Managing Training Projects

Have you ever experienced working on a training project without a project manager overseeing it? One of the lessons I’ve learned from past experience is the importance of keeping on top of a training project, and the best way to ensure that happens is to have someone clearly responsible for project management. Regardless of the size of the project, effective project management can be the deciding factor on how successful a training project is. A good project manager will manage project communication, resources, budget, timeline, and deliverables to ensure the project runs smoothly and the product meets or exceeds the stakeholder’s needs and expectations.

Here’s how project managers bring value to your training project and support a successful outcome.

From the perspective of the project team, the project manager is the person on the team that manages and tracks the high level project activities so that team members are free to focus on the job of analyzing, creating and designing the instruction rather than having to juggle their job AND the management of the project.  Stakeholders also benefit from a project manager overseeing their training project; they have one clear go-to person when they have any questions or issues and can feel comfortable knowing that the project manager is looking out for their best interests.  A project manager can coordinate resources, quickly identify risks, manage the budget and oversee and keep on top of the many other project tasks and challenges that will arise while providing a clear path of communication with the stakeholder throughout the project.

A Project Manager‘s responsibilities for a training project can be broken down into three phases:

1. The project kick-off, which includes such activities as facilitating the kick-off project team meeting with the stakeholder, developing a project plan, creating a timeline, organizing resources, communicating team responsibilities and deliverables and finalizing the project budget.

2. Ongoing project activity, which includes such activities as providing regular project updates and communication with stakeholders, managing issues, risks and roadblocks, tracking the project budget and tasks, organizing stakeholder reviews and sign-offs of deliverables, managing contractors and managing changes to the project scope.

3. The Project Wrap-Up, which includes such activities as delivering the final product(s)/service(s), getting stakeholder sign-off on the project, conducting a post-mortem of the project and ensuring stakeholder satisfaction.

As you can see, having a project manager as part of your training project can provide many benefits to your organization. Above all, the improved efficiency in delivering products or services that is spearheaded by good project management leads to increased stakeholder satisfaction, which ultimately results in meeting or exceeding your stakeholder’s expectations - and we all want that!

What project management strategies have you successfully implemented for your training projects?

Making training work for everyone

Sometimes Paula and I are called upon to help clients with specific needs for specific audiences, like sales training on a new product for a group of sales reps or a retail sales team. These groups generally find it easy to relate to each other and see the value of training in a session as they have similar goals and similar work functions. When we work with an organization that is training a diverse workforce it becomes much more evident that training material must speak to each worker no matter their role.

Say you’re responsible for ensuring every individual in a company that builds widgets has WHMIS (Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System) training. People working with chemicals in the widget manufacturing facility will easily see why they need the training. A janitor may be able to make the connection to their role. But what about the office receptionist or the accountant? You must tap into the ‘what’s in it for me?’ factor to engage these people in the learning – without having this motivation, they won’t value the training, which means they won’t absorb the information and the transfer back to the job will be low.

In the ideal world we'd all do one-on-one training so that each individual's motivational needs are addressed, but this usually isn't practical or feasible. Here are three ways you can help ensure you are motivating all employees in a training program:

1. To address in a simple and fairly inexpensive way, use images in your learning material that represent all the different groups of employees you are training. This may seem like a no-brainer, but it's amazing how many times it gets missed. Sometimes it's challenging to find the image you need with the right type of employee to support the concept, but remember that the value of seeing an employee that learners identify with far outweighs their concern over high-end photography. Don't be afraid to pick up that digital camera and grab some workplace models to pose for you!

2. A step beyond making sure you're addressing all learners with your images is incorporating plenty of examples that speak from the perspective of different types of employees. Examples can be anything from general comments within the learning material to a scenario set up in a paragraph and followed by review questions to a programmed scenario in an e-learning course that takes the employee down a different path based on what answers they give in different situations.

3. If your budget allows it, an effective way to address different learners in one course - whether in a face-to-face training guide, self-study manual or e-learning module - is to have employees work through one of three or four pathways through the content. Each pathway represents a different group of learners, like manufacturing employees, maintenance employees and administrative employees in the widget company example . The core content is the same for all, but the images, examples and review exercises are all customized for the different group so the learning really speaks to them.

What methods have you used to make your training work for a diverse audience?

First Steps in Creating an e-Learning Strategy

Many organizations that have traditionally offered ILT (instructor-led training) are venturing into the e-learning realm to improve the quality of their learning programs and get the best ROI from their training budget. The tricky part when you’re unfamiliar with developing and managing e-learning is where to start when you don’t know what you need to know to get started. Change is good and necessary but can also be daunting. Creating an e-learning strategy - a document that shows the value of implementing e-learning, answers the important questions and lays out a path for success - will ensure you consider all the potential issues and possible solutions in order to make informed decisions. Having a clear, concise and well thought out strategy will also win you support from senior management and key stakeholders. Implementing e-Learning in an organization requires people, infrastructure and budget resources. Senior management support will pave the way to successful implementation.

Here's a snapshot of some of the key factors you need to consider for your strategy:

Educate your audience

Don't assume that those reviewing your strategy will know as much about e-learning as you - it's worthwhile to give a brief outline and state the benefits.

