Choose Your Topics Wisely
Key #1 for Elevating Confidence & Performance
“10 Keys” Online Learning Design Series
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Choose Your Topics Wisely: Key #1 for Elevating Confidence & Performance
Table of Contents
KEY #1 - CHOOSE YOUR TOPICS WISELY .................................3
1. DETERMINE WHAT NEEDS TO BE ACHIEVED .....................5
2. ALIGN DIFFERENT OBJECTIVES ...............................................6
3. IDENTIFY WHO CONTROLS THE RESOURCES ....................7
4. DECIDE WHOSE BUY-IN YOU NEED MOST .........................8
Choose Your Topics Wisely
Key #1 for Elevating Confidence & Performance
Written by: Rich DiBenedetto
The author has taken care in preparation of this White Paper, but makes no expressed or implied
warranty of any kind and assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions.
1st printing June 2014
Copyright © 2014 Rich DiBenedetto
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any
means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, Internet, or
information storage and retrieval systems—without the written permission of Rich DiBenedetto.
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Choose Your Topics Wisely: Key #1 for Elevating Confidence & Performance
KEY #1 - CHOOSE YOUR TOPICS WISELY
In 2005, I had the privilege of working with the creators of the Loss Prevention
Foundation in developing two certification preparatory courses. While figuring out which
topics to include, I become mired in the amount of information that our content
committees recommended. Knowing that we had a schedule to keep, I realized that
before we could start writing we had to slow down and correctly identify the topics that
had the most relevance to our target audience and would provide the greatest benefit. So
I focused and asked myself four critical questions:
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What is their greatest source of pain?
•
What is causing the pain?
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Can we do anything to reduce or eliminate the pain?
•
If so, is education and/or training the appropriate solution?
Did we need to train loss prevention associates on how to apply force during an
apprehension? No. But we did need to make sure that they understood the escalation of
force principles and the consequences of violating policies and laws. As it turns out, the
“pain” was in the lack of a consistent message concerning the “why” of using force, not the
“how.”
Identifying the conditions surrounding pain points helps to focus attention on the
areas most responsible for impeding confidence and performance. Understanding the
factors that influence pain points is a crucial step in developing solutions to mitigate the
causes. If you prioritize the pain points, you will quickly identify the suspected causes and
the potential solutions.
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Choose Your Topics Wisely: Key #1 for Elevating Confidence & Performance
What you’ll discover is that training is not the solution for all of the pain. In this
case, education (transfer of knowledge) was the solution rather than training (imparting of
skills) for this particular “pain.” Each situation has its own conditions and factors that will
help to set your priorities and determine whether or not training is the solution.
Working on these four action items will help to narrow the scope of the requirements so
that you can focus on creating relevant content.
4 Actions for Choosing Training Topics:
1. Determine What Needs To Be Achieved
2. Align Different Objectives
3. Identify Who Controls The Resources
4. Decide Whose Buy-In You Need Most
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Choose Your Topics Wisely: Key #1 for Elevating Confidence & Performance
1. DETERMINE WHAT NEEDS TO BE ACHIEVED
Ask ten employees what they want to take away from a training event and you
might end up with ten different answers. Ask ten managers what they’d like their team to
take away from the same training event and you will end up with ten different answers.
The reason for this inconsistency should not be a surprise; those that actually do the job
have different needs than those who manage the job.
If you want to know about pain, then go talk to the people who have the pain. You
might be surprised by what you learn when you ask simple, straight-forward questions.
Even though the quality of the feedback might range from irrelevant to insightful, having
a pool of shared experiences should result in some actionable insights. Of course, not
every suggestion will be suitable for a professional training program. No need to
embarrass anyone; just quietly weed out those that don’t make the cut. As you evaluate
what you need to accomplish in a learning event, you should think in terms of relevance,
feasibility, and achievability.
