As someone with a real passion for food and for cooking, Tom is always amazed at the different things that you can do with an egg. It is a simple ingredient and absolutely fundamental in making pancakes, soufflés, Yorkshire puddings, carbonara sauce, meringues, pâté, pasta, ice cream, quiches, omelettes and many other dishes.

How does this apply to business training? You get significantly different results from the same ingredient depending on what you do with it. How you work with an egg, what you combine it with and how you cook it will dramatically change the outcome. Your choice of method and other ingredients is determined by what you want to achieve – a fluffy savoury quiche for lunch or a crunchy sticky meringue with some strawberries for dessert.

Your choice of training methods is key to achieving your objectives. Your needs analysis work should have identified specific challenges and opportunities to aid the transfer of learning to the workplace and certain methods and approaches will work really well whilst others will miss the mark. Most recipes will be a little more specific than ‘take one egg, do what you like with it, and hope for the best’. You might get a pancake or you might get scrambled egg. The process notes and specific methods (the recipe) together with the other ingredients are combined to achieve the desired end result. There is no one ‘right’ method – it depends on the ingredients and on what you are trying to achieve.

So, with a rumbling stomach, let us consider what methods we have available when designing our business training and how we might make the right choices to ensure a successful, and predictable, end result.

The importance of variety

Variety is the spice of life,

That gives it all its flavour.

This quotation, from British poet William Cowper, is appropriate as you design your business training. In playing to different learning styles, engaging and retaining the audience’s attention and being in service of achieving your business and training outcomes, variety is important.

As you construct your training design, put yourself in the shoes of the participant and ask yourself:

• What would I need now in this training?
• How long have I been sitting?
• Have I had enough input and is it time to try some practice?
• Is this going to help me apply the learning to my everyday work situation?

Challenge yourself and employ a variety of methods – some of which you may be less comfortable with than others.

Making the right choice of methodology

When you choose a restaurant, what is it that entices you? Do you prefer something with traditional cuisine? Do you like something that pushes the boundaries? Do you like surprises or do you go to a restaurant where you know what you are going to get? What are the consequences of these preferences? If you favour the same restaurant where you know what you are going to get, are you missing out on something even better because you will not try somewhere new?

Just as some of today’s celebrity chefs are known for their favoured style or approach, we can favour certain training methodologies. These may work for us as a trainer but do they achieve the objectives? For example, in a lot of professional service firms the Harvard Case Teaching methodology is popular. In this methodology a session is built around a real-life case study. The case study outlines a particular situation and the trainer poses some specific questions which are then discussed and debated by participants and the trainer. Lawyers like it; they relate to the intellectual debate that it stimulates and some trainers enjoy using it. The danger is that this becomes a de facto standard methodology for working with partners rather than being used after objective consideration of the learning outcomes and what is needed to transfer the learning to the work environment.

Your choice of method will be determined by a number of factors. For example, the business and training objectives, the context and environment of the business, the participant profile and experience. Unfortunately the choice is too often tainted by our own preference and what has led to past successes for us.

What we’re going to do is give you an overview of the key methods used in business training and challenge you to discover the best way to achieve the objectives and transfer the learning.

In most cases – especially those involving skills development – there are some key elements common to every training course:

• building the ‘Why?’
• covering the content, the information;
• putting it into practice;
• how the learning will be applied.

As you consider what will be the right methodologies to use, keep thinking about the following questions:

• What am I trying to achieve in this session? Is it imparting new information, deepening understanding, raising individual or group awareness, developing a skill, increasing motivation for action?
• What would be the best way to achieve this aim?
• What is needed to ensure transfer of learning to the work environment?
• How well does this methodology help me meet the learning objectives?

Overview of methods

There are a number of methods that you can use in your training. Below we consider the most popular and effective methods:

• lecture;
• group exercises;
• plenary sessions;
• individual reflection;
• role plays;
• use of actors;
• use of ‘nearly clients’;
• video recording/playback;
• case studies.

Lecture

Lecturing involves the trainer providing information, generally from the front of the room, to the group as a whole. A lecture implies one-way communication although the best lecturers will use opportunities for two-way interaction by asking questions.

When to use

• useful to impart information and facts that are new to the group.
• often forms part of a business training session – especially useful when combined with other methodologies to give a more complete learning experience.
• when groups are already motivated to listen.
• when theory, facts or information are key.

How to use

• Lecturing on its own does not guarantee learning – use it as part of an overall structure together with other methodologies.
• Remember that a lecture can be less than engaging – ensure you consider the audience and how to retain interest and engagement through your visual aids and delivery. Keep lecture segments to 10–15 minutes where possible.
• Think about the timing of doing it this way – too early in a training session and it can set a habit that the experience is going to be one-way and may hamper interaction.

