| Wednesday February 17, 2010 Recently, I had a conversation with someone new to my work and it struck me that she didn't fully understand the value that innovative training (without Powerpoint) can bring to her organization. Understanding training's value helps you make the best decisions about when and why to use it. Innovative Training Supports the Organization's Goals  Lowered Training Costs.
Producing traditional training is time consuming whether it's in person or online. With innovative approaches like Conversational Learning, the Learning Construction Site and the World Café , each time a learning opportunity presents itself the training can be set up in less than a week. Because your preparation costs are minimal and the returns you gain from your team avoiding past mistakes has real impact, you lower training costs considerably. Improved Morale. Training organized this way is essentially a work of capacity building. Recent studies reveal that recognition for a job well done is the number one motivator at work. Allowing top-performers to teach your team not only recognizes their work, but it also allows urgent learning topics to bubble up and be dealt with in an organized forum. Increased Productivity. Innovative training is not only done in person but also uses e-learning and webconferencing. It is not bound by geography or time. As a result you can control training's impact on production by training people during down times. In addition, with the current economy, you're asking people to do more with less. So innovative training is a great way to give them the tools and skills needed to enhance their performance. Innovative Training Nurtures a Learning Organization & Community  Effective Knowledge Management.
Many people see training as a workshop experience. But innovative training includes all sort of online technologies. If - aside from classroom time - you incorporate some of the tools that allow collaboration and conversation, you can capture organizational knowledge that is available for future learners. Encouragement of Sharing. The foundation of a learning community is built on sharing what you know with others. This is where incorporating a forum or wiki really adds value to your team. Depending on how the course is structured, you can encourage sharing of resources and insight gained from the course.
 One of the challenges with making training more effective is to clearly state its results. I'm an advocate of defining the training results in business terms.
If you're training your employees, you might consider how that impacts their learning and new results. Do people have access to training resources when the course is complete? Are you rewarding them for implementing the learning? What accountability mechanism exists after the class? ASK YOURSELF: What action will need to happen in the next 90 days to verify that the knowledge gained in this class has changed some behaviors? Innovative training is cost effective and can produce great results. Where have you seen innovative training effectiveness in action? What suggestions would you offer to those who are just getting started?
Feel free to share your ideas via the comments link.
Adriano Pianesi
ParticipAction Consulting Inc. | www.participactioninc.com
306 Aspen Place, Alexandria, VA 22305 Ph: 703-920-0208 | Fax: 703-562-0856 | Cell: 202-262-3371
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