Link to business goals and demonstrate ROI

Your senior management stakeholders will be asking themselves "Will e-Learning add sufficient value to the organization?" and What are the cost savings and expected improvements to business and employee performance?" Satisfy them by identifying how e-learning implementation will support business goals, and showing the estimated return on investment that can be expected (free tools are available online to help you do this). 

Think about communication

Many a great endeavor has failed due to poor communication. As part of your strategy, be prepared to create a detailed and focused communication plan. Use champions and mentors, communicate roll-out plans using e-mail, newsletters, publicity, focus groups, intranet, etc. and provide mechanisms for employee input.

Consider necessary IT support

Buy-in and support from IT is important to the success of any e-Learning implementation - you need IT on your side. IT groups are usually busy, and will want to know if the infrastructure is in place or available to support e-learning and  just what technical support is required. Be prepared to determine what IT implementation, upgrade and escalation plans are required. 

Address cultural change

This can be a HUGE challenge for some organizations so it’s important to identify in your e-learning strategy how change will be managed. Learners new to e-learning may be resistant to the change (i.e., “it works just fine the way it is.”). Create awareness, dispel myths, emphasize the “WIIFM” (what’s in it for me), provide training, communicate and encourage learner discussion and input.

Identify resources

The people, equipment and materials required to implement e-learning are both necessary for success and a cost and time consideration. Be sure to identify who will be involved and estimate their time commitment in your strategy; consider everyone from project sponsor to the target audience. 

Ensure accessibility for all learners

Your strategy must address how learners will gain access to your e-learning courses. Consider not only access to computers, network(s) and required software programs but also accessibility for learners with physical challenges (i.e., the visually impaired).

Draft a project plan

When you have gathered all the other data, you will need to create a project plan that estimates the time, resources and budget that will be required to plan, schedule, communicate, implement and evaluate the e-Learning program. This will form your blueprint for implementation of your strategy. 

Of course this could be considered the tip of the iceberg when it comes to crafting a complete strategy. If you're interested in finding out more, please contact us.

For further reading, check out this interesting article I found the other day on creating an e-Learning strategy.  The information provides more food for thought.

The value of analysis

Clients that I’ve worked with over the years have asked me a tough question – “What do you think is the most critical step in designing a training program?” Putting on my Instructional Designer "cap", this question always gives me pause for thought because it’s difficult to narrow it down to just one. The ADDIE model that we apply to all of our client projects here at Limestone Learning includes Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation phases.  Although all are very important, my answer is always ANALYSIS!

Analysis is the cornerstone of training, and it’s a critical step in the planning of any potential training program because it provides an organization with justification on whether training should be developed or not. When employees see an issue in their organization, it’s automatically assumed that training will solve it, but this isn’t always the case. Other causes such as inadequate documentation, low motivation/incentive, inadequate policies in place, and environmental issues can also be factors. So it’s really important to analyse training needs first to ensure that your training solution, if required, is relevant, effective, and meets the specific needs of the audience and the organization.

The response I typically hear is “… we don’t have time/money/resources to do analysis.” It's important to have a plan of action before starting analysis to ensure you stay focused and effective and provide results that are linked to the objectives and goals of your business.  Many well-intentioned organizations have conducted analysis that went on forever, engaged unnecessary resources and ultimately didn't provide the information they needed. Any organization will save time, money and resources by conducting a focused analysis and any training that is developed will more accurately meet the needs of the intended audience.

In today’s belt-tightening economy, we need to make smart decisions and look for ways to ensure that money allocated for training is wisely spent. Stay tuned for a future blog article on the types of analysis that can be conducted in the Analysis phase.

 

Three reasons to consider e-learning for your next training project

According to the Canadian Society for Training and Development, approximately 80% of professional development in Canada now includes e-learning. It’s obvious that an increasing number of organizations are seeing the value of investment in e-learning as an alternative to traditional classroom training. We think there are three main reasons everyone should consider e-learning as an option when developing a training program:

1. Economic Value

• Travel costs for trainers and learners are significantly reduced, if not eliminated.
• Session costs – room rental, catering and the like – are eliminated.
• Learner’s training time is maximized.
• Tracking functions can ensure manager’s time is used efficiently.

2. Flexibility in Delivery

• No classroom setup required; learners can take training from any computer that meets minimum system requirements.
• Many learners can participate in training at once, at times convenient to them or to their team, and work at their own pace.
• Courses can be updated quickly to accommodate changes to content or make improvements.
• Multiple courses from one organization or division, or on a particular topic, can easily be organized and permissions can limit access to them.
• Learning paths can be customized for particular user groups.

3. Consistency of Outcomes

• All learners learn the same material in the same manner.
• There are potentially higher rates of completion and retention.
• Learning content can be the “best of the best”: all subject matter experts can collaborate more effectively to ensure all topics and perspectives are covered.

Of course there is also a time and place for face-to-face training, but e-learning can be a useful option that allows you to maximize the time spent in the classroom for those topics that really benefit from hands-on experience.

Welcome

Welcome to the Limestone Learning blog. Paula and I are hoping to share our thoughts and ideas about training and learning development here, as well as pass along interesting items we find around the Web. Feel free to comment and share your own thoughts!