Group exercises

Group exercises create interaction and a shared experience for participants. They enable practice, thought development, discussion, the building of shared views and contribution to the learning. They can be effective in raising awareness and responsibility. Group exercises can be carried out as one group (i.e. all participants in the same group) or by dividing into smaller groups.

When to use

• When you want the group to interact.
• When you want to practise a skill that you have covered by other methods such as a lecture.
• When you want to encourage the group to think for themselves, develop their thinking or point of view.
• To discuss practical aspects of implementing the learning – opportunities, barriers, support needed etc.
• When you want the group to resolve an issue or solve a problem.

How to use

• Watch for individuals who take over within a group exercise. Set up the exercise to minimise this by requesting a contribution from all group members.
• Consider the size of the group based on what you are seeking to achieve, the complexity of the task (the higher the complexity, generally, the smaller the group) and the time you have for the activity.
• When working in multiple, smaller groups, be aware that each will have their own experience and will not, necessarily, benefit from or share the thinking of the other groups. If this sharing is desirable, then it is important to manage the debrief, and the questions you might use within this debrief, to encourage the level of sharing that you want to achieve.
• Consider mixing groups up to enable different people to interact during the training session.

Plenary sessions

Plenary refers to a session in your business training when all participants are together. Whilst it might be using a lecture style, we make a distinction here in that plenary, for us, means a session that can be interactive and involves the whole group. So, in plenary you can debrief exercises (even if the exercise has been carried out in sub-groups) and engage in ‘whole group’ discussions. We have also worked in plenary to teach a group how to juggle, for example. In this case, we have included two or three practice sessions during the course of the day as a metaphor for how easily you can develop a new skill. It also provides a physical exercise to bring variety to a business training session.

When to use

• When the whole group would benefit from being included in the same discussion – so that everyone hears everyone else’s contribution.
• To create a shared point of view.
• To raise awareness of the whole group through asking questions that encourage thought and discussion.
• To debrief exercises.

How to use

• Be clear on your objectives for the session – what do you want to achieve through the plenary session?
• It is often useful to structure your plenary session around specific questions that create thought and/or discussion.
• Ensure you keep to the agenda – beware of going off track with group discussions.

Individual reflection

In the work environment individuals need to consider how they will implement what has been taught. Group exercises are great to develop shared thinking but individual reflection is useful to personalise learning.

When to use

• When you want individuals to consider the learning for themselves, perhaps through an individual guided exercise.
• To raise individual awareness and responsibility for either the learning or its application in the work environment.
• As part of an action planning session or to consider individual learning objectives.

How to use

• With clear direction to avoid either confusion or different interpretations by individuals.
• With clear instruction on whether their thinking and reflection is to be shared in the group or to be kept to themselves.

Role plays

The very words ‘role play’ can create groans of displeasure from participants. But it remains a very effective way to ‘try out’ participants’ new learning in a safe environment. Role plays are practical sessions where two or more participants engage in some form of simulation, often built around a scenario that is relevant to their context and learning needs.

When to use

• After new skills have been taught using other methods to give an opportunity to practise and develop the skills.
• In some instances, role play can be used before the development of new skills to raise awareness about the need for the learning and of key issues to be addressed. If this is the case, be careful about their positioning and how participants will feel – it is rarely advisable to create a sense of ‘lacking ability’ in participants!
• To create an opportunity to give feedback to participants that informs their development needs and recognises their strengths.
• For a group to observe and learn from the experience of others.

How to use

• Make sure any scenarios are clear and relate, where appropriate, to the participants’ specific work context, language and environment.
• Consider the amount of detail to provide in the scenarios and the briefing. How much do you want to specify a situation for the role play versus allowing participants room to explore and develop the scenario?
• Brief participants to treat the role plays authentically to avoid possible unrealistic reactions.
• Be especially clear in your briefing on timings and expectations. Of all training methodologies, this one has lots of scope for misunderstanding.
• Brief participants on your expectations. There may be different roles within role play groups such as observer, performer, manager, etc. Accompany the briefing with any observation sheets.
• Recognise that there is real value from participants adopting different roles as it can bring new perspectives to the learning.
• Feedback within participant groups or from the trainer/facilitator to the participant is often an important aspect of role play work. Be clear on how feedback should be given (e.g. balanced, objective, specific, ‘one thing you liked and one thing you would change’).
• Consider your role in the exercise. How will you work with the group(s) while they are in the role play? If the objective is for them to have an experience that increases their confidence and ability, your role is critical. Offering too much feedback could undermine confidence, seeing someone struggle and not engaging to help them resolve this struggle could have an equally detrimental effect. Be consciously aware of your involvement.
• Avoid the ‘set piece’ role play with two people from the group at the front of the room – it tends to create nerves and reduce trust.

