THE SOURCE FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

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1 50 YEARS THE SOURCE FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT $10 SEPTEMBER/ JULY/ OCTOBER AUGUST 2014 Online vs. In-Class Success E-learning can be an inexpensive alternative to classroom training, but does it yield the same results? PLUS: Just-in-Time Technology Solutions Managing MOOCs Focus on Games & Simulations

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3 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 VOLUME 51, NUMBER 5 FEATURES Online vs. In-Class Success E-learning can be an inexpensive alternative to classroom training, but does it yield the same results? BY LORRI FREIFELD Managing MOOCs Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) provide large numbers of learners with unlimited access to online material, but they are not for everyone. BY MARGERY WEINSTEIN 7 Informal Learning Lessons Findings from a structured review of the literature on informal learning. BY SAUL CARLINER Making Long-Distance Relationships Work Problems that involve remote colleagues result in significantly more severe impacts to productivity, cost, quality, and time, according to a survey by VitalSmarts and Training magazine. But the situation isn t hopeless. Here are some steps that can help. BY DAVID MAXFIELD Just-in-Time Technology Solutions We watch TV programs sans commercials on demand and have instant access to information 24/7 via the Web. Today s employees want that same flexibility when it comes to training. BY MARGERY WEINSTEIN FOCUS ON 41 Games and Simulations Trends, technologies, and case studies. 54 Results Report Card As MasTec continues along its journey to create a culture of learning, a look at the impact three of its recent training initiatives have had so far. BY JOHN CONGEMI 58 L&D BEST PRACTICES Strategies for Success 2014 Training Top 125 winners detail best practices for leaders as teachers and mobile learning. 60 TRAINING TOP 10 HALL OF FAME Outstanding Training Initiatives Details from KLA-Tencor and The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Leadership Center s Outstanding Training Initiatives. DEPARTMENTS 2 Online TOC Web-only content 4 Editor s Note Driving Forces BY LORRI FREIFELD 6 Training Today News, stats, and business intel BY LORRI FREIFELD 10 Soapbox Can Your LMS Meet Other Apps in the Cloud? BY RAMSEY CHAMBERS 12 Soapbox Tying EQ Into Technology BY JIM HORNICKEL 14 How-To Overcome the SME Availability Objection BY KENDRA LEE 16 World View Focus on Switzerland BY HEATHER ROBINSON 64 Best Practices Preparing Global Virtual Teams for Success BY NEAL GOODMAN AND SUSAN BRAY 66 Learning Matters Getting Learning s Game On BY TONY O DRISCOLL 67 Training Magazine Events MOOCs Are So Yesterday BY DIANE GAYESKI 68 Trainer Talk Performance Art BY BOB PIKE 70 Talent Tips Let s Get Upfront and Personal BY ROY SAUNDERSON 72 Last Word The Three P s of BY PETER POST training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

4 online contents Your source for more training tips, trends, and tools On the online home of Training magazine, you ll find these Web-only articles. Send your feedback to The Visual Handoff: Using Video to Prepare for Time Off Whether it s creating a quick how-to video or annotating screenshots, visual communication is a quick and easy way to help employees prepare for that essential time off. Technology as Trainer: Klick Academy and Klick Talks Digital health agency Klick uses the technology as a trainer philosophy to embed data-driven training into its culture and everyday operations. Think Ethics Training Has to Be Boring? Think Again Humor does not interfere with your ability to educate. The same techniques that keep people watching a TV show after they really should be going to bed can be used to make people focus on your training longer than they otherwise would. Time to MOOC Your Corporate Training Corporate MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) or online learning portals offer skill-based courses that act as self-paced and on-demand miniature sessions and workshops. Interested in writing an online article for Editor-in-Chief Lorri Freifeld at lorri@trainingmag.com. FOLLOW US ONLINE LinkedIn: Facebook: Facebook.com/TrainingMagazine YouTube: YouTube.com/TrainingMagUS Google+: GPlus.to/TrainingMagazine Lakewood Media Group PO Box 247, Excelsior, MN Corporate: Subscriptions: Website: EDITORIAL: Editor-in-Chief Lorri Freifeld lorri@trainingmag.com Research Director Saul Carliner saulcarliner@hotmail.com Contributing Editor Margery Weinstein margery@trainingmag.com Columnists Neal Goodman, Kendra Lee, Neil Orkin, Bob Pike, Peter Post, Michael Rosenthal, Roy Saunderson, Jason Womack Art Director David Diehl daviddiehldesign@gmail.com Webmaster Matt Tews matt@trainingmag.com SALES & MARKETING: Publisher Mike Murrell mike@trainingmag.com Account Executive Gary Dworet gary@trainingmag.com Account Executive Lori Gardner lori@trainingmag.com Marketing Manager Art Director/Promotions Production Manager Audience Marketing Director Kris Stokes kris@trainingmag.com Susan Abbott susan@abbottandabbott.com Tony Kolars tony@trainingmag.com Vicki Blomquist vicki@trainingmag.com CORPORATE & EVENTS: President Mike Murrell mike@trainingmag.com VP, Finance/Operations Bryan Powell bryan@trainingmag.com VP, Market Strategy Philip Jones phil@trainingmag.com VP, Expositions Dick Powell dick@trainingmag.com Brand Products Director Conference Director Conference Manager SUBSCRIBER/ADVERTISER SERVICES: Copyright Permissions (Print & Online) Joyceann Cooney-Garippa jcooney@trainingmag.com Julie Groshens julie@trainingmag.com Leah Nelson leah@trainingmag.com Copyright Clearance Center ; info@copyright.com Custom Reprints The YGS Group, Anastasia Minichino (Print & PDF/Digital) anastasia.minichino@theygsgroup.com List Rental Manager TriMax, Paul Kolars pkolars@trimaxdirect.com Subscriber Customer Service or (Address Changes, Back Issues, ntrn@omeda.com Renewals) Fax: SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

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6 editor s note Driving Forces I realized the other day that my husband and I are due to take a Defensive Driving course this fall so we can maintain our car insurance discount. I have to admit my heart is not wildly thumping with anticipation. This year, we have a choice: We can take the standard classroom course (instructor lecture and videos six hours on a Saturday or three hours for two nights during the week) or we can take the course online (exercises, text, and tests). The price is roughly the same. I m torn as there are pros and cons to each. The majority of the material hasn t changed since we took the course three years ago, while my attention span seems to shorten by the minute. Our last instructor managed to keep me interested with personal stories from his experiences as a cop. But the one before that lulled me to sleep with dry statistics and reading from the workbook. I can take the online course from the comfort of my home, but previous attendees told me I can t click through the screens and tests at my own admittedly fast pace the course stays on each screen for an allotted period of time. And, unlike the classroom course, the online course requires attendees to take all the tests in the workbook. Now, if the online course featured a game that put me in the driver s seat of a 500-horsepower Corvette, my decision might be a whole lot easier (and the course more exciting), but I don t know that I necessarily would retain (or put into practice) any more information than the classroom session. After all, e-learning has the reputation of being more convenient and costeffective than classroom training, but is it as effective when it comes to learning stickiness and changing behavior? Our cover story, Online vs. In-Class Success, on p. 18 aims to answer that question with input from Training Top 125 winners, Training Top 10 Hall of Famers, and other experts. Serious games are one way to bolster online learning effectiveness. Our Games & Simulations section beginning on p. 41 looks at lessons the corporate training sector can borrow from military games, plus case studies from CMS Energy, Xerox Europe, Aon Hewitt, and Southwest Airlines. The just-in-time aspect of e-learning is another plus. Rather than have the learning delivery dictated by trainers or executives, it often makes sense to allow learners themselves to decide when they need to access specific information or when they need quick refresher training. See p. 36 to discover how some companies are rolling out just-in-time learning to their workforces using the latest technology solutions. Whether it s e-learning or classroom instruction, the crucial thing to keep in mind is that Training Matters which just happens to be the mantra for our Training 2015 Conference & Expo in Atlanta February 9-11, When training matters when it is connected to corporate strategic goals and more than just a stand-alone event then it converts into impact. Visit to register and find out how you can turn learning into doing. TRAINING EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Brent Bloom, VP, Organization Effectiveness and L&D, Applied Materials Raymond D. Green, CEO, Paradigm Learning, Inc. Bruce I. Jones, Programming Director, Disney Institute Michael S. Hamilton, former Chief Learning & Development Officer, Ernst & Young Nancy J. Lewis, former CLO and VP, ITT Corporation, and former VP, Learning, IBM Ann Schulte, Director/Global Practice Leader, Procter & Gamble Ross Tartell, former Technical Training and Communication Manager - North America, GE Capital Real Estate TRAINING TOP 10 HALL OF FAME Cyndi Bruce, Executive Director, KPMG Business School U.S. Jim Federico, Senior Director, Platforms & Operations, Microsoft Corporation Gordon Fuller, Global Design & Development Leader, IBM Center for Advanced Learning Daniel J. Goepp, Managing Director, Learning & Development, PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP Vicente Gonzalez, Learning and Development, Booz Allen Hamilton Glenn Hughes, Senior Director, Learning & Development, KLA-Tencor Corporation Donald Keller, Chief Learning Officer and VP, Global Education & Development, SCC Soft Computer Diana Oreck, VP, Leadership Center, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company Lou Tedrick, Staff Vice President - Workforce Development, Verizon Annette Thompson, CLO, Farmers Insurance Nicole Roy-Tobin, Director, Best Practices & Innovation, Deloitte Kevin Wilde, VP, CLO, General Mills, Inc TOP 5 EMERGING TRAINING LEADERS Aimie Aronica, Senior Director, Technology Engagement, and General Manager, Austin ebay Inc. Site, PayPal an ebay company Kristin Hall, Training Manager, PPD Jennifer Hentz, Talent Development Manager, Booz Allen Hamilton Rebecca Lockard, Director, Learning & Development, Advance Financial Christine Nilsen Marciano, Commercial Lines Training Consultant, Nationwide Lorri Freifeld lorri@trainingmag.com 4 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

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8 news, stats, & business intel by Lorri by Lorri Freifeld Freifeld Products & Services >> E-Learning Stats >> Tech Talk p. 8 3 Elements of a Next-Generation Learning Content Strategy By Chris Osborn, VP, Marketing, Biz Library ( EMPLOYEES NEED CONTENT to improve performance, gain knowledge, and grow skills. Great technology without content is nothing more than an empty shell. But traditional approaches to content might not work as well Productivity Coach s Corner By Jason W. Womack, MEd, MA Jason@WomackCompany.com 3 Ways to Become Byte-Lingual How would you rate your overall fluency with your technology and tools? You use your system and smart phone every day; what would the impact be if you learned one new productivity feature each week for a year? Three ways to become byte-lingual include: Seek micro-improvements. Saving YouTube learning videos to my computer to watch later, programming special shortcuts into my smart phone, and learning the speed keys in my most frequently used applications alone saves at least 15 minutes a day. Observe others. Years ago, I watched someone download a YouTube video to their computer, edit the parts of the video they wanted to show in a meeting, and then import that video clip into their PowerPoint presentation. That one hour changed my life; I save about two hours on each presentation I create (plus, no more headache of having to be online during every client presentation). Watch online video tutorials: Visit video (or product) Websites to learn about the product (service, program, etc.) you re interested in. Watch these bite-sized videos, and learn more faster. Also, consider leaving a tip (or a question) in the comment area below it. Using tools, applications, and gear more effectively, you could save anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes of time every day. Imagine if your team of five people had 120 hours of extra time this coming year. What would you be able to get done? For more ideas, visit: in today s workplace or with today s workforce. The days when we built content and pushed it to employees in classrooms and traditional online courses are numbered. Employees are more apt to access just the content nuggets they need, when they need it, on their own terms or devices. They are more likely to pull content to themselves. The factors influencing the workplace and workforce are overwhelming and cannot be ignored. Demographic shifts are bringing a whole new generation of employees to our workplaces in huge numbers. The technologies we use every day continue to evolve and change, and the influences of social media on these technologies keep growing. More and more of us are changing our behaviors at home and at work in terms of the use of mobile devices and how we access information. All of these influences are converging at one time and are forever changing the way all of us learn. So we need to rethink our strategies to employee learning content to reflect these influences and include these three elements: 1. Definition of content: Content can be anything that answers a question employees need an answer to in order to improve performance. 2. Curation: While content is king, context is queen, and we must provide a structure and form to this content so employees can find it, access it, and use it quickly and efficiently. 3. Delivery: No effective content strategy is complete without a clear strategy for getting this content into the hands of employees with no barriers and no friction. To find out more, visit: next-generation-learning-contentstrategies. TO SUBMIT NEWS, research, or other Training Today tidbits, contact Editor-in-Chief Lorri Freifeld at lorri@trainingmag.com or SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

9 The Future of SAP Training WHAT DO MORE THAN 1,200 SAP professionals think of SAP (business enterprise software) training? Michael Management s 2014 SAP Training Survey found out, tapping into key topics such as training availability, delivery options, and training challenges. The trend away from traditional classroom training to e-learning continues as more than 51 percent of respondents indicated a preference for online SAP training via instructor-led virtual sessions or e-learning options. The preference for classroom training, on the other hand, dropped from 37 percent in 2013 to 29.5 percent this year. However, there is a significant gap between the amount of training needed and received. More than 62 percent of respondents received less than 10 hours of training to perform their job well, while 52 percent indicated they should have received more (This column is adapted from Bruce Tulgan s new book from Jossey-Bass/Wiley, The 27 Challenges Managers Face: Step by Step Solutions to (Nearly) All of Your Management Problems. ) than 31 hours of training. Perhaps the most shocking finding: 41.5 percent of respondents said they have not received sufficient training to perform their job. These results create a comprehensive look at the SAP training landscape and provide insights into the expectations and needs for future developments. For the complete 2014 SAP Training Survey report, visit: Ensuring Effectiveness By Bruce Tulgan brucet@rainmakerthinking.com In today s high-tech world, more and more managers tell us that employees sidestep one-on-one meetings and prefer instead to communicate via electronic message. Electronic communication can be a powerful tool for effective communication especially asynchronous communication but sloppy e-communication practices are a nuisance. As such, make sure your direct reports learn and practice good discipline. Teach them the following: yourself if this is really something that should be communicated in-person at a one-on-one meeting. then send the reminder to yourself! and with true purpose. so it is still relevant context is everything. incoming and outgoing electronic communication based on how you will use them later. will review and respond to electronic communication and let people know when to expect your responses. Partnerships&Alliances >> Blackboard s new Blackboard Registration Module is delivered through a strategic partnership with Genius SIS, a Web-based information, registration, and e-commerce system. The environment now offers fully integrated learner registration, tracking, e-commerce, and enterprise reporting systems and tools. >> Ace Hardware, a retailer-owned hardware cooperative, is implementing ustudio, Inc. s video platform to drive its sales training processes in more than 4,800 stores. >>Audit, tax, and advisory firm KPMG LLP acquired the Workday Consulting Practice (a provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance and human capital management) from AXIA Consulting. >> Corporate training and leadership development company VitalSmarts agreed to be acquired by Providence Equity Partners. The investment from Providence will accelerate VitalSmarts corporate growth initiatives. Andrew Shimberg will continue to lead the company as CEO. Cofounders/authors Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, and Kerry Patterson will continue to provide intellectual property leadership, research, and new content. Al Switzler and Ron McMillan will continue in advisory roles. >> Grovo, a cloud-based video training platform that teaches Internet and professional skills in 60 seconds, and Manhattan real estate services firm TOWN Residential, partnered to provide TOWN s 600 representatives and employees with free access to Grovo s training library, which includes videos on more than 130 Internet tools, cloud services, and professional topics, as well as use Grovo s cloud platform to deploy customized, digital marketing-focused courses. training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

10 Products&Services >> Scitent, Inc., a full-service e-learning company focused on creating online education programs for nonprofits, corporations, membership organizations, and health-care organizations, released its new, proprietary learning management system (LMS), SCIDEA. The SCORMcompliant e-learning platform supports blended learning, certification, and continuing education (CE) credit management. >> AppointmentPlus, a provider of online and mobile scheduling solutions, launched Academy.AppointmentPlus.com, a free online community featuring training courses, discussion groups, and a lecture series. The Academy aims to connect people from diverse backgrounds and provide a forum to discuss scheduling best practices and solutions. >> Interact is new software that provides on-the-job skills training, assesses workforce competencies, and measures training programs. Employees have access to their performance videos and annotated comments by their trainers and management. Interact can manage documents and share data and information with employees. >> Jones/NCTI tackles safety, real-time problem solving, learning on the job, and other top opportunities to educate field techs with Amp, a new mobile field performance tool. Amp provides just-in-time knowledge and push notifications to front-line field teams. The company also launched its new Amp online destination, com, where training professionals can learn more about just-in-time knowledge and uses for the application. >> IBM announced new cloud-based software and a new Talent and Change consulting practice to enable organizations to use analytics and behavioral science to identify top talent, deepen employee engagement, and manage transformational change to provide differentiated client experiences. The cloud-based offerings include IBM Kenexa Predictive Hiring, IBM Kenexa Workforce Readiness, and IBM Kenexa Predictive Retention. E-Learning Stats THE MINDFLASH E-LEARN- ING Report provides insights into corporate e-learning trends based on data from hundreds of thousands of e-learning software users. Here are some fast facts from surveys done in the first quarter of 2014: 64% of all e-learning courses were taught by men % of students taking e-learning courses received passing grades % of training was mandatory % of course assessments had tests. Tuesday was the most common day of the week for starting e-learning courses, (18.26%), completing them (17.91%), and passing them (17.88%). >> Technology start-up showd.me unveiled its new platform for enterprise peer-to-peer learning. The platform includes elements such as searchable profiles, selfmanaged session scheduling, Web conferencing, and Google apps integration, and provides a suite of tools that addresses key challenges of traditional LMSs. >> Morf Media launched its Gamified Intelligent Learning System (GILS), which uses advanced game theory and artificial intelligence to enable employees to enter virtual worlds where they can progress through work simulations to better learn and interact with others as they create and execute strategies and perform complex tasks. GILS is available The most common industries for e-learning in first quarter 2014 were software, health care, financial services, IT services, and marketing. The top U.S. states for e-learning were California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, and Massachusetts. anytime, anywhere, delivering the same immersive, interactive experience on smart phones, tablets, and desktops. >> Mindflash released a new version of its online business training software that precisely analyzes trainees facial expressions to compute a real-time Engagement Score for each portion of the course. The score is provided in aggregate, never by trainee, to help the trainer identify opportunities for improvements in course materials. A minimum of five trainees must complete a course before an Engagement Score is generated. The new functionality was developed in concert with Stanford-based computer-vision company Sension. 8 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

11 What s a learner s lifecycle in your organization? Aptara plans their experience from day one to drive organizational performance. Analysis, design and implementation. Aptara. Your single expert partner. aptaracorp.com

12 soapbox Can Your LMS Meet Other Apps in the Cloud? Yes, but when considering a move to the cloud, you can t just think about features and pricing. You need to expansively consider all the applications it takes to deliver your learning programs. BY RAMSEY CHAMBERS Ramsey Chambers is vice president of Product Management and Strategy for Meridian Knowledge Solutions (www. meridianks.com), the company behind learning management system Meridian Global. Meridian s technology platform empowers enterprises, governments, and member-based organizations to develop their people by delivering learning, assessing performance, and fostering collaboration. The cloud. It s everywhere. My teenage son has never used a USB drive or burnable CD/DVD because all his schoolwork and music are stored online and accessible from any device. By the time my seven-month-old starts watching movies, he probably never will know what a DVD is because all the movies he ll watch will be on Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, or some other similar service. When it comes to businesses, we are moving to the cloud a bit more slowly because of all the legacy applications that are still important to our organizations. However, the pace at which we are transitioning is increasing at an astounding rate. In fact, Gartner estimates that by 2017, cloud office system users are expected to constitute 33 percent of the enterprise universe (New Developments in the Cloud Office System Market, Gartner Inc., May 22, 2013). On a related note, Cisco expects cloud data center traffic to triple by the same year (third annual Cisco Global Cloud Index, , Cisco, October 15, 2013). What this means, in a nutshell, is that organizations rapidly are moving a diverse array of their business applications off their own infrastructure and onto infrastructure provided by their application vendors. However, when considering adopting a cloud-based application, organizations have to do their homework. First, there are various flavors of cloud to consider and determine which best meets the needs of your stakeholders. On top of that, organizations must consider the entire ecosystem of interconnected applications that it takes to run their business and whether their cloud strategy will continue to allow for that interconnectivity. Learning is no different. When thinking about moving to the cloud, you can t just think about features and pricing. You need to think expansively to consider all the applications it takes to deliver your learning programs and whether the solutions you are considering will provide you with sufficient flexibility to meet your business objectives. PRIVATE VS. PUBLIC There are plenty of articles that talk about the differences between public vs. private clouds. I won t dwell on this topic, but it is important to talk briefly about these two different approaches. First, regardless of which flavor you choose, cloud applications bring one main benefit: They allow organizations to offload activities that aren t their primary areas of expertise and allow them to focus on those activities that are their primary areas of expertise. In the case of Training and Development organizations, this means no longer worrying about servers, upgrades, and system availability so you can spend all your time focused on delivering world-class training and development programs. From there, the difference between public and private clouds starts to get nuanced. Public cloud applications are often less expensive because resource utilization on the part of the application vendor can be maximized and some of those savings are passed on to clients. In exchange, however, clients give up a level of control when it comes to deciding when they want to upgrade, the ability to customize, and the level of integration that can happen with other applications. Private cloud solutions, on the other hand, tend to be a little more expensive, but put a higher degree of control into the hands of the client. Neither option is objectively better or worse. Organizations just need to decide which is right for them. The best scenario is if you can partner with a vendor that can support either model so you have the flexibility to change if your needs change over time. MEET IN THE CLOUD Where it can get complicated for some organizations is when they start to think about how they are going to make all the various applications that they have integrated with their learning management system (LMS) meet in the cloud. Human Resource Information System (HRIS), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Association Management 10 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

13 System (AMS), virtual conferencing solutions, authentication solutions...the list goes on. Typically with a public cloud solution, you are limited by the supported integrations and application programming interfaces (APIs) for data transfer. For many organizations, this is sufficient to meet their needs. For other organizations, their needs require more flexibility to integrate with other applications they deem critical to their business. Often, with private cloud solutions, you ll find greater ability to integrate and customize since the solution is dedicated to an individual client. Again, neither solution is objectively better or worse. Some solutions will just be better suited than others in certain situations. Regardless of which cloud flavor you are evaluating, here are some standard integration capabilities you should expect from your LMS provider: conferencing solutions such as WebEx or Adobe Connect exchange with an HRIS, CRM, AMS, or other proprietary applications in your organization gies such as SAML or Active Directory dirty way of getting data into the system retrieval so you can show LMS data within other Web applications (REST stands for representational state transfer and refers to an architectural style for Web applications.) tightly integrating with the LMS, the client was able to show all course data directly on its Web portal, allowing users to enroll and launch con- accessing content in an LMS. As a result, users never had to learn a new system or access new software to arrive at their content. This resulted There are various flavors of clouds including private and public clouds to consider and determine which best meets stakeholder needs and provides sufficient flexibility. in sustained client satisfaction and a flat line in its support requests. Another client, in the world of accounting, is a site. This client created an experience in which learners search, find, and purchase content from new account is created for users in the LMS, permissions are assigned to the content, and users have instant access to begin their learning. This client is great content with the confidence that the cloudbased LMS will be there when its users need it. IN THE REAL WORLD ing for a robust LMS that would provide the best cloud solution has been a great fit. For other organizations whose needs were a bit more diverse, a private cloud solution was a better choice. For example, a pharmaceutical/health-care client already had an established, branded portal that served as the main interface for all of its nurses, doctors, and other users. When it was evaluating a new LMS, one of its primary needs was to find a system that could blend into its existing solution. It selected a private cloud solution with RESTful THE CLEAR CONCLUSION For many organizations, the cloud is the obvious choice as they consider their next LMS. Regardless of which flavor of the cloud you are considering, applications you require to run your training and development programs. If your situation is fairly simple, a public cloud offering may offer cost savings and ensure you are always using the latest and greatest technology your vendor has to offer. If your situation is slightly more complex, a private cloud offering may be a bit more expensive but will provide additional flexibility while allowing you to things you do best. t training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

14 soapbox Tying EQ Into Technology Balance and emotional intelligence (EQ) are the keys to using technology. If you are in conscious charge of your technological choices and activities, then you are mindfully choosing your life. BY JIM HORNICKEL Manager-leader specialist Jim Hornickel is the director of Training & Development at Bold New Directions. Along with a B.A. in Management, Hornickel s professional experience includes 25 years as a manager-leader in several industries; life, leadership, and relationship coaching; and authoring books Negotiating Success and Managing From The Inside Out (16 Insights for Building Positive Relationships With Staff). For more information, visit www. managementtraining institute.com/ home and www. boldnewdirections. com. Humankind is by far the most creative species on planet Earth. From the first spear to the idea of the wheel to the Internet, what we invent is limited only by our ability to imagine what is not yet real. When one imagined thing becomes reality, that sparks innumerable ideas about what can come next. Fantastic! Technology can be defined as an activity or innovation that forms or changes culture. Additionally, technology is the application of math, science, and the arts for the benefit of humankind and other. A modern example is the rise of communication technology, which has lessened barriers to human interaction. But therein lies the rub. The fabulous technological gains have far outpaced the progress made in enhancing our emotional intelligence in general and specifically in using such advances. As I ve worked in 44 countries to date, only about 5 percent of people respond knowingly to my question: What is emotional intelligence or EQ? A big picture definition of EQ is that it covers the areas of our self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. At Bold New Directions, we call emotional intelligence Life Intelligence. So how does EQ tie into technology? Well, since technology is meant to serve human beings and it is human beings who use technology, our capabilities to apply Life Intelligence to our use of technology directly influences how limited or expanded the results are. Because there are almost limitless forms of technology, for the sake of this discussion, let s use the two common technological reference points of the Internet and smart phones. But please, as we go through the four EQ quadrants below, think about how these apply to your world and whatever technologies you use. As we play with the four big picture areas of EQ, it is helpful to think of the first two self-awareness and self-management as being internal-to-you factors. You could be isolated on a desert island and these still would be active human being ingredients of your internal worlds. Whereas the next two social awareness and relationship management are in play (to various degrees) when we are in connection with others (whether in person or through any technological communication means) or anything else in our external worlds. For most people, the first two and the second two are constantly interrelating. But how effectively are we using the interactivity is the big question and equally large area of opportunity. Here s a short peek into the four: SELF-AWARENESS First, what is self-awareness? Or, what can we be self-aware about? The list is long, including awareness of our thoughts (an amazing 60,000 a day), feelings, body sensations, images, impulses, intuitions, strengths, weaknesses, and on and on. For a technological example, I have a friend who is a self-admitting addict to online fantasy sports. Once they get started on any given day (in fact, every day, so they say), they lose themselves to the activity, and lose self-awareness. Their focus is outward and into the game. This lack of self-awareness is having serious consequences on their marriage. Another increasingly common occurrence is seeing more and more people walking along absorbed in reading and writing s or texting away furiously, lost in the activity and with probably very little self-awareness. People cross streets this way. If you lose self-awareness of where you are in space like this, the consequences can be fatal. Question: When you are working with any form of technology, what is your state of self-awareness during the usage time? SELF-MANAGEMENT What does it mean to self-manage? Basically, it is when you are intentionally in control. Here is where the four EQ areas begin to show their interrelationships. If you are not self-aware that you are thinking, feeling, or doing something (such as unmindfully crossing a busy street while in the unconscious habit of texting), how can you possibly change that behavior for better outcomes? All intentional change starts with self-awareness. Then you can look at options to 12 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

15 manage any behavior, with any technology. Question: What is your current ability level to use self-awareness to alert you that some current technological activity or habit would be better if changed, and then work at self-managing that behavior for your own success and well-being? SOCIAL AWARENESS What is included in social awareness? Everything outside of yourself! This includes people, things, events How does this relate to technology? Since technology (unless medical implants within your body) covers things and methods used externally by humans, increasing your awareness about how you are relating to these tools is the start toward seeing if you are using the tool or it is using you. When my wife got her first smart phone, I observed her by using my social intelligence. She began to spend lots of time on the device, and while access to information, , etc., is helpful in this modern world, it also can be seductive. I did not want a smart phone to capture me; rather I wanted to be in a state where I was intentionally using it. It took me a full year before I felt I could handle the device sufficiently well to buy one. Question: When you consciously observe your relationship with people and things such as technology, how often are you on automatic and how often are you truly present and mindfully making decisions to engage in that activity or not? MANAGING RELATIONSHIPS What is managing relationships? When you are self-aware and managing yourself, you are bringing a consciousness to your social interactions with people and things (technology). Without those three EQ elements, you are ill-equipped to manage your relationships with people and things in your life. A few years ago, a friend told me a story related to managing relationships. Smart phones were the newest technology and her family members each had purchased one. Her revelation came one evening when she looked up at the dinner table from her smart phone to see that all six of them were actively using their devices and that they had stopped being with each other. She brought this social awareness to everyone s attention, they laughed at the absurdity, and made a pact to not disengage when with each other by using even that wonderful technology. A time and place for everything. A major change has occurred with people, technology, and managing relationships: Facebook is a prime example. The technology of connecting people almost anywhere on the planet has Fabulous technological gains have far outpaced the progress made in enhancing our emotional intelligence in general and specifically in using such advances. fabulous possibilities for uniting people. But I know of so many examples of people who now think their Facebook friends are real in such a way that being with others in person or even by the technology called phones has been all but abandoned. People are creating more isolation by spending many, many hours sitting by themselves in front of a computer monitor, smart phone, or tablet. While updating information (photos, facts, etc.) is valuable in relationship building and maintenance, technology can only go so far in bonding. Human qualities and the intangible energy that exists between people simply cannot be conveyed through Websites in a manner anywhere close to sitting down with friends and loved ones or at least talking with them via phone when distance is too great. Question: Has communicating with people through the Internet begun to feel real to you? What happens when you step back and compare an hour on Facebook with an hour sharing a beverage at the kitchen table with a dear friend or two? As with all of life, balance and emotional intelligence are the keys to using technology. If you are in conscious charge of your technological choices and activities, then you are mindfully choosing your life. If technology has begun to hold you captive, you might find a bit more fulfillment by realizing that and taking control of your interconnection either on your own or with help from a training company. t training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

16 how-to Overcome the SME Availability Objection Six ways to entice busy subject matter experts (SMEs) to fully engage and provide you with the information you need to develop quality training. BY KENDRA LEE KLA Group President Kendra Lee is a top IT seller; prospect attraction expert; and author of the book, The Sales Magnet. KLA Group develops custom sales training programs to help clients break in and exceed revenue objectives in the small and midmarket business (SMB) segment. Lee is a frequent speaker at training conferences, national sales meetings, and association events. To find out more or to subscribe to Lee s newsletter, visit or call When working with subject matter experts (SMEs), the No. 1 objection trainers encounter is availability. SMEs have a real job and assisting with training development generally isn t part of that job, or if it is, it s only a minor part. SMEs have little time to devote when trainers ask for their assistance. This challenge causes no end of frustration as you attempt to meet development deadlines without the critical information you need. Your training comes off as incomplete, theoretical, or ineffectual. So how do you entice SMEs to fully engage and provide you the information you need to develop quality training? When engaging SMEs: 1. Set expectations upfront. Advise your SMEs what role you need them to play and get their agreement that they can meet your expectations. If SMEs have concerns, it s better to address them at the start of a project than midway through. Now is the time to carve the strategy to work together, or determine if you need to work with a different SME. Too frequently, SMEs are forgotten once the training is delivered. Be sure to acknowledge and give them credit as part of the team. 2. Schedule regular 20-minute meetings. While nobody likes more meetings, and SMEs are already unavailable, if you have consistent meetings on the calendar that SMEs can schedule around, frequently they ll do that. Limiting the meeting length to 20 minutes and adhering to that time shows respect for the SME s schedule. As your SMEs see that you re truly only going to use 20 minutes, they ll show up and engage more. 3. Communicate consistently. Keep SMEs updated on your progress throughout the development process. Send brief s or voic s with two- or three-sentence updates on how the project is progressing. Don t underestimate the power of voic to help SMEs connect with you as a peer as they hear your energy and enthusiasm. Think of it as building the relationship. On the plus side, they ll also remember that they owe you the next piece of the project, even without you asking! 4. Ask quick questions. Rather than save up all your questions for a meeting, call or quick questions between meetings. Yes, you may need a lot more information, but perhaps gathering it a little at a time will help keep you moving forward. Use meetings to delve in and get clarification or the next layer of information. 5. Contain the complaints. Nobody wants to work with someone who is complaining about them, and complaints have a way of getting back to the target. While SMEs are frequently difficult to work with, don t unwittingly sabotage yourself by complaining to co-workers. Instead, bring your concerns about their availability directly to the SMEs and brainstorm alternative communication methods that will work for both of you. 6. Give praise freely. Too frequently, SMEs are forgotten once the training is delivered. Their hard work goes unrecognized. Throughout the process, praise SMEs for their efforts and the successes you ve received as a result of them. After delivery, share the accomplishments. Acknowledge and give them credit as part of the team. They ll be eager to work with you the next time. t 14 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

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18 world view Focus on Switzerland The Swiss tend to prefer didactic training methodologies that rely on deductive reasoning. BY HEATHER ROBINSON Heather Robinson is a senior associate with Global Dynamics Inc. As an organization consultant, she balances elegance, fun, and rigor in optimizing productivity in multinational corporate teams and coaching business leaders to global success. Robinson s expertise is based on personal background, academic grounding, and more than 30 years of industry experience. The child of a Swiss mother and an American father, she has lived in India, Turkey, Switzerland, Germany, South Africa, England, Greece, Israel, and Pakistan. Robinson can be reached at programs@globaldynamics.com. Switzerland is surprising in many ways. Land-locked in the center of Europe, unable to feed itself, and with no natural resources, Switzerland nevertheless is one of the most powerful economies in the world, serving as headquarters to leading corporations in several industries. A nation the size of Virginia with a population of only 8 million, Switzerland speaks four languages, and almost 22 percent of Switzerland residents are non-swiss. The Swiss have achieved their surprising success through hard work, paying attention to detail, and following through on well-crafted plans. Given this background, not surprisingly, the Swiss do not like surprises including when it comes to training. DESIGNING AND PREPARING FOR TRAINING Swiss training calendars for open-enrollment courses often are established a year in advance. Internal training departments may want course outlines and descriptions three to six months in advance. If your agreement has the client producing the materials, expect lead times of several weeks for them to do so. Be sure that the course you deliver closely follows the outline you have provided. For more customized training, keep similar lead times in mind as you contract with the client, clarify objectives, gather information, circulate surveys, and develop materials. The Swiss tend to prefer didactic training methodologies that rely on deductive reasoning. Lead with the general theory and then present clear, specific examples explaining how they illustrate the theory. Any experiential training activities must be justified and framed, clearly explained, well managed, thoroughly debriefed, and linked back to the theory. Be careful in the use of competitive activities they can backfire in a country that values consensus and modesty. Prepare accurate, current, and polished presentation materials. Swiss participants expect to work through materials page by page, so move material you are not going to cover explicitly to an appendix. Leave your trinkets and trash at home Swiss environmental consciousness favors quality and sustainability and may judge such giveaway items as crass or irresponsible. IN THE TRAINING ROOM Announce the agenda and schedule (including break times and duration), follow it, and sign post frequently. Swiss participants want to know where they are in the sequence of events. The day may include a 30-minute break both during the morning and the afternoon and a sit-down lunch of at least an hour and up to two hours. Ask your client in advance what conventional start, end, and break times are and build your design around them. Think twice about switching the order of training segments once you have provided the schedule. If you must do so, apologize for the variance and explain how this change better serves the goals of the training. Be conservative and fact based when commenting on group or individual participant contributions. For example, don t say, Great example! but rather, Thank you, that is a useful example that links back to the theoretical point If you ask the participants as a group and in an open-ended way to provide feedback on how the training is going, you are likely to get a bland, polite response. It is more useful, particularly during a multi-day event, to solicit participant feedback by asking specific questions that allow for both negative and positive comments. Allow them to provide their responses individually in writing. LANGUAGE AND GLOBALIZATION While many international Swiss corporations have English as the language of the workplace and all Swiss study English in school, many Swiss, particularly those over age 35, feel inhibited expressing themselves in English. Thus, it is wise to allow small group discussions to occur in the language most comfortable for the participants. It is important to note that German-speaking Swiss do not speak German among themselves, but rather their particular dialect of Swiss-German. German is the academic language, but not the language of social interaction. Many major organizations in Switzerland have large contingents of international employees, which can influence training culture. However, it is best to prepare to meet the Swiss expectations and then adjust should you find yourself working in a more globalized environment. t 16 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

