By: William Ryan

When you search “microlearning” you will find many different definitions. eLearning Industry says it could be “could either be small learning units or short-term learning activities.” While Shannon Tipton has said microlearning is: Short bursts of focused “right-sized” content to help people achieve a specific outcome.  I learn towards Ray Jimenez’s emphasis on work results and focusing on how to help workers fix, solve and improve work issues. I look at microlearning as a way to support people at the time and place of need, to help them kNOW.

Microlearning brings to mind short videos and small eLearning modules but we need to understand that we are supporting performance so let’s focus on issues and barriers people are facing. Review internal audit reports, look at the operational performance metrics, and go ask the people doing the work where they find barriers to productivity. Then provide that solution in whatever delivery channel that works best such as mobile, augmented reality, or even a taped-up job aid!

Microlearning is about putting solutions in the flow of work, it is a strategic application of learning as a business tool that seamlessly integrates training content, performance support, coaching and community connections (the knowledge experts who can help the person find the needed solution, apply it and be able to retrieve it the next time the task or process is being done.

So microlearning is about putting actionable learning in the workflow and we need to be in the middle of this because the people doing the work will go find their own answers and that doesn’t mean they are going to stop work and sign up for a class.  When a problem si now, people will search on their own so let’s be the champion of their success by helping them learn to learn without knowing they are learning!   Microlearning can provide the solution kNOW!

Join our upcoming HRDQ-U webinar titled “Microlearning: Learning in the Flow of Work” on August 12, 2020 at 2pm ET/11am PT.

By Jack J. Phillips, Ph.D., Chairman, ROI Institute, Inc.

Everyone can agree that learning is crucial to the success of any organization. Yet learning and talent development professionals often fail to show that their efforts are directly improving the organization’s performance. The result? CEOs and other key decision-makers don’t see the value of learning programs and they may end up on the chopping block—along with the budget.

The Shift

More and more, CEOs are asking CLOs to prove how a program will impact the organization. To achieve this requires programs to demonstrate value at every phase of the learning system. This is most likely to require a change in how learning is initiated, designed, delivered, and evaluated.

Executive demands are the result of a paradigm shift that is reshaping many different aspects of learning and development. Figure 1 shows the shift along eleven issues. Measures have shifted from input focus (counting people) to outcome (business results). Executives need to perceive learning as an investment and not a cost. Evaluation has shifted from reaction and learning to impact and ROI.

Figure 1. Changing Paradigms for Learning

Enter Design Thinking

Learning professionals must keep specific, measurable business outcomes firmly in mind at every step of the learning and development process, taking a cue from innovation using design thinking principles. Specifically, they need to design for success, with that success defined as credible data connecting the learning programs to the business. This can be accomplished with eight steps using design thinking principles.¹

Consequences of Status Quo

 When learning and development do not focus on business results, damaging repercussions can occur. For example:

1. Investments are made on Most would agree that this is a dangerous way to fund a functional area. Sustainability comes into question when the funding is based on perception of value, intangible benefits, or other logical deductions.
2. Middle managers cease to support investments in learning. Middle-level managers are critical to the success of learning and talent development functions. Participants in the program usually report to these managers. Because these programs normally take participants away from the time needed to perform their jobs, their managers need data to show what participants will do and accomplish with the new Without these types of results, support will be minimal.
3. The commitment for learning and talent development will diminish. Commitment translates into support from the top. The tangible evidence of commitment is the budget and resources for learning, and this includes the actions that top executives take to be actively involved in learning and support and encourage the learning process. Without business results, commitment will suffer.
4. The influence of the learning function is diminished. It is hard to have a seat at the table without a clear connection to the business value of the organization. Consequently, influence suffers, which hampers the ability to secure approvals and implement processes to get the work done.
5. Budgets are curtailed or not funded properly. While budgets will be funded, the right programs may not be funded properly, or the total amount of funding may be less than needed to address the organization’s needs. In tough economic times, the learning budgets are the first to go; during a recession, this can happen in a very dramatic This is occurring now in the United States, as well as worldwide.
6. The image of the learning and development function Some managers perceive learning and development as a “necessary evil.” The image could be shifted to a perception of learning as a business-driving process, one that makes a difference to important metrics in the organization.
7. Team satisfaction will diminish. All learning and talent development stakeholders would like to see their contribution to important, bottomline measures in the organization. This line of sight from each person’s contribution to the business has to be clear. Without that connection, without evidence and proof that they make a difference, the team becomes concerned about the value of what they contribute.