Actors

The use of actors can add a great sense of reality to role play situations and also when used to demonstrate different situations and interactions in front of a group.

When to use

• To demonstrate how to apply a skill or approach an interaction correctly.
• To demonstrate how not to apply a skill or approach an interaction (engage the group in discussion – best practice/bad practice/common mistakes – to promote thought and learning).
• To add reality to role play situations – have participants role play with actors.
• When more control or direction is important to demonstrate or bring out specific concepts than role playing using participants can guarantee.

How to use

• Requires a very clear briefing to the actors on context, content, boundaries and key learning points.
• When using actors to demonstrate a situation, you can have participants critique and suggest what happens next to form a more interactive session. This allows you to develop a scenario and interject with key learning points at different stages.
• If actors are to give feedback to participants you will need to brief them on the way you would like them to do this to ensure specific and objective feedback.

‘Nearly clients’

An important development that is making a positive impact in the field of professional service firms is the use of ‘nearly clients’. ‘Nearly clients’ differ from actors in that they are individuals who currently, or have in the past, occupied roles that the role play simulation seeks to replicate. This can provide the ultimate in ‘reality role plays’ as participants can interact with people who have the background, understanding of the operating and market environment, and reactions of the ‘target’ individuals.

When to use

• When practical sessions (such as skills building and strategy) would benefit from an ‘external’ perspective and challenge.
• When context and reality are important in ‘role play’ sessions.
• When you want to ‘test’ certain ideas and approaches that you might want to try with real client interactions.

How to use

• With a careful and specific brief to the ‘nearly clients’ to set expectations – these people are not actors and may not be experienced in working at training events in this way.
• Leverage the ‘reality’ of the session with participants – they will receive genuine reactions from the ‘nearly clients’ and this can provide real insight and awareness for participants.
• Feedback given by ‘nearly clients’ may not fit current HR best practice – prepare participants and brief ‘nearly clients’ on this aspect of the session.

Video recording/playback

Video recording can be a great way of assisting in developing behaviour change. When an individual, or a group, see and hear themselves interacting it raises awareness and provides a ‘mirror’ that gives important ‘self-generated’ feedback.

This method is particularly useful in presentation skills training as it provides immediate feedback on personal style, impact and behaviours. We have worked with many groups where participants have expressed surprise when seeing how they present – maybe fiddling with pens while speaking or over-using certain words or phrases. Seeing the video playback has resulted in immediate behaviour change.

When to use

• When you want to raise awareness about how individuals and groups might be perceived by others.
• When you want to raise awareness of the group about how they react together as a group.
• When you are seeking to develop behaviour change in areas such as interpersonal communication, presentation or personal impact.

How to use

• Consider group size – video recording often works best in small groups in view of the time considerations. For example, when we work with groups on presentation skills and personal impact we often limit the group size to five participants per facilitator.
• Make sure you are familiar with the camera technology before the training session – you will often need to capture the recording whilst at the same time focus on what the participant is doing if you are to give feedback. Keep it simple!
• Consider how you will use the recording – will you play it back in full, use specific clips, give the recording to the participant afterwards etc.?
• Consider how you will use the recording from the perspective of retaining participant comfort with the process. For example, based on the context and topic, how would participants who were recorded on video in a small sub-group feel about their recording being played back to the larger group?
• Be very clear on your objectives in using video recording and articulate these to the group.
• Be aware that video recording is not something that everyone is comfortable with – take enough time to build the compelling reason for its use and the benefits that participants will gain from it.

Case studies

Many participants will be more inductive than deductive reasoners, which means that they learn better from examples than from logical development starting with basic principles. So case studies can be very effective as a form of problem-based learning. Case studies have long been used in business schools, law schools and medical schools, but they can be used in any business training situation if the trainer wants participants to explore how what they have learned applies to real-world situations. A typical business case study is a detailed account of what happened in a specific company, industry or project over a set period of time. There is usually a decision-maker who is grappling with some question or problem that needs to be resolved. The learner is given details about the situation, often in an historical context. The key players are introduced and the objectives and challenges are outlined. This is followed by specific examples and data (which could be financial, urls, testimony or images) which the learner then uses to analyse the situation, determine what happened, and make recommendations. The facilitator facilitates the process of discovery, analysis and learning.

Cases come in many formats, from a simple ‘What would you do in this situation?’ question to a detailed description of a situation with accompanying data to analyse. Your decision as to whether to use a simple scenario-type case or a complex detailed one will depend on your objectives.