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21 Online In-Class Success E-learning can be an inexpensive alternative to classroom training, but does it yield the same results? vs. NEED FOR FACE TIME If you review the findings of the Washington community colleges study more closely, says CypherWorx, Inc., Founder and President Paul Cypher, you will see the researchers assessed how 40,000 students performed in approximately 500,000 online and classroom courses. They found there were additional variables at work, including a finding that when a student struggles and doesn t seek help in a course especially when there is access to teachers, as well then the fault can t lie solely with the switch to online courses. Adds Verizon Wireless Staff Vice President of Workforce Development Lou Tedrick, The results of the study don t BY LORRI FREIFELD A Training reader sent me an article about a study done at Washington community colleges, which showed that more students drop out and fewer get a passing grade when they take a class online than when they take it in a classroom. And students who already were struggling do worse when a course is changed over to online delivery than when it was delivered in a classroom setting. He wondered whether this might indicate a change in the training field, while I contemplated whether the results would carry over to the workplace. That led to further speculation about corporate online vs. in-class success, including whether e-learning is as sticky as classroom learning when it comes to changing behavior, topics best suited for e-learning, tips for moving classroom courses online, and criteria for measuring success. So we asked a few of our Training Top 125 winners, Training Top 10 Hall of Famers, and other experts to weigh in on the topic. surprise me, given the face time that is needed for success for most students. If you take that away from a struggling student, his or her performance is likely to be worse. In the workplace, we try to determine what would be best learned online vs. in the classroom and go from there. If we don t think online is the best possible solution and bringing folks into a classroom is not feasible, we try other means such as a manager-led module or virtual instructor-led training (vilt), so there is time for 1:1/group interaction. That s why it s so important for Learning professionals to conduct a thorough needs analysis and determine the right training delivery method, says Mary Beth Alexander, AVP, Organizational Development and Corporate Marketing at Economical Insurance. That involves educating key stakeholders and subject matter experts on the benefits and risks of each solution to make the right decision. Training technology and high-quality instructional designers who possess strong skills and competence greatly contribute to learners success. We also regularly communicate to our leadership to ensure they make time for their employees to participate in and complete e-learning courses without interruption, just as we would in an instructor-led classroom. training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

22 Online vs. In-Class Success COST-EFFECTIVE BUT NOT STICKY? E-learning has the reputation of being more convenient and cost-effective than classroom training. But is it as effective when it comes to learning stickiness and changing behavior? That s a question we hear a lot, and the answer is that it varies from person to person, says Don Spear, CEO of online training marketplace OpenSesame. However, one of the reasons our customers find e-learning particularly effective for retention is that learners can revisit the courses as much as they want at any time for refresher purposes. Plus, students can choose the best time for them to take the online course, according to their timeline and commitments. Spear says courses that are bite sized (meaning they run from a few minutes to 15 minutes long) help those who might otherwise struggle to stay focused for a longer period of time, as can happen in a classroom setting. And online course designers increasingly are integrating gamification techniques and more engaging mid-course exercises, quizzes, and post-completion summaries to help the information more easily take hold. The key is to make it interactive, says Jiffy Lube Manager of Learning & Development Ken Barber. More graphics, more videos, more voiceover, more knowledge checks, and fewer word slides will make the course engaging and fun for the students. If learners know why the information is important to them and the course is designed well to engage learners, then there A LOOK AT THE OPTIONS By Randhir Vieira, Vice President, Product and Marketing, Mindflash ( When Web conferencing services such as WebEx, GoToMeeting, Live Meeting, and Google Hangouts went mainstream, companies gained a way to conduct trainings and meetings without spending thousands of dollars on airfare and hotels for employees. On-demand courses delivered even more flexibility by allowing users to dictate when, where, and at what pace they learn. Yet trainers know that sometimes there s just no substitute for the energy and personal connection of a physical classroom. There are distinct pros and cons among classroom training, Web conferencing platforms, and on-demand e-learning. Here s a look at the options, and how to blend them for effectiveness and affordability. CLASSROOM Classroom trainings are most ideal for small groups and especially in cases when interaction, team bonding, and/or nonverbal communication are vital to achieving learning objectives. Role-play and simulations, often used in sales and management trainings, are perfect activities for live classroom trainings. On the downside, classroom training is expensive if you need to scale from 20 people to 500. It s also difficult to coordinate and schedule among people who are living in different places and across different time zones. LIVE INTERNET Live online training offers a flexible and cost-effective alternative, and is achieved by using a Web conferencing platform. This method is ideal for broadcasting messages across a large population of users, such as the CEO announcing a new executive or the HR director discussing a revamped benefits program. Such trainings are easy to scale and distribute, and by incorporating video, the trainer becomes alive for participants. However, all participants must log in at the same time for the session (although they typically can access a recording after the event); there is limited opportunity for interaction; and you cannot speed up or slow down the training to match a user s learning needs. Therefore, avoid highly complex or technical topics when using this method. SELF-PACED ONLINE LEARNING As a third option, there is on-demand e-learning, offered through on-premise or cloud-based software where trainers can upload existing content into templates and quickly develop multimedia courses. Participants can run the training when it is convenient for them and in sections instead of all at once. Users can adjust the pace, by replaying a chapter or slide if needed. They may run the training off of any device. With e-learning, you can teach complex subject matter, such as software training, and include quizzes to test knowledge. Compared with classroom training, e-learning is affordable. Unfortunately, there s virtually no opportunity for nonverbal communication or interaction, and obtaining feedback from users can be difficult. BLENDED LEARNING With blended learning, companies get the best of all worlds by incorporating physical, live Internet and on-demand training into their curriculum. Consider using the on-demand platform for delivering foundational knowledge prior to a live training session. The Edmonds, Washington Police Department did just this when teaching its officers how to use Tasers. They use an ondemand platform for learning about proper safety and scenarios for using Tasers. Live classrooms are used for the tactics on how to operate the Taser. In another example, Yammer, a social enterprise software company, provides an on-demand platform for delivering prerequisite courses for its certifications; the classroom for users to apply the knowledge; and the on-demand platform again for issuing final exams. 20 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

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24 Online vs. In-Class Success will be less going through the motions says Chesterfield County, VA, Performance Support Coordinator/Instructional Designer Sherri Dosher. If an organization simply puts PowerPoint bullets online, the end result will still be death by PowerPoint. It ll just be DOA at the computer versus the classroom. Dosher believes e-learning can be just as effective as instructor-led training if the following conditions are met: activity, and feedback). WIIFM (What s In It For Me?) environment. Tedrick agrees. I know we have learners who just click through online training, and it s frustrating, but it does show in their results typically. So we often supplement online training with manager-led reinforcements and assessments for reinforcement/tracking. Getting the leaders who are CASE STUDY: ECONOMICAL INSURANCE Through a partnership with SkillSoft, Economical Insurance completed a Value Impact Analysis on one of its successful leadership programs that was implemented a few years ago. The purpose of the survey was to measure satisfaction with the organization s Leadership Development Channel, determine motivation for using this learning tool for leadership development, and determine job impact. Economical Insurance s corporate leaders generate results that have monetary value to the organization, and the Value Impact Analysis demonstrated that if productivity increases as a result of participating in this leadership training as opposed to attending an in-person leadership conference, there is business value associated with that increase. The work completed in the analysis allowed the company to translate the productivity gains into monetary terms. Based on monetary value, Economical Insurance achieves an overall productivity gain by using the Leadership Development Channel; that gain per survey respondent translated to approximately $1,700. Through the Impact Analysis survey and subsequent analysis, Economical Insurance was able to demonstrate the value of the product and the return on investment the learning asset has provided. The Impact Analysis Report looked only at benefits derived from program participation. Approximately 25 of 45 participating leaders completed the survey; the savings for Economical Insurance for only these 25 leaders participation was approximately $5,500. The estimated productivity gain with only these 25 of the company s licensed audience represented $45,000. The estimated ROI for these 25 leaders was also $45,000. Comments from participants echoed the data provided in that this learning tool is viewed as an effective solution to obtain one form of leadership and management development. 22 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training with the employees daily to show the value of the training is really key to success. Economical Insurance s Alexander notes that new authoring tools are more robust than in the past, which allows for rich media to be incorporated into e-learning modules to enhance learner engagement. Economical Insurance recently developed a safety procedures course for risk control inspectors that contains embedded simulations created in Flash. This allows learners to virtually practice each step by using the mouse to emulate various hand movements. Alexander says all learners achieved 100 percent on the mandatory testing, and 96 percent indicated the simulations were effective in understanding the process, ultimately leading to a change in behavior. BEST-SUITED TOPICS Some topics do lend themselves more naturally to comprehension and stickiness in an e-learning format, such as compliance-based courses (e.g., sexual harassment) or software/technical skill-building courses such as Office Suite, Windows, and JAVA, says OpenSesame s Spear. These courses are often video-based, allowing employees to pause the recording at any point to apply the lesson on their own computer. Barber notes that repetitive content, especially for new employees in a high turnover environment, is ideal for e-learning. He offers an example that speaks to the e-learning versus ILT option: For our store managers and assistant managers, we have two certifications available as part of their development journey. The first is Management Training certification, which is made up of 13 e-learning courses. The courses cover topics conducive to e-learning such as Opening & Closing, Scheduling, Time Management, etc. While these could be taught in an ILT class, the information is easily communicated in an interactive e-learning course. The second certification, he continues, is Leadership Training certification, which is taught in an ILT class. Topics for Leadership Training include building blocks of a successful team, performance management, and change management. These topics benefit from the interaction within a classroom where students can discuss, collaborate, solve problems, and role-play. By limiting the content that has to be taught face to face, we can maximize the quality of the instruction in all areas and minimize the cost in time and money for ourselves and our students. Verizon uses online training for knowledge-based courses where it can deliver consistent information, broadly (global, large nationwide groups), at the end-user s pace. We also often use online as a primer or pre-requisite to an ILT or vilt experience that is more application/skills focused, so everyone comes in with a common base, says Tedrick. Cypher likewise believes there is a place for both online and in-person learning in every organization. Most often,

25 we recommend a blended approach, he says. Utilize the online modules and training to provide core learning and communities of practice and then host classroom sessions for employees to share their learning outcomes and methods for instituting what they learned. TIPS FOR A SWITCH As more and more Training departments continue to do more with less, and new generations of workers clamor for just-in-time training on their devices, companies increasingly are converting classroom courses to e-learning or least implementing a blended approach. Some things to keep in mind: One of the most important things to evaluate when making any changes related to training is how training aligns with an organization s business goals, and the specialized learning needs of its employees, OpenSesame s Spear says. For many organizations, the move to online training can meet a real business need relieving an over-extended operating budget. E-learning can save organizations real budget dollars while not compromising on CASE STUDY: JIFFY LUBE In 2013, Jiffy Lube determined that its Leadership Training instructor-led training (ILT) class needed to be dramatically updated. With the new content, the organization had to find a way to free up time during the three-day ILT engagement. The team determined that three topics Time Management, Goal Setting, and Financials could be moved to e-learning and free up more than eight hours in the ILT class. The new courses were developed and launched in January, along with the new Leadership ILT class. Aside from the freed-up time for the new ILT content, the company saw a 75 percent increase in the number of students who have completed the new e-learning courses. The blended solution allowed Jiffy Lube to effectively train on more content without compromising the quality of the learning experience. quality of training. And many of our customers are using online courses to reach workers who may not have access to in-person training e.g., their schedules do not allow; they are remote workers; they cannot travel to the in-class training, etc. Development time is another important factor to consider, Alexander says. Over the last five years, Economical Insurance successfully reduced its e-learning development time by using the latest training technologies and platforms. Many training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

26 Online vs. In-Class Success learning organizations consider a best practice of ILT to be eight hours of development time for one hour of instructorled training. With e-learning, that number can go as high as 200 hours or more depending on the complexity of the module or course that is developed. It is critical to conduct thorough due diligence in assessing the impact and value of the investment, Alexander stresses. One critical question is: Why we are making this decision? CASE STUDY: SAN DIEGO ZOO GLOBAL ACADEMY In September 2013, San Diego Zoo Global Academy and its e-learning partner, CypherWorx, Inc., announced the preliminary results of their efficacy testing for the online animal care training certificate series. This study looked at the training provided to zookeepers and other animal care professionals in zoo settings. This was training that always had been required of employees and traditionally was delivered in a classroom. However, when learners transferred from a classroom setting to an online environment, the results showed that knowledge retention rates were significantly higher. The study involved the first four animal care courses, and professionals from four organizations across the U.S. served as the study participants. Some 155 individuals completed one or more of the academy courses. Pre- and post-tests, aligned with each course s designated outcomes, were administered just prior to, and immediately following, training. Gains in knowledge were recorded for each of the four tested courses. Average gains ranged from a low of 7 percentage points to a high of almost 23 percentage points. While pre-test scores varied by course, recorded post-test score means ranged from 93.8 percent to 96.8 percent. Two of the pilot testing organizations agreed to conduct a follow-up assessment. Participants completed a follow-up test for the Zoonosis course 90 days after post-test administration. Results indicated that, following an initial gain of 15.7 percentage points and achieving a post-test mean of 96.5 percent, students maintained 10.2 of the original point gain. This equates to 67 percent retention of the gained knowledge, relative to post-test performance, and exceeded previous retention rates for classroom training. When building the courses, instructional designers at CypherWorx focused on the following design aspects to bring the content to life: mnemonics 24 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training Is it because it is the latest trend or is it adding business value through productivity and performance gains? And from a technology standpoint, you need to have a robust LMS that can track learner metrics, which are critical to success. The late Peter Drucker said it best: What gets measured gets managed. Besides the business perspective, it s important to think about the human aspect. Starting a new approach to workplace learning is daunting for some, so it s important to educate employees about the why and how at the onset of the process, Spear says. First, let them know why e-learning is now a part of the training curriculum and how they can use it to meet their individual goals and professional objectives. Then, teach them how to use the platform to find the courses they need and make the most of the experience. Many people are naturally resistant to change and technology can add another barrier, notes Alexander. With a multi-generational workplace consisting of four generational cohorts, every adult learner has a personal preference. It is hard to shift habits and behaviors, and some learners are reluctant to use training technology, while others encounter challenges in navigating through the technology. Chesterfield County s Dosher offers a few additional questions to ask and tips: Is the content appropriate for online delivery? Some content requires a physical environment delivery (i.e., CPR, presentation skills, etc.). Tip: Partner with subject matter experts to determine if content can be delivered effectively online. How technology savvy is the organization? Do most learners work with computers in their job? Do learners have the appropriate technology for the course (i.e., players for video, speakers for audio, Internet connection and browsers capable of handling course requirements)? Does the organization have technology assistance to provide support for large-scale deployment? Tip: Do a needs assessment to determine where the organization is on use of technology and partner with the IT department to identify technology support it can supply. Understand and be able to respond to the requirements for the hosting process (LMS requirements) and the specifications for the software used to author online courses. Do learners know why this course is going online, why it is important to them and that it is a legitimate form of learning just like going to a classroom? Tip: Create a communication plan that includes leadership with the end result of support for the online course beginning at the top and including every level of supervision within the organization. MEASURING RESULTS Aside from learner engagement, completion rates, behavior change, and expectations/goals achieved, experts say there are a few other factors organizations should evaluate when

27 comes to measuring training success. Other important measures in the real world are cost, institutional knowledge retention, and lost on-the-job time, notes Cypher. And accesses of an online training course can be important data because it can determine if learners are accessing the course for specific content they need in the work environment, notes Dosher. The online course then serves a double purpose: initial delivery of the entire course and also as a job aid for just-in-time knowledge or skills. You can t go back to a classroom whenever you need a piece of information from a class, but you can go back online to a course and get what you need when you need it. Feedback loops are essential in any training program, Spear adds. Direct employee feedback, as well as aligning training with an individual s overall performance, promotion, or attrition, can help determine the effectiveness of the program when evaluated at a holistic, organizational level, over time. At the end of the day, Alexander says, the learning method whether online or instructor led must support the Did you know that your employees can earn college credit for training received on the job? CASE STUDY: GREYHOUND LINES INC. Greyhound s business model requires its employees to be geographically dispersed and operate 24/7/365. As a result, Greyhound Lines Inc. moved from classroom-only training to e-learning only for leadership and customer service courses, and has seen a dramatic reduction in customer service complaints. More than 600 Greyhound employees from supervisors and field reps to counter staff/customer service reps and bus drivers have received training from OpenSesame via courses on leadership development, business skills, soft skills, and customer service. Greyhound uses the Skillport learning management system (LMS), which allows it to track assignments, participation, and progress in courses. Assignments can be made, with automated reminders for the student, and it is simple to pull statistics and reports on course usage and progress. Greyhound is a big believer that the just-in-time module provides training when students are ready, wherever they are. Mobile courses make it easy for Greyhound s nomadic workforce to take courses on the go. In fact, in 2015, Greyhound plans to roll out iphones to its driver workforce, and they ll be able to access OpenSesame training from there, as well. Because of the cost reduction for e-learning, Greyhound now can commit to training its workforce regularly. It is now a paid benefit, which has had a positive impact on engagement, morale, and productivity. strategic objectives of the organization in order to compare the results. The learning curriculum must provide the development of skill and competency of the employee to transfer on the job. t Take Your Training to College with ACE CREDIT ACE CREDIT is the national leader in evaluating training that occurs outside the traditional classroom, including training provided by Fortune 500 companies, state and government agencies, associations, and other organizations. The program offers your organization the potential to: Gain national recognition as a provider of quality training Motivate your employees by providing access to higher education and professional development opportunities Recruit and retain better-skilled employees More than 2,000 colleges and universities consider ACE credit recommendations when making transfer credit decisions. For more information contact us at (202) creditinfo@acenet.edu training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

28 Managing MOOCs Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) provide large numbers of learners with unlimited access to online material, but they are not for everyone. BY MARGERY WEINSTEIN Finding high-quality, relevant training materials online can be difficult and costly. The learning sites developed by most organizations usually are off-limits to outsiders, or are only open for a fee. The exception to this rule: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). These unrestricted online learning portals allow outsiders to take advantage of the material at any time, often for free. This gives companies an opportunity to avoid reinventing the training wheel. If another, similar organization already has created an online portal with the same subject matter you need to educate your employees about, so much the better especially if you are able to have your workforce access the materials at no cost. Here is how some companies and training experts recommend approaching the use and creation of MOOCs. GIVE LEARNERS A PROACTIVE ROLE With MOOCs offering information on a wide variety of subjects just a Google search away, some learning professionals find that these resources can empower employees. Like many companies, we are evolving from a training organization into a learning and development role. The difference is significant, says Chris Clement, director, Sales Training and Development, Shaw Learning Academy, Shaw Industries. Training often is viewed as something that is pushed to a population, while the learning and development model is more of a pull approach. MOOCs potentially can fit in a pull model by making a variety of learning from various sources available, and allows learners to become much more involved in the direction of their development. The two MOOCs Clement says he is familiar with are Coursera and edx. The company does not currently direct employees to use these resources, but the access we all have to these sites gives employees the ability to research subjects and fill learning holes on their own. For example, an employee newly promoted to a high-level management position could type in business management into the search box on Coursera.org and would find courses such as Introduction to Finance from the University of Michigan. Site visitors have the option of clicking a button to pay a fee to earn a verified credit or they can click another button to join for free. Similar to Coursera, edx.org visitors have the option of clicking a button to simply audit this course for free or try for a certificate for a fee. Shaw may take a structured approach in the coming few years, directing employees to specific MOOCs to expand the learning material for its Shaw Learning Academy courses. Clement says he foresees the possibility of directed MOOC use as part of a 26 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

29 blended learning program. Effective training in the 21st century will have to become more diverse, incorporating blended learning as an approach to truly be effective. That means thinking beyond traditional instructor-led training (ILT) models and designing programs that meet people where they are, he explains. An example would be to combine ILT with video-based programs, Web modalities, and 24/7 content such as a MOOC. This gives training a longer retention period and also allows organizations to expand their bandwidth beyond live facilitation. Learners also can benefit from a more active role using a MOOC via the collaborative power it offers. MOOCs can facilitate collaboration if employed thoughtfully and if an organization is willing to put in the effort to facilitate the collaboration among its employees who are taking the MOOC, says Josh Brand, senior director of Global Delivery for Harvard Business Publishing (HBP). For example, a company can significantly enhance the MOOC experience by creating an action-learning project that its employees must complete in small groups as they go through the MOOC. The projects must be scoped thoughtfully and tied to real work. The openness of the MOOC platform makes it easier than it might be on other platforms for learners to engage each other. For instance, Brand says HBP uses a MOOC-like platform to encourage executives to teach one another. HBP delivered a large cohort program for 700 executives at a pharmaceutical company focused on leadership, strategy, and customer centricity. The program is orchestrated through a proprietary HBP MOOC-like platform, and has both self-paced and live elements. The live elements are all done virtually because the executives are located around the globe, Brand explains. One of the design elements of this program is teach others, where each executive is challenged to teach at least three people in the organization the core content of the program. DEVELOP YOUR OWN MOOC Creating your own MOOC can be expensive and labor intensive. Both the content production and the technical platform can be costly, says Andrew Miller, program director for Aquent Gymnasium, a division of global staffing firm Aquent that has created a MOOC program focused on online design education. In our case, a single course costs well in excess of $160,000 to produce. Like any kind of new learning resource, a company thinking of investing in a MOOC has to consider its business goals and the related needs of the audience (learners) it is trying to reach. But you also need to think about whether your goals and the needs of your learners are suited to the MOOC format. Yes, MOOCs can allow for interaction between students and instructors via message boards, and some MOOC providers allow for office hours (again, online) where students can ask instructors questions. But if the material requires real-time feedback and interaction between teachers and students, or if active discussion between students is essential to the learning goals, then the MOOC model may not be appropriate, says Miller. Similarly, if you are not trying to teach thousands of people, you may not want to invest in developing, building, and managing a MOOC. A MOOC may be helpful to a global organization with a largescale training program. For example, a global organization might have a training initiative that includes a combination of methods/units such as workshops, trainings, and assessments, says Miller. The cost of sending instructors out to all of its locations might be prohibitive in this case. The workshops could be facilitated by local teams in each location, but the training components and assessments could be produced centrally and served as a MOOC. EMC Corporation, which just launched a MOOC in June, is becoming familiar with some of the challenges and benefits of operating its own MOOC. Beth Cliff, head of Global Talent Development and EMC University, notes, There are a number of difficulties, but none are training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

30 Managing MOOCs insurmountable. She says challenges include: management system (LMS) QUICK TIPS t Let Us Introduce You to the Next Generation: Engagement Analytics Perfect Alignment with Engagement Analytics EMPLOYEE S Expectations & Motivators MAXIMIZE Engagement Discretionary Effort Job Satisfaction Retention Business Results ORGANIZATION S Policies, Benefits, Values & Goals Request our article Engagement is a Shared Responsibility! 888/ info@harrisonna.com 28 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

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32 Findings from a structured review of the literature on informal learning. BY SAUL CARLINER, PH.D., CTDP 7 Informal Learning Lessons learning is emerging as one of the most powerful disciplines in our industry, writes Informal industry observer Bob Mosher. Not really. Yes, informal learning is powerful, but it s not new. As long as people have learned how to perform work-related tasks by observing and interacting with others, informal learning has played a significant role in training and development. But its role in the context of the modern workplace and the contentrich and often social Internet has spurred renewed interest in the last decade as an alternative to the formal classroom. This article summarizes the research by describing seven assertions about informal learning that have emerged from the literature review. A sidebar on p. 32 explains how the research was found, as well as the difference in nature between research on formal and informal learning. For the full list of Saul Carliner, Ph.D., CTDP, is research director of Lakewood Media and an associate professor at Concordia University in Montreal. references noted in this article, visit: trgmag-article/7-informal-learning-lessons. 1. Informal learning in the workplace differs from true informal learning. True informal learning is learning in which learners establish the objectives and determine for themselves when they have achieved them. For example, a training manager might need to develop a strategic plan for her department. Lacking experience in one, she seeks the advice of colleagues on a LinkedIn group and reads some of the articles and books suggested in the discussion. As suggested by this scenario, most of the material that workers learn outside of the classroom either happens as the result of an intentional act by the employer or addresses procedures and policies workers must follow in a particular way. So British researchers Helen Colley, Phil Hodkinson, and Janice Malcolm clarified the definition of informal learning in the workplace. Rather than complete control over objectives and completion, 30 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

33 nent called clinical education, in which students work under - serve as clinical education in many adult education, educational Colley, Hodkinson, and Malcolm noted that informal learning includes shared control over: - identified a fifth characteristic: consciousness, which is the 2. Rather than separate, formal and informal learning are interrelated. - another, researcher Victoria Marsick who once thought Triggers spur workers to initiate learning informally. - According to the latest version of their model of informal 4. Informal learning is a circuitous and possibly inefficient process. Even if they do, the first solution they devise as a result of Millar tells the story of some motivated fast-food workers - training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

34 7 Informal Learning Lessons many cases, however, the suggestion did not fix the problem, resulting in repeated calls and increasingly angry clients. Downing addressed the problem by suggesting that customer support representatives follow a prescribed protocol to diagnose callers problems. This protocol would solve 80 percent of the problems. If they used a search afterward, representatives were trained in methods for conducting the search. Robin Kay even found gender differences in the ways that people try to solve software problems on their own: Women tend to ask for help soon after realizing a problem arose, while men try to solve the problem, often consulting several sources if needed. Although informal learning might be the only realistic way to solve an immediate work problem, it is not always the most efficient form of learning. 5. Workers need time and other resources to learn within the context of the job. One of the reasons workers might try to solve problems on their own is that they feel they are doing so as efficiently as possible. REVIEW METHODOLOGY The conclusions in this article emerged from a structured review of the literature on informal learning. A research team conducted a search of several databases such as ERIC and PsychInfo using keywords informal learning, incidental learning, and nonformal learning to generate a list of articles on research and theory about informal learning since In addition, the team conducted a manual search of journals Human Resource Development Quarterly, Human Resource Development Review, and Journal of Workplace Learning to locate research and theory. The team reviewed the articles and identified themes in the research. When reviewing the research, the team observed one major difference between general research on formal and informal learning processes. Most of the research on formal learning is experimental. It involves manipulating a condition and observing how people respond. These studies usually have a control group one that did not participate in the experimental condition and researchers reach their conclusions by comparing the results of the experimental and control groups. These studies involve scores, if not hundreds, of participants. In contrast, the research on informal learning is based on observations and in-depth interviews describing their informal learning processes. These studies do not involve a manipulation of a condition nor a comparison between two groups. Instead, researchers collect in-depth descriptions of situations. The broader observations about informal learning, then, come from patterns consistently emerging in different studies conducted by different researchers. For the full list of references noted in this article, visit: They might feel the need for efficiency because, as Thomas Westbrook and James Veale found, some workers do not feel like they have permission to learn on work time. In her 2005 study, Andrea Ellinger found that workplaces where senior managers do not indicate that they learn informally on work time nor express support for doing so further discourage workers from learning on the job. In other words, two of the most fundamental ways employers can support informal learning by their workers is to: when it s the only way to solve an immediate work problem. modeling the behavior and vocally expressing their support for doing so. need access to appropriate resources to support their informal learning. One of the reasons 6.Workers workers might go through several processes of learning and re-learning is that they lack needed resources. That s certainly the case in the study Downing conducted. In that instance, workers needed three essential resources. The first was an effective strategy for searching the Internet. In fact, people assumed to be digital natives lack effective skills for searching the Internet. They often do not know how to use advanced search capabilities nor how to distinguish the most useful information from the least useful. The second resource workers needed is access to high-quality content. Kay noted, for example, that manuals are among the most valuable resource for learning software. Although the Internet has much free information, sometimes the most valuable information needed requires a subscription. For example, most companies limit access to their technical support databases to authorized workers and reports require a subscription before people can view them. In addition, some of the most useful and accurate material for your workers needs to be custom developed, such as internal policies and procedures guides and specialized knowledge bases. The third resource needed is access to coaches with whom workers can explore the lessons learned informally. Although trainers have formalized the role of coaching in recent years, in the context of informal learning, coaches are any supervisor or co-worker with whom the worker can discuss and validate lessons learned. In fact, some researchers have found that workers interact with as many as a dozen people in the process of learning informally in the workplace. This social aspect of learning has spurred interest in communities of practice that is, formal and informal networks of people who discuss work-related issues and learn from one another. The social aspect of learning also has spurred interest in the role of social media in informal learning. Some re- 32 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

35 listservs can play this coaching role. For organizations to facilitate informal learning, then, they might provide workers with training on Internet search skills, access to coaches who can help workers validate what they have learned and synthesize it, subscriptions to information sources needed on the job, and custom-developed content. the proposition of , no one really knows how much workers learn informally. According to popular belief, the relationship is supposed to be 70:20:10, 7.Despite meaning 70 percent of work-related learning occurs informally; 20 percent through coaching; and 10 percent of learning occurs formally. The idea was proposed by University of Toronto professor Allen Tough in the 1960s, revived in the mid-1990s by consultants from the Center for Creative Leadership, and revived again in the last few years. But management researchers Scott DeRue and Chris Myers noted there is no research evidence to support this model. In fact, the only research evidence that attempts to identify the extent to which workers learn on the job was provided by the Conference Board of Canada, which determined that only 56 percent of all work-related learning occurs informally. In practical terms, this means that training professionals should take a balanced approach, providing formal and informal learning and appropriately investing in each. Because formal learning involves the purposeful development of resources and the use of set-aside time and places for instruction, the investments needed for formal learning usually exceed those for informal learning. But because informal learning requires subscriptions, custom-developed content, and work time, and could involve seemingly unproductive trial and error, it isn t free. IN OTHER WORDS Informal learning plays particular roles at particular stages of development within a job. As I note in my book on informal learning, informal learning helps workers transfer the first training lessons to the job. Once workers become proficient in the basics of the job, informal learning helps workers expand the scope of tasks they can handle and the efficiency and effectiveness with which they do so. As workers become experts, informal learning helps them deepen their expertise. And as workers outgrow their jobs, informal learning helps them identify possible new jobs and begin the process of preparing for them. t When talent management success requires doing more with less, choose your tools carefully Learn to use the world s most trusted and powerful personality assessments for maximum ROI Register to receive your FREE ebook Cycles of Success: A Guide to Employee Engagement, Career Development and Talent Management at: MBTI CERTIFICATION PROGRAM Build actionable training programs around applications such as leadership development, team building and conflict management while improving communication Achieve MBTI Certified Practitioner status plus eligibility to purchase and use the FIRO assessment suite CPI 260 CERTIFICATION PROGRAM Learn to use the CPI 260 for performance improvement, succession planning and selection programs Understand how to interpret reports and help clients make sense of their results Visit for program and registration details, or call The people development people. MBTI, Step I, Step II, and the MBTI logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Myers & Briggs Foundation. CPI 260, FIRO, and the Strong, CPI260 and CPP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of CPP, Inc. training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

36 Making Long-Distance Relationships Work Problems that involve remote colleagues result in significantly more severe impacts to productivity, cost, quality, and time, according to a survey by VitalSmarts and Training magazine. But the situation isn t hopeless. Here are some steps that can help. BY DAVID MAXFIELD If people were down the hall, I d know what to do. But most of them work half-way across the world. It used to be that only nerds and defective managers would use phone calls and s alone to address performance problems. Savvy leaders would practice management by walking around. They d meet with the person, face to face, because they d want to use every interpersonal skill in their tool kit. But the world has changed. Now many of us rely on virtual communication not because we re nerds, but because we re working with people we ve never met and may never meet. VitalSmarts partnered with Training magazine to explore the kinds of problems this new work environment creates, and to offer some solutions. We surveyed more than 2,000 employees and managers to learn from their experiences. The New World of Work Our data confirmed that the world has changed: Some 64 percent of the people we surveyed work with remote team members on a frequent basis. These people rely extensively on virtual communication to solve problems. , conference calls, and phone calls are the most common. No surprise there, but we were surprised to find instant messaging came in as one of the top three communication tools for nearly half the respondents. As predicted, many problems are magnified when colleagues are remote. In fact, the survey revealed people are four times as likely to say that remote employees: trust is drained, as well. People are three times as likely to say people who are remote: information. Further, problems that involve remote colleagues take significantly longer to solve, and they result in significantly more severe impacts to productivity, cost, quality, and time. What Leaders Can Do We began by examining whether the communication tool people used affected their problem-solving success, and the 34 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

37 results were interesting. People who rely on low-bandwidth methods , conference calls, and phone calls are less effective at solving problems with people who are co-located with them. This supports the idea that stronger leaders use faceto-face problem solving when they can. People who use high-bandwidth methods videoconferencing, Skype/FaceTime/Google Hangouts, Facebook, Instant Messenger, etc. are more effective at solving problems with their remote colleagues. These richer communication tools allow for more personal and revealing interactions discussions that are closer to the face-to-face ideal. Just as in co-located offices, effective leaders use problem-solving mediums that make sensitive interactions as close to face-to-face as possible. Next in our survey, we asked people to share examples of leaders successful practices. More than 600 such best practice examples poured in; we grouped these ideas into six categories: 1. Meet in person when you can. Some advice from our respondents: Bring new teams together when they are first formed; bring teams together when they are starting significant new projects; and bring teams together annually. Even if they can t bring the team together, leaders should visit their remote team members. Quarterly visits were widely recommended, and it was suggested that leaders meet with team members, not just the leaders of remote locations. 2. Connect every day. When team members are working remotely, they won t bump into each other in the hallways. Leaders need to initiate contact. The recommendations included 20-minute phone calls with every direct report every morning; touchpoints throughout the day, using phone calls, instant messaging, and videoconferencing; and a reminder to be sensitive to time zones and business day schedules globally. 3. Use high-bandwidth technologies. Use a wide variety of technologies, but make sure to include ones that allow the greatest personal contact. Use videoconferencing, Facebook groups, Google Hangouts, Twitter, WeChat, and other social collaboration software. Some team members may be resistant to being seen on video, but the advantages to the team outweigh their reluctance. 4. Mix social into the business. Build relationships across the team. Successful teams are social groups, not just work entities. Having a best friend at work is one of the best predictors of employee engagement. Make sure every team member feels valued. Tips from respondents: Use Facebook groups and friend the people on your team; make sure you talk about weekend activities, family events, birthdays, hobbies, etc. Take special care when a team member is facing a personal challenge family illness, divorce, relocation, etc. and use these occasions to show genuine caring and concern. Demonstrate your support for the team member. 5. Add structure. Distance creates gaps in information. Minimize these gaps by over communicating and adding structure. Respondents suggest: Be clear about expectations and document them; explain the reasons behind decisions and requests and follow up in writing; use organized workflow and project plans; document decisions and action items; create visuals that show plans and progress. 6. Be a true resource. As a leader, you are the team s access point to information and resources. Make sure you are available, responsive, and know who can help. Don t wait to be asked. Routinely suggest sources of information and assistance. What All of Us Must Do Leaders can do all they can to prevent problems, but it s inevitable that problems will occur. When they do occur, our data suggests they are much tougher to solve when they involve remote team members. They persist longer and cause more damage than when people are co-located. We wanted to understand this difference, and offer advice on solving problems within virtual teams. We began by looking for systematic differences in the ways people resolved problems with distant versus co-located colleagues. The most glaring difference we found was that people are significantly less direct, less forthcoming, and less timely when problems involve distant colleagues. This fact does a lot to explain why these problems last longer and are more costly. Next, we asked participants to read and evaluate a variety of different ways of approaching these crucial conversations. The findings from this part of the study can be grouped into two broad categories: Focusing on Facts and Managing Emotions. Skilled problem solvers do both, but the virtual work environment puts their skills to the test. Here are suggestions that come from our data: Focus on Facts: The best remote problem solvers make sure they are talking about the right issue, the one they care about most; they don t get distracted by secondary topics; they factually and accurately describe their point of view; they go to great lengths to listen to and understand the other person s perspective; and they make sure they clarify decisions in a way that avoids future misunderstandings. Manage Emotions: They continually refer to mutual goals and interests of the virtual team, which helps diffuse defensiveness and tribalism. Also, they watch for early warning signs that their distant colleague is struggling, then reach out quickly to empathize with his or her frustrations or concerns. When the distant colleague seems upset, they make it clear they care about their distant colleague s interests and respect him or her. Finally, they intentionally manage their own emotions watching for signs that they are attributing bad motives to remote team members and working to give them the benefit of the doubt while quickly talking directly with them to check out any creeping concerns they might have before they escalate. The virtual work environment is here to stay. Utilizing the steps outlined above can help ensure successful virtual communication is more than just a remote possibility. t VitalSmarts David Maxfield is a New York Times bestselling author, keynote speaker, and social scientist for organizational change. For 30 years, Maxfield has delivered engaging keynotes at venues including Stanford and Georgetown Universities. His work has been translated into 28 languages, is available in 36 countries, and has generated results for 300 of the Fortune training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

