behind the times.   That may need to be a later step.

One of the realizations is that, on maybe a ten-year window, this problem may disappear: those who can’t or won’t use tech will retire, and the new teachers will have it by nature of the culture.   So it may be a short-term need, but it is critical.   I can’t help feeling sorry for those students who miss a year or more owing to one teacher’s inability to make a transition.

At the end, we presented our results to the group.   We’ll see what happens, but we’ve a new coordinator who seems enthusiastic and yet realistic, so we’ll see what happens.   Fingers crossed! But at least we’ve tried to show how you could go towards important goals within the constraints of the system.   What ends up in the plan remains to be seen, but it’s just a school-level model of the process I advocate at the organizational level.   Identify what the important changes are, and align the elements to achieve it (a bit like ID, really).   If you’re going to bother, do it right, no?