Posted: May 29

June is a great time for a visit to our nation’s capital and I’m really looking forward to my time there. On the 12^th, I’ll be visiting the Potomac ISPI – Greater Washington Area chapter and will be presenting “SMEs: It’s a Marriage for Better or Worse.” As the title suggests, all of us who develop training rely heavily on our Subject Matter Experts for success. We can’t work without them, but many of us find challenges working with them. I called on Handshaw, Inc. clients and employees to find out some of the toughest issues they experience working subject matter experts and successful strategies for resolving them. I will also use the experience of my audience as we discuss the Top Ten issues based on my research and their potential solutions.

On June 14^th, I will be visiting the ASTD Maryland - Baltimore, MD Area chapter. I’ll be presenting, “Doing More with Less: Shortcuts Don’t Work.” In order to run a profitable learning business for the past 28 years, we’ve learned what shortcuts work and which ones don’t. Most of them are not very effective. It seems there is no substitute for just doing things right the first time. In this presentation we will first examine the true cost of developing learning and take a surprising look at where most of the expense goes—and it’s not where most organizations think it goes. Then we’ll look at several shortcuts that don’t work and a few that do. We’ll wrap up by discussing some strategies that will help you do more with less. Don’t expect any silver bullets here; just a good dose of reality.

In closing, I’d like to thank the members of ASTD Chattanooga for a great turnout and an enthusiastic reception during my visit last month. I presented “Performance Partnering.” As usual, the live reframing role play was the big hit of the presentation. Special thanks to the two volunteers who participated and helped make this session a success.

Posted: May 8

During the Development phase of each project, we build a prototype of the courseware and test out our instructional and assessment strategies with a small group of our target audience in a “Learner Tryout” (LTO).  This process never fails to provide us with valuable and critical feedback that helps us ensure our final deliverables will be as effective as they can be.  However, while the process is down to a science, the art of the LTO is a different story.  You’re bound to encounter at least two of the following “Murphy’s Laws of LTO:”

Posted: May 1

After the wonderful ISPI Conference in April, that will be a tough month to beat. This year’s conference was my favorite one I have ever attended. If you are thinking about a conference to go to next year, think about ISPI in mid-April in Reno, NV. It is THE conference for anyone in the performance improvement profession.

Posted: April 23

This is one of my favorite quotes from my friend and mentor, Jim Robinson. It came to mind this morning as I was talking to friend and associate, Chris Adams, just as we walked out of a session at the 2012 ISPI conference in Toronto. A lot of us find our way into the learning and performance improvement field quite by accident. Most of us perform our jobs quite well without advanced degrees or formal training in our chosen field, but how long can we keep that up?

Posted: April 12

I’m not making the assumption that all Instructional Design teams need transforming, but I have worked with many teams over the years that have made a conscious decision to change. The best way to determine if your team needs to make changes is to conduct your own gap analysis. First, create a vision of what you want your team to look like. Now, take an objective look at your current results and accomplishments. To complete your gap analysis, look at the performance that is yielding your current results and try to identify what kind of performance will be required to attain the results described in your vision. This way you can define your business gap and your performance gap.