38 Just-in-Time Technology Solutions We watch TV programs sans commercials on demand and have instant access to information 24/7 via the Web. Today s employees want that same flexibility when it comes to training.. BY MARGERY WEINSTEIN Most of us have the technology capability in our living rooms to watch a whole season s worth of TV shows in one day and to watch other shows whenever we like via on-demand channels and our DVRs. When you couple those conveniences with how second nature it has become to Google any question, you can see the appeal of just-in-time technology in training. Rather than have the learning delivery dictated by trainers or executives, it often makes sense to allow employees themselves to decide when they need to access specific information or when they need quick refresher training. Here is how some companies are rolling out just-in-time (JIT) learning to their workforces using the latest technology solutions. LIVE CHAT AND ONLINE GUIDES The next best thing to being able to tap the shoulder of a work buddy in the next cubicle is to be able to tap the virtual shoulder of an expert. At health-care staffing provider CHG Healthcare Services, online chat provides flexible learning. When we roll out new technology to a division in our company, it is not always possible to have on-the-floor support for the duration of the rollout period, says Senior Technical Training Specialist Zach Sumsion. One technique we have leveraged to account for this limitation is live chat where assigned trainers support rollouts remotely by standing by via live chat, able to answer questions in real time as they surface. Rather than give learners all the information 36 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

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40 Just-in-Time Technology Solutions QUICK TIPS subject matter expert a question provides immediate access to information in an informal way. sources, provided the information is presented in synthesized, at-a-glance formats, such as short video presentations. lead users through the material to help them find what they re looking for. resources can be accessed on smart phones and tablets not just on employees office desktop computers. own performance whenever they need it, so, for example, salespeople know before it s too late whether they re meeting their sales quota. they need in one shot prior to major technology rollouts, CHG provides a foundation of how to use a new [technology] application, and then the rest of the strategy is on-the-job support, says Sumsion. Because this strategy can be resource-intensive, the online chat model allows more flexibility while still providing on-demand support. Our strategy for these rollouts also leverages an online repository of step-by-step guides. HOW TO IMPLEMENT JIT TECHNOLOGY By Gerry Griffin, Founder and Director, Skill Pill Many L&D and HR professionals are discovering the benefits of just-in-time (JIT) learning technologies for their employees, but the big question is: How to best implement them? This trend, in part, is prompted by the shift from mandatory to self-service learning from the you have to do this to look at this if you find it useful. As a result, L&D departments need to market the content better (e.g., make it more engaging). Similarly, they need to associate or tag the material with particular challenges in order to increase the relevance of digital learning materials. So when looking at JIT learning, you need an understanding of user motivations and their access to the learning objects. What you re ultimately trying to provide for employees is convenience: ease of accessing information for learning. First, you need to make sure the information is tagged. This means slicing and dicing the learning so the content can be easily associated with the task at hand. A manager under pressure is not likely to peruse an e-learning module on Strategy and Change. But he or she is more likely to look at Managing Team Conflict if that is the context at hand. Next, you need to identify the profile of the user. There are two types of users: the Considered user and the Trigger user. Considered users prepare properly i.e., they have time on their commute home so they read a business book. These types of users are increasingly rare in organizations today. Replacing them are Trigger users, who react to a series of events or pressure points i.e., I got a call from a difficult client. The latter are the users who will be most suited to JIT learning. What this means in practice is: video or piece of content that relates to the upcoming task. device (mobile phone, tablet, PC). content and is finished looking at it within three minutes. You have a five-minute zone of discretion to go from the moment of need identification through to fulfillment. Any longer and you will lose your audience. CROWD-SOURCING FOR ANSWERS Another way for employees to get fast answers to questions is to give them the ability to throw their questions out to a crowd of colleagues online, or engage in what some call crowd-sourcing, says Michael Helton, director of Online Learning, Combined Insurance. Crowd-sourcing is an interesting concept in terms of learning because it provides the ability to tap into the collective knowledge and experience of an organization. Say, for example, a salesperson repeatedly is receiving a specific type of question. JIT technology would make it easy for that salesperson to search for a response to questions and receive dozens of possible responses. Another benefit is the speed at which questions could be answered. On our internal portal, I routinely see questions answered within seconds of posting, says Helton. However, Helton adds, with crowd-sourcing and internal professional/social media, there is the challenge of participants providing incorrect guidance or advice. Therefore, he says, it is always a good idea to have some sort of moderation by subject matter experts to ensure the company is protected. INTERNAL WIKIS AND BLOG PORTALS An online portal where learners can get questions answered by internal wikis and blogs contributed to by colleagues and outside experts can be a just-in-time resource provided the content is in engaging, accessible formats, says Paula Crerar, vice president of Product Marketing at learning technology provider Brainshark, Inc. Anything that makes content easily accessible is a boon for just-in-time training. A wellmaintained and organized content portal can work as a centralized location for learners to go a onestop-shop for everything they need. The whole idea behind just-in-time training is that people don t have to waste time searching for the right information, says Crerar. The type of content is also important to consider, she notes. For example, a two-minute video presentation on a new product update might be more effective than a multi-page technical spec sheet. Technology is available to make the creation of these types of resources much easier, which enables not only more timely delivery of content, but also helps ensure content is more effective and engaging. CUSTOM PATHS Your employees don t have to be young and tech savvy to optimize just-in-time technology. The 38 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

41 technology has advanced enough that the way employees tap into JIT information can be adapted to their individual preferences, says Eric Vidal, director of Product Marketing at learning solutions provider InterCall. Different visual aspects make the usage of virtual learning environments more intuitive and user friendly for older generations. For instance, you can create a virtual host who will greet users as they enter the environment. The host then will guide them throughout the different rooms, says Vidal. Companies also can create custom learning paths for each employee. This creates less confusion as to what session or room employees should go to next, Vidal says. The overall visual nature of virtual learning environments, as well as the extra features, helps prevent older employees from becoming overwhelmed by all of the environment s features. BOOSTING SALES REP KNOWLEDGE AND MAKING IT STICK By Ryan Casey, Manager, Global Curriculum Design, American Medical Systems ( The impact of sales training should be a straight-line increase in the organization s revenue theoretically. But like many companies, American Medical Systems (AMS), a subsidiary of Endo International that makes medical devices and therapies to restore pelvic health, found that sales rep recall of new product information presented during training sessions, kick-off meetings, and the like would decline in as little as two weeks. Initiatives to boost recall, such as post-event quizzes and Webinars, were less than effective. Late last year, AMS began piloting a mobile reinforcement solution from Qstream that was developed at Harvard and proven in nearly two dozen randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Every few days, our reps respond to simple, scenario-based Q&A challenges in minutes using any mobile device. Game mechanics make the experience fun and engaging as sales reps vie for points on the leaderboard based on their responses. The results: During the initial pilot, the program drove the post-event mastery score from a baseline of 68 percent to 92 percent, with more than 96 percent engagement. This far exceeded the results we got from postevent quizzes and Webinars. AMS sales reps view the program as fun and non-intrusive, and even the previously skeptical among them now are asking for more Qstreams. What s more, a scenario whose correct answer percentage was well below that of others tipped us off to a misunderstanding that existed among the field force in how to differentiate against a competitor. Because we were tracking what sales reps really knew in real time, we could correct the issue quickly, instead of waiting months until it affected business results. Critical success factors for us included: 1. COMMUNICATION. This included obtaining support from our senior leadership not to use wrong answers punitively but to allow reps the freedom to learn. The latter is vital and helped us prove that this was not a Big Brother initiative but rather a genuine approach to help reps remember what they need to know to boost performance. 2. CONTENT: We thoughtfully designed the scenarios to pose matters that reps need to address in order to have the level of conversations clients require to drive purchasing decisions. Explanations are offered both for correct answers (to cement understanding) and for incorrect ones. 3. COMPETITION: Sales reps are naturally competitive and we made it fun, using the ability to top the leaderboard to keep them engaged. After just nine months, Qstream now is built into our culture as a way of going beyond the fire hose of product information we give to sales reps during sales meetings. In January 2014, AMS debuted three new Qstream initiatives, one for each of its three business units: women s health, men s health, and prostate health. AMS also debuted a separate international program in four languages. ON YOUR SMART PHONE With most of us accustomed to getting our questions answered wherever we happen to be typically on our smart phones it s only logical that companies offer the same option to their employees. Rather than requiring an employee to be at a computer to access fast answers, some organizations are making that information available on mobile devices such as their phones, says John Buelow, executive vice president of SNI, a provider of negotiation skills training. At SNI, we have our Preparation Planner available on our mobile app. Our clients can pull this checklist up on their phone in the midst of a negotiation to remind them of our systematic approach to negotiating, says Buelow. Despite the fact that we cover the components of the Preparation Planner in our instructor-led training, we know that busy professionals cannot rely on remembering our seven steps when under pressure. Our just-in-time tech training helps to reinforce the system. INSTANT PERFORMANCE METRICS Some of the most important information employees search for relates to their own performance. Companies now can offer employees the ability to get instant metrics about how they re doing, says Frank E. Paterno, vice president of Marketing for Intelliverse. Intelliverse gives salespeople real-time feedback that helps to answer How am I doing? or Am I going to make quota? says Paterno. Realtime statistics show salespeople if they are meeting the required activity levels for that hour or day. No longer does a salesperson have to wait for the end of the month to get a report that shows how he or she did. Instead, with real-time feedback, salespeople can improve their results before it is too late. Ultimately, no matter the technology, when implementing JIT solutions, it is vital for companies to have a clear outcome or goal in mind, stresses Jimmy Lin, vice president of Product Management and Corporate Strategy at The Network. They should know where they are lacking and what they need to meet their objective. Furthermore, they must ensure their goal is not too broad. They should look to attack one problem at a time and choose or design their solution to meet their objective. t training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

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43 Games FOCUS ON &Simulations TRENDS+TECHNOLOGIES+CASE STUDIES

44 FOCUS ON Games&Simulations TRAINING GAMES: THE MILITARY WAY Military games offer lessons for the corporate training sector. By Michael Peck Jim Lunsford makes games other people don t. He designs training games for the U.S. military. That s unusual enough. But he also makes games on subjects that don t seem very game-like. For example, there is Forward Into Battle ( a computer game of military logistics designed to train students at the U.S. Army s Command and General Staff College. Despite its target audience, it s not a Risklike wargame. The challenge of the game is to get supplies and reinforcements to the combat troops. That may sound routine, but as many a defeated general can attest, it s not. In the game, the player must cope with limited port capacities that force him or her to prioritize which ships and cargo are unloaded first, even as the computer-controlled Future Force is a game designed to teach military force planning. enemy tries to block truck convoys from reaching the front. Then there is Future Force ( a game designed to teach military force planning or how to build the military you need with the funds you have. The player controls the armed forces of the fictional nation of Blueland. He or she receives a defense budget each game year, which can be spent on various purchases, such as different types of combat brigades, research and development, and intelligence and counterintelligence operations. Naturally, there isn t enough money to buy everything Blueland needs. More important, Blueland is contesting several conflict zones with rival nation Orangeland. The problem is that the various conflicts require different types of troops, so that a tank brigade is useful in regular warfare but not chasing guerrillas, while the reverse is true for Special Forces units. Funding changes each year, as does the type of conflict in each zone, yet it takes time to respond by creating new combat units. So the player must be astute enough to guess what sort of wars to prepare for, as well as flexible enough to adapt when he or she inevitably guesses wrong. Do these sound like complicated games? Actually, they are very simple. I was able to sit down and play Future Force in just a few minutes. And that s the way Lunsford likes it. KEEPING IT SIMPLE A retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and a former tactics instructor at the Command and General Staff College, Lunsford believes training games should be kept simple. Games are there to support the instructor, not the other way around. Whether it s for a military or corporate training game, the time required to learn the fundamentals 42 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

45 of the game rules and mechanics must be kept to the absolute minimum, says Lunsford, now owner of Decisive-Point Games ( com) in Kansas City, MO. Ten minutes has to be the goal. Otherwise, they spend too much time learning to play the game and not enough time practicing the skills and tasks associated with the learning objectives. An after-action review mechanism is also vital. The game must allow instructors to analyze performance, identify desirable and undesirable behaviors, and provide feedback. Lunsford, who has designed more than a dozen games for the U.S. military and West Point, was one of the innovators in the military s growing use of games. Over the last decade, training games have spread across the U.S. Armed Forces, as well as Britain, Canada, Australia, and other nations. It s not that the Pentagon brass has an irresistible urge to grab a joystick. But training soldiers nowadays is expensive in terms of money, resources, and time. Games are not a substitute for live training in the mud or the cockpit, but they are cost-effective in preparing soldiers for many tasks. FROM THE BATTLEFIELD TO THE OFFICE After years of preparing soldiers for combat, Lunsford has turned his game design skills toward the civilian sector. He devised Municipal Crisis, which trains first responders in how to handle disasters. Players must cope with various types of incidents such as fires and plane crashes, as information is relayed to them through text messages and multimedia files. Lunsford also runs a corporate leadership and teambuilding computer game called Explore, Serious Games BY JEAN MARTIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HUMAN RESOURCES PRACTICE, AND MIKE FETZER, GLOBAL DIRECTOR, ADVANCED ASSESSMENT TECHNOLOGIES, CEB The use of serious games is quickly becoming a more mainstream method for achieving key objectives in a variety of business initiatives. Applications designed for the military, education, health care, and government have produced many positive outcomes and kicked off the infiltration of serious games in the broader corporate world. Serious games are best defined as games used for purposes other than pure entertainment. They incorporate elements of game design in order to enhance the level of engagement of the target user above and beyond that which can be achieved with non-game approaches. These elements include, but are not limited to: Many serious games also incorporate technologies used in today s entertainment gaming industry, such as computergenerated animation. Currently, the most prevalent use of serious games is for training purposes. Organizations are using serious games to train employees on broad and diverse topics from teamwork to strategic planning. Serious games also are used for jobspecific skill development, such as training on aircraft repair and patient triage. Serious games can be used in situations that are too cost-prohibitive or risky to accomplish in a realworld situation for instance, the military uses serious games to train its members on complex and/or dangerous situations. Initiatives from customer attraction and retention to performance management quickly are realizing the benefits of serious games and the broader trend of gamification. In the 2013 Playing to Win: Gamification and Serious Games in Organizational Learning survey conducted by ASTD, 25 percent of responding organizations indicated that they are using gamification for training and development. Additionally, analysts have posited that the serious games and gamification market will grow from $421 million in 2013 to $5.5 billion in 2018, an annual growth rate of 67 percent (MarketsandMarkets global research). Clearly, we are on the verge of a revolution in the way businesses approach traditional challenges. CEB s 2014 Global Assessment Trends Report, which includes survey results from more than 1,400 HR professionals globally, indicates that training will be the HR area most likely to receive increased budget this year. Given this trend and the explosive growth in the serious games market, it is highly likely that many corporate training programs will be leveraging elements of gamification to some degree in the future. training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

46 FOCUS ON Games&Simulations in which leaders and their employees embark on an expedition based on Lewis and Clark s transcontinental journey. Each team member is assigned a unique slot on the expedition, similar, if possible, to what they do in their real-life company. Team roles include expedition leaders (which rotate among the different players), navigators, guides, quartermasters, scientists, and doctors. The expedition must choose a route through uncharted terrain, as well as how they are going to travel (by canoe, foot, etc.). Every team member has a chance for a unique (and secret) reward: The scientist, for example, gets bonus money for each scientific discovery. Yet to accomplish their individual goals, the team as a whole must succeed. Lunsford finds that the same issues that crop up in the workplace also appear in Explore. During our discussions about their performance, we routinely hear them say things such as, This is the same problem we always have, or I m not surprised, Game-Based Learning and Soft Skills Training BY IBRAHIM JABARY, CEO, GAMELEARN As HR and L&D professionals worldwide look to deliver consistent training across geographies in engaging ways, leveraging technology and game-based learning is a hot topic of conversation. Long used to develop technical skills, particularly through custom-built simulations, only recently have game-based learning solutions addressed training on soft skills the most critical area of employee development needs. As often happens in the buzz surrounding new technologies, two key concepts are being confused: gamification and game-based learning. Gamification (the sugar pill) When applied to training, gamification refers to the use of game mechanics to engage and motivate students so they participate in and complete a training course. Gamification mechanics include competitions, badges, and the ability to achieve different status levels and earn prizes and rewards. These techniques by themselves, however, do not make students learn. Rather, gamification is the sugar pill around the medicine (the training), which requires subject matter that is being learned, the ability to put this content into practice, and the receipt of personalized feedback that allows the learner to improve as he or she applies what is being learned. Game-Based Learning (the effective medicine) Game-based learning refers to simply learning through games, where the game s story and its characters and other elements teach new learning concepts. Game-based learning can occur in a physical context, such as through board games, or virtually through video games. Whether physical or virtual, the game must provide the learner with the opportunity to understand and then apply and practice what is being learned and receive feedback so the learning is captured i.e., there is cognitive residue that carries forward and instills new (learned) behavior i.e., the medicine has taken effect. Learning Design Any training format for soft skills development must fulfill the following criteria: 1. Compelling content (the subject matter to be learned) 2. Clear emphasis on practical application 3. Interactivity and experimentation 4. Skills development through practice and feedback 5. Motivation for students to learn and complete the course they begin So any attempt to use game-based learning also should ensure these criteria are fulfilled. Our approach at Gamelearn is to develop game-based learning products that mix three key components: 1. A comprehensive course, equivalent to a two-day instructor-led course with a clear focus on practical application. 2. A virtual simulator that allows students to practice and learn soft skills while receiving constant personalized feedback. 3. A graphical adventure video game that incorporates gamification elements to ensure engagement, motivation, and completion (competition, trophies, etc.). This way, game-based learning meets the necessary criteria and can be broadly deployed as an effective training tool for soft skills development. 44 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

47 you usually ignore us and do not ask for advice. When this occurs, we stop the game, try to quickly address the problem, recommend a solution, and then challenge them to continue the game without repeating their mistakes. As their familiarity with the game increases, we increase the pace and complexity of the exercise. IDENTIFY AND CORRECT BEHAVIOR That is the whole reason for training games, whether they are military or corporate. It is far less costly to expose and address problems in a game than it is on the battlefield or in the office. Explore was designed to address what Lunsford sees as a lack of corporate leader development and team training. Most organizations find it difficult to justify this expense since it doesn t check a required box or provide quantifiable results. Another challenge is convincing the leaders that they need routine leader and team training for their organization to thrive. While Lunsford concedes the military is far from perfect when it comes to leadership, he also believes that when military leaders make mistakes, most people around them can articulate the nature of the problem and identify the correct behavior. In the corporate world, the detailed study and practice of leadership is rare. Lunsford is a firm believer in the value of games for training, but he is adamant that the human element is what makes a training game work. The one thing to always remember is the game is merely an educational training tool. Regardless of the quality of the game, I believe 75 percent of the actual learning is dependent on the quality of the instructor. Knowledge Keepers: Digital Legacy Avatars BY MICK MCLAUGHLIN, HEAD OF MARKETING, SERIOUS GAMES INTERNATIONAL ( What do companies lose in terms of knowledge when longserving employees leave the building? Without a plan or program to transfer knowledge, business processes, and procedures to their younger counterparts, many companies may be faced with severe business continuity issues and gaps in knowledge that could have a serious impact on the future of their organization. We have seen a couple of emerging trends that are making knowledge transfer in organizations today an increasingly noticeable issue. One is the major demographic shifts that are coming. These include not only the retirement of Baby Boomers, but the increased turnover of highly skilled employees mid-career and the increased difficulties of recruiting, developing, and retaining younger workers. These demographic shifts, combined with the increasingly sophisticated technical, scientific, and managerial knowledge in the workplace in the last 30 years, means that when people leave organizations today, they potentially are taking with them knowledge that s critical to the future of the business. As many Baby Boomers approach retirement and Generation Yers and Millennials enter the marketplace, Serious Games International (SGIL) has addressed the issue of knowledge transfer with a 3-D intelligent avatar solution that not only encompasses key company information and procedures but also keeps the long-standing retiring employee s legacy alive. Utilizing SGIL s 3-D technology, an avatar was created with a photo-realistic image of a leading security and defense organization s long-serving employee who was approaching retirement. He was pre-programmed with key information about the company, procedural knowledge, and frequently asked questions and made available across multiple platforms, including Web, tablet, and smart phone. New and existing employees were able to ask the avatar questions and receive answers at their leisure. The introduction of the Digital Legacy Avatar proved to engage users, created a fun alternative route to learning, broke down barriers to learning, and instilled a real sense of pride with employees. Utilizing a long-serving and much-loved employee as an avatar who was known as the fountain of all knowledge had a major impact on the business with a real return on investment in the form of knowledge remaining with the company and at employees fingertips. training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

48 FOCUS ON Games&Simulations THEY VE GOT GAME A look at how four organizations CMS Energy, Xerox Europe, Aon Hewitt, and Southwest Airlines are gamifying training. By Gail Dutton CASE STUDY #1 CMS Energy: Tackling Conflicts with The Resolver Conflicts of interests that seem apparent in textbooks are rarely as clear-cut in reality. Recognizing that, CMS Energy uses rich storytelling in a gamified solution to drive the lessons home. In this game, just like the real world, multiple options appear to be correct, and they each come with consequences. The online game, The Resolver, goes beyond corporate or governmental policy. Participants must become trouble-shooters, traveling the world to help others understand dilemmas and help resolve them, explains Nicolas Carr, knowledge leader at LRN, which developed the solution. For example, people generally understand that offering or accepting bribes is illegal and unethical, but they may not understand the range of what, exactly, constitutes a bribe. The Resolver begins with a cinematic introduction a clink of champagne glasses, celebrations, and handing over tickets for a sporting event. The story then leads players throughout the game as they interact with characters and make choices. With each decision, we see the number of stakeholders including friends and family affected by their choices and hear those characters discuss the ramifications of the player s decisions. The dilemmas don t only affect the players, Carr emphasizes. At CMS Energy, we decided to host a competition during National Ethics and Compliance Week last year, recalls Corporate Compliance Director Christina DuVall. The Resolver takes about 25 minutes to play, so the competition occurred during a 1.5-hour lunch break. Employees formed teams of five and signed up to compete against all the other teams in the company. Winning team members each received tablets. We were trying to make it fun. We expected about 12 teams, DuVall says. Ultimately, 111 teams participated. Even our union groups played. CMS Energy promoted the competition during the two weeks before game day. This drew employees to us, DuVall recounts. Employees reached out to us for material to read before the game began. Forming teams also triggered conversations within peer groups about ethics and conflicts of interest. By dissecting and discussing these issues, employees began to understand them without realizing they were being trained. When the competition ended, players saw how they ranked against others on a leaderboard. Later, DuVall says, they stopped my staff in hallways, saying, I responded to this scenario this way. Should I have answered differently? What are the fine points of that situation? Continuing interest was evident on the CMS internal social media site, too. Afterward, there were more reports of potential conflicts of interest and discussions of the gray areas involved. Sometimes the company is split on the best action, which sparks further discussion about the principles to be applied to manage potential conflicts, DuVall says. The learning appears to be long lasting, and the competition itself was a success. They re still talking about it, DuVall says. She says her team plans to launch another competition this autumn. CME Energy employees played The Resolver once on game day, but other players have played the game several times, experiencing more challenges than a single game allows. The Resolver awards badges throughout the game, and playing multiple times enables players to earn a wider variety of badges. The idea of taking conflict of interest training more than once is almost unheard of, Carr says, yet many play The Resolver three or four times. 46 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

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50 FOCUS ON Games&Simulations CASE STUDY #2 Xerox Europe: Call Center Gamification Overcomes Employee Isolation When Xerox Europe recently gamified call center performance reporting, that action also reengaged its agents by providing the rapid feedback they needed. Rather than developing an actual game, Xerox incorporated gaming elements into a performance measurement system. For example, color-coded visualizations help agents track key performance indicators (KPIs), and an avatar links to their overall health, explains Research Engineer Ben Hanrahan. Before using this application, call center agents said they lacked information and felt disengaged. The reason was the time lapse between events and managerial feedback. Because updates were weekly, it was difficult for agents to monitor their own progress, Hanrahan elaborates. Instead, we wanted conversations between managers and agents to be continuous. One-minute coaching was the goal. Now, he continues, because visualizations are on the desktops of the manager and the agents, they see similar information about individual goals and an aggregate of team performance. This enables managers to make suggestions or corrections as issues arise, rather than days later. Because coaching is immediately relevant, it s also faster. Within call centers, key performance indicators shift frequently, sometimes even daily, Hanrahan points out. To be effective, KPIs must be accurate, actionable, and relevant to agents. Typically, KPIs reflect contractual obligations and include elements such as average length of call, customer satisfaction, calls per hour, hold time, after-call work, and daily break minutes. This visualization tool helps managers communicate current goals and how individual agents could contribute, Hanrahan says. It also enables managers to chart progress visually, by individuals, shifts, days, weeks, or months. To make the interface fun and interactive, we started with leaderboards and avatars to drive intrinsic motivation, explains Francois Ragnet, chief innovation officer, Commercial Services, Xerox Europe. Agents had started informal competitions, so Xerox formalized them. This is not just about awards and points. We are adding challenges between teams and individuals and, possibly, allowing avatars mini-widgets to be more customized. One of the design challenges was keeping the screen small. Agents have five to 10 background systems on their screens simultaneously, so size is important, Hanrahan says. Engagement is difficult to quantify, Hanrahan acknowledges. But when I visit call centers, agents say they feel more in control of their work because they can see their own metrics in real time, without asking a supervisor. Although the Xerox sites prefer not to publicize results, coaching time and average talk time have improved significantly, Ragnet reports. Having real time feedback has enhanced collaboration, as well as friendly competition among agents and teams. People are talking and sharing strategies to improve their metrics, Hanrahan adds. The collaboration occurs naturally. Additionally, the progression of new hires was dramatic. Getting them up to speed was dramatically enhanced, regardless of training time, Ragnet says. We hope this will improve motivation and turnover, but we have no significant data on that yet. The deployment won the Innovation Award from the National Contact Center Association in the Netherlands, where it was first deployed. This is used at four sites in Europe today, with plans to roll out across Xerox Services, Ragnet says. When that happens, users will grow from 2,000 today to 40,000. CASE STUDY #3 Aon Hewitt: LEADeR Simulation Identifies Potential Human Resources solutions provider Aon Hewitt s LEADeR simulation puts employees its own and those of its clients through the day-in-the-life challenges and interactions faced by organization leaders. This assessment tool helps identify those with potential and also gives aspiring leaders a glimpse of what they may face if they succeed in their careers. Like simulations for airline pilots, LEADeR exposes participants to situations they rarely may encounter so they can test themselves in a safe environment. The simulations are designed to be stressful, Aon Hewitt Partner Veronica S. Harvey points out. They often are paired with personality tests, interviews, and other tools to develop robust, well-rounded pictures of individuals in 48 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

51 Why have 14 of the Dow 30 turned to TRI Corporation for Executive Education? TRI Corporation provides effective in-person and virtual business simulations, financial education and leadership counsel to companies ranging from Fortune 500 to entrepreneurial start-ups. Discover why companies including Dell, General Electric, Microsoft and Stanley Black & Decker engage TRI to support the professional growth and business acumen of their executives and staff. Using simulations and cases customized to business needs, TRI offers programs designed to: TRICorporation Experiential Leadership and Simulation Programs Improved decision-making. Enhanced performance. Exceptional results. Contact us for a consultation: sales@tri-simulation.com

52 FOCUS ON Games&Simulations high-potential and accelerated development programs. Separate simulations are designed for executives and mid-level managers. Because the simulations are a notch above what is expected in participants current jobs, they provide valuable insights that guide individuals development plans. Simulations also sometimes help evaluate some job candidates. The simulations play in real time on a computer, but don t involve a classic 3-D virtual world. For leadership training, avatars can be unrealistic, failing to match human non-verbal reactions, Harvey asserts. Before playing, participants must orient themselves to a fictional company and their role within it, just as if starting a new job. This involves entering the LEADeR Website to familiarize themselves with its intranet, reading the press releases, and understanding the organizational structure and their own job descriptions. We recommend spending 30 to 60 minutes preparing for the simulation, Harvey says. The simulation itself takes approximately 2.5 hours for the mid-level supervisor simulation and roughly 3.5 hours for the executive simulation. The simulation looks like a Windows desktop, with , an appointment calendar, task list, etc., Harvey says. The experience mimics the real world, with s asking learners to solve specific challenges for example, issues with succession planning, customers problems, or direct reports needing coaching. They respond by . It can look a bit like a pulse survey, Harvey notes. Subsequent s are based upon their responses. Participants also receive role-playing phone calls from the assessment team, posing, for example, MDA Leadership Consulting s Lessons Learned Since 2009, MDA Leadership Consulting has teamed with ExperiencePoint (EP) to provide MDA clients with new approaches and insights for leading change and innovation in their workplaces. EP offers business simulations for leaders in the areas of change management and innovation. The EP simulation sessions, approximately four hours long each, then are reinforced with facilitated dialogue (led by an EP-certified trainer) to make the simulation applicable to the current (or future) needs of the participating leaders. MDA s lessons learned from using EP as a training tool, based on input from Jason Ortmeier, vice president of Leadership Development, MDA Leadership Consulting, include: Learning transfer matters. While EP s simulations raise subject-matter awareness (about change or innovation), spark input from all (even from naturally shy attendees), and help drive collaboration, this energy still needs to be applied to their day jobs. Trained facilitators help transfer the knowledge gained through the simulation to real-world applicability, Ortmeier says. This can range from a two- to three-hour discussion, after the simulation, to an entire next day, depending on the needs of the participating company. The goal for participants is to internalize new behaviors, commit to immediate action, and be confident that they can make a difference. Quality matters. The quality of the simulation matters to the degree of buy-in among participants. It needs to be realistic, but not real. If the context is too fantastical or removed from the team s real business issues, then the learning will be isolated to that fantastical context. At the same time, if the learning environment is the same as everyday work, people often will defend their current approach instead of trying new ones. The simulation also needs to be overseen by experienced facilitators who know how and when to set the right conditions for personal and professional growth. Competition matters. EP s simulations require participants to organize into teams (at least three teams per session), which facilitates a sense of camaraderie (within teams) and competitive drive (between the teams). Leaders don t like to lose, Ortmeier says. Safety matters. A realistic (as opposed to real) simulation lets people make mistakes without risk to their reputations. It also eliminates existing organizational cultural norms, barriers, and minutiae that can insidiously limit thinking and ultimately undermine learning. Mistakes matter. Provided you have set the context as a learning opportunity with safety around mistakes, you don t want to let anything slip. Ask participants what conditions and conversations led to flawed decisions. Mistakes are the richness that allows people to learn, but if you hang people out to utterly and consistently fail, you can compromise engagement, reputations, and self-esteem. Keep an eye out for just enough mistake making to reflect upon. And, in turn, don t forget to celebrate successes. Rewards are important to reinforce key progress and milestones. 50 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

53 87% OF ORGANIZATIONS PLAN TO INCREASE MOBILE LEARNING OVER THE NEXT 12 MONTHS.* Which direction is YOUR organization headed? Today s employees are at the office, at home and on-the-go. To keep up with your changing business requirements, learning needs to be accessible, anytime, anywhere and from multiple devices. According to a recent study by Brandon Hall Group, high performing organizations are doing more with mobile learning than organizations in general.* To help our customers succeed, Skillsoft offers a broad selection of mobile-ready learning solutions including courses, books, videos all available via our learning management system, Skillport. Interested in mobile learning but don t know where to begin? Download the Five Calls to Make When Developing a Mobile Learning Strategy. Download the mobile white paper at Skillsoft.com/Sept14TM or call *Mobile Learning 2013: Gaining Momentum, Brandon Hall Group, November 2013.

