I was attending a fantastic training event last week, the Bronze level of Kirkpatrick four levels evaluation certificate program. I’m going to try to explain the model taught and (of course) used in class with an example a little bit more close to heart than “evaluate the result of a training program”.

Let’s start from the back (at Level 4) – What do we want?

So, I and my family want to be able to pick our own apples in two years’ time and we don’t know a thing about planting or caring for trees. Therefor we’re starting up a tree planting project with homegrown apple pie as our first prize. This is our Level 4 Stakeholder Expectation. Now, why do we start with the fourth and last level and not the first one? Because it actually makes more sense this way! Be patient and continue reading…

Continue reading →

Time to do a quick review of what posts got the most visitors last year. I’ll do one for Q1 2013 as well but that’ll have to wait until later. The list looks like this:

1. Sharing implicit knowledge by writing, reading and reflecting – Written as an answer to one of Harold Jarches brilliant posts (Communities of practice enable the integration of work and learning) and the subject of sharing implicit knowledge.
2. Going from training to coaching – Got some ideas about asking questions and getting that inner dialog from attending a webinar by Tim Hagen from Sales Progress in connection to what Scott H Young says about aceing your finals without studying.
3. Annoyed with my own post: Why this focus on training? – About thinking the only way to learn is by creating or attending a training… Jeez…
4. Sir Ken Robinson – a friend of yours? – If you don’t know this guy, get to know him!
5. Turning implicit knowledge into explicit – On how you could help senior staff to be as great role models as possible for junior employees.

Most of us L&D professionals like to create structured learning programs to support the always existing informal work-based learning. But how do we incorporate various channels for these learning opportunities at the same time as we try to keep them work-based, peer-based or formal, i.e. grounded in the 70-20-10 framework? Continue reading →

Jane Hart posted ABC: Keep it Simple Training a few days after my post on Business performance vs Certification requirements. The similarities between them strengthen my case and in her post Hart shares a link to Jane Bozart’s Nuts and Bolts: Design Assessments First that also makes an interesting case for starting with assessments instead of the content.

Lets start by looking at connecting performance goals with the assessment. With a blend of Kirkpatrick (the 4 levels) and Cathy Moore’s Action mapping we also get the idea of really starting with the business side of things, e.g. success indicators, business outcomes, critical behaviors and KPI’s etc. If you have all of these you should start asking yourself “what does the employee need to do?”. These should not be transformed into academic learning objectives but left as they are – as story questions.

“(…) poorly written or academic learning objectives drive assessment items. Objectives that use verbs such as “list,” “define,” and “describe” practically force the designer to load bulleted content onto slides, followed up with a multiple-choice test or Jeopardy!-style quiz. The content is easy to write, and bullet, and test … but the items aren’t testing performance.”

Jane Bozart

Continue reading →

 “Practice doesn’t make perfect: it only makes it permanent. Practice is repetition, and if you repeat the same mistakes over and over again, you will just become very good at making mistakes. Along the way, you might learn a thing or two. Some single individual might get a revelation and be hailed as a genius. But for the most of us practice only make us good at doing something bad. If perfection is your goal – and I’m not sure it should be – then it is practicing perfection that makes perfect.”

David duChemin

What the best-selling author and photographer David duChemin says rings true to me and this strikes me as something that has been indirectly suggested in posts from my fellow L&D bloggers, but it hasn’t been expressed properly. I’m not bashing anyone but it deserves to be properly announced:

For the 70-20-10 model to work as intended in a workplace setting it needs a manager holding it all together. The manager is what connects the pieces of 70-20-10.

Continue reading →

I got inspired by the post The Art Of Timelines For Learning and this illustration on Wikimedia. The question I asked myself was; what if one could illustrate the content of a course (or a learning program) in a graphical way and thereby giving the content an unique visual signature? Click the picture below to see it better.

Continue reading →