The skills the participants will be using include:

• identification of the problem or challenge;
• understanding and interpreting data;
• analysing information;
• recognising assumptions and inferences;
• thinking analytically and critically;
• exercising judgement;
• taking and defending decisions;
• understanding interpersonal relationships;
• communicating ideas and opinions.

When to use

Cases differ from lectures or assigned readings, because they require participation and deliberate application of a broad range of skills. Case assignments can be done individually or in teams so that the students can brainstorm solutions and share the work load. Case studies are a great way to improve a learning experience, because they get the learner involved, and encourage immediate use of newly acquired skills. Used well they are useful for all learning styles. What really separates case studies from other practical forms of learning – such as scenarios and simulations – is the ability to compare the learners’ recommendations with what actually happened.

• Case studies are great team-building opportunities. When a team gets together to solve a case, they’ll have to work through different opinions, methods and perspectives.
• They tend to focus on the why and how to apply a skill or concept, not on remembering facts and details. Use case studies when understanding the concept is more important than memorising correct responses.
• They build capability in problem-solving.
• They can be used to generate new thinking or to get the group to be creative.

How to use

A case study can take anything from an hour to a whole day or beyond. In a straightforward application, the presentation of the case study establishes a framework for analysis. Depending on the course objectives, the trainer may encourage students to follow a systematic approach to their analysis. Here is an example:

• What is the context of the problem?
• What is the core issue?
• What key facts should be considered?
• What options are available to the decision-maker?
• What would you recommend – and why?

If you want to be innovative, you might decide to role play key sections. This not only actively engages learners, but forces them to really understand the perspectives of the case characters.

For information about case studies and to use them in your business training sessions go to http://www.mollerpsfgcambridge.com/

Working with exercises

Exercises can be an essential part of business training. This will help practise or embed the learning. The difference between an exercise being successful or not is dependent on two things: how you plan it in the design stage and how you facilitate it during delivery.

When thinking about exercises, it’s important to think about set-up, timings and debriefing.

The importance of set-up

The way exercises are set up is critical to their success. In all but the simplest of exercises there are some common mistakes that can be easily avoided if you follow these tips in the design phase:

Timings

In our experience, exercises often take longer than you think they will in design. The logistics of organising the group, the need to repeat instructions and give time for an overrun and an effective debrief all add up.

During your design process, be as realistic as you can when considering the time required. Rushing an exercise can decrease the learning from it and overrunning can compromise the delivery of other content. Consider the time required for each step of the exercise from set-up through to debrief. It helps to mentally walk through exactly what you need participants to do and what they would need to know in order to be totally clear.

Importance and method of debrief

The debrief enables you to draw out the key learning points from an exercise. Resist the urge to tell people what these points are. Craft some open questions to draw the learning from the participants. Simple questions often work best:

• How was that? (then use questions to explore the responses you get)
• What did you learn?
• What worked well?
• What can you take from this exercise back to the workplace?

Your questions should be crafted to raise awareness. When you make someone aware of the right thing, it helps them improve their performance. Exercises are often about putting a theory, tool or approach into practice. They are an opportunity for individuals to experience something. If you raise awareness about the key aspects or learning from that experience, you assist the individual in improving their performance or developing the new skill or behaviour.

When someone does something new for the first time, there may be a feeling of discomfort. Be aware of this in the debrief and acknowledge it as part of the learning process. We often reinforce that the most important skills you learn as an individual start with some level of discomfort and that this is a necessary stage on the way to embedding and securing a new skill.

If the exercise is to be carried out in small groups then another option in the debrief is to pose specific questions to the groups to discuss amongst themselves before reporting back to the larger group. This can give further time for directed reflection and can be helpful if working with a large group.

Other creative methods

Your design should not be constrained by convention or an over-reliance on traditional methods of training. You might create or use alternative methods to support participant learning and maximise the chance of transfer to the work environment.

Two examples that we have seen used in different situations are:

• group ‘board games’ that engage small groups around a task, such as running a business for example; and
• card sets that pose different questions or problems with either discussion points or exercises on the reverse. With this approach, groups can prioritise topics of interest and then focus on those prioritised issues with mini-exercises.

Summary

When designing your training, you have many choices of method that you can use.

• Consider building different methods into your training to bring variety and maintain engagement.
• Choose a method based on your session objectives.
• Consider what you want individuals to experience in addition to the tangible session objective that you have. This might be reflection, experience, the ability to air views in the group, etc.
• When working with exercises, build enough time into your design for the set-up, repeating the brief, carrying out the exercise and then the debrief.
• Debriefing is critical to developing and personalising the learning. Plan the debrief questions and ensure that you make enough time for this aspect.