54 FOCUS ON Games&Simulations as direct reports. Traditional assessment centers are one of the most accurate ways to predict performance for leadership roles, but they are very expensive, Harvey explains, because of the activities, number of people involved, and travel expenses. LEADeR delivers the same accuracy, virtually, with realism that mirrors modern work environments. Delivering information this way lets us capture data easily, combine it, and turn it into reports, Harvey says. Information includes scores to responses, how players prioritized their time, which activities they accessed and which they left in the in-box, and their responses during telephone role-playing. This is more realistic than the traditional approach, enhancing reliability and ensuring valid results, Harvey says. LEADeR can be tailored to meet the specific challenges of a given organization or industry. It s also engaging, she says. Feedback indicates participants get wrapped up in this. They almost forget this is a simulated environment. It gives them a realistic sense of what these jobs can be like, so they have better perspectives and can self-select for the job. CASE STUDY #4 Southwest Airlines: A Fun Way to Learn Business Acumen Southwest Airlines has a reputation for what it calls its fun-luving culture. Whether it s flight attendants singing safety briefings or customer service agents going the extra mile, Southwest prides itself on creating extraordinary experiences, and its leadership development is no different. When HR leaders Bonnie Endicott and Petra Holcomb were tasked with integrating business acumen content into their Legendary Leaders curriculum, an intensive leadership program for their high-potential leader group, they knew they had to go beyond lectures and create an extraordinary learning experience. To accomplish this, they turned to a solution that involves competitive gameplay and an intensive teambased simulation where participants learn by creating their own companies in a dynamic marketplace. The simulation, called Business Challenge and distributed Your Source for Professional Development Published six times a year, Training magazine is the #1 source of information for professional development for corporate training, learning and performance professionals. It s the go-to resource for innovative global learning and development news; trends; research and statistics; best practices; new products, services, and technologies. Your subscription includes the January/February Top 125 issue and the November/December Salary Survey and Industry report. Keep your issues coming! Don t miss Training s FREE enewsletter! Click on the enewsletter tab at to subscribe. Visit for more information 52 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

55 by Enspire Learning, allows participants to observe what happens to their virtual companies when they make decisions across all functions of an enterprise. Teams start with marketing a product in one product line and have to decide how to grow the business, invest in quality and efficiency improvements, strategically price their products, and fulfill the demand they are creating. In spirited and engaging discussions, participants then execute their business decisions and analyze their financial statements to understand how their decisions played out. As part of the one-day experience, teams experience successes and failures of their businesses on multiple levels. Business Challenge allows participants to see the projected outcomes for multiple quarters in advance. Within each quarter, decisions are reversible, allowing participants to plan out scenarios and understand more deeply the connections between their decisions and the outcomes in the game. Business acumen is an important aspect of being a leader at Southwest as they focus on meeting the company s fiscal and operational goals, says Holcomb. Our folks are competitive, so for us, combining a fun experience with real-world lessons on running a business is the best way to learn. To prepare for the intensive competition, participants are asked to study the basics of finance in an online course called Fluent in Finance (also distributed by Enspire Learning) that combines tutorials, tongue-in-cheek humor, interactive case studies, and challenging activities. Additional simulation debriefs and exercises focused on Southwest-specific business acumen scenarios bring the learning close to home and allow participants the opportunity to further explore the impact of their choices on the company s bottom line. Participant reviews of the program since 2010 included comments such as, The business simulation was the best I ve had since grad school. On a Southwest evaluation scale from Very Poor to Totally Awesome, 90 to 100 percent of participants consistently rated the experience Totally Awesome. Most important, the business outcomes of the program have proven successful, as well. The average promotion rate for participants in the experience has been 63 percent since 2008, well above the company average for peer groups at similar levels, according to an informal internal analysis. training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

56 Training Exclusive PART 5: Results Report Card As MasTec continues along its journey to create a culture of learning, we review the impact three of its recent training initiatives have had on the organization so far. BY JOHN CONGEMI raining magazine has been following MasTec s Utility Services Group (USG) and its journey to create a culture of learning throughout the year. We ve been along for the ride as the utility infrastructure construction company: T1. Developed a lineman apprenticeship program that tied training and development opportunities to career progression and pay rate increases. 2. Created a new hire orientation curriculum that ensured a consistent and effective onboarding experience for all new employees. 3. Launched a learning management system (LMS) that enabled it to track and report employees training achievements. In this issue, we take a step back to review what impact these initiatives have had on the organization thus far and just how close the 54 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

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58 Results Report Card team is to realizing its broader mission of creating a worldclass training organization. LINEMAN APPRENTICE PROGRAM To begin building a culture of learning and development, it was helpful to start with a training program directly tied to professional and financial opportunities. Senior leadership knew that effective training would help ensure the safety and well-being of all MasTec Utility Services Group employees and customers. Furthermore, the programs were tied to career and financial incentives, which addresses the needs of those who wonder, What s in it for me? This year, the Employee Development team partnered with the U.S. Department of Labor, as well as the states of North Carolina and Texas, to launch a lineman apprentice program and do just that. At press time, there were 68 registered Utility Services Group apprentices, and many more who have applied to join. These employees have received additional hours of training and coaching in exchange for the commitment they re making to MasTec. Apprentices gain skills necessary to advance in their career and receive financial incentives along the way. The most encouraging sign for the program thus far is the fact that only four of the new apprentices have left the company since the program launched eight months ago. A nearly 95 percent retention rate in an industry typically plagued by high turnover rates is a big win. These employees feel the investment MasTec is making in them and see how what once was thought of as a job now can be a career. NEW HIRE ORIENTATION CURRICULUM The primary focus of the Utility Services Group s new employee training curriculum was to ensure new employees learn what they need to know to be safe and successful before joining a crew. There is nothing more important to MasTec than the safety of the team and those affected by their work. Although this training was designed for employees new to USG, the team made the training available to existing employees, too. In fact, at press time, 86 percent of all current MasTec USG employees had completed the new employee training curriculum. The new employee training rolled out as a reinforcement to the team s Safety Is You initiative. This campaign communicated and emphasized the importance of each employee s commitment, involvement, and accountability around working safely. This initiative and subsequent training rollout has had a positive impact on the organization s safety record, and ultimately, the bottom line. MasTec s Utility Services Group saw a year-over-year 60 percent decrease in OSHA recordable incidents and a significant decrease in the severity of incidents. Additionally, it saw an 81 percent decrease in incurred workers compensation claims great news for both the business and employees. What made these safety transformations even more impressive was the fact that they occurred with near identical levels of exposure and work hours. And the positive culture around safety continues to grow. When you visit a work site, you see employees sporting Safety Is You stickers on their hard hats. Crew members are referencing and reciting messages from the training. In fact, the Employee Development team receives frequent positive feedback and recommendations for additional topics to integrate into the program in the future. All of this speaks to the enormous impact the team s efforts are having on the overall culture of the organization. LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM The team needed an effective way to house, access, and report on the new and existing training initiatives underway. It kicked off 2014 by launching the Utility Services Group Learning Center. This learning management system (LMS) would serve as the go-to portal for all of the organization s training needs going forward. At press time, just over 90 percent of employees had completed training available on the USG Learning Center. Considering the technology accessibility and geographic restraints put on many MasTec crews in the field, this is impressive. There is no shortage of options available to employees looking to enhance their skills either. At press time, there were 192 courses available (134 e-learning modules and 58 instructor-led courses). Feedback from the field has been encouraging, and the strong levels of participation indicate the site is meeting their needs. The largest lesson learned from the rollout of the LMS has been around modality. The team provided numerous options for completing most of the training modules launched over the last year. It assumed learners would prefer to complete courses via e-learning because of the flexibility and convenience associated with being able to access the training when and where they choose. What the team learned, however, is that the interactivity and convenience of completing training as a group leads to a strong preference for instructor-led courses. The team will continue to utilize a blended learning approach, but will emphasize the option for leveraging online content in a group setting. WHAT S NEXT? MasTec s Utility Services Group is well on its way to creating a world-class culture of learning. It answered the popular question, What happens if we invest in our people and then they leave us? with a resounding, What happens if we don t, and they stay? The team is all in for this journey. It is 100 percent committed to the development of MasTec employees, and all early indications are that it s going to be a productive and rewarding ride. t John Congemi is director of Employee Development, Utility Services Group, MasTec North America, Inc. 56 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

59 DELIVERING UNEXPECTED SOLUTIONS #BRILLIANT ViaTech is transforming the way content is delivered. Through technology. Meet with ViaTech at the Online Learning Conference 2014 and get a Rapid Assessment of an Optimized Training Content Program for your company. 1(800) Dallas 1(800) New York 1(800) Los Angeles +44(0) UK /VIATECHPUBLISHING /VIATECH-PUBLISHING-SOLUTIONS-INC All rights reserved. ViaTech Publishing Solutions, Inc.

60 L&D Best Practices STRATEGIES FORSUCCESS Training magazine taps 2014 Training Top 125 winners and Top 10 Hall of Famers to provide their learning and development best practices in each issue. Here, we look at leaders as teachers and mobile learning. Leaders as Teachers By Janice Steffen, Leader Development, Deloitte Services LP Deloitte s secret for ensuring that our learning programs are great is hardly a secret. Yes, we have award-winning development programs and creative instructional design. Yes, we have a state-of-the-art learning facility (Deloitte University located in Westlake, TX) and leading-edge technology in our classrooms. But neither of these guarantees that our learners are growing and developing as leaders or has an exponential impact on our professionals. The secret insurance policy at Deloitte that breathes life into our programs, changes the trajectory of our people and their careers, and has the broadest influence on our people and clients is our leaders who are teaching in our classrooms. Deloitte, a professional services organization, teaches approximately 50,000 professionals per year at Deloitte University. This equates to 4 million learning hours per year where our professionals are in a classroom to develop technical, professional, industry, or leadership skills. With that amount of time spent learning, you might think Deloitte has a cadre of professional facilitators teaching our programs. We don t. We expect more than that. We want those who have the most relevant experience and expertise in our businesses to be teaching the next generation of young professionals. That means our leaders our partners, directors, and senior managers who are leading our client engagements and working alongside our clients to solve complex challenges are the ones in our classrooms. While that sounds great in theory, we have all been in a classroom where the teacher is strong technically, but it just doesn t translate. The smartest accountant, consultant, or financial advisor may or may not be able to transfer his or her knowledge to others, let alone motivate learners to be better versions of themselves. And isn t it expensive to pull your leaders out of the market to teach? Wouldn t it be fiscally more responsible to hire a few learning professionals to do it? We discovered that while professional facilitators can engage and motivate students, they haven t walked in our learners shoes. And while our leaders have walked in our learners shoes and have wisdom to impart, they often do so through lecture. In an effort to couple the powerful experience and stories only our leaders can provide with the art of engagement professional facilitators provide, Deloitte cultivates those facilitation skills in our leaders through a program called Deloitte Faculty Excellence or DFX. Program Details DFX is not a one-shot deal or inoculation. To be excellent at facilitation, someone must do it repeatedly experimenting, refining, and honing his or her skills each time. The first step is attending a DFX session to ground our leaders in the fundamental models, techniques, and tools that are proven to promote engagement and learning in the classroom. During the session, our leaders practice, experiment, and receive feedback from credible DFX coaches. Next, they co-facilitate a program with a more experienced facilitator. This provides them with a valuable role model and on-the-job development in the moment. Our leaders then teach often, many of them several times per year, each time practicing new techniques and reflecting on the impact they made on their learners. At our national programs, where we have more than 100 leaders on-site to teach, we provide DFX coaches who float between the classrooms to observe and provide development feedback. This creates a development opportunity for both learners and facilitators. Deloitte currently has approximately 4,400 leaders who teach at Deloitte and are DFX certified, with more leaders getting certified each month. Equipping these leaders to motivate and engage learners inside the classroom helps us 58 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

61 confidently meet the high standards of our people and clients outside the classroom. Deloitte made a significant investment in Deloitte University. DFX is helping to make sure we are getting the most out of that investment. Tips Some of the key insights we have learned since developing and delivering DFX over the last several years include: Leaders lead the way. The best return on our investment happens when we can equip our own leaders to be outstanding facilitators. This happens when our learners are engaged and motivated to learn new skills and behaviors. We get a return when our learners take these new skills and behaviors back to their engagements and are motivated to share them with their team members and clients. And we get an even further return when our leaders use the art of facilitation with their teams and clients. The camera never lies. Video recording and playback, along with candid feedback, provides a view of truth we often don t get to see of ourselves. Growth and development happens more rapidly where self-awareness resides. Get from good to great. Becoming a great facilitator takes time and lots of practice. Rarely can a leader perfect the art of facilitation through education alone. Experience is the key. DFX coaches provide observation and feedback to help our leaders as they teach to continue to hone their personal style and skills. Probe for the answers. We know adults learn best through self-discovery. Socratic questioning transforms our classrooms and other interactions into engaged discoveries with our learners and teams. Our leaders are coaches who guide from the side and are no longer sages on the stage. Everyone remembers a good story. The art of storytelling is a powerful facilitation technique that takes careful planning and practice to be most effective. Guidance and the practice of telling stories are part of DFX certification. Mobile Learning By ADP Sales Learning and Communications Teams The typical ADP Sales Associate is constantly on the go, trying to make as many face-to-face prospect meetings as possible to increase their chances of making a sale. To facilitate these efforts, ADP decided to begin issuing sales associates the Apple ipad with 4G access. This would provide sales associates with instant access to the sales tools and product information they need and significantly simplify their job. The rollout of the ipads began in June To date, ADP has rolled out more than 3,000 ipads. A dedicated mobile environment containing downloadable apps also was created to provide associates with access to key marketing materials, training, customer relationship management (CRM) access, proposal generators, and product demonstration. The apps are organized by business unit and sales role to make it easier for associates to get the specific apps they need. Challenges One of the challenges the Sales Learning group faced with the rollout was making sure all of the existing training was mobile ready. Due to the ios restrictions of Flash media and other types of documents, it was critical to test more than 170 courses to ensure that they would work properly on the ipad. During the course of a two-month period, more than 580 training videos were updated to accommodate the ios platform. This was achieved by dedicating a six-person team consisting of three ADP Learning technologists, two sub-contractors, and one QA editor. The team logged more than 1,200 hours for this project and converted everything within their project deadline. In addition, the team incorporated a tracking API into the courses so they could gather statistics on the number of associates accessing the course from the ipad versus their laptop. The current statistics show that 27 percent of associates are using an ios device to participate in the training. These numbers are expected to increase dramatically as more and more ipads are issued, and the technology is adopted at a higher rate. Results Based on feedback from our sales associates, having access to these apps has given them the following advantages: client through the use of mobile technology device, as well as demonstrate ADP s mobile solutions, during the initial conversation performance support to help the sales associate prepare just before a sales call In FY 14, our new business bookings for Employer Services and the PEO grew 7 percent, totaling more than $1.4 billion for the year. In addition, Employer Services worldwide client revenue retention for the full year improved to an all-time high of 91.4 percent. We believe this growth is at least partly attributable to our ongoing efforts to support our sales associates in developing a more streamlined, targeted sales process, such as supplying them with ipads and a dynamic mobile environment. training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

62 OUTSTANDING TRAININGINITIATIVES For the first time since the creation of the Training Top 10 Hall of Fame in 2008, Training magazine required all Hall of Famers to submit an Outstanding Training Initiative that would be shared with our readers throughout the year. Here are the details of KLA-Tencor s Situation Room and The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Leadership Center s Launching Digital Media submissions. KLA-Tencor: The Situation Room The Situation Room provides managers with the opportunity to resolve common, difficult leadership scenarios in an open environment, using the best-known methods they previously learned via KLA-Tencor s curriculum. KLA-Tencor s Corporate Learning Center (CLC) developed The Situation Room in conjunction with a general manager who presented this challenge: Despite attending many courses, our managers tend to respond to situations by listening to their gut or intuition, rather than using the tools we ve taught them. How can we practice applying these tools and methods in a safe environment so these become our intuitive responses? This request prompted a program that would accelerate a manager s ability to experience difficult situations, apply appropriate solutions, and learn from the perspectives of others. Program Details The Situation Room consists of one dozen scenarios that are facilitated monthly for a one-year program (or weekly for a 12-week program). Each situation consists of two 90-minute sessions and one hour of between-session homework. These sessions have been facilitated both on-site and virtually. The flow of the course follows: Session 1: A group of 8 to 20 managers gathers and reads a 350- to 450-word case study. After hearing the scenario, participants are given three minutes to write a blink response to the situation. Each participant then shares his or her response. Peers provide feedback on what they like about each response, but no criticism is allowed. If a peer doesn t like a response, he or she can offer an alternative. This approach reinforces that leadership can take many forms. After all participants have shared their responses, four teams are formed and given the homework assignment. Homework: Between Sessions 1 and 2, participants are expected to meet for at least one hour as a group, in person or virtually. They review previously taught course content, models, methodologies, and/or tools to create a prepared response to the situation. Session 2: Participants regroup and present their prepared responses. After hearing the responses and discussing the strengths and weaknesses of each, individuals are given five minutes to prepare a personal response. This response addresses how they will handle this situation if they face it tomorrow. The response should integrate all of the lessons from Sessions 1 and 2, plus the homework. Four to six participants are selected randomly to deliver their response. The outcomes of the sessions are documented on local SharePoint sites, so best practices can be collected and shared with others facing similar challenges. Development The Corporate Learning Center (CLC) produced the pilot product through the use of rapid prototyping. First, the CLC interviewed 20 managers about their most difficult challenges. Next, the CLC surveyed available products that might address the challenges listed, but did not identify any appropriate solutions. In response, the team developed 14 initial scenarios to use as the development discussion. Each scenario was tied directly to real KLA-Tencor situations and leveraged tools that are offered in the CLC learning library. The first scenario was delivered just three weeks from the 60 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

63 initial interviews, via virtual delivery. Feedback from the pilot was exceptional: I realized how weak my blink response usually is and that I need to prepare more for situations that I encounter. It s interesting to see how different managers handle the same situation. Various leadership styles can be equally effective. I realized that every situation has a solution. We should not get overwhelmed in the moment. Reflect on the available tools and create an approach. As a result of the pilot results, KLA-Tencor partnered with Waggl (waggl.it, formerly Fort Hill Company) to identify the most urgent global manager situations using a proprietary crowd-sourcing tool. In a two-week period, more than 640 managers cast 5,000-plus votes on 92 situations that were created by the user population. The top 20 situations form the core Situation Room curriculum. Results Eighty-seven managers completed the program during its initial rollout, and KLA-Tencor now is opening The Situation Room for all managers. The program aims to close the development gap for managers/leaders as they more effectively apply training principles and methodologies taught in leadership and management courses. The Situation Room has received a rating of 4.9 out of 5.0 from the 87 employees who completed it. By Session 2 (following the homework activities), KLA-Tencor saw 100 percent of the student groups using the skills associated with KLA-Tencor-taught programs. Sixty-seven percent of managers responding to the post-course interviews reported hearing participants use the language from the courses referenced in the case studies, as well as application of various tools and job aids provided as part of the program. KLA-Tencor s goal is to see a 5 percent improvement on leadership and management aspects of the engagement survey for managers who attended the learning. Results are currently on track for a 7 percent improvement. Based on the positive results, The Situation Room framework has been modified and applied to customized scenarios for finance and field service groups. Recommendations Top three recommendations for anyone implementing this type of program are: be general enough for most managers to have experienced it, but it also must be specific enough to be useful. ate tools. The Situation Room is not a training session. It is a practice session. The Situation Room is best used for scenarios where there is not necessarily a right (or wrong) answer. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Leadership Center: Launching Digital Media A brand extension of The Ritz-Carlton lodging company, The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center is a corporate university specializing in legendary service, leadership, and sustainable organization culture change since Last year, as The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center considered ways to expand its offerings, the organization decided it was time to take its training beyond the four walls of the classroom. The Ritz-Carlton wanted to expose its learning principles to a broader audience, helping other organizations understand the importance of excellent customer service, leadership development, employee engagement, and organizational culture, and giving them the tools to grow and improve. The center determined that the best way to expand its reach would be to utilize digital media. In response, The Leadership Center crafted a new position Director of Design and Thought Leadership. Primary job responsibilities included developing and managing social media channels to disseminate thought leadership and designing thought leadership tools and resources to more widely share the training of The Leadership Center. Program Details The Director of Design & Thought Leadership was hired at the end of January The team collaborated on the goals and hopes for digital expansion and evaluated potential platforms, audience, content, and how to measure results. Next, the team selected the appropriate digital channels, drafted a training content calendar for the year, and devised a timeline for implementation. It also worked with the internal marketing, PR, and e-commerce teams for The Ritz-Carlton to ensure the initiatives were on brand and in line with company objectives, and met with the Human Resources department to verify that the program complemented internal training methods and goals. The plan kicked off in March Here is what has been implemented to date: Twitter (@dianaoreck.com) Training strategies: Repetition. Repeating critical information is vital to successful training. Because of the rapid content turnover on Twitter, this seemed to be a good channel for reinforcement by repetition. Emphasize and simplify key messages. One of the strategies The Leadership Center uses in its classes is to highlight training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

64 significant points. Students write these points on sticky notes, and the center calls them golden nuggets. At the end of each class, students are asked to share their golden nuggets. Twitter is the perfect platform to share golden nuggets with a wider audience. Innovation. The Leadership Center also uses Twitter to share the latest industry news and ideas concerning customer service, employee engagement, leadership, and culture transformation. It is currently one of the top 13 thought leaders on employee engagement on Twitter. LinkedIn ( Training strategies: Discussion. The Leadership Center is using LinkedIn to not only share business practices but to spark discussions with followers. The center created two discussion groups. One group is public, and one group is for past attendees of Leadership Center classes so they have the opportunity to share what methods have worked for them. Feedback. The Leadership Center also uses LinkedIn to solicit best practices and feedback from participants. Gold Minds Blog ( Training strategy: Articles. Instructional articles written by The Leadership Center, employee profiles, and customer and guest stories are posted once a week. The articles typically focus on The Ritz- Carlton methods for customer service, employee engagement, leadership development, and sustainable culture change. The Ritz-Carlton is considering other channels such as Facebook, Google+, E-newsletters, and Webinars for future digital training. Results More than 7,000 learners per month now are being trained using digital media. The Ritz-Carlton s Klout score a numerical value between 1 and 100 that ranks online social influence went from 19 in February 2013 to 61 in August The average Klout Score is 40, and users with a score of 63 are in the top 5 percent of all users. In addition, the organization has more than 6,500 followers on Twitter and LinkedIn, and those numbers continue to grow. More than 1,000 people have subscribed to the blog. Since launching social media, several past clients have posted comments and written blog posts describing how the teaching has affected their business particularly the use of daily line-ups. Since launching these digital initiatives, business has increased 15 percent for The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center. Training magazine s 38th Annual Event REGISTER TODAY! Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, Georgia Certificates: February 6 8 Conference: February 9 11 Expo: February 9 10 An event designed for learning, training and performance professionals. For more information visit: 62 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

65 Tight Travel Budget? No Problem! LOG IN + No travel budget? No worries. LEARN! Need to do more, in less time? We ve got you covered. Get the training you need, from the convenience of your desk! Our online certificate programs cover the topics you need right now. For full details visit TrainingLiveandOnline.com Advanced Articulate Storyline for elearning This certificate builds upon your existing foundational Storyline knowledge and provides you with the hands-on experience needed to develop and build advanced interactions. A series of 4 sessions Starts September 29, 2014 Training Coordinator: A Consulting Approach to Coordinating the Training Function Learn how to develop a training plan, be active not reactive and maintain management support for training. A series of 4 sessions Starts October 1, 2014 NEW Designing elearning for Mobile You ll learn about basic mobile architecture and get the methods and tools you need to build your first mobile course. A series of 5 sessions Starts October 6, 2014 Training Manager: Managing the Training Function for Bottom-Line Results Learn practical ways, sound techniques, and proven ideas to manage your organization s training and yield tangible, bottom-line results. A series of 4 sessions Starts October 8, 2014 REGISTER EARLY! Save money AND be prepared! NEW Developing Small Bites Learning You ll examine the methods of micro-learning content design and delivery that facilitates quick transfer of knowledge and application. A series of 3 sessions Starts October 17, 2014 NEW How to Facilitate Training with Impact Explore the essentials of adult learning and learn how to make training come to life with enhanced facilitation skills and must-have process tools. A series of 4 sessions Starts October 23, 2014 NEW Maximizing Adobe Connect for Training Learn how to maximize Adobe Connect's robust platform to deliver a technologically seamless experience. A series of 3 sessions Starts October 30, 2014 Register one month prior to the start of your course and automatically SAVE $150! Designing elearning with Captivate This certificate takes you through the process of building a course from scratch using Adobe Captivate and provides you hands-on practice to build and edit elearning lessons. A series of 4 sessions Starts November 3, 2014 Instructional Design: Performance- Based and Results-Focused You ll work on your own elearning or instructor-led project and learn just what you need to produce a highly effective end product. A series of 4 sessions Starts November 5, 2014 Creating Engaging elearning with Articulate Storyline This certificate gives you a hands-on opportunity to explore Storyline as well as ready-to-use models and valuable source codes. A series of 4 sessions Starts November 13, 2014 Scenario-Based elearning Design Learn the step-by-step process of designing and developing scenario-based elearning programs that heightens elearners learning. A series of 3 sessions Starts December 3, 2014 Show Em What You re Worth After successfully completing one of our online certificate programs, you will receive both a paper certificate of completion signed by your instructor and suitable for framing and an ebadge which can be showcased in your signature line or on social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. TRAIN AS A TEAM AND SAVE! For valuable group discounts or customized training information contact Conferences@TrainingMagEvents.com

66 best practices Preparing Global Virtual Teams for Success With proper training, connection, and creativity, true collaboration can be accomplished in global virtual teams. is president of Global Dynamics, Inc., a training and development firm specializing in globalization, cultural intelligence, effective virtual workplaces, and diversity and inclusion. is a senior associate of Global Dynamics, Inc. She has led training and coaching programs on global virtual teams in university and corporate environments. She currently serves on the Board of the International Association of Continuing Engineering Education. Goodman and Bray can be reached at For more information, visit In the late 1980s, one of the authors of this article was director of the distance learning program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY. This was before the term, online learning, had even been used, and RPI s graduate programs were shared with the industry via TV-like production facilities and satellite broadcast. A faculty member who taught in this program wanted to use a new and exotic piece of hardware in the classroom that took some time to figure out and integrate. That device? A mouse! One cannot overestimate the impact that technological advances, the emergence of the Internet, and the realities of a global economy have had on learning and working over a few short decades. In fact, we refer to this profound and pervasive change as a new sociology of work. Today s workers find themselves in global enterprises and on teams that are cross-cultural in nature and interact in virtual, technology-driven environments. It seems appropriate to ask if we are adequately preparing both leaders and team members with the knowledge and skills required to succeed in this environment. The cost of not asking this question is great. Failed mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures due to cultural misunderstanding result in the loss of billions of dollars. Cross-cultural communication breakdowns, fueled by the lack of context and connection that can characterize virtual communication approaches, contribute to breakdown of trust and failed projects. And yet research indicates that fewer than 16 percent of employees in multinational organizations who work virtually have had any specific preparation or training for this work. The good news is that a body of knowledge for successfully leading and performing effectively on global virtual teams is emerging. We are beginning to identify the best practices of high-performing global virtual teams and the attributes of those who can lead them successfully across the demanding virtual, cross-cultural terrain they navigate. We also know that the payoffs can be great. Those who can harness the inherent creativity of varying cultural perspectives have the opportunity to lead through innovation. One champion of this notion is Unilever Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Communications Fiona Laird. Organizations that remove the artificial boundaries around how, where, and when work gets done are those that are winning in today s marketplace, Laird says. They are more flexible, more efficient, and better able to respond to rapid change. TOP SUCCESS FACTORS A recently developed training program, Leading Global Virtual Teams, has identified what we consider to be the top success factors for global virtual teams. These success factors draw on a meta-analysis review of the literature and the examination of hundreds of cases with global virtual teams in corporate environments. The program is based on a model that considers those factors that relate to the fact that the work is carried out virtually; those factors that relate to the fact that the work often is carried out across cultural differences; and the fact that these two phenomena interact in interesting ways. The model further depicts the critical role of trust and leadership in tying all of this together for productive team outcomes. Emerging from this model are some practical and useful tips for team leaders and members. Here are two examples of these tips: We all know first impressions matter, but this is especially critical in the case of global virtual teams. So a critical role of the team leader is to ensure a robust team beginning where the seeds of connection, purpose, and mutual accountability are sown. Leaders consider the kinds of activities that must be undertaken in the preparation and launch stages to gain the commitment of 64 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

67 far-flung team members. The goal is to consciously build a form of swift trust that will sustain the team through challenging times ahead. In this context, we consider the critical role of a Team Charter, which answers the question: Why does this team exist? Likewise, a Team Operating Agreement is critical and must answer the question: How will this team go about conducting its work? Mindfulness is a term that has its roots in Zen Buddhist meditation but has entered the American mainstream in recent years. It relates to bringing one s complete attention to the present experience or the present moment. We find it a useful concept for cross-cultural and virtual work. It is the opposite of the knee-jerk response in which we act instinctively without considering the context of the moment. Those who navigate successfully across cultures are mindful of their own cultural approaches and how they might affect others. In applying this concept to the use of collaboration technologies, we are calling upon people to consciously create and construct the cyberspace environment of their team to support the required communication tasks. In brick-and-mortar places, we often take care to design the space to support and enhance work. Cyberspace is the equivalent for global virtual teams, and yet we often just grab the technologies at hand without careful thought to the nature of the space we are creating. The tips noted above are just a few examples of the many concrete and practical things that can be taught to improve the effectiveness of global virtual teams. It is critical that team leaders devote the necessary time for teambuilding and training throughout the life of their teams. The ties that bind virtual teams together can be fragile across time, distance, and culture. But we are firm believers that virtual environments can be humanized, and that connection, creativity, and true collaboration can be accomplished in global virtual teams. If you have any best practices for training global virtual teams, questions, or case studies to share, send them to for inclusion in future articles that address this important topic. t Attend ASTD-Twin Cities Learning That Counts Conference Register today for the annual ASTD-TCC Learning that Counts Conference & Learning Lab October 21 and 22 at St. Paul RiverCentre This year s conference features Ten 3-hour workshops Ten 60-minute breakout sessions Dynamic facilitators Interactive learning you can use right away Keynotes by Alan Fine, Gayle Noakes & Bill Treasurer Thiagi is presenting two 3-hour workshops Attend and make connections that outlast the conference. Summer special pricing ends August 31! Training magazine s enewsletter... Training magazine combined its enewsletters Training Top 125, Inside Training, and Tech Talk into one streamlined, easy-to-read enewsletter that is ed every Wednesday. Each issue includes: A Training Top 125 Best Practice Links to the Training Day blog and the latest online articles written by corporate training and learning pros exclusively for Training Links to TrainingMagNetwork.com Webinar recordings and upcoming events Links to timely white papers written by industry experts on critical L&D topics FREE Subscription! Visit TrainingMag.com Click on the enewsletter tab to subscribe/renew. training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

68 learning matters Getting Learning s Game On To recreate the age-old apprenticeship model of learning within a new-age immersive gaming context, it is important to consider eight key design principles. BY TONY O DRISCOLL Tony O Driscoll is regional managing director of Duke CE in Singapore, where he focuses on identifying and implementing next-generation learning strategies and approaches that accelerate the development of Leadership Sense- Abilities in this rapidly growing part of the world. As someone who had the good fortune to travel the world as a child living on four different continents and attending 14 different schools before university I can personally relate to the ageold adage, Experience is the greatest teacher. Being repeatedly thrown into unfamiliar contexts created an almost perpetual need within me to learn as much as I could as quickly as I could. In essence, much of my youth was spent in a state of what Ed Schein calls survival anxiety : a state in which one s immediate desire to survive trumps one s inherent reluctance to learn. As the Internet morphs into the immernet, the virtual mash-up of learning and gaming has become the poster child for the world s next disruptive societal step-change. The key to education is motivation, and it is argued games can provide the real-time narratives and incentives to accelerate the learning process on a global scale. That said, the learning experience within the game must be engineered so teachable moments surface at every turn. Those teachable moments, however, are not the same for each learner. Instead, the underlying content is encountered, applied, and reflected upon based on the learner s experience rather than the teacher s mandate. In many ways, the application of gaming to learning harkens back to the age of apprenticeship when learning and doing were fused and situated in a context where action and execution synthesized concept and content in real time. KEY DESIGN PRINCIPLES To recreate the age-old apprenticeship model of learning within a new-age immersive gaming context, it is important to consider eight key design principles: 1. Instructionally grounded: Learning experiences that take advantage of immersive narrative contexts and gaming mechanics must serve the learning objectives that have been developed to address a specific business need. The first design principle requires that the gaming context serve the instructional content, not the other way around. 2. Participant centered: In immersive learning contexts, the locus of control moves from the teacher to the learner. The second design principle requires that the participant not the instructor be positioned at the center of the learning experience. 3. Contextually situated: Immersive learning contexts must be believable and action oriented. They also must be bounded, so participants encounter all the learning objectives without it feeling too obvious or onerous. The third learning principle requires maintaining the right balance between situational context and learning content. 4. Inquisitively discovered: To create a sense of engagement and flow within the immersive learning context, the appropriate level of ambiguity must be established. The fourth principle requires participants to be provided with minimal guidelines and encouraged to discover cues and clues as they progress through the narrative. 5. Action oriented: The success or failure of immersive learning environments hinges upon the actions and interactions of participants as they engage in episodic activities designed to surface teachable moments that synthesize the learning objectives in a meaningful, relevant way. The fifth design principle requires that the learning experience be rooted in action. 6. Consequentially experienced: Learning is an iterative process. Trial and error is core to the development of competence. The sixth design principle requires that participants viscerally experience the consequences of their actions within the immersive learning environment. 7. Collaboratively motivated: Participants are simultaneously consumers of, and contributors to, the learning experience. Their collective action and collaborative co-creation drives generative insights that cannot be individually derived by any single member of the group. The seventh learning principle requires that the learning shifts from structured teaching to social and situated peer-based learning. 8. Reflectively synthesized: Given the experiential and collaborative nature of immersive learning contexts, the need for self-reflection and group-based synthesis of the experience is not an option; it is a must. The eighth design principle requires that reflection be an integral element of the overall design. Do have your learning game on? If not, perhaps the path to changing the game in learning within your organization begins with these eight design principles. Let the games begin! 66 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

69 MOOCs Are So Yesterday How to use SPOCs (Small Private Online Courses) to create powerful executive development. By Diane Gayeski, Ph.D. T On the SPOC UPCOMING EVENTS Training 2015 Atlanta, GA Feb. 9-11, Training Live + Online Certificates and Clinics Diane Gayeski, Ph.D., is the dean of the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College. training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

70 trainer talk Performance Art Lessons from the ice arena about coaching skills and pacing yourself. BY BOB PIKE, CSP, CPAE, CPLP FELLOW Bob Pike, CSP, CPAE, CPLP Fellow, is known as the trainer s trainer. He is the author of more than 30 books, including Creative Training Techniques Handbook. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook using bobpikectt. I ve come to realize over the years that some of life s best lessons are learned in some rather strange locations. One of the oddest places at which I ve gone to school has to be the ice show at Busch Gardens in Tampa, FL. The teacher was a performer named Albert Lucas. With the encouragement of his father, Albert began juggling at age 3 and performing at age 4 in comedy clubs, small circuses, and nightclubs. From age 8 to 11, he toured with Liberace and then performed in Las Vegas. From age 12 to 22, he traveled the world, performing his juggling act on ice with the Ice Capades. Albert spent several years performing in the Around the World on Ice show at Busch Gardens Theme Park, which is where I met him. Albert has performed at both the NBA Finals and the NHL Stanley Cup Finals. During the course of the show while on ice skates, mind you Albert juggled. He juggled five tennis racquets. He juggled six balls at once and caught them in baskets on his hips and in the middle of his back. He juggled Frisbees that soared 40 In the overall scheme of our jobs and lives, we have to pace ourselves or we ll eventually burn out, leaving no one to benefit from our talents. feet into the air and 20 feet out into the audience. He juggled everything that wasn t nailed down and then some. I met Albert after the show (courtesy of Michele Hayes in Busch Operations Training) and learned that he holds five world records for juggling, including juggling 10 balls at once! I was further impressed to discover that he has never failed to teach anyone to juggle in less than 10 minutes. It took me, armed with a book on juggling, six months to be able to do a simple three-ball cascade! I was impressed with his proficiency at teaching, but even more impressed by his willingness to teach. Almost every master performer in business today is called upon, at some point, to wear the hat of coach. Albert, as a master juggler, sees it as his responsibility to pass that skill on to others. He actively looks for opportunities to coach and encourage other people. This gifted performer provides a vivid reminder why, as trainers, it is so important for us to encourage and enable with training and support the masters in our organizations as they might be able to help accomplish training goals in minutes what otherwise might take much longer. AVOIDING BURNOUT I also learned from Albert why it doesn t pay in the long run to go all out every day. He doesn t perform at world-record level in his act because he says he can t operate at his absolute peak when he s performing five times a day, six or seven days a week. So he takes his daily show down several notches and does things well within his capacity so he doesn t burn himself out. Maybe we trainers don t perform as often as Albert, but in the overall scheme of our jobs and lives, we, too, have to pace ourselves or we ll eventually burn out, leaving no one to benefit from our talents. I m not advocating slacking. I m simply suggesting we take care of ourselves to seek and understand our capacities and limits so that when our absolute, world-record best is needed in the classroom, we have sufficient reserves to perform at that peak level for the time required. Our individual answers may not be found in ice shows around the country, but they do need to be found. Otherwise, we may be skating on thin ice. As a side note, I hope you are planning to join me at Training 2015 in Atlanta, GA ( I ll be presenting a powerful preconference training, along with two other training masters: Sharon Bowman and Thiaggi. Until next time, continue to add value and make a difference. 68 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

71 Network. Share. Learn. Anytime. Anywhere. FREE Webinar Series JOIN IN AND GET CONNECTED Join more than 56,000 training professionals inside Training magazine s free online community at Direct-connect with peers, learn from Training magazine s Top 125, and take advantage of free online resources to help with your own training challenges. Collaborate with other members and search for an expert coach Download event handouts, white papers, and training resources Share best practices and learn from your peers Gain exclusive access to Top 125 case studies Free Webinars from well-known industry thought leaders FROM OUR MEMBERS I really enjoyed the program... with Jim Kirkpatrick. That was outstanding. But I've enjoyed all the programs of Training magazine Network that I've attended. Dan Hill Sr. Learning Consultant Just wanted to say how much I value this site! It seems whenever I'm working on something related to training, you'll have a Webinar or article that just fits the bill. Thanks so much! Joan MacDonald National Practice Consultant, Quality Care & Service The 3 Keys to Getting Employee Engagement Right Tuesday, September AM Pacific / 1 PM Eastern Mahan Tavakolir, Vice President, Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc. Secrets to Training Success: 4 Reasons Jiffy Lube is #1 on Training's Top 125 in 2014 Wednesday, October 1 10 AM Pacific / 1 PM Eastern Ken Barber, Manager Learning & Development, Jiffy Lube International (a subsidiary of Shell Oil) Learning Analytics as a Game Changer Wednesday, October 8 10 AM Pacific / 1 PM Eastern Jeff Grisenthwaite, Vice President, Client Success, KnowledgeAdvisors Extend the Shelf Life of Your Training: Lessons You Can Implement from the Flipped Classroom Thursday, October 9 10 AM Pacific / 1 PM Eastern Matt Pierce, Integrated Marketing Mgr., TechSmith Ryan Eash, Education Evangelist, TechSmith Finding the Return on Investment in Blended Learning Tuesday, October AM Pacific / 1 PM Eastern Jennifer Hofmann, President, InSync Training Three Keys to Making Your Internal Coaching Program a Success Wednesday, October AM Pacific / 1 PM Eastern Lisa Ann Edwards, M.S., ACC, Partner at Bloom Coaching Institute See the complete FREE lineup at FOR SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES, CONTACT: Gary Dworet at Gary@Trainingmag.com or (561) Lori Gardner at Lori@Trainingmag.com or (952)

