10 Lessons from LearnNowCrystal Taggart, MBA

Atlas-Innovations.com

Trainasyougo.com ZipLearn.co (coming soon)

Presented by:Chad Udell, Managing Director, Float Mobile LearningJane Bozarth, E-Learning Coordinator, CN State GovernmentJulie Dirksen, Learning and Design Strategist, Usable Learning

Most Organizational Development Teams Face the Same Challenges• Not enough resources, money or time

• Project-Based Assignments • Can’t improve over time

• Can’t get data to measure the results

• Learning isn’t measured against the organizational goals

Innovation is a Mind-Shift

• To do things differently, you have to think differently

• Innovation is not using a new tool to solve a problem in the old way

• Innovation means experimentation and feedback

• Tools to think laterally can help you to think differently

So much content…but no one reads it

• Create ways to reach your audience• Feedback, design, knowing your audience, and channels are key

• Design ways to get feedback into your curriculum beyond the ‘end of session 10-page survey’

• Design ways to reiterate the content over time because people forget

• Design ways to test the knowledge 2 days, 2 weeks, and 2 months later

Behavior Change is Hard

• If it were easy, everyone would stop smoking, eat right and exercise more

• Assessing why users aren’t changing is a key to understanding how to overcome resistance

• Often, resistance comes because of organizational issues, not training • Are reward systems in place to support the behavior, are there measurements

in place to see if it’s improved?

• Does the environment support the new behavior?

Social Learning

• Humans have always learned socially

• Use different means to communicate based on the type of message:• Broadcasting or publishing: one-way

• Sharing: more personal to the situation

• Building and Cultivating Relationships: creating conversations

• Collaboration: working together to solve a problem

• Create ways to encourage social learning

Changing the learning process is hard

• What is the price of not knowing?

• Is there a way to pilot without a full investment?

• Are there free tools that you can use to solve the problem?

• How do you know if your solution is working?

• Look in other disciplines such as marketing for solutions

• Using tools like force field analysis and mind-mapping can help think through an issue

Do your metrics show results or are they vanity metrics?• Do the learning metrics tie to organizational objectives?

• Or – are they uncorrelated? • We got an average of 4.5 out of 5 so it must have been good. Right?

• Connect the dots between learning and results? • Is the process fixed, are there less errors or more sales?

• Can you assess the difference between groups, one of which was successful, one of which was not?

Testing Your Methods

• Testing provides good insight into how intuitive and easy your training is

• Observing usability tests is better than written logs

• Usability issues can be found in the first 5-6 users

Observations from a Technologist

• Innovation means trying something new and it doesn’t have to be a new tool – it means trying something new

• Talking to people about new ways to solve a problem helps to create new ideas and new solutions.

• Talking about old solutions to old problems night not

• Look to lean startup, agile, and fail fast, fail forward to try new things

• Innovation is a culture. Create a process for innovation.