Recommended Reading: Trainer Development

How to Train LOTS of People in Diverse Locations

Exploring the Challenges of Cost, Consistency, and Creativity

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Has your business or organization ever been "hit" with the need to train many people in new regulations, procedures, or processes? Add a time crunch and diminished resources, and you've got a situation that only creativity will solve.

Here's the story of how 3 different organizations managed to:

• Frequently replicate training,
• Transmit standardized information while retaining consistency, and
• Save money by primarily using existing, in-house resources instead of expensive outsiders.

As you read, you will notice that two of the stories below come from the field of judicial branch education. That's because I was privileged to participate in the national conference of court administrators this August. I was stimulated with the innovations I heard in a field that, like many others, is severely challenged by budget cuts.

1. Training Judges: Creating a CD-ROM

In one state, a new mandate required that all judges implement new legal procedures within a fast-approaching deadline. The state court's judicial education program was faced with educating several hundred judges--fast. Most judges' schedules did not allow standard classroom training. Besides, the mandated deadline made it impossible to develop a curriculum, then train enough trainers to deliver it.

The two judicial educators in this state decided to take the leap into distance education. With assistance from their state's IT unit, they developed a CD-ROM. Development took about five months. When the CD was complete, the educators mailed it, with instructions, to all judges. The judges use the CD as their schedules permit. The educators have ensured that the judges have received the information and that the implementation deadline is met.

Upside of this approach: Potentially, all judges in the state get trained to integrate the new procedures into their practice. Though developing the CD was not cheap, it served an important purpose for future replication: The educators, having mastered their own learning curve, can now create CDs as both a stand-alone or supplemental training feature, which will greatly reduce training costs.

Downside of this approach: No real accountability is built into the system. "Judges just don't take tests, so we don't know for sure that they will watch the CDs," admit the educators. "There is still resistance against using this form of training. On the other hand, it's in the judge's own interest to watch it. The knowledge has direct bearing on their practice."

2. "Home-Growing" Regional Trainers

In this scenario, a large Western state needed to train hundreds of court personnel. The "end-users" included all non-legal staff: bailiffs, administrators, front desk people, supervisors, and others.

The State Office of the Administrator for the Courts had already undertaken an in-depth needs assessment, which determined the five top content areas for curriculum development. These included customer service, supervisory skills, conflict management, and others.

The Judicial Educator recruited a total of 25 court personnel staff to work in five regional training teams of five people each. These staff were charged with both developing and presenting curricula in their regions. Most did not have training backgrounds, though many had content expertise in the subject they'd been assigned.

The response to the Judicial Educator's recruitment outreach was huge and positive, even though the trainers would not receive additional compensation. "Each one saw this as an opportunity for personal and professional development," the Judicial Educator says. "They knew it would mean extra work, but they saw the benefit of learning new skills--and there was also a bit of status involved."

The Judicial Educator assigned one of the five topics to each participant on each team, and provided them all with written and web-based resources. He then hired an outside professional to provide a two-day "Train-the-Trainer" session.

At the "Train-the-Trainer" session, people from diverse regional teams who were assigned the same topic got together to create five topic teams. Each of these teams would now use the information and skills from the "Train-the-Trainer" session to develop a workshop on their subject. Team members communicated face-to-face, electronically, and by telephone.

Within 3 months, all five workshops were complete, including participant materials and visual aids. At this point, the Regional Teams reconvened locally, and launched the five-topic training curricula in their regions.

Upside of this approach: By using in-house resources, the State Office of the Administrator for the Courts saved enormously on training costs. It also saved on curriculum development costs, as it hired no outside instructional designers or presenters outside of the "Train-the-Trainer" professional. "It would have been impossible to train the numbers we needed to any other way," says the Judicial Educator. "This way, we trained right in people's regions, on their time schedules, in their facilities."

This curriculum is uniquely customized. It is founded on this agency's mission and uses "insider" language and core values. An additional benefit is that each of the 25 employees will be able to use their new design and presentation skills in their regions in the future.