72 talent tips Let s Get Upfront and Personal Using technology to connect better with your employees. BY ROY SAUNDERSON Roy Saunderson is author of GIVING the Real Recognition Way and Chief Learning Officer of Rideau s Recognition Management Institute, a consulting and training firm specializing in helping companies get recognition right. Its focus is on showing leaders how to give real recognition to create positive relationships, better workplaces, and real results. For more information, contact RoySaunderson@ Rideau.com or visit I think we are getting ready to be more upfront and personal with our employees. And we are going to do all of this through technology. Say what? As my daughter signed in to Google the other day, the Google doodle on the search page had a birthday cake on her special day. And as a Facebook subscriber to Cirque du Soleil, she received from the company a personalized video with the calendar date of her birthday and her printed name displayed in it. Personal touch, for sure. I woke up this morning, like you probably did, too, to find Facebook reminding me of a personal friend s birthday. Then my s also told me, via LinkedIn, of a work colleague s birthday and of others who have started new work positions or reached a work anniversary. However, I know one person who must have entered an incorrect date in their profile, so I didn t congratulate them on reaching their 114th work anniversary! My own company s social recognition platform has peers and managers acknowledging one another for special actions performed, as well as birthdays and anniversaries, and I am able to join in and add my commendation and support. These are nice reminders that allow me to choose to send a personal note to congratulate or start a dialog with some of my many friends and associates. PERSONALIZATION ONLINE We are entering the era of technology-driven personalization. Technology can enable us as leaders and organizations to determine people s preferences and needs through profile data, program usage based upon one s interaction with various online programs, identified interests, and other activities based on social media content. We all know the Amazon experience in regards to personalization. You go online to buy a book, and when you return, you find a row of other books headed by related to items you ve viewed inspired by your browsing history or shopping items purchased, additional items to explore, and even recommendations such that if you viewed one item, here s what other customers who looked at your selection also viewed. Each employee can design his or her own social identity, which Charlene Li of the Altimeter Group defines as one s personal data and online social activities that present a picture of a person and their likes, preferences, and potential needs. While most social identity insights tend to focus more on a consumer marketing perspective, all these methods will assist us in the workplace, as well. Retailers are most proficient with their own apps for collecting information and tailoring the sending of coupons and product information to consumers. They even can transmit within their stores using beacons that send coupons or directions using Bluetooth technology right in the product aisles. Within the workplace, even if people do not have computers but do have personal smart phones, beacons similar to the retail setup could be installed to transmit the location of the closest online HR kiosk for benefits selection and other employee needs. Or if you lingered near a particular poster about an upcoming entertainment event, a discount coupon could pop up on your phone sponsored by the company. ANALYTICS PREDICT The idea is to engage employees through the various online service programs such as employee recognition, benefits and HR portals, social collaboration tools, learning management systems (LMSs), and other accessed education and learning. Leaders need to graduate from metrics to analytics. This means going below the surface and identifying important connections and patterns in the data to make better workforce decisions. Take, for example, text mining content from collaboration tools, documents, and customer feedback to social recognition posts, and then contextually predicting what you are interested in, what you want to know, and identifying talents and strengths you are displaying at work. Using your IT infrastructure and in-house software systems such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management), and HRIS (Human Resource Information System), you can gain a wealth of quantitative data for analysis and predicting. 70 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

73 Include some qualitative pop-up surveys when employees log in to your intranet portal and you can mesh data with how employees feel about engagement and satisfaction levels. The goal is to obtain as much data as possible from a variety of sources so you can generate insights about the connections and relationships that may exist. This allows you to drive real-time responses to your employees real-time behaviors. Taking an analytical approach to employee and performance data will help you predict engagement, who is at risk of leaving an organization, and where the focus should be placed to improve productivity levels and other important key performance indicators. And it can be done in real time and not through a lagging engagement survey. TOO PERSONAL? Some people worry that all this data analysis of profiles and user information is an invasion of privacy and even a little creepy. Privacy always will be a concern, but get ready for the next generation of workers. Seems Generation Z the teens, preteens, and kids in your neighborhood today doesn t mind sharing information. According to a recent Pew research study, teens share more information about themselves on social media than ever before. When you compare 2012 data with 2006, this is what these young people shared: Our intentions always must be genuine and ethical in using this newfound source of information to assist our employees and ourselves in fulfilling their purposes and achieving our strategic initiatives. Who would ever have thought that technology could assist us in being more personal with people? We finally are reaching the era of integration of high tech with high touch. t Visit TRAINING MAGAZINE S DIGITAL HOME > Redesigned for the Training Audience > New Content Updated Daily > Featured Columns > Research and Reports > Training Top 125 Best Practices > Exclusive Case Studies > Tips & Trends > New Products Redesigned for 2014! The new TrainingMag.com is the online resource for training professionals. Visit our reimagined and reinvented digital portal for easy access to Training s online-only content, face-to-face events, online certificate programs, free Webinars and white papers, exclusive content from the Top 125, and more. training SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

74 last word The Three P s of has become the primary written communication tool in business today, but it can cause problems if certain etiquette rules aren t followed. BY PETER POST Peter Post is a director of The Emily Post Institute ( seminars), greatgrandson of Emily Post, and co-author of The Etiquette Advantage in Business. It s not surprising to me that is consistently the most requested topic at our business etiquette seminars. has become the primary written communication tool in business today. Because of its importance, managers want everyone in their offices to create messages that build relationships both inside the business and with clients, prospects, suppliers, and the general public. The best way to ensure that s will hit the mark is to follow the Three P s: Public versus private. Again and again, people make the critical error of assuming that what they are writing is a private message only intended for the recipient s eyes. Big mistake. s can be forwarded or sent on to others intentionally or inadvertently with devastating consequences. The best way to ensure Before you send an , print it out and take it to a private space. Shut the door and then read it out loud. You ll hear the tone in your writing. If you read it silently, you won t hear the tone as well, so read it out loud. that your won t contain information that boomerangs back on you is to follow the Who, What, When, and Where rule. If the e- mail addresses those four questions, then send it. But if it delves into Why or your opinion or involves interpersonal issues, ask yourself if is the best method of communication. Proofread. Mistakes in spelling, grammar, or word choice can reflect badly on you and leave the recipient wondering if you are careless. Spelling a word incorrectly is certainly a mistake, but if you spell a person s name incorrectly, he or she will notice and won t be pleased or easily forgiving. With the advent of auto-correct, spelling errors can go unnoticed. Auto-correct.com is full of humorous examples of mangled messages. Auto-fill can be helpful, but it also can be devastating. You start addressing an in which you were critical about your boss to Peter, your friend, but auto-fill nicely completes the address with Peter, your boss, and you don t notice the error. Big trouble when your boss gets the meant for your friend, Peter. Patience. It s easy to hit the send button automatically when you complete your message, especially when you are in a hurry. Unfortunately, it is also unforgiving because once a message is sent, getting it back unread is impossible. (Yes, some programs have a retrieve button, but there s no guarantee the message hasn t already been opened by the time you try to retrieve it.) Here are two pieces of advice that apply patience to your s: and take it to a private space. Shut the door and then read it out loud. You ll hear the tone in your writing. If you read it silently, you won t hear the tone as well, so read it out loud. and then listen to his or her critique. What you thought was a harmless attempt at humor or intended as a neutral tone may be completely misunderstood. Because written messages do not have the added advantages of voice inflection or facial expression, they consistently are perceived as more negative in tone than intended. t 72 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 training

75 LEADERS Consider them READY Powerful leadership programs including: High Impact Conversations Leading Sustainable Change Accelerating Team Performance Design Thinking for Innovation We wrote the book on great leadership Awakening potential Aligning goals Accelerating development Advancing Great Leadership Since

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77 Training magazine s 38th annual Certificate Programs: February 6 8 Conference: February 9 11 Expo: February 9 10 Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, Georgia Early-Bird Discount see page 32 KEYNOTES Shawn Achor Author, The Happiness Advantage An event designed for learning, training and performance professionals Michelle Gielan Founder, Institute for Applied Positive Research Rahaf Harfoush Author, The Decoded Company Training matters. Dave Carroll Storyteller, United Breaks Guitars Attend and discover how to turn learning into doing. Experience. Experts. Excellence. Wes Moore Author, The Other Wes Moore Produced by: Jeffrey Tambor Actor, Coach

78 2 Training Matters. Now Is the Time I am a master procrastinator. I can come up with all sorts of creative reasons for not cleaning out my closets, not filing the copious amounts of paperwork sitting on top of my bookshelf, not finishing the speech for my upcoming keynote. In fact, the favorite quote I provided for my high school yearbook was Scarlett O Hara s Tomorrow is another day (an appropriate reference, seeing as Gone With the Wind is turning 75 as we return to Atlanta for Training 2015). But procrastination is the antithesis of action and often produces not-so-stellar results. So I am vowing to turn over a new leaf, and I hope you will do the same. I m calling on you to act today to examine each and every one of your training programs and evaluate whether they are turning learning into doing. If you are not seeing changes in your learners performance and as an extension, organizational performance you need to figure out why and act decisively. Training Matters is the mantra for our Training 2015 Conference & Expo and, we hope, for you and your organization. When training matters when it is connected to corporate strategic goals and more than just a stand-alone event then it converts into impact. Complementing our featured and breakout facilitators, Training 2015 keynoters run the gamut from performance consultant Dana Gaines Robinson, author and digital innovation strategist Rahaf Harfoush, and combat veteran and business leader Wes Moore to positive psychologists Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan, Arrested Development actor Jeffrey Tambor, and singer/songwriter Dave Carroll. But they all embody the correlation between action and results. Their lessons have the power to change your life and those of your learners if you embrace and act on them. To ensure what you learn at Training 2015 doesn t go in one ear and out the other, we ll be asking you to write a training song about the most important thing you picked up at the conference (so pay close attention to Dave Carroll s keynote!). Social media guru (and training pied piper) Jane Bozarth will spearhead this musical effort just follow her lead. What are you waiting for? Register today! And I ll finish up that keynote address this week I promise! Lorri Freifeld Editor-in-Chief, Training magazine The conference & expo was an excellent opportunity to connect with new leaders from around the industry and share best practices. The days spent networking and learning will prove invaluable to both me and my organization. David Brzozowski Senior Training Manager, Dollar General Corporation The Training Conference was a valuable experience for my team! Keynotes were engaging, relevant and inspired learning and thinking. The expo provided new and classic tools to expand our practice and offerings, and the breakout sessions were informative and varied. Sara Frasch, Director Organizational & Professional Development, University of New Mexico Hospitals Training Boot Camp 2015 PARTICIPANT 2015 Level Up at Training 2015! Digital credentials can transform how your hard-earned achievements are recognized, shared, and rewarded. Earn ebadges at Training 2015 and showcase them on LinkedIn and Facebook! Table of Contents Special Events...3 Conference & Expo Schedule...4 Tours...5 Keynotes Pre-Conference Certificate Programs Featured Sessions Hands-On Clinics The Expo...16 Breakout Sessions How To Register...30 Venue & Hotel...31 Registration Form...32 Team Discounts Groups of 3 or more are eligible for a team discount. Contact Staff@TrainingMagEvents.com

79 Special Events 3 Listen. Debate. Join. Relax. Laugh. Do. Learn. Crash Course Learning Don t miss your chance to get up-to-date on the latest design and technology trends. Join elearning expert Nick Floro for a series of seven Crash Course Learning sessions on the Expo Stage. See page 16 for details. SUNDAY, FEB 8, 4:15 PM 5:00 PM First Timer Orientation If this is your first Training conference, make the best of your conference experience by joining Training magazine s Emerging Training Leaders your ambassadors for this orientation session. These talented peers will welcome you for a fun session and invite you to connect with other first-timers. Meet some new friends, form your own power group, then head over to the Sunday Night Welcome Reception together! Let s get this learning party started! Training Boot Camp Certificate Boot CAMP Attend five of the seven boot camp sessions, in addition to the Training Design, Delivery and Facilitation Certificate Program delivered by master trainers Bob Pike, Sharon Bowman, and Sivasailam Thiagarajan (see page 8), and receive a Training Boot Camp Certificate signed by Training magazine Editor-in-Chief Lorri Freifeld, as well as a special ebadge to showcase your accomplishment. SUNDAY, FEB 8, 5:45 PM 6:45 PM Welcome Reception Kick off your conference experience with an opening reception hosted by the Omni CNN hotel. Music by Banding People Together. Transformation Through Collaboration SM Prepare for Battle and Become a Gamécon Master Become an elite trainer by using special training gauntlets to fight off the most feared and strongest learning and development professionals. Find fellow training allies and training items to give you strength. Did we say there would be fabulous prizes? Yes! There will be fabulous prizes. Your card game wizard will be Deborah Thomas, CEO of Silly Monkey and an expert in developing powerful game-based, serious-play learning design. MONDAY, FEB 9, 6:00 PM 8:00 PM Don t Dine Alone Mixer Expand your connections on Monday evening with dedicated dining options at Atlanta restaurants that meet your budget (look for $ guides). Facilitated by industry veterans, you ll choose from various dining locations and experts for a fun dinner party. Take a chance maybe you ll meet that one key connection at the Don t Dine Alone Mixer! Dinner groups will meet up at the Omni Lounge for a drink compliments of Training magazine and then head off in small dinner groups. Please note the dinner is a pay-on-your-own event. In Tune with Training Matters Join in as Training 2015 attendees create their own memorable, singable takeaway in a fun-filled, highenergy, democracy-based extravaganza of usergenerated content, social learning, group dynamics, vocal exercise, collaborative interaction and rhyming. Social media guru Jane Bozarth will spearhead this musical effort just follow her lead. She ll appear periodically to lead you in the chorus of the Training Matters song as you work out the rest of the lyrics throughout the conference. WEDNESDAY, FEB 11, 3:30 PM 4:30 PM Rhythmic Reception We ve got the beat. You ve got the words. Together, we ll make beautiful music you ll remember long after Training Meet for the big Training Matters song reveal and participate in a sing-along flash mob before heading back home. Participants of this closing event will take home a Training Matters T-shirt. We guarantee you ll be warbling this tune back in the office. Let s finish this conference on a high note! Log on to TrainingConference.com to register today!

80 4 Conference Schedule FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6 9:00 am 4:00 pm 3-Day Certificate Programs* SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7 9:00 am 4:00 pm 3-Day & 2-Day Certificate Programs* SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 8 9:00 am 4:00 pm 3-Day, 2-Day and 1-Day Certificate Programs* 4:15 pm 5:00 pm First Timer Orientation 5:45 pm 6:45 pm Conference Kick-Off: Welcome Reception at Omni Hotel MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9 8:00 am 9:00 am Breakout Sessions (100 series) 9:15 am 10:30 am Keynote: Dana Robinson, Michelle Gielan, Shawn Achor 10:45 am 11:45 am Breakout Sessions (200 series) 11:00 am 5:30 pm EXPO HOURS 11:30 am 2:00 pm Lunch in Expo Hall 12:00 pm 12:30 pm Expo Stage Crash Course: Designing Better elearning 12:45 pm 1:15 pm Expo Stage Crash Course: Responsive vs Adaptive Design 12:45 pm 1:45 pm Sponsor Sessions** 1:30 pm 2:00 pm Expo Stage Crash Course: Prototyping Concepts Made Easy 2:00 pm 3:00 pm Breakout Sessions (300 series) 3:15 pm 3:45 pm Expo Stage: Special Best Practice and Outstanding Initiative Awards for Top 125 3:15 pm 4:15 pm Featured Sessions 4:30 pm 5:30 pm Expo Hall Reception 4:45 pm 5:15 pm Expo Stage Crash Course: Compressing Audio & Video 6:00 pm 8:00 pm Don t Dine Alone Mixer 6:00 pm 10:00 pm Training s 2015 Top 125 Gala (Private Event; By Invitation Only) TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10 8:15 am 9:15 am Breakout Sessions (400 series) 9:30 am 10:30 am Keynote: Rahaf Harfoush 10:45 am 11:45 am Breakout Sessions (500 series) 11:00 am 5:00 pm EXPO HOURS 11:30 am 2:00 pm Lunch in Expo Hall 11:30 am 12:00 pm Expo Stage Crash Course: Understanding HTML5 12:15 pm 12:45 pm Expo Stage Crash Course: Using Analytics 1:00 pm 1:30 pm Expo Stage: Emerging Training Leaders Awards Program 1:45 pm 3:15 pm Keynote: Power of Storytelling: Wes Moore and Dave Carroll 3:30 pm 4:30 pm Sponsor Sessions** 4:00 pm 5:00 pm Happy Hour in Expo Hall 4:00 pm 4:30 pm Expo Stage Crash Course: Five Learning Trends to Focus On 5:15 pm 6:00 pm Keynote: Jeffrey Tambor 6:00 pm 6:30 pm Reception WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 8:30 am 9:30 am Breakout Sessions (600 series) 9:45 am 10:45 am Featured Sessions 11:00 am 12:00 pm Breakout Sessions (700 series) 12:15 pm 3:15 pm Hands-On Clinics (Includes Box Lunch) 3:30 pm 4:30 pm Closing Reception THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12 8:00 am 12:30 pm Delta Airlines Tour* 8:30 am 11:30 am Rollins Learning Center Tour* 9:30 am 11:30 am Inside CNN Protocol Tour* 9:30 am 12:30 pm World of Coca-Cola VIP Tour* * Additional Fee Required. Pre-registration recommended. Space is limited. ** Sponsor Session descriptions will be available online prior to the show. What s Included in a 3-Day Conference & Expo Registration: A 3-Day Conference & Expo registration includes: the Sunday First Timer Orientation and Welcome Reception; everything listed for Monday-Wednesday (except for the private Top 125 Gala); and two days admission to the Expo Hall including lunch. The Certificate Programs Friday Sunday and the Tours on Thursday are an additional fee. Training 2015 Conference & Expo

81 Hang Around for a Post-Conference Tour Tours 5 THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12 Space is limited and priority is given to 3-Day Conference & Expo attendees. Additional fee; please register by Friday, February 6. Rollins Learning Center Tour: Global Learning Network in Action 8:30 am 11:30 am Visit Rollins $10 million state-of-the-art training center for Orkin and its sister companies. You ll see how Orkin s hands-on training program simulates real-world experiences in a mock commercial kitchen, restaurant, bar, grocery store, hospital room, hotel room and brick house. The small group tour experience will include viewing the newest interactive and multi-media classroom studios. A Q&A session completes the tour of this unique learning center. Round trip transportation is included. Fee $50 Inside CNN Protocol Tour 9:30 am 11:30 am This tour will give you with an in-depth look at television news production at CNN s global headquarters. You ll explore the company s history and programming as well as a deeper dive into the news production process. The experience includes stops inside the CNN main studios, CNN International, and CNN en Español, as well as a view into the HLN studio. Visit the networks control rooms and Master Control, Media Operations as well as the International and Domestic news rooms. All of this adds up to a rare opportunity to see news broadcasting in action from the inventors of 24-hour news. The CNN studios are walking distance from the conference venue. Fee $50 World of Coca-Cola VIP Tour 9:30 am 12:30 pm Experience the rich story of Coca-Cola. View more than 1,200 artifacts from around the world, many of which have never been displayed to the public before. Visit interactive exhibits such as a thrilling, multi-sensory 4-D movie and get an inside look at the bottling process. And, enjoy a World of Coca-Cola favorite the tasting experience where you ll have the opportunity to sample over 100 flavors from around the world! The World of Coca-Cola is walking distance from the conference venue. Fee: $50 Delta Tour: Inside the Delta Difference 8:00 am 12:30 pm Tour the exciting world of Delta training! You ll have the chance to see three operational areas Flight Operations, In-flight Services, and Operations Customer/Control Center (OCC). The state-of-the-art training facilities include a live fire training pit, ditching pool, 28 flight simulators, 40 flight training devices, 7 cabin training mockups, 31 cabin door trainers, 2 emergency equipment trainers and more. Tour groups will be small for personalized attention. Round trip transportation is included. Fee $50 Log on to TrainingConference.com to register today!

82 6 Keynotes Seize the Day Training Matters! And effective training means turning learning into doing this should be both your battle cry and mantra. Sometimes we can get so bogged down in the minutiae of designing training and bedazzled by the technology of delivering it that we forget this simple message. Whether this is a gut check or wake-up call for you, let Training 2015 serve as the springboard for action. Our keynoters will guide you and inspire you. The time is now. To borrow a phrase from Nike: Just Do It! Call to Commitment: Focus on Training that Delivers Results In 2011, Dana Gaines Robinson retired from her consulting practice... or so she thought. But she is so passionate about the need for training to deliver results that she has returned to co-author a third edition of her groundbreaking book and give an exclusive kickoff (and kick in the pants) to Training In 1995, Dana and Jim Robinson s first edition of Performance Consulting solidified a role for people in the Learning and HR professions. This role espoused the principle that working strategically connecting learning solutions to business results is the only way to have real and sustained impact. And yet, estimates still indicate a large percentage of the investment made in training solutions yields limited results. In this kickoff, Robinson will challenge all of us to step up to the plate. The result? Delivering training solutions that do turn learning into doing and doing into desired business outcomes. The Optimism Quotient: The Secret (and Science) to Better Work In 2014, positive psychologist Shawn Achor rocked the Training Conference audience (and Oprah!) with his research on the happiness advantage. Clearly, two happiness experts are even better than one, so Achor is back by popular demand at Training 2015 and joined by former national CBS news anchor Michelle Gielan they are the founders of the Institute for Applied Positive Research. Achor tells us that the greatest competitive advantage in the modern economy is a positive and engaged brain. New studies show 90 percent of our long-term success is predicted not by our external circumstances, but by how we process the world around us. So what is the scientific key to success? Optimism: the belief that challenges are temporary, and if we take action, we can improve our circumstances. Utilizing their research, Achor and Gielan will share the strategies for raising your personal optimism quotient, responding to challenges more effectively, and channeling this new mindset into tangible successes for you and those around you. The result? Your glass is a lot more than half full, and it shows! Performing Your Life: Discovering Your Inner Artist Award-winning character actor and star of Arrested Development, Jeffrey Tambor is a veteran of film, television, and the Broadway stage. His career as a Master Teacher of actors has given him a unique insight into human behavior. Tambor s hilarious and inspiring presentation, Performing Your Life, motivates you to discover the artist within yourself. Part one-man show, part seminar, and part Q&A session, his empowering lessons are catalysts for change as they promote introspection and cultivate a passion for learning. The result? The chance to discover your full potential. Training 2015 Conference & Expo

83 Keynotes 7 The Road Not Taken: The Other Wes Moore Two kids named Wes Moore, living in the same city. One grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison for felony murder. Both grew up in similar neighborhoods and had difficult childhoods. Both were fatherless. Both hung out on similar street corners with similar crews, and both ran into trouble with the police. At each stage of their young lives, they faced similar moments of decision, yet their choices and the people in their lives led them to drastically different destinies. Join best-selling author Wes Moore, host of Oprah Winfrey Network s Beyond Belief, as he demonstrates the impact a powerful leader, trainer, or mentor can have on your life. The result? Learn how small choices make big differences in life. United Breaks Guitars: The Power of Effective Storytelling Dave Carroll is an award-winning singer/ songwriter, author, and social media innovator. When faced with a difficult customer service issue with United Airlines in 2009, Carroll used his ability as a master storyteller to share his experience with the world. The resulting YouTube music video called United Breaks Guitars became an instant viral hit. Today, more than 150 million people have been introduced to his story. Carroll is also co-founder of Gripevine.com, an online customer complaints resolution platform that brings consumers and businesses together, resulting in improved service for consumers and improved results for companies. His ability to extract the essence of a message and craft it into an impactful story (and song that is broadcast via social media, in his case) is an invaluable skill one organizations can use to deliver their most important stories. The result? A lesson in innovation, creativity, and communication that all leaders should hear. The Decoded Company: Getting to Know Your Talent Author and digital innovation strategist Rahaf Harfoush demonstrates how transformational companies are customizing data-driven cultures for their employees to achieve higher productivity, retention, and profits. Rather than treating your people as interchangeable resources, you ll learn how to apply a combination of self-reported and ambient data to develop a sixth sense about your people. Decoded companies transform technology into a coach that learns from your whole organization s base of experiences and applies those insights in real time to training, development, recruiting, and even project management processes. The result? Increased agility and speed, evidence-based decision-making, decreased bureaucracy, and happier employees. Log on to TrainingConference.com to register today!

84 8 Certificate Programs Training magazine presents Certificate Programs conducted by leading industry experts. These 3-, 2-, and 1-Day Certificate Programs give you the essential knowledge, practiced techniques, and sound theories you need to become (and remain!) a top performer in your field. In the end, you ll not only walk away with a certificate of completion and an ebadge, you ll also jumpstart your career and enhance your professional know-how. Additional fee required, see page Friday, February 6 Sunday, February 8 9:00 am 4:00 pm THREE-DAY CERTIFICATE PROGRAMS TRAINING WITH THE MASTERS: World-Class Trainers Deliver Content-Rich Certificate Programs P01 Training Design, Delivery and Facilitation Day One: Creative Training Techniques and Participant-Centered Models Bob Pike, Author, Creative Techniques Handbook Learn how to create a high-impact, high-retention, high-application environment where everyone learns because of their total involvement. Discover how to achieve 90% retention, cut design time by 50%, and increase transfer by 75% with easy-to apply techniques that create results and can be immediately applied to your programs. Learn to: Create powerful new openings for your training. Use a seven-step process to transform your current courses into high-impact, learner centered courses. Ban lecture and choose 36 ways to add variety. Apply CPR and the 90/20/08 rule to all your training. Create valuable learning materials your participants will love to use. Create powerful new ways to demonstrate your training results. Day Two: Making Training Stick by Applying Brain Science Sharon Bowman, Author, Training from the BACK of the Room Toss outdated training assumptions and explore the most current cognitive neuroscience that explains how humans naturally and normally learn. Begin using these principles immediately in your own classroom and elearning instruction. You will: Apply six learning principles based on current brain research every time you train, regardless of the complexity of the topic, size of the group, or level of the learners. Demonstrate a variety of brain science elements using your own training topics, and dramatically increase learners attention, retention, and engagement. Create your personal trainer s toolbox of easy-touse, brain-based training strategies. Access a collection of new brain science resources to enhance your instruction, both in the classroom and online. BONUS! You ll receive a copy of Sharon s book, Using Brain Science to Make Training Stick. Day Three: Designing and Conducting Training Games and Activities Sivasailam Thiagarajan, Author, More Jolts! Activities to Wake Up and Engage Your Participants Are you excited about training games and activities but anxious about losing control, wasting time, and being attacked by participants? Based on 20 years of field experience and research, Thiagi will share important secrets for effective training facilitation. Learn about: Textra games that bring your dull, dry handouts to life. Simulation games that use inexpensive materials and methods to reflect the realities of the workplace. Jolts that provide powerful insights and concepts. Seven critical dimensions of activities-based training and how to select, maintain, and balance appropriate levels of each. The importance of the debriefing process for linking the training game or activity to the workplace reality. A six-phase model for maximizing learning from experience. This certificate program is designed for trainers, facilitators, and designers with all levels of experience. NOTE: Attend this certificate plus five of the seven Training Boot Camp sessions and receive a special Training Boot Camp certificate signed by Lorri Freifeld, Training magazine s Editor-in-Chief. See page 17 for details. P02 Instructional Design Geoff Bailey, Senior Consultant, Friesen, Kaye and Associates Discover the keys to creating interactive and engaging training that ensures learner success whether in the classroom, online, or a combination of both. Take home electronic job aids and a detailed support manual to help you apply what you learned when you are back on the job. Through expert presentation, practical exercises, group discussions, and real-world examples, you ll learn to: Incorporate adult learning principles, a systematic learning process, and a variety of processing methods to maximize retention. Accommodate different learning styles. Apply proven techniques for analyzing learner and organizational needs, and plan the design and development of training materials to meet those needs. Select the right training content and instructional strategy to support performance improvement for the target population. Strategize design time shortcuts. Plan a variety of presentation, application, and feedback methods. Align objectives and tests, and outline strategies to close any performance gaps. Create questions that enable learning, encourage retention, and test for understanding. Promote interactivity in classroom and online designs. Create a validation plan that ensures the training design meets the organizational needs. BONUS! You ll receive a 220-page Instructional Design Fundamentals Participant Manual plus case study documents, job aids, a Kolb Learning Styles Inventory and sample Self-Directed Learning Booklet. You ll also receive a 184-page Support Manual full of instructional design guidelines, best practices, and templates with instructions for accessing the templates online. Training 2015 Conference & Expo

85 Certificate Programs 9 3 Friday, February 6 Sunday, February 8 9:00 am 4:00 pm THREE-DAY CERTIFICATE PROGRAMS TRAINING WITH THE MASTERS: World-Class Trainers Deliver Content-Rich Certificate Programs P03 Articulate Storyline for Scenario-Based elearning Ray Jimenez, Chief Learning Architect, Vignettes for Training; Kevin Thorn, Owner, NuggetHead Studioz Learn to build step-by-step interactive stories, scenarios and experience-based learning. You ll apply workshop templates, processes, and methods, and use Articulate Storyline software exercises to develop your own mini-projects. Learn how to: Embed learning objectives, content, work exercises, and applications. Use Articulate Storyline to transform engaging designs into intermediate and advance interactions. Leverage Storyline to create immersive and aesthetically enriching learning experiences. Day One: Planning Engagement Prepare and develop engaging stories, scenes, events, and characters. Applications of Storyline Master Slide s hidden secrets, flexibility of an object s states, and flexibility of layers combined with evaluating an object s state. Day Two: Designing Engagement Developing models of scenarios and games. Applications of Storyline Storyboarding an interaction design, custom drag and drop interactions with multiple feedback scenarios, combining interactive elements with video, and conditional programming with variables. Day Three: Reverse engineering and opening the hood of ten application specific exercises and free sources files: scenarios, discovery and in-box exercises, games, etc. Creating seamless and elegantly produced Storyline codes best practices. And much, much more! Three jam-packed days of mind blowing fun! BYOD: Laptop required, see online description for important technical requirements. All session materials (outline, agenda, job aids, etc.) will be available via download prior to the certificate. No source.story files will be available prior to certificate as you will deconstruct, develop, and practice during the lessons. All files will be accessible that day and afterward. This certificate is not designed for new users rather those who are already comfortable with Storyline. P04 Managing the Training Function Jean Barbazette, Author, Managing the Training Function for Bottom Line Results; Maria Chilcote; Melissa Smith, Managing Partners, The Training Clinic In this certificate, you ll focus on effective methods to manage the entire scope of your organization s training effort. Learn to: Develop a vision, mission and function priorities statement. Prioritize and keep your sanity as a department of one. Use audit tools to benchmark your function. Use an eight step consulting approach. Use seven key consulting roles. Use a nine-part plan to build alliances and work successfully with line managers and employees. Gain management s commitment to performance improvement. Use five diagnostic tools to determine performance problems. Contract effectively with your internal clients. Identify powerful yet simple techniques to market your training function. Evaluate and develop trainers using a 16 point competency tool. Use four tools to supervise and coach instructors. Evaluate and develop course developers using a 32 point competency tool. Use four design tools to supervise and coach course developers. Apply four tactics to improve learning transfer. Identify methods to cost justify training and monitor a training budget. Develop an action plan to get results. BONUS: You ll receive a Training Manager s Tool Kit containing the Training Function Systems Audit as well as a 16-point Instructor Competency Inventory and a 32-point Course Designer Competency Inventory. CEUs are available for this certificate (for information, call ). BYOD: Laptop recommended. P05 Adobe Captivate for elearning Joe Ganci, President, elearning Joe; Pooja Jaisingh, elearning Evangelist, Adobe Systems Adobe Captivate is the most popular elearning development tool. Now is your chance to learn Captivate (v8) and take advantage of its very latest features as well as those that have been around since the start. You ll learn how to publish to HTML5, create drag-and-drop exercises, record system audio along with narration, reusable advanced action templates, and much more. Over the course of two days, you will build a real elearning lesson that you ll be able to take back with you and customize to your needs. How cool is that? You ll build a lesson that includes a soft skills sample and a software simulation built in a brand new way. Learn to: Combine text, audio, video and images. Add click-, drag-, and rollover-based interactions Add pre-built learning interactions and games. Use smart shapes to create your own buttons. Use Captivate s new Responsive Design to create learning that works perfectly across desktops, tablets and smart phones. Add photographic and illustrated actor characters as mentors. Create a high definition video you can upload to YouTube. Create a pretest and set up partial and negative scoring. And, so much more! No more boring training. With a little effort and guidance, you will be able to use and repurpose Captivate elements in your own lessons. Come prepared to learn and have fun! BYOD: Please bring a WiFi-enabled laptop with Microsoft Word and PowerPoint installed. If you do not already own Adobe Captivate, download the latest trial version from captivate.html no sooner than 20 days before class (so that it doesn t expire before class begins). Upgrade Your Conference Registration with a Pre-Conference Certificate Program. Lunch and refreshment breaks are included each day. See page 32 for fees. Log on to TrainingConference.com to register today!