The cumulative effect of these consequences may be tough to measure but they are almost certainly devastating, both to learning and development professionals and to the organization as a whole, with loss of budget, influence, and respect. The approach followed for many years is not sustainable. Programs must focus on results at every step of the learning cycle. This will increase the influence on the talent development investment in the future.

References:

1. Phillips, Patti P. and Jack J. Phillips. The Business Case for Learning: Using Design Thinking to Deliver Business Results and Increase the Investment in Talent Development. Westchester, PA and Alexandria, VA: HRDQ and ATD Press, 2017.

About the Author

Dr. Jack J. Phillips is a world-renowned expert on accountability, measurement, and evaluation. He is the chairman of ROI Institute, Inc., which provides consulting services for Fortune 500 companies and major global organizations. He is the author or editor of more than 100 books and conducts workshops and presents at conferences throughout the world.

Jack has received several awards for his books and work. On three occasions, Meeting News named him one of the 25 Most Powerful People in the Meetings and Events Industry, based on his work on ROI. The Society for Human Resource Management presented him with an award for one of his books and honored a Phillips ROI study with its highest award for creativity. The American Society for Training and Development gave him its highest award, Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Development. The International Society for Performance Improvement presented Jack with its highest award, the Thomas F. Gilbert Award, for his contribution to human performance technology. In 2019, Jack, along with his wife Patti P. Phillips, received the Distinguished Contributor Award by the Center for Talent Reporting for their contribution to the measurement and management of human capital. His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and Fortune. He has been interviewed by several television programs, including CNN.

Jack regularly consults with clients in manufacturing, service, and government organizations in 70 countries around the world. He can be reached at jack@roiinstitute.net.

For more information, please visit www.roiinstitute.net.

Join our upcoming HRDQ-U webinar titled “We Are All Performance Consultants” on August 26, 2020 at 2pm ET/11am PT.

By Marc Ratcliffe 

In reality, a great dessert can help to complete a successful meal. A bad dessert leaves a sour taste in your mouth that can ruin the whole dining experience. In the context of training, the dessert relates to how we close. We want them to have something to savour from the experience that, like a multi-course meal, brings everything together. For many years, I have preached about the virtues of a powerful close through my trainer training programs. Good training closes, bad training ends. You owe it to your participants to finish the session with impact. And like a great dessert, you want to give them something that has them yearning for more.

Next time, deliver your training and finish by putting the “CREAM” on top!

C – Celebrate: Participants have invested time, money and energy in attending training.  As such, it is important to honour and recognise their contribution and investment in the learning. Celebration can take many forms. It could involve formal recognition through the presentation of certificates and other learning awards at the conclusion of training or the broadcasting of student success via newsletters and other communication formats. It could also be conducted in a less-formal way through a round of applause, high-five or the use of a team chant.

R – Revisit: It is important for the participants to go over the content in an interesting way, one last time, prior to the conclusion of the training. This will help them to promote reinforcement.

E – Elicit Responses:  The trainer needs to create moments to check for understanding and have participants involved with their own learning. Common concluding activities that elicit responses include quizzes, game show-style questioning and final presentations made by individuals or groups.

A – Action Plan: Give the participants some time to reflect upon the important concepts or ideas learned in the session. Essentially, you are giving them the opportunity to provide advice to themselves for future implementation. Therefore, action planning helps the participants to transfer what they have learned in the training room to their own situations. By spending some time reflecting and writing, there is a much greater chance that they will both retain and apply the content.

M – Movement: This may be the simple movement out of a classroom or it could be movement to a collage of ideas or a transition to a different space for new learning. Having bodies in motion will help the participants to stay focused and engaged. However, it is a good idea to consider what you want them to do when they are moving. Do you want them to write a response on a post-it note and add it to a poster? Do you want them to do a physical exercise? Do you want them to review a series of posters and summarise the content? Do you want them to connect with other learners as they move around? The key is to have them move with purpose, rather than move for the sake of moving. Be sure to provide clear instructions of want you need them to do.