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Choose Your Topics Wisely: Key #1 for Elevating Confidence & Performance
2. ALIGN DIFFERENT OBJECTIVES
What do you what your learners to be able to do when they finish the training?
Does it involve an improvement is this? A reduction in that? No matter what you expect of
your learners, the training has to be based on a clear set of objectives that address your
understanding of the existing problem. The challenge is in understanding the problem
well enough to narrow the scope of the solutions that will be included in the training
event. To do this, you should directly examine the source of the problem which will cause
several objectives to surface. The result will be an appreciation for the extent of the needs
and the course of action necessary to identify different objectives.
Those objectives then need to be aligned based on several factors, including:
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Available development time
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Available training time
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Access to resources such as subject matter experts, content, developers,
technology, etc.
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A changing work environment that you cannot control or predict
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Skill and knowledge levels of the learners
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Choose Your Topics Wisely: Key #1 for Elevating Confidence & Performance
3. IDENTIFY WHO CONTROLS THE RESOURCES
Remember being a kid and desperately wanting that sleek skateboard that
symbolized fun and freedom? (If not, just play along). The tough part was finding the
money to pay for it. Maybe mom or dad would “gift” it to you. Maybe you’d earn the
money raking leaves. No matter what, you had to figure out the path that would lead to
your goal. It’s no different in business. If you don’t have control over the money, then you
will have to figure out the best approach to resourcing your most valuable and viable
training projects.
How about people resources? Can you get some help if you need it? If you look
around, you’ll probably find some smart and talented people who are willing to provide
some assistance. A beneficial approach is to form committees and invite the most
qualified, enthusiastic, and influential people to join. Not only will they be flattered, they
will also take ownership of whatever tasks you assign and, if you’re lucky, put in extra
hours to achieve your objectives. Volunteerism is a wonderful trait that can increase your
productivity and reduce some expenses. Just make sure that you balance the workload or
else you might overwork your committee members and lose momentum.
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Choose Your Topics Wisely: Key #1 for Elevating Confidence & Performance
4. DECIDE WHOSE BUY-IN YOU NEED MOST
“Truly successful decision-making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive
thinking.”
― Malcolm Gladwell 1
You’ve done the research, you’ve identified the problem, and you’ve determined
that training is the solution. Now you need the resources to bring the project to life, but
you don’t have the final word. So who can you convince to support your idea? Ask
yourself two important questions: “Who will benefit the most from this initiative?” and
“Who has the most influence to make this happen?”
It’s not always easy to convince people to support your ideas. However, if you are
prepared to present your vision while focusing on the impact to the bottom line, you just
might corral important contacts into your corner. Remember, people will want to know
what’s in it for them before they’ll jump on board. It’s just a reality, so deal with it straight
on.
If you demonstrate that creating an exceptional learning
experience will increase confidence, performance, and
profits, you will have a good chance of convincing the right
people that the investment is worthwhile.
1
GoodReads (2014). Malcolm Galdwell. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/108663-truly-successful-decision-making-relies-ona-balance-between-deliberate-and
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Choose Your Topics Wisely: Key #1 for Elevating Confidence & Performance
About Learn it Solutions
Our team consists of professionals with diverse backgrounds and experiences. Our
expertise is in learning design, multimedia production, and learning technologies. We
incorporate these strengths into a process and product that is designed to produce an
exceptional learning experience that elevate confidence, performance, and profits.
We published this white paper to help anyone responsible for creating online
training and education courses to better understand some of the critical factors necessary
to end the epidemic of boring online courses.
To find out more about creating engaging and dynamic online training and
education courses, feel free to contact us at 877.343.7863 or [email protected].
Learn it Solutions
545 Washington Blvd., 22nd Floor
Jersey City, New Jersey 07310
www.learnitsolutions.com
Learn it Solutions is a business unit within the Verisk Claims & Crime Analytics family of
companies.
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Choose Your Topics Wisely: Key #1 for Elevating Confidence & Performance