86 10 Certificate Programs 2 Saturday, February 7 & Sunday, February 8 9:00 am 4:00 pm TWO-DAY CERTIFICATE PROGRAMS P06 The Visual Story Laura Wall Klieves, VP Academy, Duarte, Inc. Persuasion is the currency of business communication and those who master communicating through presentations and stories rise faster than their peers, reach more customers than their competitors, and turn ideas into groundswells. But presentations are broken. The only proof you need is sitting through the next presentation delivered by your colleague, your boss or your vendor. The presentation paradigm must be changed in order for all the brilliant ideas to be heard. But how? Based on Nancy Duarte s award-winning books, Resonate and Slide:ology, this program establishes a new method of content development and presentation design that dramatically improves persuasive communication. You ll learn to shape ideas into presentations designed to shift audience beliefs and behaviors in your organizations, communities, and world. In this hands-on program, you ll learn about: The Power and Structure of Story. The Presentation Form the shape of great communications. The Audience Journey and your role as the presenter. The StoryMap writing content that resonates with your audience. Visual clarity to define Signal and Noise. Storyboarding techniques quick sketching to try out ideas. Arranging elements for clear communication. Visual unity applying design thinking to your presentations. BONUS: You will receive a workshop kit, which includes job aids and copies of Nancy Duarte s first two books Resonate and Slide:ology. P07 Performance Consulting and Measuring ROI Dick Handshaw, Chairman, Handshaw, Inc.; Jack Phillips, Chairman, Patti Phillips, CEO, ROI Institute, Inc. This certificate combines the skills of performance consulting with measuring results, including ROI, into one comprehensive program. Day one will focus on both the science (the analytical and assessment techniques) and the art (the consultative and partnering practices) of performance consulting. You will learn how to reframe a training request to connect the request to business needs and determine what additional analysis is needed, if any, to design useful solutions. And you will learn how to use a Gaps Map using Should, Is, and Cause questions to define a total solution that will meet the required business goals. On day two you will be introduced to the Phillips V Model that equates the phases of performance consulting needs to the levels of measurement and evaluation. You ll learn how to set objectives for application, impact, and ROI. A variety of data collection methods will be explored as well as how to analyze data and calculate ROI. Finally, you ll explore how to report the results to key stakeholders. Learn to: Use eight proven principles to reframe a training request to align the request with business goals and explore opportunities for further analysis. Use a Gaps Map operational gaps, performance gaps, and causes to identify a variety of solutions to achieve a stated business goal. Collect data at four levels using a variety of methods. Analyze data, calculate ROI, and connect to the intangibles. Report the results to key clients, drive actions, and improvements. P08 elearning Design and Development Fundamentals Kevin Siegel, President, IconLogic, Inc. There are multiple tools available that will let you create compelling elearning content including Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, TechSmith Camtasia Studio, and Adobe Presenter. But which tool is the best, most affordable option for your needs? Once you select your elearning tool, what s next? How do you get started creating your first elearning content? Once you start, how long is it going to take you to finish? What s the real cost for your effort? Are there hidden costs? How will you be able to measure the effectiveness of your elearning? Learn to: Identify the fundamentals of effective instructional design. See a demonstration of some of the top elearning creation tools and how they compare. Outline the elearning development process. Create a step-by-step storyboard/script. Create a voiceover script to support the elearning lesson. Create an interactive simulation using an off-theshelf elearning development tool. Publish the elearning content for the widest possible audience. This is a tool-agnostic workshop the concepts you learn will be applicable in any of the top elearning tools you can buy off-the-shelf. BYOD: Please bring your WiFi-enabled laptop preloaded with at least the trial version of Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, TechSmith Camtasia Studio 8, or Adobe Presenter 9. You ll also need Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint. The instructor will demonstrate how to create effective elearning in each of the above elearning tools, but you ll get to work in your tool of choice. P09 Coaching Skills Tim Hagen, Author, Coaching: Corporate America s #1 Weapon Learn how to use coaching as a critical learning strategy to influence employee progress and drive performance. In this certificate program, you ll learn how to become a coaching practitioner, partner, designer, and ambassador. Day One will focus on Knowledge, Concepts, and Fundamentals where you ll learn to: Expand and accelerate your career with coaching. Follow training with coaching. Get management to want to coach. Get management participation. Use Bridge Coaching. Become an internal coaching partner. Use eight coaching methods. Use three tiers of learning. Use Questions and Progressions to drive understanding and perspective as to where coaching can drive the greatest return on investment. Use a simple four-step process that makes every coaching session a success. Day Two will focus on Best Practice & Design where you ll: Participate in practice sessions. Participate in one-on-one coaching sessions. Be scored by a peer using a coaching scoring feedback system. Learn to run and design a one-on-one coaching program and group coaching program. Design Coaching Kits managers can use after your training. Training 2015 Conference & Expo

87 Certificate Programs 11 P10 Virtual Classroom Design and Facilitation Jennifer Hofmann, Author, The Synchronous Trainer s Survival Guide Are you planning on converting faceto-face content to a live virtual classroom? Or do you just need a solid, practical foundation so you can be ready to create and deliver effective virtual learning? This program provides the building blocks for successfully designing, facilitating, and managing your live online classroom initiatives, while exploring the experience from the perspective of a learner, a designer, a facilitator, and a producer. You ll apply instructional design methodology to create collaborative virtual exercises. You ll look at the available features of two of the current virtual classrooms, Adobe Connect and WebEx Training Center, in order to better understand how to design for a virtual environment. You will also practice some of the skills needed to design for and facilitate in a live virtual classroom. Learn to: Fully utilize the collaborative features of a live classroom environment, including whiteboards, breakout rooms, polling, application sharing, and synchronized web browsing. Analyze the objectives of a prospective course to determine if delivery in the virtual classroom is appropriate. Create and critique whiteboard, chat, application sharing, web browsing and breakout room activity designs. Employ a simple four-step disaster recovery process in the virtual classroom. BYOD: Please bring a WiFi-enabled laptop. Although this program is being delivered face-toface, you will use both Adobe Connect and WebEx Training Center in order to better understand the environment. Training Boot Camp Certificate TRAINING WITH THE MASTERS: World-Class Trainers Deliver Content-Rich Certificate Programs P11 Brain Science for Learning and Behavior Change Art Kohn, Consultant, AKLearning In this energetic program, renown neuropsychologist, Art Kohn, explores 10 core principles that will help you understand how the brain controls learning and behavior change. On day one you ll experience dramatic demonstrations which provide an exciting understanding of how the mind learns and retains new information. These tips will enable to create more effective training both live and online. On day two, you ll take an advanced look at these principles and discover how to leverage neurological principles to create an effective training program that will produce sustainable behavior change both within the individual and your entire organization. This program is for anyone who is interested in the psychology and the brain, and it provides valuable information for all roles from instructional designers to chief learning officers. Is your organization committed to learning and selfimprovement? It will be once you understand these brain-secrets of learning and behavior change. Learn to: Create social learning communities that are based on psychological principles of observational learning. Use authoring tools more effectively by understand ing how the brain encodes metaphor and emotion. Develop an incentive system that reinforces desired behaviors and that are based on established principles of conditioning. Improve employees attention within mobile learning by understanding the secrets to people s levels of consciousness. Design effective follow-up training by tapping into mnemonic principles of memory. Deliver either visual messages or auditory messages based on an understanding of the brain s dual-coding mechanisms. Boot CAMP Attend five of the seven boot camp sessions, in addition to the Training Design, Delivery and Facilitation Certificate Program delivered by master trainers Bob Pike, Sharon Bowman, and Sivasailam Thiagarajan (see page 8), and receive a Training Boot Camp Certificate signed by Training magazine Editor-in-Chief Lorri Freifeld, as well as a special ebadge to showcase your accomplishment. Upgrade Your Conference Registration with a Pre-Conference Certificate Program. Lunch and refreshment breaks are included each day. See page 32 for fees. TRAINING WITH THE MASTERS: World-Class Trainers Deliver Content-Rich Certificate Programs ONE-DAY 1 CERTIFICATE PROGRAM Sunday, February 8 9:00 am 4:00 pm P12 Kirkpatrick Four Levels Evaluation Jim Kirkpatrick, Senior Consultant; Wendy Kayser Kirkpatrick, President, Kirkpatrick Partners The Kirkpatrick Model comprises the foremost evaluation methodology in the world. In this program, you will learn directly from the Kirkpatricks the true and correct methodology and how to apply it to maximize the business results from your training initiatives. During this program, you will learn the four levels, receive a participant manual filled with examples and templates that you may borrow and adapt to build your own tools, and gain a complete understanding of what each level measures. You will also explore the reasons why evaluation is critical to training success and hear case studies and success stories from companies that have used the model effectively. You will learn not only how to evaluate, but why and to what degree. A unique feature of this program is the exploration of how to ensure that what is learned transfers to on-the-job behaviors. You will learn why training alone is not enough and receive guidance to make sure that what you teach actually gets used on the job. You will finish an action-packed, interactive program by creating a plan to ensure that your own learning transfers to on-the-job behaviors. After this session, you will be able to: Explain the elements of an effective program evaluation plan that maximizes business results and minimizes resources employed. Define the critical difference between effective training and training effectiveness. Evaluate programs using appropriate Kirkpatrick tools. Log on to TrainingConference.com to register today!

88 12 Featured Sessions MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9 3:15 pm 4:15 pm F01 Thinking and Learning Agility: 10 Steps to Maximizing Learning Outcomes Ann Herrmann-Nehdi, CEO, Herrmann International Learning has never been more critical to organizational success, yet today s Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) world is making it difficult to capture learners attention, ramp people up quickly, and get results that last. How can you fully engage your time- and attention-strapped learners to prepare them for increasing business and performance demands? Discover how to build your participants thinking and learning agility, and turn VUCA from a threat into a competitive advantage. Herrmann-Nehdi will draw on decades of brain research and new insights from current studies to give you ten actionable steps for maximizing learning outcomes. She ll show you how to create learning strategies that not only engage and leverage your learners natural thinking preferences, but also develop the flexible mindsets necessary so they can collaborate effectively, solve problems faster, and manage shifting priorities and needs. F02 Performance Consulting: Make Performance Your Business! Dana and Jim Robinson, Co-authors, Performance Consulting Is your role to enhance capability or to optimize performance? These two roles are not the same they require different strategies and tactics. More and more, learning practitioners are embracing the role of a performance consultant. This means they are making the performance of both people and the organization their business. In this session, you will learn the four needs that performance consultants help define, align and measure only one of which focuses on skill. The process used to create this alignment, and improve results, will be provided. You will leave the session with techniques to ask the right questions so your managers will engage with you at the performance level. F03 Crucial Conversations to Resolve Multigenerational Differences David Maxfield, Social Scientist, VitalSmarts Workforce demographics now span four vastly different generations. New research shows more than one in three people report wasting five or more hours each week on conflict between different generations. When these issues fester, productivity, efficiency, and quality suffer. In this session, New York Times bestselling author David Maxfield will share the most common issues multigenerational workforces face and strategies to candidly and respectfully step up to and resolve these issues to reach new levels of trust and effectiveness. With the use of case study examples, you will learn how to apply these strategies to effectively resolve multigenerational differences and create a cohesive culture enabled to achieve bottom-line results. F04 May the Force Be With You: Power Dynamics and the Success of Your Training Initiatives Pat McLagan, Author, The Shadow Side of Power: Lessons for Leaders and The Age of Participation We train people to do great things. Yet when they return to the workplace, a variety of power dynamics interfere often causing them to lapse into dependent and safe behavior and to forget the great practices they learned. Once boss-subordinate power differences enter the picture, all bets on rational solutions are off. Defensive and self-optimizing maneuvers often replace intentions by both leaders and team members to pursue shared goals and to communicate openly about issues. It s understand able: inclusion, recognition, career and other personally important decisions seem to be at stake. Power is an electric, invisible, and often unconscious energy that people must be prepared to recognize and use. There is huge potential in this locked up resource, and focusing on empowerment is not enough. McLagan will share how to unleash and focus this force so that your programs can have long-term impact. F05 Benchmarking Your Learning Strategy Against the Best of the Best Bryan Chapman, Chief Learning Strategist, Chapman Alliance Is your learning strategy firing on all cylinders? Want to see what s working at award-winning learning organizations? Attend this session and get benchmarking data on learning techniques and technologies used across Training magazine s Top 125 companies. Dig into innovative best practices in such areas as proactively establishing an informal learning strategy, using mobile at the right time and for the right reasons, engaging participants in social learning communities, extending learning to partners and customers, creating macro-level blends and much more. F06 Involution: How Today s Leader Is Changing Organizational DNA Michelle Maldonado, Associate Vice President, Corporate and Strategic Relationships, American Public University There is increasing demand for workplaces that equally value and focus on people, planet and profits and for leaders who understand that everything is connected. Maldonado will share trends, leadership skillsets and styles that are rising in prominence to help support the new workplace. Learn about: Emerging talent and leadership development applications by apex companies like Google, Whole Foods, Toyota, and others. The four principles of Conscious Capitalism and how they apply to organizational viability, development and effectiveness. The integration of key skill sets like emotional intelligence, mindfulness and authenticity as part of daily practice and core behavioral values. The link between effective leadership styles and an organization s bottom line. F07 Ten Strategies for Winning SMEs Over into Top Performance Kendra Lee, President, KLA Group Subject matter experts bring their knowledge, expertise and the realworld to training, but they aren t always as engaged as you d like. Whether you re looking for help in development or delivery, too often their real job pulls them away and all you get is the left-overs and less than acceptable assistance. How do you get SMEs to help? It s all about fostering a desire to work with you! Break past SMEs roadblocks with 14 proven strategies for winning over even the toughest experts, drawing them into working effectively with you in training development and delivery. You ll leave with strategies you can apply immediately to win over SMEs into giving you their best work and happily working with you long term. F08 It s Data Science, Not Rocket Science: Yes, You CAN Measure Learning Impact Jenny Dearborn, Chief Learning Officer, SAP No matter the company size or industry, it s possible and imperative to draw clear lines between strategic goals, defined business objectives and enablement initiatives. At SAP, if a course can t be linked to a business goal, it isn t offered. It s that simple, and that important. Come and discover how you, too, can leverage big data and analytics to prove your impact and earn your seat at the strategic table. Find out, too, why putting metrics at the start of the process, not just at the end, is key to data s tremendous impact. Join SAP s Chief Learning Officer, for insights, models, success stories and more on one of the most important topics in the L&D field today. The more learning leaders who effectively embrace data and measurement, the more powerful our profession as a whole will become. Join in for an eye-opening session. Training 2015 Conference & Expo

89 Featured Sessions 13 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 9:45 am 10:45 am F09 Removing Interference for Performance Improvement Alan Fine, Author, You Already Know How To Be Great The biggest obstacle (and opportunity) in performance isn t about knowing what to do; it s about doing what we know. What keeps us from doing what we know is interference. During this session, Fine will introduce an inside-out approach to performance improvement, an approach that is less about adding new knowledge and more about eliminating the interference that s getting in the way of using the knowledge we already have. Discover the three elements at the heart of high performance and learn a simple, repeatable process that reduces interference, creates focus and unblocks performance breakthroughs. F10 Six Psychological Tricks That Make Learning Stick Sebastian Bailey, President, The Mind Gym Inc. How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb really has to want to change. This concept of decisional balance where the pros of making a change outweigh the cons is one of six critical principles that research in psychology and the learning sciences has demonstrated makes a significant, long-lasting impact on learning transfer. Drawing on the wealth of research from behaviorist to social learning specialists as well as clinical, developmental and occupational psychology, this session will help you understand the science of the mind so you can create learning experiences which are relevant, engaging and effective. F11 Train Like a Rockstar: Speaking Tips from a Stand-Up Comedian Jeff Birk, Manager, O.C. Tanner We ve all been there: death by PowerPoint. A presentation or mandatory training that has good and important content but the presenter is boring, lackluster, or just plain awful. In this session, professional stand-up comedian Jeff Birk will teach you how to improve the delivery of your content to put people on their feet instead of putting them to sleep. Body language, audience interaction, how to memorize quickly, the art of storytelling, and of course, humor, are just some of the skills that you will gain in this lively and interactive session. From opening for Jay Leno, Bill Cosby, and Martin Short to training companies like Bayer, Honda, and FedEx, Birk s style, experience and enthusiasm for his content is contagious. F12 The Accidental Instructional Designer: Designing Better elearning Cammy Bean, VP, Learning Design, Kineo Chances are, you didn t dream of becoming a designer of elearning when you grew up, did you? Most instructional designers in the elearning business got here by accident. So now that you re here and doing this work, how can you become a more intentional practitioner? You ll take a look at four key areas to focus on in order to become a wellrounded elearning designer, talk about ways that you can take your practice to the next level, and share some quick tips for better elearning design. You ll: Explore the four slices of the elearning pie so you have an understanding of the big picture that is our industry. Identify your own sweet spot as an instructional designer and identify areas where you could dig deeper in order to advance your practice. Apply simple strategies to your current projects for better elearning outcomes and more engaging designs. F13 Street-Level Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience Karl Albrecht, Author, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Success Since the early days of creativity training and problem solving, brain research has vastly enriched our understanding of the human mental process. New research findings with very practical, down-to-earth applications may well revolutionize our understanding of the ways people think, learn, and perform. Functions like social intelligence; emotional intelligence; practical intelligence; cognitive preference; neuroleadership; design psychology; and subliminal impacts of color, language, and narrative are opening up new ways to approach teaching, learning, and development. Albrecht will discuss the components of applied cognitive neuroscience; their implications for human development; and how to apply them in your work, career, and personal life. F14 A Story for Engagement Achieving Commitment, Passion, and Forward Movement Dean Hyers, Principal, SagePresence Engagement a key ingredient of organizational success and one of the hardest essentials to control. When it s present, you can feel the energy in the air. Without it, the environment feels like rats on a sinking ship. For most companies, it s somewhere in the middle not disengaged enough to leave, but no believable expectation that anything s going to change. Discover how the power of story places people on the same page. You will learn a simple version of emotional intelligence that defines feelings constructively so you can inspire others around one team story. This session captures the communication of engagement so you can articulate it, feel it, and embody it, influencing others to join you in the higher state of meaningful, team-wide enthusiasm. F15 Rethinking Five Leader Beliefs That Erode Workplace Motivation Susan Fowler, Senior Consulting Partner, The Ken Blanchard Companies This session challenges traditional beliefs about motivation that are so embedded in our collective psyche that we can collectively fill-in-the blank (It s not personal, it is just. The purpose of business is to. We need to hold people.) These traditional beliefs set leader behaviors in motion that undermine people s basic psychological needs and result in low-quality motivation. You ll challenge outdated beliefs about motivation and consider how more optimal beliefs cultivate an environment where people experience enhanced well-being, sustained performance, and long-term results (If it is business, it is. The only reason business exists is to. People live up (or down) to our.) Fowler will make a case for replacing obsolete beliefs with more highly developed values that promote leadership behaviors proven to nurture an optimally motivating work environment. F16 How to Build a Coaching Habit: The Three Counterintuitive Practices Michael Bungay Stanier, Senior Partner, Box of Crayons We know that coaching is a powerful force for supporting formal learning programs and driving informal learning in our organizations. We also know that most managers (and perhaps you too) struggle to bring lessons learned in the classroom back into the reality of daily work. In this highly interactive session you will get an action plan to coach someone differently. You ll: Learn why executive coaches are terrible role models for managers who have to coach. Understand that if you can t coach in 10 minutes or less, you don t have time to coach at all. Unpack the New Habit Formula, distilled from the latest science and research. Practice The Coaching Bookends and understand why the middle of a coaching conversation often doesn t matter at all. Discover the most powerful coaching question in the world (and it s just three words). Embrace the power of Being Lazy. Log on to TrainingConference.com to register today!

90 14 Hands-On Clinics WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 12:15 pm 3:15 pm Grab some lunch and learn by doing in these hands-on, interactive sessions that are included with your 3-Day Conference registration. Choose from one of 11 clinics. Space is limited, pre-registration is recommended (when you register or via the Attendee Service Center after you register). C01 Create Professional Videos in Three Simple Steps Pooja Jaisingh, Sr. elearning Evangelist, Adobe Systems Video is an excellent medium to share information and demonstrate the steps to master a skill. Creating professional videos can be a time-consuming and elaborate procedure, but time and funds are often short. Learn and practice how to create professional looking videos without specialized equipment or training. This clinic will include a live demonstration of recording, editing, and publishing a video using an extremely quick and easy workflow. This will be followed by a practice session, where you can create a training video on your favorite topic. LAPTOP REQUIRED Prior to the conference, you ll receive information on downloads that will be needed. C02 elearning Maker Faire Karl Kapp, Professor, Bloomsburg University In this unique Maker Faire clinic, you ll get hands-on experience creating small elearning pieces. Your executable files will be saved to a jump drive that can be taken home and inserted into your own elearning or used to generate more ideas. As you move from station to station, you ll make interesting and fun elements in almost no time, including: A small whiteboard video. A high-end PowerPoint animation. A talking character. A three-question game, and much more. LAPTOP REQUIRED Prior to the conference, you ll receive information on downloads that will be needed. If there is only enough money in the training department s budget to attend one conference a year; this is the conference to attend. This is money well spent! Daphne Williams Instructional Designer, Aetna C03 Picture Perfect: Creating Powerful Graphics Fast Mike Parkinson, Principal, Billion Dollar Graphics Countless studies have proven the benefits of using visual communication in learning materials. But how do you design successful graphics that clearly speak to your audience? Learn: Three steps to turn words into powerful graphics. How to objectively validate the effectiveness of any visual. What tools you can use to make your graphics quickly (no design skill required). How to develop content up to 50% faster. Software tips, tricks and secrets. To stop using too many words and bad clip art. You ll walk away with Parkinson s popular Graphic Cheat Sheet, Top 11 Free and Low-cost Websites for Graphics, and a Graphic Checklist. LAPTOP RECOMMENDED A laptop pre-loaded with PowerPoint 2007 or newer is recommended, but not required. C04 Using Social Media for Learning Jane Bozarth, Author, Social Media for Trainers Practice using social media tools to support and extend learning. You ll engage in activities such as openers, introductions, quick-answer, reflective work, group work, quiz games, and photo-based work. Bozarth will extend the discussion beyond the bounds of traditional T&D practice to the realm of informal and social learning. You ll take away supplemental guidelines for supporting change and contributing to conversations regarding governance. You ll: Engage in supporting learning with social-media based tasks and activities. Develop a plan for incorporating new ideas into practice. Choose tools and approaches that support instructional goals. LAPTOP REQUIRED With security configured to allow access to popular sites like Twitter and Facebook. Pre-requisites: Some experience commenting on blogs or sites like LinkedIn, posting to Facebook, participating in online communities, or using similar tools Work in an environment where some social media use is permitted. C05 It s in the Cards: Effective and Engaging Training Games Sivasailam Thiagarajan, Past President, North American Simulation and Gaming Association; Tracy Tagliati, Training Manager, Move, Inc. Let s play cards! You ll explore a wide variety of versatile card games that enable adults to learn principles and procedures associated with professional performance. These games can be played by one person (in a solitaire fashion) or hundreds of people in as little as five minutes or up to 52 weeks. Learn to use templates to rapidly design card games for training and to conduct card games to provide engaging and effective learning. You ll: Select appropriate card game formats (from a collection of 20 different types) that suit your training objectives and needs. Use templates to design 50 different games for mastering principles and procedures. Learn to facilitate card game sessions and integrate them with other training activities. Learn to use different card games in webinars and elearning courses. Training 2015 Conference & Expo

91 Hands-On Clinics 15 C06 Performance Management: The Essentials Dick Grote, Author, The Complete Guide to Performance Appraisal In this thought-provoking clinic, you will explore every essential component of performance management. Is there an ideal performance management system? Yes, there is, and Grote will show you exactly how it operates. An ideal appraisal form? Yes, and he ll show you how it works. He ll simplify the toughest parts of performance management: how to assess any employee s performance accurately and objectively; how to use a rating scale correctly; and how to assure differentiation and the accuracy of appraisal ratings. He will show you how to conduct a right-between-the-eyes performance appraisal discussion that makes people walk out feeling good. In teams, you ll assess the relative importance of Behaviors and Results. And, you ll determine the most appropriate distribution of performance appraisal ratings. Best of all you ll have time for Q&A. He will provide plain-spoken, direct, blunt, and wise answers to any question about performance management that you want to ask. C07 Applying the Power of Positive Psychology Devin Hughes, Partner, Shawn Achor and GoodThink Inc. Learn how the latest research in positive psychology can be applied to your benefit, and to the benefit of your colleagues. You will explore the seven principles of positive psychology that fuel success and performance in the workplace and create your own personal plan for incorporating happiness into your life and organization. Based on the principles in Shawn Achor s The Happiness Advantage and The Orange Frog you will learn about: The Happiness Advantage. The Fulcrum and the Lever. The Tetris Effect. Falling Up. The Zorro Circle. The 20-Second Rule. Social Investment. BONUS! Each participant will receive a complimentary copy of Shawn Achor s business parable The Orange Frog. C08 Making Training Stick: 15 Evidence-Based Techniques for Better Transfer Barbara Carnes, Author, Making Training Stick If participants don t recall and use what they learn, how can their performance improve? Learn, experience, and practice 15 evidence-based techniques you can begin using right away; and get an overview of technologies available to support transfer. You will: Describe the four points in the Training Transfer Process. Identify and practice at least three Techniques to Integrate Training (TIEs) you can begin using to increase transfer. Discuss three common misunderstandings about how people learn and choose to apply their learning. C09 Designing Learning for Mobile Devices Jason Bickle, Manager, Instructional Design and Dev., Experlogix, Inc.; Nick Floro, Learning Architect, Sealworks Interactive Studios Creating a mobile learning course isn t just about wrapping your content and pushing it to the learner. In this clinic, you ll gain the knowledge you need to make the right decisions to start creating and delivering mobile content and apps. You ll walk away with practical techniques, design, and processes to apply on your next project. Learn and discuss: Mobile architecture. Prototyping your idea and getting feedback. A basic mobile template and how to use HTML5. Mobile design model building, tools, tips and templates. Optimizing video and audio for mobile delivery. Methods for building your first mobile course. During this clinic you will design and build a small mobile course. LAPTOP REQUIRED Pre-loaded with (demo or trial versions are fine): Smart Phone or Tablet (if you have one), PowerPoint, Adobe Dreamweaver, pencil and paper. C10 Project Management Simulation Lou Russell, Author, 10 Steps to Successful Project Management Experience Project Management in three hours! Leveraging the popular HRDQ simulation The Rocket Game, you will play the game in a new way creating a project charter and project plan before completing the project. Find out how your project behavior can be influencing your success. Come play! You will: Experience the inevitable stress and temptations of projects as you participate as a member of a simulated project team. Apply a simple Project Charter and Project Plan template to the simulation to see the impact upfront planning has on the end results. Practice flexibility if/when your project strategy is just not working. Prioritize communication with key stakeholders to keep your project on track. C11 Crafting Your Leadership Story Dave Carroll, Author, United Breaks Guitars: The Power of One Voice in the Age of Social Media; Greg Kaiser, President, International Thought Leader Network It is widely understood that stories are a great vehicle to communicate essential lessons and enhance learning especially when used to influence, motivate, and lead others. For most people however, the understanding stops there and key questions remain unanswered. What stories are most important? How do you standout in a sea of sameness? How do you write, tell and publish a good story? In this practical, hands-on workshop Dave Carroll, master storyteller, musician, and celebrated creator of United Breaks Guitars will share the Five Stories Every Leader Needs to Know. You ll walk away empowered with a plan to craft and publish your personal and essential leadership story. Log on to TrainingConference.com to register today!

92 16 Training 2015 Expo Browse top training products and services and gather a wealth of information to help you and your organization make the right decisions and save time and money. See for a list of exhibitors. For exhibit/sponsor opportunities, contact Dick@TrainingMag.com Expo Hours Monday, February 9 11:00 am 5:30 pm Tuesday, February 10 11:00 am 5:00 pm Crash Course Learning on the Expo Stage Nick Floro, President, Sealworks Interactive Studios Do not miss your chance to get up to date on the latest design and technology trends. You ll get practical advice, resources and processes that you can apply as soon as you get back to the office. In seven Crash Course Learning sessions taking place on the Expo Stage, you ll walk away with: Critical information and an understanding of the content and how you can apply it within your learning delivery. A digital copy of the presentation. A five-minute screencast to share with your team. Additional resources that link to the apps, tools and techniques that you can apply and share with your team. A follow-up with the speaker so you can ask specific questions or discuss challenges. Meet the Learning Leaders Mon, Feb 9, 3:15 3:45 pm 25 to Meet Tues, Feb 10, 1:00 1:30 pm Congratulate the winners of the special 2015 Training Top 125 Best Practice and Outstanding Initiative Awards as they receive their crystal trophies on the Expo Stage. Have plenty of business cards handy you ll definitely want to network with these folks. Training recognizes 25 training professionals who have been in the industry for two to 10 years and have demonstrated exceptional leadership skills, business savvy, and training instincts. Applaud these Emerging Training Leaders award winners. Here s your chance to mingle with rising training stars on the fast track to success. Monday, February 9 12:00 pm 12:30 pm...designing Better elearning 12:45 pm 1:15 pm...responsive vs. Adaptive Design 1:30 pm 2:00 pm... Prototyping Concepts Made Easy 4:45 pm 5:15 pm...compressing Audio and Video Tuesday, February 10 11:30 am 12:00 pm...understanding HTML5 12:15 pm 12:45 pm...using Analytics 4:00 pm 4:30 pm... Five Learning Trends to Focus On Training 2015 Conference & Expo

93 Breakout Sessions 17 Attend five of the seven boot camp sessions, in addition to the P01 Certificate Program (see page 8), and receive a Training Boot Camp Certificate signed by Training magazine Editor-in- Chief Lorri Freifeld. Training Boot Camp 2015 Boot CAMP MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9 8:00 AM 9:00 AM 101 Map It! Using the 4Cs to Design and Deliver Great Training Sharon Bowman, Author, Training from the BACK of the Room Learn about a quick and remarkably easy way to design and deliver effective training that is based on brain science instead of traditional ID methods The 4Cs Map, a four-step instructional design model from Accelerated Learning. Practice using this ID model with your own training topics, and receive a handout of great ideas and resources to polish your ID skills. Learn to: Design training of your own, quickly and easily, using the 4Cs Map as your ID template. Decrease the time it takes you to design effective training and increase the effectiveness of your training delivery. 102 Beyond Performance Reviews: Influencing Performance Improvement David Maxfield, Social Scientist, VitalSmarts Have you ever had a déjà vu experience delivering negative feedback to an employee? New research shows 43% of employees receive the same negative feedback year after year, and yet only one out of three has ever made a dramatic change based on this feedback. Although performance feedback is important, it s insufficient to change behavior because employees often lack the ability to put that feedback into action. Maxfield will share how to increase your capacity to develop your talent tenfold by removing both motivational and ability barriers that prevent your employees from changing their behavior and improving their performance. You ll also learn how to create performance improvement plans that target the personal, social, and environmental sources that perpetuate bad behavior and turn them in your employees favor to influence new and lasting productive behaviors. 103 Designing Effective elearning Kevin Siegel, President, IconLogic, Inc. It seems that everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon and create elearning. And why not? If done correctly, elearning has been shown to be an effective part of any corporate training strategy. But how do you know that the elearning you re creating is effective? How can you ensure you re not building an elearning course that puts your learner to sleep? Attend this session and get your elearning modules off on the right foot. During this presentation, you will learn about: The top elearning tools available today (strengths and weaknesses). The hardware you ll need to create elearning. The perfect length for an elearning module and course. How long it will take to create an elearning course. How to engage the elearner. How to increase learner retention. Best practices for adding visual assets to elearning lessons. 104 Real-World Training Evaluation: Part 1 Jim Kirkpatrick, Author, Training on Trial; Wendy Kirkpatrick, Founder, Kirkpatrick Partners In today s resource-strapped business world, there exists greater pressure than ever to demonstrate the value of training to the organization. In this session, the Kirkpatricks will share practical ideas for maximizing the value of training while minimizing the investment. Learn how training evaluation is not as complicated or expensive as some make it seem. Discover how to integrate a sound evaluation plan into the instructional design process and implement it with minimal resources. You ll walk away with ideas you can implement quickly and inexpensively in your own organization. This is part one of a two-part program. Each session can be attended individually, but attending both is recommended. Also see session A Handful of Needs Assessments! Jean Barbazette, Founder; Melissa Smith, Managing Partner; The Training Clinic Learn to use five different front-end needs assessment tools effectively. Tools include performance analysis, target population analysis, job/task analysis, and training methods analysis. Learn to sort out training needs versus training wants. Given examples and sample data, conduct ten types of needs analysis to identify training needs. Given case studies, use pre-training and post-training performance analysis as a tool to identify what hinders the transfer of learning. Practice using these valuable tools. 106 Gamification vs. Game-Based Learning Andrew Hughes, President, Designing Digitally, Inc. Gamification is the integration of game mechanics, or game dynamics, into a learning experience, while game-based training can be defined as a game designed for the purpose of solving a problem. This session will focus on the clarification of gamification and game-based training. Using examples from the industry, this session will help to explain each of the learning experiences, and discuss the best practices in their development. Learn about: Case studies with positive and negative ROIs using gamification and game-based learning. The 4 pillars of gameful design. Best practices when creating serious games and gamification learning experiences. 107 The Secrets of Facilitation: Why It s All About Engagement Michael Wilkinson, CEO, Leadership Strategies, Inc. Fasten your seat belts and get ready for a ride! Wilkinson will guide you through a comprehensive methodology that has helped training and development leaders achieve successful group outcomes. As a training professional, you must harness your ability to properly scope your client s needs and impact growth and development. How do you inspire engagement and commitment from your group in order to achieve your goal? Learn practical facilitation techniques you can begin applying the moment you leave the room. Learn to: Conduct the 6 Ps of Preparation. Apply the four keys for grabbing people s hearts and souls at the start. Identify the surprising secret to phrasing questions to elicit a bonfire of responses. Utilize the four-step formula for resolving dysfunction. Differentiate the three reasons people disagree and strategies for resolving each. 108 Using Brain Science to Improve Learning Design Art Kohn, President, AKLearning Join neuropsychologist Art Kohn and explore how the brain controls learning and memory and how to apply this knowledge to create engaging elearning. Come prepared to have fun and learn to: Understand how the brain uses metaphor and emotion in the encoding process. Develop incentive systems based on established principles of conditioning that reinforce desired behaviors. Improve attention span by understanding the secrets to levels of consciousness. Design effective follow-up training by tapping into mnemonic principles of memory. Improve long-term retention by understanding the connectionist model of memory. Log on to TrainingConference.com to register today!