The closing of a training session is just as important as the opening, as it helps to tie things together. A session shouldn’t end simply because the time is up. Moreover, it should be a considered and controlled process which maximises the impact from all the learning. It is the trainer’s final opportunity to remind the participants of the key messages of the training event and should provide time for both reflection and forward thinking.

Marc Ratcliffe, CEO, MRWED Training and Assessment

Join our upcoming HRDQ-U webinar titled “The Trainer’s Cookbook: Recipes for Learning Engagement Success” on August 5, 2020 at 2pm ET/11am PT.

By Keith Keating

Recently speaking with a senior manager in a learning organization, he said to me: “The business is our most important client; they have the money.”  Pinching the back of my hand to hold my composure, I took a deep breath before I began the long journey of trying to change their misconstrued viewpoint.  In L&D, saying the business is most important because they have the money is analogous to a doctor claiming that the insurance company is most important because they have the money.  I recognize some doctors may hold this priority, as do some L&D organizations– but we know neither is correct.  Patients should be the most important client and focus for doctors, just as our learners should be our focus and most important client.

More often than not, L&D requests do come directly from the business.   The requests usually include a murky description of the problem accompanied by a very clear prescription of the solution.  A common request might sound something like: “We want a 30-minute web-based training (WBT)” or “Create a two-hour virtual-instructor led training (VILT).”  Having been molded into reactive order-takers, we oblige. After all, the business has the money, and the client “knows” what they want, right?  Wrong!

I’ve tried this approach with my doctor: I research WebMD.com for my symptoms, read the remedy, and confidently relay this to my doctor, expecting a reward for the time I’ve saved him from doing his job.  And yet, each time he reminds me that he’s the professional; explains how my two-minute research fails in comparison to his 15 years in the medical profession; and warns how detrimental my self-diagnosis could have been to my health.  Allowing our business partners to self-diagnose–and prescribe solutions for our learners–allows them to jeopardize the health or learner experience for our learners.

Although we would love to respond to the business in the same way my doctor responds to me when I self-diagnose, it’s probably not wise to remind our business partners that we are the learning professionals if we want to keep our jobs.  So what can we do when the business self-diagnoses and self-medicates on behalf of our learners?  One approach we can take is to engage our business partners in co-engineering a remedy that maintains a keen focus on our shared priority – the learner.  Design thinking could be just what the doctor ordered!

Design thinking is a framework for creative problem-solving.  It’s a methodology that focuses on the end user, the learner. Applying design thinking to the L&D setting helps to unlock the users’ needs and problems, even when they don’t know what the problem is or are not able to articulate them correctly (Hello, business partners!).  Historically, design thinking has been well-known for helping to solve design problems with products.  But a lesser-known secret is that design thinking can be applied to problems with services or processes.  In fact, design thinking can be applied to a number of challenges around recruitment, performance improvement, employee engagement and organizational development, just to name a few L&D applications.

Design thinking helps us be better business partners by providing a methodology to follow, evolving L&D from portraying reactive order-takers to proactive solution partners.  Rather than accept the problem statement at face value, we empathize with our learners to understand from their point of view the challenges they face.  And we maintain that connection with our learners throughout the solution design process.

Empathy and understanding are the foundation upon which all design thinking principles rest.  Design thinking helps us take a step back and start with problem finding before moving into problem-solving.  When we take orders without doing the due diligence of understanding the problem, we do a disservice to the business by potentially wasting their money. We do an even bigger disservice to our learners by not providing the right remedy to solve their challenges.  Design thinking is a structured—but not too rigid—format we can utilize to engage with our business partners and our learners to keep our focus right where it belongs: on the learner.

So the next time your business partner self-diagnoses and dictates the remedy for our learners, consider applying the design thinking methodology. Making this recommendation will help you to serve the business as a better partner; ensure the business’s money is well-invested; and refines the focus on our most important client, the learners.  After all, whatever the business challenge or performance challenge, it’s the learner we want to impact. Why would we design an experience that fails to serve their needs?

Join our upcoming HRDQ-U two-part webinar series titled “Design Thinking: From Theory to Application”.

Design Thinking: From Theory to Application (Part 1: Theory) on July 29, 2020 at 2pm ET/11am PT.

Design Thinking: From Theory to Application (Part 2: Application) on August 19, 2020 at 2pm ET/11am PT.