part 3

Design and practical application

So, you have carried out a highly effective needs analysis. You are clear on the business outcomes, the wishes of the sponsors and the changes that need to be delivered in performance in the working environment.

The design of a business training solution will logically follow an effective and comprehensive needs analysis. Armed with this analysis there are a number of variables you will have to consider in order to ensure the design addresses the needs and engages the learners.

Jeremy remembers attending a sales training course early in his career. He recalls walking into the training room and feeling a little overwhelmed by the idea of spending the next three days learning everything he could about sales. A combination of fear of the unknown – not knowing what to expect from the course or how he would fare relative to the other participants – and concern that it was a whole three days away from his sales ‘patch’ meant that he was not looking forward to it.

What surprised Jeremy was how quickly he found himself engaged with the programme and increasingly confident that he was learning really useful information quickly and easily. The time flew by and he remembers leaving the programme completely motivated to implement a lot of what was covered. It was one of the few training courses that he can specifically recall learning two or three key things that he still utilises in his work today.

But what was it that made the learning stick? What happened to make Jeremy feel engaged so quickly? What was it about how the programme was designed that made the difference?

Some training programmes stand out because of how they make us feel, how they help us change our minds and commit to changing behaviour. Others are simply forgotten. They fail to ignite our curiosity, engage us in wanting to learn or help us have confidence that we can learn. They fall short in helping us develop and improve skills or in taking on new knowledge and committing it to our memory, to be applied when it is most needed.

Great design is critical if you want your training to stand out. We believe that there are a few key design concepts and approaches that will make a disproportionately positive impact on the effectiveness of your training.

In planning this part we realised that it is actually very difficult to separate the design aspects of business training from the delivery itself. The two things often overlap. A lot of the concepts that you utilise in effective training design are also applied in a very practical way during the delivery phase of the training itself.

With this in mind, this part will help you if:

• you are interested in the basic theory, research, concepts and ‘best practice’ that underpin great training design;
• you want to consider how to implement these concepts practically into training delivery;
• you are designing business training that others may deliver, delivering training that may have been designed by someone else or doing both design and delivery

This part will answer questions including:

• What are the key principles that I should pay attention to in designing highly effective training?
• How should I structure a training programme? What constitutes ‘best practice’?
• How should I formulate learning objectives?
• How can I utilise learning styles to engage all of my participants effectively?
• What can I do in designing training to keep my participants engaged in the learning?
• What are my options in terms of the different activities and ways of conducting business training that are available for me to use?
• What must I do in the first hour of a business training event to ensure success?
• What can I do to ensure that participants take action as a result of the training?

The chapters in this part look at both design and the practical application during delivery of these design aspects. Part 4 focuses on the other aspect of delivery: the trainer as performer. This covers the important individual characteristics around delivery that make the difference between a ‘good’ and ‘great’ trainer. The aspect of ‘delivery’, therefore, is split between these two parts.

What would it mean if you could design compelling and effective business training every time? What are the simple concepts that can easily make this a reality? What would the impact on results be if you could guarantee an engaged, motivated and curious group of participants on every programme?