The sessions below are designed for medium to large audiences and last about 60 minutes – but they can all be modified as appropriate for the audience and venue.

1. Instructional Design: How to Sell the Real Value
2. Doing More with Less: Shortcuts Don’t Work
3. SMEs - It’s a Marriage for Better or Worse
4. Managing the Learning Organization
5. Learner Validation:  Why Guess When You Can Measure?
6. Getting REAL Value from Your Analysis
7. Performance Partnering - Proactive and Reactive Performance Consulting

Dick Handshaw Presentation History

Instructional Design: How to Sell the Real Value

Is instructional design still relevant in today’s “do more with less” business environment? Do old, established models like ADDIE still have value in light of new types of media and new modes of communication? Does anyone have time to really do design?

In this session, Dick Handshaw will share 25 years of experience applying instructional design to various audiences, challenges, and technologies. Participants will explore the state of instructional design in today’s environment – and learn how to create and communicate the value and impact of real design in any learning initiative.

Performance Objectives:

1. Review the original value proposition for why Instructional Design was created in the first place.
2. Describe three strategies for creating real value and saving money with common Instructional Design practices.
3. Cite three case studies where Instructional Design has provided real value.
4. Use three strategies for communicating real value and for demonstrating value by positive example. 

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Doing More with Less: Shortcuts Don’t Work

Doing more with less in the training world is no longer a fad, it’s a trend. Corporations have tried to reduce training costs by sending training overseas, putting content online (often in the form of converted PowerPoint presentations), and making use of webinars and eLearning. The industry has also come up with faster, more streamlined ways to design and develop training.

How has this cost saving affected the bottom line for companies? How has it impacted the quality of training? Are we spending less and spending smarter, or just spending less? Dick Handshaw has a thirty year view of the training world, especially with technologies that are supposed to save time and money. In this session Dick will review strategies that didn’t work and he’ll share tactics to help participants actually do more with less.

Performance Objectives: 

1. Identify the true cost of learning in an organization.
2. Compare development costs to total learning costs.
3. Identify development shortcuts that really don’t work and why.
4. Determine when and how analysis can be a good investment.
5. Demonstrate how being proactive can cost less than being reactive

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SMEs - It’s a Marriage for Better or Worse

As a learning and performance leader, Dick Handshaw gets more questions on dealing with subject matter experts than on any other topic.

• Why are SMEs so difficult to get along with?
• Why don’t they take the advice of learning professionals on learning related matters?
• How can we get them to give us the feedback we need, on time?
• How can I keep them from changing their minds and adding to the project scope when it’s too late?

Dick will address these questions and more during this session on Subject Matter Experts. His answers come from several sources including project management process, the skills of performance consultants, and his own experience. Dick has worked with a variety of companies and will share the best practices he has learned from his research and work with SMEs.

Performance Objectives:

1. Be prepared to implement a process for better management of SME expectations.
2. Elicit better collaboration in developing learning solutions.
3. Achieve group consensus for the best possible learning solution.

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Managing the Learning Organization

Many people who provide leadership and management training for their organizations also manage their own learning organization. It is often hard to be objective and more difficult to manage your own team than to help others learn to manage.

Dick Handshaw has worked with a variety of large and small organizations and he has managed his own successful learning organization for twenty-five years. He will share his management best practices throughout this session. The format is an open discussion and Dick will break the process down into six major categories to guide the conversation. He will pause throughout the session to poll the audience for live data to support the points being discussed.

Participants will be invited to share opinions, war stories, and solutions during this introspective look at managing your own learning organization.

Performance Objectives: 

1. Apply the six points used by the presenters to your own learning organization.
2. Share your best practices with the group and evaluate them based upon the discussion.
3. Apply lessons learned through the discussion to the management of your learning organization for immediate results.

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Learner Validation:  Why Guess When You Can Measure?

Many people shy away from measuring learning after the fact because it is often time-consuming and difficult.  Why not measure the results of your learning while you develop it using a low cost method of validation with actual learners?

In this session Dick Handshaw will share his process for prototype creation and testing.  Participants will learn the keys to gathering usable data for making revisions or design decisions.  Dick will share his first-hand experience with participants to help them learn how to measure results that lead to solid improvements to the final product, with no “guesswork” involved.

Performance Objectives:

1. Select a prototype for a Learner Tryout
2. Select sample learners for a Learner Tryout
3. Observe and collect data during a Learner Tryout
4. Observe and collect data during a Field Test
5. Make appropriate revisions based on the data collected
6. Get “buy-in” from learners and sponsors

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Getting REAL Value from Your Analysis

Many instructional designers understand that analysis is important, but too often they skip it or do a less than effective analysis because they don’t have the time. Good analysis should save time so consistently that if it is done well, it would be the last thing designers would skip when in a hurry.  One of Dick Handshaw’s colleagues says, “If you don’t do analysis, you’d better be prepared to do design over and over and over…”

This session will model efficient processes for:

1. Task analysis
2. Audience Analysis
3. Learning Culture analysis

Three separate case studies will be used to illustrate the value provided by each of these processes in actual project applications. Small teams will practice task analysis development for a sample learning task. Once participants have mastered the skills for doing an efficient task analysis, they will never approach a learning project without this valuable step again.

Performance Objectives: 

1. Identify three effective process of analysis that will provide value and shorten over-all development time.
2. Describe how these processes work in real project work and case studies.
3. Apply a process for developing task analysis that is reliable and easy to use with the proper amount of practice.

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Performance Partnering – Proactive and Reactive Performance Consulting

Trainers are expected to practice performance consulting with their clients in an effort to bring measureable results from money spent on learning.  This presentation is designed for trainers who want to become better business partners to their clients in their role as learning developers.  The Performance Partnership presentation exposes participants to Handshaw’s two-part process.

The first part of the process focuses on creating proactive consulting relationships with key business leaders in the organization.  For trainers, this is often a challenge.  Participants will be shown examples of positive and negative behavior and will be able to visualize the process as they watch one team of participants perform a live role-play during the session.

The second part of the process focuses on re-framing.  Many training professionals cringe when a client suggests, “We need to do some good old-fashioned, back to basics training.”  During the second portion of the presentation, participants will learn how to handle this request in a way that yields better results for the participant and the client.  One team of participants will develop skills using a re-framing exercise that allows them to become both consultant and client as they practice turning a training request into a performance consulting opportunity. 

Performance Objectives: 

1. Engage clients in discussions about business goals and barriers to performance even when there is no immediate project or opportunity on the table.
2. Engage the client in an open discussion about business needs and the performance required to support them.
3. Observe eight skills that will facilitate the proactive interview.
4. Observe and improve eight skills that will facilitate the re-framing discussion.
5. Identify opportunities to conduct further analysis of the performance needs in order to identify learning needs.

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