Downside of this approach: Though all five teams start out with the same five curricula, innovations occur in the field that may not be documented. Thus, there is a threat of loss of consistency across regions. At this point, the Judicial Educator needs to collect, review and document revisions to the workshops before the next launch.

In retrospect, the Judicial Educator says he wishes the "Train the Trainer" session had focused more on instructional design, not general adult education principles and presentation techniques. "They could have benefited from using an actual format" to design the courses, he says.

The replicability of the curriculum remains a question. Is it written and organized in such a way that anyone outside this design group could train from it? How can this agency ensure this wasn't just a one-time training experience? How could replicability be better built in?

3. Developing Curriculum To Last

Let's switch gears to a non-profit agency that has received a grant specifically to train visual artists in the "business side of art." The Executive Director's goal was to develop 16 complete workshop modules, including Instructor Guides, participant materials, and all visual aids. The modules would address issues like "Dealing With Contracts," "Accounting Basics for Artists," and "Choosing the Right Business Structure for You." Interaction and participation were her goals from the beginning.

The Executive Director contracted with four well-known artists in the community on a work-for-hire basis. Each came with specialized content knowledge in his/her assigned topics, but few had taught before, and none had curriculum design experience. Each contracted to develop and present his or her sessions, as well as to organize them into a curriculum that other content experts could easily use.

In this case, I can speak from direct experience. I led the experts through a 2-day, simplified Instructional Design workshop using the four-step KITE* instructional design process. The workshop enabled the content experts to:

• Decide the "must knows" of their assigned topic (separating those from the "nice-to-knows")
• Develop performance-based learning outcomes for their content;
• Design exercises and activities to bring each learning outcome alive.
• Design closures that reinforced the learning.

At the end of the second day, each expert had developed a highly participatory, draft training session for at least one workshop. Over the next month and a half, I spent two to four hours individually with each to help transform the knowledge in his or her head into useable, hard copy training materials. In less than two months, the 44-hour, 16 module curriculum was solidified and the first class was delivered.

Upside of this approach: One of the biggest benefits of this approach is that it left solid, hard copy curriculum in its wake. This curriculum can be used over and over, maintaining its consistency over time, no matter who trains from it.

Because the KITE process is outcome-based and exercise-driven, the design process went very quickly. The designers had other full-time work, so they fit their curriculum development into their "regular" work schedules.

The agency experienced incredible savings. Even while including the cost of the contracted experts, my time, and administrative support, the agency saved approximately $50,300, or almost 300%, over what it would have paid an average-or-below cost instructional designer to develop the materials.

Downside of this approach: Ensuring that the final products (Instructor Guides, participant materials, visual aids) are formatted in a user-friendly way involves detail-work that many find less creative than developing the training itself. The artists' patience was strained when they realized how much detail work is involved when developing a training session that is non-trainer-dependent.

Lessons Learned

As budget limitations challenge businesses and organizations, it will become more and more necessary to detour from the traditional "let's just hire 'em!" approach. Organizations must experiment with different forms of consistent, high-quality, in-house curriculum development.

In all the cases above, an initial investment was essential--whether in technological advances or in appropriate training for the trainers themselves. The important criterion for any kind of in-house curriculum development is that people are able to do it themselves, over and over again, after this initial investment.

I am fascinated with the subject of creative in-house curriculum development. If you are, too, please write to me at guila@guilamuir.com. I'd love to learn how other organizations save money and time by developing their own training sessions.

If you are interested in learning more about the KITE ("Keeping In-house Training Excellent.") Process, also please write to me at guila@guilamuir.com.

*KITE is an acronym for "Keeping In-house Training Excellent." It is a four-step, simplified instructional design process developed and copyrighted by Guila Muir and Associates.

 

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About Guila Muir & Associates

Guila Muir and Associates is the premiere Train-the-Trainer firm on the West Coast. Using participatory adult education since 1981, Guila Muir & Associates has developed the skills of hundreds of trainers and facilitators in business and government. Enhance your organization's ability to transmit information the way adults learn best-actively! Visit our web site at guilamuir.com, write us at connect@guilamuir.com or call us at (206) 725-1994.

Copyright 2003 Guila Muir and Associates