94 18 Breakout Sessions 109 Achievement-Based Learning: Building Learning Transfer Competence Katherine Granger, President, Fort Hill Company Explore an innovative 5-Step Achievement Process that builds the learning transfer competence of your participants in a memorable, easy to implement approach. You will apply this process to a selected program and identify specific improvement opportunities you can implement immediately to boost the application of learning. You ll identify and apply best practices for using achievement stories in pre-program marketing communications, during program examples of success, and post-program presentation of results. 110 Instructional Design and Performance Consulting in One Model It s About Time! Dick Handshaw, President, Handshaw Inc. Most instructional design models don t include performance consulting or enough emphasis on measurement to deliver results consistently. What training professionals need is one streamlined process that helps weigh their priorities to determine what really must be done in order to achieve real business results. Figuring out how to include quantifiable results in your design process can be a challenging and confusing process. This session offers a better way to deliver those results; a way to connect learning solutions with strategic business goals. Learn to: Develop a useful task analysis that saves time and money. Use performance objectives to develop measurement that works. Build consensus with a strategic blueprint meeting. Validate instructional strategies with learner tryouts and feedback. 111 The State of Authoring Tools in 2015 Joe Ganci, Owner, elearning Joe It s a new year and tool vendors continue to update their tools to ensure their place in the market. They each strive to present their tool as the best in class, the optimal balance of power and ease-of-use. Each has focused on giving you the ability to deliver your learning to mobile devices as well as desktop. Which tools are being used now? Why are they being used? How do they compare? Ganci has been using, reviewing, and critiquing tools for 31 years and knows what he s talking about. He is candid and unbiased and he ll give you the information you need to ensure that you choose the right tools for your particular needs. Ganci welcomes any and all questions, so be prepared for a lively discussion! 112 Present Information Visually Even If You re NOT a Graphic Designer Enzo Silva, Learning Strategist, SAP Discover how easy (and low-cost or no-cost) it is to create infographics, video scribing, explanation videos, infinite canvas presentations and more. Learn the secrets behind the trends in visual thinking and information display. And then do it, on the spot. You ll explore the basic principles of graphic/visual design as well as tools and processes that can help any instructional designer, graphically gifted or not, to quickly and inexpensively create visual multimedia assets without having to edit graphics! You ll select something you d like to visually represent in a current project and, using a pen and paper, tablet, or laptop, create a visual or textual storyboard! 113 Rethinking Mobile Productivity to Maximize Performance Support and Learning A.J. Ripin, VP, Strategic Engagement, Moving Knowledge; David Rogers, CEO, Allogy Incorporating a platform for mobile productivity is essential to successful performance support and learning. Fundamental differences, however, distinguish mobile platforms from desktop-based tools in terms of use and design. When it comes to mobile, we need to change the way we think about productivity tools. This session will address the issue of mobile performance support through a modern framework that centralizes resources for mobile learning, training, collaboration, and workflow and engages learners in context. The creation of dynamic forms, utilization of GPS location data, motion and tactile sensors, and other means of robust data collection will all be discussed. Learn about: Collaborative techniques for applying mobile productivity to modern performance support. Novel strategies for unifying mobile productivity and on-demand performance support. New technologies available for robust and dynamic mobile performance support. 114 A Competitive Advantage: Having Teams of Leaders Paul Gustavson, Co-author, A Team of Leaders According to Gallup, 68% of workers are not fully engaged at work, costing their organizations $550 billion per year. In this informative session, you will find out how to build high-performing teams of leaders that do not require a supervisor. Such teams are comprised of members that are energized, engaged, committed and well developed, and typically outperform traditional teams by as much as 3:1. Learn: The Five-Stage Team Development Model. How organizations are perfectly designed to get the results that they get. How teams need processes too. About the importance of having a Value Creation Model. How to successfully manage the knowledge of the team and its members. About the power of Visual Management. 115 The Four Words of Successful Change Management Jones Loflin, Owner, Helping Others Prepare for Excellence Four simple words are all you need to get started: Plant, cultivate, prune, and harvest. In this practical session, Loflin introduces you to these four concepts and how you can apply them to driving successful change initiatives within your organization. You ll: Identify three areas where change is needed within your organization. Develop a new work routine that will foster success with a desired change. Analyze current work behaviors that would inhibit success with a desired change. Identify three potential benchmarks to celebrate within the change process. 116 Designing and Deploying a Corporate University Eric Parks, Director, Educational Design and Technology; Karisa Munoz, Senior Instructional Designer, American Society of Clinical Pathology Learn how the American Society of Clinical Pathology designed, developed and deployed Laboratory Management University a blended learning solution. Discover how it creates an experience for learners using interactive online courses, instructor-led sessions (live and online), communities of practice, and online tools. The success of Lab Management University is a result of collaboration between industry and continuing education professionals utilizing need analysis, technology, communications and marketing best practices to achieve growth of over 3,000 participants in the past year. You ll identify: Blended learning needs assessment approaches. How to motivate and engage subject matter experts. Best practices for design of large blended learning curriculums. 117 How to Engage and Retain Talent Strategies That Work! Bette Krakau, Senior Consultant, Career Systems International Do your leaders know how to engage and retain the valuable talent on their team? Today s leaders need coaching that enables them to help their key employees thrive, constantly learn and give their all to the team and organization. Talent-focused managers know that if their organization is to be highly productive, competitive and service oriented, they must not only hang-on to good people, but also continually engage and develop them in order to meet constantly changing business needs. The big question for most leaders is how to do this in a no-time-to-do-it environment. This session provides 26 practical strategies for building a culture of employee loyalty and commitment enabling your organization to retain talent required for accomplishing critical business results. 118 Enabling Virtual Learners by Design Jennifer Hofmann, Author, Live and Online! Tips, Techniques, and Ready-To-Use Activities for the Virtual Classroom Learn about critical concepts that must be considered during the design of a program, not as an afterthought after it has already been implemented. A successful virtual learning program means more than using the latest gizmos. It means more than applying successful instructional design techniques. You need to create a solid learning environment which enables your learners. If you don t, the best curriculum in the world will fall flat. Learn how to: Training 2015 Conference & Expo

95 Breakout Sessions 19 Motivate virtual learners. Create opportunities for students to collaborate. Design a blended learning experience that maximizes the learning. Ensure useable technology. Encourage facilitators to be fully engaged in the delivery process. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9 10:45 AM 11:45 AM 201 An Introduction to Human Performance Technology Sivasailam Thiagarajan, Two-time President (25 years apart), International Society for Performance Improvement Human Performance Technology is a systematic approach to improving productivity and competence, uses a set of methods and procedures and a strategy for solving problems for realizing opportunities related to the performance of people. Thiagarajan (Thiagi) has been a pioneer in this multidisciplinary field. Learn about: The role of performance technology in organizational success. Relationships between performance technology and training. Types of performance technology. Problem focus versus opportunity focus. 202 ROI Basics Patti Phillips, Author, Show Me the Money This session is for those who haven t taken the ROI journey yet, but want to know how it works. You ll get the fundamental concepts of measuring the return on investment in learning and development. Exercises, examples, and tools will demonstrate the very fundamental aspects of ROI. Learn to: Explain why ROI is needed today. Identify the five levels of evaluation. Identify the ten steps on the ROI Methodology. Determine where and when to use ROI. 203 Preventing Death by PowerPoint! Sharon Bowman, Author, Training from the BACK of the Room How do you transform a slide set into a learning tool, instead of a lecture tool? You ll uncover the secrets of turning a boring PowerPoint presentation into an engaging, memorable learning tool, regardless of the topic or size of the group. Bring an old set of slides you want to work on or content for a new slide presentation. Your slide presentations will never be the same again! 204 Adult Learning Theory in 60 Minutes or Less Nanette Miner, President, The Training Doctor, LLC Too often in today s go-go-go world, we focus on skills training and the how-to, and forego enabling our participants to truly be learners. Without a foundation in how adults learn, or an emphasis on appropriate learning techniques in the design and development process, we create a workforce that is dependent on us for instruction. By understanding and exploiting adult learning methods, you can ensure that your participants will internalize what they ve learned knowing not only what and how, but why and when and will be able to transfer that learning back to their jobs. Learn to: Identify learning processes that appeal to adults in the workplace. Minimize the difficult transfer to the job process that often occurs post-training. Implement easy fixes to your current training offerings so that they move the learner from knowing to doing to having learned. 205 Designing an elearning User Interface (UI) Kevin Thorn, Owner, NuggetHead Studioz Most elearning authoring tools have packaged a UI with built-in navigation, sidebar menu structures, top bar information tabs, and other features to allow us to focus on content design. What if that same old UI is just not doing it for you any longer? What goes into designing a UI from the ground up? You ll look at those standard UIs (players) and discuss what works and what doesn t. Then you ll look at web and mobile trends on what people really like when it comes to interacting with content. Finally, Thorn will discuss a few things that matter in visually designing a UI for elearning specifically. Learn: The pros and cons of packaged user interfaces in authoring tools. The trends in current web and mobile UI design and how we can apply them. Tips in visual designing a UI for elearning: what works and what doesn t work. 206 Leadership Development: A Tale of Two Cultures Pete Blank, Training Manager, Personnel Board of Jefferson County Imagine leading training at the happiest place on earth. Employees are happy, motivated, and engaged. Teamwork abounds. Creativity is encouraged, leaders listen, and classroom participants lean on your every word. Then imagine changing companies. Your new employee base is different...very different. Some employees are jaded, discouraged, and aloof. They clock watch, look out for their own interests, and scoff at the need for employee development. How do you create and implement a leadership development program that meets the needs of this new audience? Very carefully! Blank spent 13 years with The Walt Disney Company and the past seven years in local government. He will share valuable lessons he has learned along the way and how he has kept the momentum of successful leadership training alive. 207 Producing High-Impact Training Videos in Two Days or Less Glenn Blazek, Specialist Engineer, elearning Developer, Aerojet Rocketdyne For training professionals, producing video is slowly but surely evolving from a desired skillset to a required skillset. The good news is that no longer should non-technical professionals have to face fear, stress or intimidation when acquiring this proficiency. This one-hour boot camp will review a standardized workflow to produce in-house training videos. Workflow components will include: scriptwriting, making a shot list, shooting, lighting, audio recording, editing, and deployment. These video production techniques will focus exclusively on training videos of less than five minutes which can be shot and edited in two days or less. Special emphasis will be on how pre-production planning can minimize video editing and maximize training impact. Learn to: Identify the differing production requirements for three types of training videos. Implement strategies to quickly develop short training videos. Evaluate the role of pre-production planning on overall video project efficiency and effectiveness. 208 Best Practices When Connecting Learning and Performance Bryan Chapman, Chief Learning Strategist, Chapman Alliance Come join in a lively discussion about the most widely used technologies at Training Top 125 companies including LMS and integrated Talent Management System providers. Top 125 winners are asked to share solid results about innovative learning initiatives. This often goes well beyond just tracking course completions. The secret is upping the game by connecting learning to performance. You ll explore best practices such as blending learning with action, mixing in coaching/mentoring, leveraging learning communities, linking learning and actual performance data, dynamic delivery based on user job/role/ function, enhancing assessment with performance-based testing, and managing long-term certification projects (a combination of things that happen during learning and well outside the LMS environment). 209 Negotiating and Influencing with the Power of Nice Jeff Cochran, Master Facilitator, Shapiro Negotiations Institute Cochran will provide a foundation and approach you and your organization can use to teach negotiation and influencing skills important competencies for employees in any function. You ll discover how to negotiate and influence in a way that maximizes your share while also satisfying the needs of the other side. Learn habits and tools that can be applied immediately to achieve greater negotiation and influence success. This program applies to individuals whether they are negotiating with a client, trying to sway a colleague s opinion, or looking to motivate a team member over whom they do not have direct authority. You ll: Learn a systematic approach to negotiation and influencing that will increase confidence and produce better results. Be introduced to habits and tools that can be institutionalized within organizations to improve their bottom lines. Log on to TrainingConference.com to register today!

96 20 Breakout Sessions 210 Technology: Improving L&D ROI Through Data and Metrics Glenn Bull, CEO, Skilitics; Zachary Konopka, Enterprise Business Development, Lumi With the change of guard from SCORM to the Experience API, a move to make training accountable to business goals is imminent but not without some casualties. Learning management systems, development tools and the skill sets of our professionals will be forced to refocus toward measurable results as company stakeholders realize the opportunity to eliminate the defense that training isn t easily measured. You ll discuss the state of the industry from training needs analysis to content development and delivery through to tracking. Learn to shift the view of training from a cost center to a critical, respected and revenue-generating division within your organization. You will leave with clarity of the bigger picture and the level of understanding you need to communicate the positive changes these technology shifts bring. 211 Using the Ultimate Development Toolbox Cory Bouck, Director, Organizational Development & Learning, Johnsonville Sausage Helping our organizations deliver outstanding business results while contributing to the skill development and career management of others is our biggest thrill as learning professionals. This session will describe how to connect five popular T&D industry tools to create The Ultimate Development Toolbox. Learn how using these tools together creates an airtight organizational commitment to development. You will build better leaders faster, and increase your organization s talent bench by retaining your best, most engaged teammates. And while the development of others is our noble cause, we also need to manage our own career development and grow our T&D groups into high-performance teams. Understand a few researchbased principles and how to market yourself using the same tools as Nike, Apple, and Coca-Cola and advance your own career and your team s reputation faster than you ever imagined. 212 Developing Large-Scale Game-Based Training: Lessons from the Navy Janis Cannon-Bowers, Chief Learning Scientist; Bill Rebarick, General Manager, Cubic Advanced Learning Solutions Few efforts have been made to implement game-based training on a large scale. A recent exception to this is the Navy s new Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), which will rely on game-based learning to prepare sailors for their initial tour of duty on the ship. Learn how sailors will complete the equivalent of their typical on-the-job training and qualification before ever stepping on board. Examine their strategy for developing game-based training for LCS which requires over 10,000 hours of courseware to be developed over seven years including staffing requirements; production processes, tools and metrics; and management/ leadership approaches. This session will provide specific advice, lessons learned, and best practices to help those who desire to scale up their serious game development efforts. 213 Common Sense for the elearning Designer Ethan Edwards, Chief Instructional Strategist, Allen Interactions Edwards will present 10 straightforward and powerful principles to guide elearning design. The principles focus on issues of feedback, learner actions, usefulness of templates, motivation, risk, and content. Appropriate to any content and applicable to any authoring tool, these principles will empower you to make concrete design changes that will improve the impact of your elearning courses. Learn three ways that commonly accepted design models and processes result in inferior elearning. Understand the significance of learner-centered design in transforming the approach to designing elearning. Identify 10 principles that can be put into practice immediately to improve the effectiveness of elearning modules. 214 Competency Building Done Right It s All About Context Judy Hale, Author, Performance Consultant s Fieldbook Hale, a Fellow with The International Board of Standards for Training, Performance and Instruction (ibstipi), will share common mistakes organizations make when funding studies to identify and develop competencies and how to avoid them. She will demonstrate the differences between well-formed and ill-structured competency models. You will learn the importance of knowing the marketplace and workplace variables that define competence. Attend and get a useful checklist to use before launching a competency initiative. 215 Speak Like a Mouse: Eight Strategies That Pixie-Dust Your Presentations Lenn Millbower, Former Walt Disney World Training Veteran Walt Disney was a creative genius, a master showman, and an amazing teacher who once proclaimed, The normal gap between what is generally regarded as entertainment and what is defined educational represents an old and untenable viewpoint. When entertainment and learning are aligned, as Disney would do, the result is magical; learners pay attention, they absorb information, and they change behavior. Learn how you can apply Walt s strategies. You ll: Identify strategies Walt Disney s theme parks use to draw people into the experience and how to apply them to capture learner attention and maintain focus. Examine the techniques Disney s team used to transform rides into immersive environments and how you can create your own captivating learning experiences. Discover Disney s approach to making a message memorable and how you can create magical memories for your audience. 216 Learning Fragments: How Bite-Size Learning is Taking Over the World! Treion Muller, Chief elearning Architect; Matt Murdoch, Global Director, Digital Learning Solutions, FranklinCovey Learners are choosing mobile abstracts over books, YouTube DIY over lecture, single point lessons over ILT, and JIT mobile reinforcement over day-long training. While traditional ILT is still the predominant form of training and development, it is not due to user demand, and will continue to lose market share to newer, shorter delivery modalities. Explore how to develop, design, and deliver your training content to meet the changing demands of your learners. Learn: How to meet the needs of modern-day learners and effectively evolve into one yourself. How smaller learning fragments can be used to create a greater learning experience. The key principles that will guide you in designing and developing bite-size learning for your unique learner in the modality that best meets their needs. 217 Performance-Focused Smile Sheets: A Radical Rethinking of a Dangerous Art Form Will Thalheimer, President, Work-Learning Research, Inc. Research shows that traditional smile sheets are not related to learning results and yet, we continue to use smile sheets to drive our training designs. This is unfortunate, because it hurts us in building the most effective learning. Fortunately, a new smile-sheet design is available. In this session, Thalheimer will share his journey improving his own smile sheets, reveal the research on traditional smile sheets and share new smile sheet questions from his book on the performance-focused smile sheet. Learn to: Question the use of traditional smile sheets. Utilize research to make the case for improvement. Plan for the use of an improved smile-sheet design. 218 Creative, Quick, and Effective Training Development Using Agile Practices Fredrika Sprengle, Instructional Designer, Microsoft Hear how a Microsoft team changed the way they did course development by adopting practices from Agile and Extreme Programming. The result was innovative work that went quickly, met deadlines, and invigorated rather than burnt out the team members. Through a combination of storytelling, quick exercises, a tour of philosophies and practices, and useful handouts, you will learn enough to go back to work and begin experimenting with a new way of doing what we love to do helping people learn and be more successful at their jobs. Learn: How they finessed and finagled their way to creating an experimental team that would operate in a new way, what the challenges and successes were, the lessons they learned, and how they impacted how course development was done. How to apply these practices. How to begin. Training 2015 Conference & Expo

97 Breakout Sessions 21 MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9 2:00 PM 3:00 PM 301 Designing High Impact Participant-Centered Training Bob Pike, Author, Creative Training Techniques Handbook Eighty percent of delivering effective training is in the design. Pike will share his seven steps for creating high impact, powerful training. He ll also share his best projects, case studies, role plays and activities he has designed during his more than four decades of industry experience. During the session, you ll learn the ins and outs of creative training so you can replicate Pike s techniques in your training courses. 302 Real-World Training Evaluation: Part 2 Jim Kirkpatrick, Author, Training on Trial; Wendy Kirkpatrick, Founder, Kirkpatrick Partners Learn four practical ways to implement a real training evaluation strategy, even with limited resources. Beginning with the concept that the end is the beginning, the Kirkpatricks will provide tactics to utilize before, during and after training that will both increase and document the value delivered to the organization. You ll walk away with ideas you can implement quickly and inexpensively in your own organization. This is part two of a two-part program. Each session can be attended individually, but attending both is recommended. Also see session Ten Steps to Creating and Sustaining a Successful Multi- University Alliance David Brzozowski, Senior Training Manager, Enterprise; Samantha Wilson, Instructional Designer, Dollar General Corporation Education and self-development continue to be key focus areas for Dollar General Corporation. Driving to provide every employee the opportunity to continue their education, they launched their DGU Grow University Alliance in Through this exceptional program, participating employees can now receive discounted tuition rates and other benefits from 13 university partners located across the country. Attend this session and learn how to: Select the right universities in the start-up phase of creating an alliance. Identify key needs for employees and the organization for continued success. Build relationships that allow for growth and sustainability beyond your initial goals. 304 The Coolest Adobe Captivate Tips on the Planet Joe Ganci, Owner, elearning Joe Too many Adobe Captivate features are hidden and not well known. Using the layers of sophistication of these features means you will save a lot of time, deliver more engaging and personalized learning, and be able to tap into external resources more easily. Ganci will show you some of the Captivate features you need to make the most of this powerful tool, including how combining the use of variables, Advanced Actions, and effects will result in a useful example that you couldn t create otherwise. Learn to: Maintain your lessons now and in the future. Extend Captivate s abilities. Take advantage of little-known features. Run rings around your Captivate friends! 305 1, 2, 3, S-T-R-E-T-C-H! Expanding Your Reach as a Department of One Melissa Smith, Managing Partner; Jean Barbazette, Founder, The Training Clinic Ever feel like a rubber band that s ready to pop? Then YOU must be a department of one! The good news is that you CAN do it. Learn some strategies and tips to help move you from feeling over done to can be done! Using a self-assessment, you will evaluate and prioritize the roles you need to play in order to support your organization in achieving its performance goals. Vision and mission statements will be defined and shared. You ll discuss the importance of building relationships and a nine cell partnership chart will be introduced outlining roles for success. You ll identify what you are doing now and what you need to do in order to start/continue to build these relationships within the organization. 306 Leaving ADDIE for SAM Richard Sites,VP Training and Marketing, Allen Interactions When companies produce terrible elearning, they often blame content organization, the technology limitations, or the navigation and interface. While each of these contribute to success or failure, organizations often fail to hold accountable the most significant factor the development process itself, which is the biggest factor in elearning success. ADDIE gets a free pass, again and again, often because elearning developers don t know any other options for creating a more successful outcome. The goal of this session is to help you understand the basics of the Successive Approximation Model (SAM), and measure their organization s readiness to follow an agile, iterative process. You will: Determine the challenges facing your organization. Identify your desired elearning outcome. Create a custom evaluation sheet for prototyping. Design your SAVVY prototyping team. 307 The Jiffy Lube University Story: Five Keys to Success Ken Barber, Manager, Learning and Development, Jiffy Lube International (JLU) Learn about the five keys that helped Jiffy Lube University become a model corporate learning brand. Barber will provide you with a high-level view and real-life examples to challenge you and help you follow a proven path to success. Learn how JLU: Aligns with the business, customers and vendors. Created a blended learning solution that includes a clear roadmap for development. Built their learning brand. Measures results using business and learning metrics that make a difference. Uses external recognition. 308 Making Technical and Compliance elearning Engaging Ray Jimenez, Chief Learning Architect, Vignettes Learning Boring. Tedious. Painful. Do I have to? These are the complaints of learners as receivers of the typical data-dump type technical and compliance elearning. Learn to shift the design, focusing less on the technical view and more on the learner s perspective. Demos and examples of engaging technical and compliance programs will be shared. Learn to: Assess your program s point of view to achieve a high impact response. Locate context-driven content to add usefulness to procedures, policies, software, guides, forms, statistics, legal and citations, etc. Discover, focus and use work around content. Engage learners using cases, scenarios, and applications. Convert techno-geek and legalese language into an understandable, digestible form for non-technical people. 309 What Every Leader Should Know About Strategic Planning Michael Wilkinson, CEO, Leadership Strategies, Inc. For learning practitioners to gain the ear of senior executives, we must be able to speak and understand strategy. Learn a road map for building strategy that demonstrates the critical difference between mission versus vision, goals versus objectives, values versus guiding principles, and critical success factors versus strategies. You will also explore the 10 pitfalls to avoid in strategy. You will leave knowing how to confidently discuss strategy and its components with business unit leaders as well as how to apply a strategic planning framework to solving both business and L&D issues. Learn to: Confidently discuss strategy and strategy components with business unit leaders. Apply a strategic planning framework to solving business and HR issues. Avoid the common pitfalls that plague many strategic planning efforts. 310 Learners Don t Color Within the Lines Sean Bengry, Manager, Learning Strategy and Design, Accenture Academy New learning models and classifications have arisen to address the various devices and methods in which information is consumed and behavior is changed. The challenge is to find a place and meaning for mobile learning. This session will reinforce and explain learner behavior, and how learners consume and share knowledge on their way to understanding and competency development. As with most of you, Accenture began with traditional or common learning solutions such as classroom-based and online learning, Log on to TrainingConference.com to register today!

98 22 Breakout Sessions and have taken a strong look at mobile learning. They re challenging the notion that mobile learning is a separate strategy, rather, a piece to greater puzzle in the learner s journey. Learn to: Refine your current understanding of mlearning. Explain the influences of mlearning. Determine how people learn in today s workplace. Position mlearning to meet your overall learning strategy, and the learner of Breaking Down Silos How Social Learning Changed Everything for Kaplan JD Dillon, Director, Learning Technology and Development, Kaplan Higher Education Group Do you have a strategy for transforming this tacit knowledge from your best performers into useful, explicit information from which everyone can learn? Have you realized the value of social technology and its ability to revolutionize the flow of information between those who have it and those who need it in your organization? Learn about Kaplan s 2.5 year social learning story and how they were able to leverage social concepts to overcome popular organizational challenges. You ll explore 5 key silos that were broken down within Kaplan through the use of social tools onboarding, interdepartmental information flow, tacit knowledge, performance support, and eventfocused training. You will learn from Kaplan s successes and mistakes along the journey and walk away with practical ideas for breaking down informational silos in your organization. 312 The ABCs of xapi (Tin Can): Lessons Learned and Shared Robert Gadd, President; Dave Smelser, VP, Business Development, OnPoint Digital It s time to move beyond the hype of The Experience API (xapi) being the next new thing and actually witness how organizations are leveraging the various improvements to learning platforms, authoring tools and training method ologies to better understand and measure organizational performance. Heed the call of the school bell and come ready to learn your ABCs (Attributes, Benefits, and Challenges). Explore case examples of T&D teams both boutique and global in scale who are using xapi tools and approaches to drive engagement and improve both personal and operational readiness for their learning communities. You will: Determine which platforms and tools are xapi ready and how they can be used in an existing learning environment. Balance when to use xapi over SCORM and whether they are mutually exclusive. Identify new use cases to apply tracking to non-traditional learning assignments and interactions. Contemplate new technical challenges to overcome with LMS integration, security, mobile access (especially when offline) and more. 313 Scoping Training Efforts: A Primer Wayne Zitsch, Manager, Learning Development, SunTrust Banks, Inc. Many professions carefully spend time to develop experts in the art of scoping, but the training industry seems to lag in its ability to properly scope and cost projects. A basic primer will be provided for classic scoping terminology, real-life examples, and sample industry costs. This session is essential for anyone that has been asked in a meeting, What is that going to cost? and When can I have it? Learn to: State the benefits of a standard scoping process and scoping education for training professionals. State the definitions of standard scoping terms. Contrast lump sum contracts vs. time and materials contracts. State the costs of a one hour of Web-based Training and Instructor-Led Training Course. Define strategies for responding in real-time to requests for costs and delivery timeframes. 314 Designing elearning for ROI Jack Phillips, Author, The Value of Learning Studies have shown that elearning and mobile learning often break down on measurement at the application level (using what was learned) and impact level (the businesses impact connected to the learning). However, this doesn t have to be. Explore case studies which show how learning through technology programs can deliver business value in terms that executives, sponsors, and funders appreciate and understand. Learn how designers and developers can ensure that the technology-based learning can deliver results beyond counting the number of people who are involved and the number who open the documents. This session presents eight basic design principles, all focused on delivering application and impact with technology-based learning. BONUS: Each participant will receive a copy of the new book, Measuring the Success of Learning Through Technology: A Step-by- Step Guide for Measuring Impact and ROI on E-Learning, Blended Learning, and Mobile Learning. 315 Three Ways to Increase Manager Involvement and Improve Learning Transfer Carl Eidson, VP, Wilson Learning As much as 85% of new learning never gets applied for organizational impact. The solution is not more learning, but more learning transfer. See how three companies hit home runs with learning transfer through manager involvement. Explore a unique learning transfer system that makes it easy to gain critical management support. You will: Complete a Manager Involvement Audit a blueprint for improving learning transfer through manager involvement in your own organization. Learn three innovative ways to get managers involved in learning that result in increased learning transfer and improved business impact. 316 Driving Innovation Through Difference: The New Science of Teams Ann Herrmann-Nehdi, CEO, Herrmann International Learn how to transform team performance by making thinking the catalyst for greater productivity, innovation and growth. Combining more than 30 years of research and application along with up-to-the-moment studies on cognitive diversity and team productivity, this session will shed new light on how to effectively build, grow and develop global teams. You ll discover how to apply a thinking-based model and learning methods to improve collaboration, idea generation, problem solving and results, taking into account the complexities of today s world and the diversity and breadth of thinking it demands. Through case studies and exercises, you ll explore training strategies companies such as IBM, Coca-Cola and Caesars Entertainment are using to help teams identify, understand and then apply their collective intelligence for exponentially greater impact. 317 Increase Leadership Capability and Business Acumen through Collaborative Learning Jim Harwood, Head of Field and Service Operations, Learning and Development, Farmers Insurance Group: University of Farmers With the challenging market, scarcity of top talent, and increasing baby boomer retirements, businesses need to build the capabilities of not only their leadership, but the organization as a whole to execute strategy and sustain growth. Harwood will share the University of Farmers solution: collaborative learning with a social networking backbone. Explore how their comprehensive program brought together emerging talent across many parts of the business, meeting virtually, utilizing current leaders as teachers, and driving learning beyond the classroom through on-the-job experiences, social networking, and team collaboration. And hear about the results: an expanded pool of top talent that exhibits an enterprise leadership mind-set and engaged teams that are able to execute on Farmers current and future strategic goals. 318 Crafting Creative elearning Strategies That Get Results Amy Franko, Founder, Impact Instruction Group; Trina Rimmer, Chief Instructional Designer, Rimmer Creative Group Does your instructional design creativity get tested by deadlines, lack of resources, or resistance from skeptical stakeholders? Does your elearning somehow slide back into a boring page turner? Engaging elearning that gets results requires transformation and not just page turning. Transformation, in turn, requires creativity! Through real-life examples and interactive exercises, you ll learn to identify opportunities to leverage more creative instructional strategies. Learn how to develop and position your ideas to better engage project stakeholders in the process of transforming ideas into the kind of engaging elearning that gets measurable results. Bring your own course for practice! You will: Use rapid prototyping to demonstrate your ideas to stakeholders. Training 2015 Conference & Expo

99 Breakout Sessions 23 Use a business-oriented approach to successfully sell your ideas to stakeholders and skeptics. Measure and champion the impacts of your creative elearning strategies. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10 8:15 AM 9:15 AM 401 Performance Needs Analysis: Basic Concept and Variables Sivasailam Thiagarajan, RMS, Thiagi Group Learn how to identify performance needs and opportunities rapidly and reliably. Join Thiagi and explore: The role of performance needs analysis in training and other types of interventions. Different levels of performance needs analysis: philosophy, policy, strategy, tactics, and logistics. Polarities in performance needs analysis: continuous vs. discrete, qualitative vs. quantitative, generic vs. intervention-specific, comprehensive vs. limited, and clinical vs. large-scale. Selecting the optimum type of performance needs analysis. A procedural model for performance needs analysis. 402 Better than Bullet Points: Creating Engaging elearning with PowerPoint Jane Bozarth, Author, Better Than Bullet Points: Creating Engaging elearning with PowerPoint Effective, engaging elearning programs can be created with nothing more than PowerPoint and some creativity. In this fast, fun session you ll look at ways of eliminating bullet-based content and replacing it with a meaningful treatment, making better use of art and animations, and incorporating solid instructional design principles to support development of good online training. Learn to: Describe the 3-step process for creating engaging elearning with PowerPoint. Work through a sample scenario to choose an appropriate online treatment. Identify strategies for employing meaningful graphics, interactions, and animations. 403 Training Department Systems Audit Melissa Smith, Managing Partner; Jean Barbazette, Founder, The Training Clinic How does your learning department stack up when it comes to operating at its full potential? If you feel yourself running on empty, not able to keep up with monitoring performance or in general not fulfilling the organization s needs then it s time for an audit! Audit and benchmark your training function in ten key areas. Whether your training function is strategic or reactive (and wants to be more strategic), it is helpful to clarify and identify how your function is operating. First consider which of the ten key areas apply in your organization. Then, identify the stage of development at which your function is operating in the applicable areas. Finally, decide specific activities to move your function to the next level. Learn to: Complete and interpret a minimum of four key areas of the Training Function Systems Audit. Learn how to use the entire Training Function Systems Audit as an ongoing benchmarking tool. 404 Designing Stories and Real-Life Events Learning Ray Jimenez, Chief Learning Architect, Vignettes Learning For elearning to be engaging and effective, learners must instantly understand and recall the content, and the best way to make that happen is through the use of stories and real-life events that are meaningful and relevant. Learn how to improve tedious, hard to learn and boring content into engaging story-based lessons. You will also learn a simple method of constructing compliance, technical, process and people skills content into a mini-lesson, which you can then take back to work as a prototype and model. You will: Identify parts of your content where you can best apply stories and real-events. Explain the steps of creating learning objectives that have true-to-life consequences. Describe the development process from storyboarding, story and character selection. Complete the steps of converting factual content into story and real-life learning experiences. 405 Certification: How to Develop a Valid, Defensible, Cost-Effective Program Judith Hale, Author, The Performance Consultant s Fieldbook Explore critical factors when developing a certification which delivers on the promise of protecting the public, physical and intellectual assets, and brand image. You will receive three valuable tools and six tips essential to your certification success. The first tool explains all the steps in the process of designing a valid certification program. The second focuses on critical factors required to make the program cost-effective and feasible to implement. And the third matches the assessment instrument or process to the program s objectives. You will: Learn to avoid the 10 most common mistakes in developing a certification program. Examine six elements required for a successful program. Walk away with tools and tips for developing a program that is both feasible and useful. 406 One Person, Two Hats: Coaching SMEs to be Expert Facilitators of Learning Greg Owen-Boger, VP, Turpin Communication Bringing Subject Matter Experts into the training process can bring credibility, depth and enterprise-wide perspective. It can also be frustrating because their expertise without proper guidance rarely leads to effective learning. Why? SMEs have learned to think about what they do from a single perspective. As trainers they need to approach it from a broader one. While it s easy to understand that an SME needs to comfortably wear both their Expert hat and a Trainer hat, the instructional design process needs to start with this concept in mind in order for them to do it effectively. In this session, you ll explore the unique needs of SMEs and examine ways to design learning to help them be successful. You ll also introduce new language and explore non-threatening coaching techniques to help them deliver the content effectively. This session will include a self-assessment of your Default Approach and recommendations for adapting to it. The assessment may be used when working with SMEs back on the job. 407 Winning the Battle for Manager Buy-In Mark Phelps, Senior Consultant, Accelerated Development Solutions, Development Dimensions International (DDI) Research shows that the manager of the learner plays the most significant role in ensuring newly-acquired skills are transferred back on the job. When DDI polled HR professionals, they found less than 40 percent of managers are fully committed and involved in development programs. It takes time and effort for managers to recognize their critical role in the development of their teams. How do you move the needle and effectively engage your managers hearts and minds so they model, support and reinforce development? Learn how to create value for your learners bosses and thoroughly engage and involve them in the development of their teams before, during, and after formal training. 408 Demonstrate Training s Impact and ROI Using Analytics Naomi Howard, Learning and Development Manager, Apple Have you ever been asked Do we cover this in training? after someone makes a mistake? or We re having a problem driving sales, can you train them? We are often tasked with developing training that has little to no impact on the business. How do we demonstrate a ROE (return on expectations) to our valuable business partners? How do we measure the success of a training event long term? By establishing relationships with key stake holders, long-term performance metrics and a 360 process, you will demonstrate your training s success. Using cases and practical application methods you can start using today, you ll learn to: Establish 3 key performance metrics that directly impact your business. Communicate pre- and post-training event metrics with business partners. Create a 360 process that supports higher job application of training material. 409 Using Video Effectively Matthew Pierce, Integrated Marketing Manager, TechSmith Video is a growing part of the instructional designer tool box. TechSmith surveyed and gathered samples of great example videos from 1,900 participants. We ll review what the data indicated about what makes great video both from how the participants self-reported and from the videos that the participants provided as examples. Pierce will provide suggestions and ideas of how to apply these findings to your next video project in practical ways. You will: Log on to TrainingConference.com to register today!

100 24 Breakout Sessions List why viewers stop watching videos and how to reduce the number of viewers who stop watching. Identify attributes of great videos provided in the research study. Apply 5 tips and tricks for improving performance of video, especially for learning environments. 410 Building Responsive Mobile Content with Adobe Captivate 8 Andrew Scivally, Co-founder, elearning Brothers There s a growing demand from organizations to create courses that work on both mobile and desktop platforms. The currently available tools have a hard time doing this, and many times you must create multiple courses for each type of screen. In addition, content only resizes to fit these various screens; it doesn t truly change based on each device. Learn about the latest release of Adobe Captivate 8, and the huge advances it enables in responsive mobile design. You will explore how this software enables users to build in one view, and support multiple mobile devices at the same time. You will discover how this software enables developers to create courses that actually change design and content layout based on different devices. You will leave this session understanding how this software provides greater efficiency and improves your learning programs. Learn how to: Create responsive mobile interactions. Create responsive themes. Publish courses to ensure mobile compatibility. 411 Think Social Learning is Just Social Media? Think Virtual Training! Tom Stone, Director, Social Learning Portal; Kassy LaBorie, Product Manager, Live Online, Dale Carnegie Digital Social media tools are just one way you can enable greater social learning in your organization. When done right, virtual classroom training can be an outstanding social learning experience. To some degree this is likely already happening in your best live online classes, but if you haven t focused on it strategically, you aren t gaining the maximum benefits. In this session, you will be given several examples of social learning elements that can be found in highly-engaging synchronous virtual classroom programs. You will also see how informal learning benefits arise in what are otherwise formal online training events. 412 Heartstrings: Using the Science of Emotion to Improve Learning Outcomes Jon Matejcek, President, Dashe & Thomson Learner engagement is increasingly being recognized for the critical role it plays in driving effective learning outcomes. While this is a positive trend, the emotional factors that actually drive engagement are not widely understood. By understanding the science of emotional engagement, and how it affects learning outcomes, you can craft solutions that target specific emotional responses, and consistently achieve positive learning outcomes. Learn to understand and leverage the role of emotion in learner engagement. Matejcek will share: Scientific research that illustrates the role of emotion in learning, including before learning (receptivity), during (engagement), and after (retention). Examples of learning solutions that elicit emotional responses and analyses of why they work, including videos, simulations, games, and role-based learning experiences. 413 Lean? Eliminate the 8 Wastes with Agile Project Management & LLAMA Megan Torrance, CEO, TorranceLearning Torrance will quickly introduce agile project management techniques and then get right to the Eight Wastes of Lean. A waste is anything you do that does not add value to the customer. Manufacturing and healthcare industries are using Lean to improve their processes, specifically to preserve value while doing less [meaningless] work. In training, we can apply these same principles to improve our project management, deliver better results and do so more efficiently. Learn to: Apply the concept of the 8 Wastes of Lean to the work of the training team. Manage projects more efficiently, with less work, while focusing on the true value the customer needs. Design and deliver training experiences themselves that incorporate Lean principles. 414 Coaching for Employee Engagement and Talent Management Terence Traut, President, Entelechy, Inc. How do you engage your employees in these challenging times? How do you develop talent when training budgets have been annihilated? Developmental coaching is THE way to engage and retain talent AND develop even higher levels of performance. Managers are key to developing talent and eliciting discretionary performance from employees, and coaching is their tool. Learn what developmental coaching is and how to implement a coaching initiative in your company. You ll: Differentiate coaching from other types of performance management techniques including training, corrective action, counseling, and mentoring. Describe an effective coaching model, highlighting the key elements. As a group, coach the coach following the coaching model; and assess your own coaching strengths and areas for development. 415 Let Your Content Drive the Tool Danielle Watkins, Chief Learning Officer, Zenith Performance Solutions Articulate, Storyline, Captivate, Lectora, Camtasia, Flash, CrazyTalk...what tool should you buy to develop elearning? There are many products out there, and choosing a tool to build elearning should be driven by the type of content you will produce. This session will provide you with an overview of the tools on the market and with a checklist to help you decide which tool is right for your elearning development. Learn to focus on letting the content drive the tool, not the other way around and with a budget in mind. You will: Compare and contrast different tools on the market. Define the uniqueness of your elearning content. Analyze which tool is the right tool for your content with the budget in mind. 416 Instructional Designs that Drive Results Victoria Halsey, VP Applied Learning, The Ken Blanchard Companies Do your courses result in the behavior changes you want? Your learning designs might be at fault. Halsey will lay out an innovative instructional design model that connects People, Content and Design to drive engagement, energize learners and keep their voice front and center. She will offer techniques for developing instructional designs that create a learnercentered mindset-designs that focus not on figuring out how smart learners are, but how they are smart. You ll learn how to create content that is clear, relevant, easily absorbed, and readily retained because it is tailored to each audience s specific needs, abilities and inclinations. Halsey s six step ENGAGE model makes the old sit and git learning model obsolete. She will provide instructional ideas that will enable you to create designs that: Energize learners at the beginning of any learning session; Navigate new content for deep retention, Generate personal meaning and relevance from it (whether virtual or face to face); Apply their learning to the real world; Gauge and celebrate their progress; and Extend their learning to action to create optimal business results. 417 The Top 5 Mistakes You Should Never Make in Requirements Gathering Kendra Lee, President, KLA Group Successful requirements gathering is the basis of effective training. Yet many trainers and developers aren t able to get to the real requirements. It isn t until the program is being tested (or worse, running live) that they realize the program they ve developed will miss the mark. Successful requirements gathering leads to on-target learning objectives and spot-on content. Miss key requirements, and it will cost you time, money and reputation. This session reveals the top five mistakes that lead to poor requirements gathering. Learn why they happen, techniques to avoid them, and what to do if they do happen. Based on real-life requirements gathering scenarios, learn to: Apply techniques to gather requirements under pressure. Recognize when you haven t gotten to the real training requirements. Use two strategies to test the requirements you ve uncovered. Ask one question in every requirements gathering meeting to get to the root requisites. Training 2015 Conference & Expo

101 Breakout Sessions Learning in the Cloud, What Does Learning Look Like in the Future? Darren Nerland, Learning and Innovation Manager, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation In the learning industry, we are caught between what and how people learn. We need to get in front of the technology that will be used to access learning in the future. In this session, you ll explore how to use systems you already have to provide on the job support for learning, how learning platforms can be cloud based and integrate with other systems, and look into the future of learning. Learn to: Define how and when to use social and informal learning tools to assist in learning and knowledge transfer. Explain the difference between cloud-based and traditional internally hosted platforms. Explain future trends in learning styles and technologies. Define how social media and informal learning will shape the way we train in the future. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10 10:45 AM 11:45 AM 501 Training for Transfer of Learning Becky Pike Pluth, CEO, The Bob Pike Group Ever ponder why some training sessions are one-hit wonders? Lack of training transfer is a big part of the problem. In this session, you ll discover how to improve results by improving the transfer of training. You ll identify the three people who have the greatest impact on transfer, the three times when something can be done to accelerate transfer, and 27 specific strategies to improve training s transfer. 502 Show Your Work Jane Bozarth, Author, Show Your Work: The Payoffs and How-Tos of Working Out Loud We learn by doing, and by telling what we re doing, and by watching others do things, and by showing others how we did something. Narrating work can solve so many problems for organizations, from capturing tacit knowledge, to easing transitions when workers depart, to further enabling informal and social learning. How can we help it happen? Learn to: Give several examples of what to narrate, including at least one from your own practice. Identify ways of capturing narration, including at least one non-text-based. Establish a plan for piloting a work-narration project back on the job. 503 Collaborating to Close Performance Gaps Michael Nolan, President, Friesen, Kaye and Associates Learning and development professionals need to create collaborative partnerships with senior executives and business unit managers in order to improve performance and organizational effectiveness. Learn about the steps necessary to get there, including: How to collect and analyze critical data to determine the cause of the performance discrepancy. The eight factors that influence job performance. Multi-faceted solutions to close the gap between required and actual performance. How to collaboratively link these performance interventions to business needs. To limit work-in-progress and effectively manage the capacity of your development and deployment teams. About lessons learned and gain insight on where to start. 504 Oh Yeah...Make Me! Techniques for Handling Resistant Learners Laura Arellano, Senior T&D Specialist, CHG Healthcare Services I was told to be here.... How long will this last?... I ve done this kind of training before. Learn simple techniques that will instantly shift resistant participant thinking, whether expressed verbally or non-verbally. All trainers dread dealing with negative participants, so you will be pleased to discover that it is possible to quickly and easily transform them into focused, contributing learners. Learn how to assess the Roots of Resistance and deploy the appropriate strategies before, during, and after a training session by integrating principles from Accelerated Learning and Whole Brain Thinking. Get practical techniques to keep the focus on your content and learning objectives, instead of battling their smartphones to win their attention. Learn to: Understand the Learning Brain. Assess learners Root of Resistance. Apply techniques to transform reluctant participants. 505 The Magic of Popcorn Keys Transformational Instructional Design Jason Bickle, Manager Instructional Design & Development/Implementation Engineer, Experlogix, Inc.; Megan Torrance, CEO, TorranceLearning Have you ever really looked at a kernel of popcorn then examined that same kernel after it s been popped? The transformation is astonishing and beautiful. The altered state is accomplished through both Chemistry and Physics, and can teach a great deal about instructional design and learning. With the right environment, people, technology, and learner input, effective instructional design can push learners to the brink of radical transformations while leaning on the learner to find motivations to retain and respond with Pop! In this session, you ll discuss: Understanding the Kernel The Learner & Potential. Insights to the Pan & Heat Environment & Motivation. Adding Flavor Learner Contributions. What s Next after the Pop Agents of Change. 506 Should I or Shouldn t I? Saul Carliner, Research Director, Lakewood Media Group Learning styles. SME-generated content. The 70:20:10 Rule. Which training practices should you adopt and which ones are snake oil? Good ideas, unsubstantiated claims, or more complicated than appears on the surface? In this session, Lakewood Research Director Saul Carliner provides recommendations about practices of interest to trainers based on evidence from the research. In fact, participants can identify the issues addressed in this session by tweeting requests to #train-research by January 2, Think Small and Just Do It Borrowing Techniques from Advertising to Make Your Learning Compelling Lisa Stortz, Strategic Relationship Manager, Allen Interactions How many times could you fast forward through an ad but don t? Do you watch the Super Bowl just for the ads? Why? Advertising is compelling it s full of suspense, shock, and awe. As learning professionals we have the same challenges as advertising competing for mid-share, breaking out of the clutter, and seeking behavioral outcomes. Like advertising, learning needs to be meaningful, memorable, and motivational in order to have an impact. And, like advertising, we have multiple modalities available to us in order to drive results. Expand your possibilities of what learning can be. Whether it s making an impression or prompting an impulsion as learning professionals, we need it all! Take away the top elements that contribute to the success of advertising that you can incorporate into your learning solutions right away and have fun while doing so! 508 Driving Product Adoption Through Training and Enablement Minette Chan, Global Training and Enablement Manager, Ooyala Join this session to learn how a Saas company in Silicon Valley built a Customer Training and Enablement program in six months with the goals of driving product adoption, reducing customer churn rates and increasing the company s bottom-line revenues and what results were achieved. Join the discussion on whether customer enablement programs should be paid for or done for free. Learn to: Define methodologies and processes for building a Customer Enablement program. Identify the elements of a successful Customer Enablement Program for driving product adoption. Measure KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) separate from $$$ earned. Gain an understanding of when a for-free vs for-fee training model apply. 509 SMART as Hell: Writing Objectives That Will Transform Your Training Glenn Hughes, Senior Director of Learning and Development, KLA-Tencor The SMART goal framework is documented in books, taught in workshops, and used by organizations around the world. It s popular, but it doesn t appear to be working. Half of American workers are unclear about what they are supposed to do at work (Harter & Wagner, 2006), while 78% of employees are dissatisfied with the performance review process (Taleo Research, 2009). It s no better in classrooms, where learning objectives are often vague, unmeasurable, or unachievable. Hughes will share why most goals fail the SMART Log on to TrainingConference.com to register today!

102 26 Breakout Sessions criteria badly. You will use the SMARTometer Lite, the first tool for measuring the effectiveness of goals, to analyze your own goals. And, you will learn how to write breakthrough learning goals that create alignment between designers, trainers, management, and participants. You ll receive tools to use in your work and a post-workshop coaching session via to refine your SMART goals. 510 Just in Time. Just Enough. Just for Me. Robin Connolly, Chief Learning Officer, The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. A guideline for learning and development, developed by Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger, tells us that development occurs best when a ratio is used: experiential learning (70 percent), social learning (20 percent) and formal training (10 percent). So why do we, as learning and development professionals, spend the majority of our budget on the 10%, leaving our customers to figure out the rest on their own? In this session you ll explore PNC s operating model to deliver (70/20/10) learner and manager solutions that are designed and implemented to be Just in Time. Just Enough. Just for Me. Connolly will explain PNC s approach and share real-life before/after examples that have enabled PNC businesses to achieve their desired performance and business results. 511 The Next Gen Leadership Crisis and 7 Critical Competencies You Can t Ignore Breanne Harris, Marketing Manager, Pearson TalentLens After years of budget slashing, cost control, and cutting training/mentoring programs, Baby Boomers who couldn t afford to retire are finally heading to warmer climates. Now it s time for Next Gen leaders to step in, define the strategy, and create a vision for the future. But they re not ready. In this presentation, we will discuss the leadership development trends used by highly successful organizations according to research from the 2014 Trends in Executive Development Report produced by Pearson TalentLens and EDA. Learn: About major competency gaps of next generation leaders. Which activities are most likely to accelerate development. How your organization compares to other top companies. You will receive the 2014 Trends in Executive Development Report ($135 value) and a copy of the best-selling book Now You re Thinking! 512 Boring to Brilliant: Convert Your elearning to a Story-Based Approach Diane Senffner, President; Christine Charlson, Senior Writer, Cine Learning Productions Stories give adult learners that crucial window into how the content is relevant to them, making them invested in the material. You will explore five ways for turning a boring PowerPoint into a brilliant elearning module. Explore: Wrapping a story around the content using the Challenge Story Solution Result process. Using conversational dialogue. Writing realistic video scripts. Creating a terrific look and feel in your tool that facilitates the story. Creating branched scenarios for authentic assessment. 513 Hottest New Tools for Cutting-Edge Virtual Training Sheri Jeavons, President, Power Presentations, Inc. This session explores the latest virtual platform training tools including new ways to create visuals, virtual collaboration tools, webcam and how to avoid common pitfalls. Learn how to incorporate these new tools into your online training to deliver innovative and engaging events; and examine how to balance ever-changing technology with practical delivery techniques. No matter what virtual training platform you use, you will leave this session with ideas to create your own cutting-edge online training. Learn to: Understand the latest virtual technology trends and innovative ways to incorporate them into your online training. Deliver effective and engaging online training that will leave your attendees eager to learn. 514 Developing 3D Image Recognition and Augmented Reality Training Carole Meade, Learning Services Director, Sumaria Networks, LLC Meade will share the decisions, designs, processes, failures, and successes on the journey through a development project using leading-edge 3D image recognition and augmented reality technologies. These technologies turn simple knowledge-based training into a world-class, immersive end-user experience. You ll learn how this solution was approached from a tech nology, design, and process standpoint. You ll see a demonstration of this innovative technology and learn to: Apply the lessons learned in the development effort using leading-edge technology. Avoid the mistakes made while learning how to develop for this technology. Experience how image recognition and augmented reality work. 515 Reframing Talent Management Strategies for the Future Yvette Montero Salvatico, Principal, Kedge, LLC The growing fluidity of the global economy, the dramatic disruptions of the digital revolution, and the radical empowerment of individuals through mobile computing and micro-manufacturing have combined to create a challenging future landscape for talent management and workforce strategies. Salvatico shares insights from her tenure leading the Future Insights effort at the Walt Disney Company where her team identified future workforce trends in order to assess potential threats and impacts, emerging ideas, and more importantly opportunities for the organization. Identify major shifts that will expand your field of vision around the possibilities of the future in order to make better decisions in the present. 516 Creating Culture Practical Change Begins Individually Ed Muzio, CEO, Group Harmonics Inc. Any group of people attempting to partner or collaborate is essentially a human system. Within that system, both individual and group interactions are necessary to produce outcomes, achieve results, and add value. Such systems evolve what Edgar Schein called patterns of shared basic assumptions about how to achieve results. Over time, these patterns become embedded in the group and are collectively given the label of culture. Much of the frustration and ineffectiveness inherent in today s organizations is attributed to ineffective or problematic cultures, that is, to patterns of activity which are inadequate or mismatched to the challenge of producing results. But how do you fix this? The answer lies in influencing the default patterns of behavior into alignment with the principles of systematic design; such principles then automatically create the most effective group activity! Muzio will share how to use a systems model to define and practice culture-changing behaviors that create real impact on the broader environment. You ll be changing worlds; hopeless victims need not attend. 517 How Social Technologies Connect Learners at Qualcomm Victoria Nardone, Manager, Learning Solutions, Qualcomm, Inc. A new approach to employee development has been launched at Qualcomm. The change is placing employees learning plans in their own hands. Leveraging today s social learning environment, leaders partnered with Pathgather to create a social learning platform catering to the individual goals and ambitions of each employee. Nardone will share how they launched this approach to employee development, and how it has promoted employee involvement in the personal learning process. You will: Learn how Qualcomm rolled out its new social learning platform. Hear about the initial transformation social learning has had on employees and the company, including the gigantic uptake in user-generated content. Find out how Qualcomm has shifted from an LMS to a CMS to facilitate increased mobile learning uptake. 518 Developing a High Performing Super User Network Paul O Keeffe, Senior Principal; Mark Wrobleski, Change Enablement Consultant, Accenture It was every training team s nightmare. A company moving from green screens to SAP. Four hundred locations, highly spread geographically, each staffed with a small number of employees. Average age in the mid-50s. Low computer literacy. Very little change experience. What to do? Learn how Accenture created a Super User training program that spanned 25 weeks, Training 2015 Conference & Expo

103 Breakout Sessions 27 three deployments and over 200 hours of blended SAP training activities. Hear about the key challenges they faced and how they overcame them with support from business leadership. Learn to: Explain how to sustain the attention of your audience across a lengthy training program duration. Describe how to increase visibility of training with business leadership to drive compliance. Show how to actually get value out of a system sandbox environment. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 8:30 AM 9:30 AM 601 The Trainer s First Aid Kit: 15 Ways to Manage Difficult Situations Marc Ratcliffe, CEO, MRWED Training and Assessment The behavior of a few can have an enormous impact on the whole and as a result can critically injure the success of your programs. This session will discuss proven strategies aimed at minimizing difficult behaviors and will model winning techniques that will help you create a positive and exciting program for your learners. You ll get strategies and practical activities that can be used to reduce the effect of difficult behaviors or situations. 602 Courageous Coaching: It s Not Easy, It s Your Job! Marjorie Brody, CEO, Brody Professional Development Many strong managers are uncomfortable with coaching, and it s easy to see why. It takes courage to ask the questions that must be asked and tell the truth that must be told, but it s essential for the growth of individuals, as well as the entire organization. This session targets managers biggest hurdles: Fear Of the coachee s reaction. Will I make it worse, not better? Time With an already full plate, it s too easy to rationalize away the need for coaching, or spend that time with the wrong people. Assumptions Assuming is always a slippery slope. 603 The Myths of Performance Management Dick Grote, Author, The Performance Appraisal Question and Answer Book Why do performance appraisal programs so often fail to produce the results they should? It s because too many managers and trainers and HR specialists and senior executives believe things about managing people and evaluating performance that are simply not true. In this lighthearted, stimulating presentation Grote will identify and tell you how to eliminate some common myths about performance management, including the myth of: SMART Goals: How do you set good goals? It shall all be revealed. Self-Appraisal: A really bad idea that needs to be stomped out. Marilyn Monroe: a dramatic demonstration of attractiveness effect error at work. The Feedback Sandwich: learn a dramatically different way to structure appraisal conversations. 605 What s Your Mix? Jason Bickle, Manager Instructional Design and Development/Implementation Engineer, Experlogix, Inc. We often get stuck on building a course. Once complete, we move on to the next course. In today s learning field, with so many channels of information, learning program architecture must be honed to meet your learner s needs. What processes and tools do you need to be successful? Learn about new mixes of delivery options, tools and processes that could make you more successful. Consider your learners and begin to develop or update your own programs, processes and tools. What s your mix? This session will challenge you to consider: Your top three learner goals of the next year. Your ratios of online instructor-led, elearning, mlearning, and documentation. What processes, tools, and development skills you need. 606 Everything Old is New Again: A Scorecard on Training Trends Margaret Driscoll, Co-author, Web-Based Training; Saul Carliner, Research Director, Lakewood Media Group Some of these predictions and assertions are new; others first appeared in the days of disco. For those wondering how the field might develop in the future, a journey through the past provides some of the best indicators. Based on a systematic evaluation of industry magazines from the 1970s and 1980s, this session explores key predictions made for the field of training in the past and assesses how well they fared in the years since. Driscoll and Carliner will score these predictions: Most training will be offered online in seven years. Training needs a seat at the table. The workforce will become more diverse. The name training is inadequate to describe the work we do. Games are an effective type of training. Attend this session to make sure that you and your training group learn from the lessons from the past and avoid repeating the mistakes. 607 Improving Employee Onboarding by Driving Manager Engagement Chris Coladonato, Learning and Development Consultant, Farmers Insurance Group Are your managers actively engaged in your onboarding program? Do they connect with their new employee throughout their first six months and drive their organizational learning? Learn how Farmers helps their managers to be an engaged partner in the onboarding of their new employees. You will get an overview of Farmers onboarding program and the scorecard used to track the success of the program. You will learn about the key metrics reported on the scorecard and how they are used to evaluate the program and manager engagement. Two specific examples of how the program was revised to drive manager engagement based on program metrics will be reviewed. Finally, Coladonato will share examples of a few of the key manager tools used by Farmers including a manager onboarding guide and just-in-time coaching guides. 608 Reimagining Learning Strategy, Design and Development for Mobile Scott McCormick, Director, Client Relations, Float Mobile Learning McCormick will demystify much of the noise and hype that goes along with a new learning platform and explore genuine ways to set and reach attainable mlearning goals. He will shed light on certain shortcomings or gaps in a learning department that need to be addressed. You will unbox the important components of mlearning and evaluate what is valuable to the learning professional. You will look at areas such as mlearning strategy, process, instructional design, UI/UX, and development and deployment options. The emphasis will be on reaching the primary stakeholder: the learners. You will: Identify the foundational components of a mobile learning strategy. List specific tenets of mobile user interface design. Explain an overview of mlearning development options. 609 The Best from the Emerging Training Leaders Moderator: Christine Marciano, Training Consultant, Nationwide & Allied Insurance Each year Training magazine names 25 Top Emerging Training Leaders who have demonstrated exceptional leadership skills, business savvy, and training instincts. In this session, they ll share tips, tricks, best practices, and successes that make their teams shine. Attend and learn from the emerging leaders! 610 Building a Culture of Employee Accountability Larry Johnson, Partner, Johnson Training Group Do some of your employees see what needs to be done and take responsibility to do it while others either don t see it or do see it and choose not to act? Do some employees seem to be grateful for having the opportunity to work for you while others act like it s an entitlement? Would you like your employees to accept responsibility for improving things and stop whining about what can t be changed? Johnson will provide solutions to help these folks see the light and start taking responsibility for their performance. Learn to: Apply a technique for instilling in employees a sense of ownership for their jobs. Implement a conversational roadmap that will raise the odds that employees do what they say they will do. Determine when to let an employee go. Log on to TrainingConference.com to register today!

104 28 Breakout Sessions 611 How to Capture Elusive Level 3 Data: The Secrets of Survey Design Ken Phillips, CEO, Phillips Associates To establish real credibility and prove value, you need to measure whether or not your participants actually applied what they learned back on the job (Level 3 evaluation). In this session, you will examine four overall guidelines for conducting Level 3 evaluations, analyze the common mistakes made when creating Level 3 participant surveys, and learn 11 tips for overcoming these mistakes. These tips are based on recent research from the fields of education and the behavioral sciences and call into question many survey design principles formulated 50 or more years ago, but still in use today. 612 Using Emotional Intelligence to Lead Gnarly Projects Lou Russell, Queen, Russell Martin & Associates Juggling multiple projects with your real job triggers stress for everybody. Stress begins to activate the Reptilian brain which, with enough stimulation, will throw you into an automatic response limiting your reactions to Fight, Flight or Freeze. Obviously, all three of these options drives rework and mistakes, making gnarly projects even later. In this session, you will learn how emotions are not something to control but your intuition s call to action. Becoming more aware of these emotions allows you to self-regulate in a way that is unique for your own behaviors and values. Each participant will receive a free link to Trimetrics EQ. Learn to take your energy back. 613 Five Ways to Rock Your Virtual Classroom: Secrets of Master Trainers Cindy Huggett, Consultant, Cindy Huggett Consulting What do master trainers do when delivering live, online classes? What skills do they have? What can you learn from them? There are five things that master virtual trainers do to deliver effective virtual classes. This session will cover each technique and help you immediately apply them to your own virtual training delivery. By preparing relentlessly, engaging an unseen audience, multitasking effectively, making the most of your voice, and handling unexpected challenges, you can be a rock star in the virtual classroom. And by using these skills, your virtual participants will have a better learning experience. Whether you are new to live, online delivery or have been facilitating virtual classes for years, and regardless of your software platform, you will leave this session with new ideas, tips, and techniques for improving your virtual delivery skills. 614 Games, Interactivity and Gamification for Learning Karl Kapp, Professor, Instructional Technology, Bloomberg University This session introduces, defines, and describes the concept of gamification, games for learning and interactivity. Kapp will dissect critical elements of games and describe how they can be applied to the design and development of interactive learning. The presentation is based on solid research including peer-reviewed results from dozens of studies that offer insights into why game-based thinking and mechanics makes for vigorous learning tools. You ll learn how to create engaging learning using game-based thinking by matching instructional content with the right game mechanics and game thinking; how to move beyond the theoretical considerations; and three methods for designing interactive learning based on concepts from games. 615 Creating Useful Video Content Without Breaking the Bank Michael Kolowich, CEO, KnowledgeVision Systems Video can be a great learning tool, and when used in conjunction with other methods and techniques, can add greatly to the learning process. You ll explore the different video types and when to use each type, new tools for creating video, and how to leverage internal subject matter experts. You will make your own 2-5 minute video on an ipad. See how to use ipad app for internal and external training, role-playing to improve sales performance and other training applications. Learn to: Identify various video types and when to use each type. Make an interactive video. Explain how to leverage internal subject matter experts. 616 Sustaining Development: How to Make it Stick! Annamarie Lang, Senior Consultant, DDI Have you ever been amped up to launch a development program, only to see it fade away after a year? Have you ever witnessed a leader go through a training program resulting in no indication of newly developed skills? A yes answer to either of these means you need to reevaluate your sustainability measures. Sustainability, in terms of leadership development, can be looked at in two ways: the learner level and program level. Join us to learn how you can maximize your efforts by implementing a strategic approach to sustainability at both levels. Learn: Five key components you need to address to make development stick. How to make sure what your leaders learn in the classroom live on in the workplace through application and ultimately business results. Best practices in implementing a development initiative that meets present and future needs. 617 Designing a Custom Learning Portal Margaret Strong, Program Manager, ebay/paypal Strong will share ebay s experience with the design and rollout of a custom learning portal over Moodle solution. She ll provide a historical look at the project, risks, interdependencies, rollout, blockers, and all the drama! You will walk away with a solid training plan suitable to your deployment technology. Learn to: Identify the five hot spots of integrating any new learning technology into a corporate infrastructure and a technology population. Apply the takeaways from a corporate case study to apply to you own learning challenges. Rationalize the complexities and cost of a grow-your-own solution and mirror them against a server or cloud based learning deployment tool. Design your own deployment rollout out of a trackable learning initiative that has a direct connection to a business goal. 618 Building a Leadership Development Program Without Breaking the Bank Heather Cushing, L&D Senior Analyst, State Farm Need a comprehensive leadership development training program, but don t have the budget to buy the off-theshelf options? In this budget-conscious session you will explore how to build a leadership and talent development offering without breaking the bank. You ll review programming that can be home-grown and how to do it, highlight how to make the most out of vendor relationships, and detail using departmental buy-in to build and prove ROI. You ll explore ideas around mentoring, bench-strength tiers, leveraging leaders as teachers, building a mini-corporate library and IDP Development. You will: Identify three leadership or talent development programs that you can launch for less than $50 per participant. Tailor one strategic proposal towards your company, sketch out how you will gain cross-functional buy-in to that proposal, and determine ROI/ ROV measurements. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 11:00 AM 12:00 PM 701 Score for Webinars Becky Pike Pluth, CEO, The Bob Pike Group If modern technology is so groovy, why do so many webinars put people to sleep faster than The Monotone Silence Symphony? Often, instructors neglect their participants learning needs. In this fun and interactive session, Pluth models activities and principles that convey content through a webinar format while keeping learners engaged, no matter the size of the audience. You ll get to the CORE of Webinars with Super Closer, Openers, Revisiters, and Energizers. 702 Achieve More by Thinking Differently Sebastian Bailey, President, The Mind Gym Inc. Bailey, will share the secret ingredients for driving positive change in your work and life by helping you recognize your four distinct states of mind thinking, engaged, critical, and autopilot and how they impact decision making and performance. You will learn how to achieve more with less effort by becoming aware of your state of mind. He will share the best practices on how to change your thinking so you can take control, deepen connections, resolve conflict, increase creativity, minimize stress and more. Training 2015 Conference & Expo

105 Breakout Sessions User Perspectives: Evaluating Any Engine Sharon Gander, Consultant, The Institute for Performance Improvement Social media tools are just one way you can enable greater social learning in your organization. When done right, virtual classroom training can be an outstanding social learning experience. You ll examine several examples of social learning elements that can be found in highly-engaging synchronous virtual classroom programs. Learn to: Evaluate a simple, four-point system for rating user skill sets. Identify five or more types of users. Describe the typical software evaluation process. Apply that user-rating set to software engines for each group. Discuss the pros and cons of rating software engines for user. Assess the impact of a mismatch between software and user. Evaluate one or more software engines currently in your world and identify action items for reducing risks and stressors related to mismatches between users and software. 704 Global Leadership Development: Best Practices Neal Goodman, President, Global Dynamics, Inc. The geographically dispersed, culturally diverse workforce and marketplace is the new reality. Yet most organizations lack a clear roadmap on how to best develop global leaders for the evolving environment. In this session, you will explore the challenges and best practices in global leadership development and identify actionable items that you can implement in your organization. Seven critical factors for successful Global Leadership Development will be presented along with factors to avoid. You ll explore several best practices/ cases being used by leading organizations to develop their global leaders. You will identify one or more steps you can take to enhance global leadership competence in your organization. 705 Learning Design for the Modern Attention Span: Lessons from a PechaKucha Convert Cara Pelletier, Learning Solutions Consultant, Ultimate Software Blame YouTube and Facebook: Our collective attention span gets shorter and shorter as technology and social media increase the pace at which we live. How can you design compelling virtual learning events that will capture and hold your learners attention? Last year, Pelletier was asked to present at a PechaKucha event where she had 20 slides and only 20 seconds to speak about each one. PechaKucha completely revolutionized the way she develops virtual learning and she s never looked back. Come learn tips and tricks that will challenge you to pick up the pace and rethink your approach to virtual learning design. You will: Explain 5 key ways to capture and retain learners attention. Identify ways to put PechaKucha methodology into practice at your organization. 706 Obtaining Buy-in for Training Marjorie Derven, Managing Partner, Hudson Research & Consulting, Inc. How can you influence those in authority to buy into training? As today s organizations have limited resources and competing priorities, being able to influence others is essential to success. This strategic roadmap for obtaining buy-in will enable you to enhance organizational performance and promote strategic alignment. Learn to: Address key organizational challenges/pain points/ opportunities. Pre-sell your learning solution with key influencers. Identify key stakeholders and sponsors to build organizational commitment. Obtain the resources and support you need to make your training stick. 707 Driving Team Performance Stacey Cunningham, Chief Strategy Officer; Cathy Becker, Vice President, Client Engagement, GLS Worldwide LLC Today s teams face tough challenges, whether it s an unclear goal, uncertainty about how to tap into each other s strengths and skills, being newly organized, or simply lacking experience working together, ineffective teams can bring productivity to a screeching halt. In this session, you will focus on the unique characteristics of the different motivational, thinking and behavioral styles. You will: Become aware of how your style and tendencies impact others on the team. Understand and learn how to leverage each individual s strengths. Uncover each other s Motivators, Thinking and Behavioral Styles. Identify areas of compatibility and potential conflict. Assess team strengths and gaps. Devise a plan to remove/reduce barriers to improve trust, collaboration and performance across the team. 708 Measuring the Impact of Social Learning Kristin Hall, Training Manager, PPD Buzzzzz...What is the buzz about social learning? PPD implemented a social platform called Buzz. After successful implementation, they were faced with the challenge of how to measure how much learning was actually taking place. After some experimentation, not only did they implement several techniques for measuring learning, but they also found that they could measure the impact of other key corporate initiatives through the use of social media and social learning. Hear how PPD employees are learning everything from corporate specific database software to how to train for a triathlon, and learn to: Define 4 examples of social learning and recognize them in your organization. Implement three strategies for measuring the impact of social learning. Expand training impact measurement capabilities through the use social learning and social media. 709 Accelerated Learning Ensuring Impact by Design Gail Heidenhain, President, Delphin, Inc Learn how to design and implement learning programs that ensure impact back at work and build participants learning and change agility. You will experience the key Accelerated Learning principles, strategies and the design process in action. In this session, you will analyze a real-world example and apply it to your own work and take away effective templates and job aids. You will learn five to seven strategies to prepare learners optimally for the learning, how to engage participants throughout the process, build skills and mastery, deepen the learning, and facilitate needed changes that are sustained on the job. 710 Reduce Your Learning Burden and Increase Knowledge Flow Using Lean Todd Hudson, Head Maverick, Maverick Institute, LLC The learning burden continues to increase as employees are expected to incorporate new knowledge and skills into their current jobs. This can make getting real work done difficult. Nurses, machinists and service technicians in training are not curing patients, cutting metal or repairing equipment. The learning burden needs to be reduced, but, paradoxically, real learning needs to flourish and, in fact, grow. See how you can identify and eliminate training waste and add value through lean thinking and methods. Learn to: Estimate and manage your organization s learning burden. Structure training and learning around value streams. Map classic Lean wastes to learning and training. Recognize how Lean uncovers relevance and context. Identify opportunities to simplify processes and institute visual management techniques. 711 Need Training? Show Me the Problem! Jean Marrapodi, Director, elearning, New England College of Business The key to effective performance improvement is defining the problem and digging out the root cause. There are a number of methodologies and tools available to facilitate needs assessments. In this session, you will explore a number of tools and processes that you can use to complete a needs assessment that will ensure your training and performance support programs are targeting the right behaviors. You will explore Mager s Performance Analysis Flow, Harless s Front End Analysis, Gilbert s Behavioral Engineering, Binder s Six Boxes, Rumler- Brache s Nine Performance Variables, and more. Participation in this session will ground you in the theories and tools needed for performance-support needs-assessment for your organization, and equip you to use analysis tools when you return to the office. Log on to TrainingConference.com to register today!

106 30 Breakout Sessions 712 Match Learning Paths with Success Using Tin Can API Mike Rustici, President, Rustici Software Do you know how your training program impacts business results? By leveraging the Tin Can API and a Learning Record Store (LRS), you can finally start validating your training program. During this session, you will explore how real organizations like AT&T, Pandora Jewelry, and YUM! Brands have implemented Tin Can and an LRS to assess how training relates to outcomes and effectiveness. See real world use cases of these and other organizations, and learn how you can start matching learning paths with success. Learn to: Explain what the Tin Can API and an LRS is. Describe five different ways in which Tin Can is currently being used by organizations. Identify three ways in which you can start leveraging the Tin Can API at your organization. 713 Revitalizing Role Play Linda Smith, Dawn Holzer, Co-owners, CaseCards How many times have you heard, We hate to role play!? Many trainers have given up on this tried-andtrue technique. It has been done poorly for so long that it has gotten a bad reputation. Yet adult learning research confirms that the most effective way to build skill is through practice, and a well-constructed, well-executed role play is still one of the best ways for participants to get hands-on practice in interpersonal skills training. Smith and Holzer will restore the image of role play and add this valuable learning technique back to your toolbox. You will leave the session with a clearly defined process for better role plays, as well as techniques and strategies to ensure your learners are better equipped to transfer skills back to the workplace. 714 Ten Wicked Cool Classroom Training Tricks! Mark Snow, VP, Performance Technology, Human Resource Development Press Sometimes we find even our best sessions falling flat. Our learners are tapping their fingers, rolling their eyes, yawning, and generally itching to do just about anything except listening to our content. These 10 proven tricks can be used anywhere in a session where you start to see a lull. You ll grab their attention, get them on the edge of their seats, and instantly re-engage their minds to an optimal state. Yes, it CAN be done! 715 Buried Alive? The Secret Sauce to Productivity Kory Kogon, Global Productivity Practice Leader, FranklinCovey As learning professionals, we re paid to think, plan, communicate and execute with excellence. But how do you reach peak performance when you re feeling buried alive by your workload and burned out by your on-demand schedule? This session will focus on the three key barriers getting in the way the same barriers which leave many in the workforce feeling useless, voiceless and disengaged. Based on more than two decades of experience and research studies, Kogon will touch on the practical mindsets, skillsets and toolsets that will enable you to perform at your peak every day. You ll learn to better manage your decisions, attention and energy so you can consistently make choices that create extraordinary value for yourself and your organization. Leverage these skills and fulfill your potential for extraordinary productivity throughout your work and life. BONUS: Participants will receive a copy of Kogon s book Buried Alive? The 5 Choices to Extraordinary Productivity. Training magazine has been the preeminent voice in the training industry for 50 years. Visit to sign up for a free subscription. And, learn about the Top 125, Training Live + Online certificate programs, and free webinars and whitepapers. Attendee Registration Information: Register Online Visit and click on Register Now. Payment is accepted by credit card (Amex, Discover, MasterCard or Visa). 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Cancellation Policy Should you need to cancel your Training 2015 Conference or registration, you must do so in writing to Customer Service either by or by fax by January 23, Cancellations received by January 23, 2015 are subject to a $100 processing fee. After January 23, 2015, we are happy to accept substitutions or issue a letter of credit, but no refunds will be issued. Expo-only fees and Tours fees are nonrefundable. For exhibit/sponsor opportunities, contact Dick@TrainingMag.com Training 2015 Conference & Expo

107 Venue & Hotels 31 Training 2015 Conference & Expo will take place at: Georgia World Congress Center (Building A) 285 Andrew Young Register now at International Blvd., NW Atlanta, Georgia Located in the heart of downtown Atlanta, the Georgia World Congress Center is just steps away from the Georgia Aquarium, World of Coca-Cola, Centennial Park and a vast array of dining and entertainment options. HOTEL RESERVATIONS Connections Housing is the only official hotel agency for your Training 2015 needs. Reservations booked outside of Connections Housing are not endorsed by show management and will be at your own risk. Reserve your room today with Connections Housing via one of the following methods to receive our special rates. * Reservations are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis, and discounted rooms are only available while blocks last. Online: Phone: Fax: Visit and click on the Venue & Hotels link. Connections Housing (International) or (toll free) A limited number of Government Per Diem rooms are available online or by contacting Connections Housing at the numbers shown above. In order to be eligible for this rate you must have valid government identification presentable at check-in. HOTEL FRAUD WARNING: Reservations made through an agency other than Connections Housing will be at your own risk. If you have been contacted by another agency claiming to be with Training 2015, do not book with them (as you may become a victim of fraud) and please let Connections Housing know at or Hotel Reservation Deadline: January 8, 2015* OFFICIAL TRAINING 2015 HOTELS Rates shown below do not include tax. Additional guests charges may apply. Hilton Garden Inn Atlanta Downtown $159 Single or Double occupancy 275 Baker Street NW Atlanta, GA $159 Single or Double occupancy Distance from Convention Center: 2 blocks Glenn Hotel by Marriott $173 Single or Double occupancy 110 Marietta Street, NW Atlanta, GA Distance from Convention Center: 4 blocks Omni Hotel at CNN Center $173 Single or Double occupancy 100 CNN Center Atlanta, GA Distance from Convention Center: Connected/Across the Street TRANSPORTATION There is no shuttle service available. The Training 2015 hotels are within walking distance of the Convention Center. For information on parking, airport transportation visit and click on the Venue & Hotels link. Explore Atlanta s Attractions and Nightlife! Two of Atlanta s most popular attractions are just steps away from the Conference venue! Visit the Georgia Aquarium, one of the world s largest aquariums, with more than 60 exhibits and an astounding 10 million gallons of water and the World of Coca-Cola where you taste all the Cokes from around the world. On the 75th anniversary of Gone With The Wind, what better place to visit than the Margaret Mitchell House? Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the house is a threestory, Tudor Revival building where Margaret Mitchell lived and wrote her Pulitzer-Prize winning novel. Atlanta has more than 300 restaurants in the downtown area. Not only are there options based on price point and type (from casual to formal), Atlanta restaurants also showcase a variety of cuisines and cooking styles. Log on to TrainingConference.com to register today!