We had a client almost 10 years ago who needed to “train” customer service reps on a new software application. After some on-site workflow analysis we determined that much of the training was needed to make up for poor user interface design. We built a performance support tool (decision-tree in a browser) and reduced what had been a five week course to five days of instruction on how to use the tool.

Also, I am sure that there are different computer learning skills amongst these 700 learners. I know that my son can learn a new program in very short order, while my wife needs to be coached through the process. The same course may not be appropriate for everyone.

My own rule of thumb is that training is the last resort, when all other performance improvement alternatives (which are usually cheaper) have been discounted.

http://www.jarche.com/2007/06/job-aids-performance-support/

We however offer them a practice environment where they can go on their own and practice what they have been train to do. This is where they can experiment and personalized their learning based on their level of knowledge.

Lets just assume that we do not provide the the “mass training” and instead we just provide them exercises to practice on their own in the practice environment. Our help line would be overloaded, people will be frustrated to have to wait online and therefore will be more reluctant to learn the new system. We can afford having a trainer teach 15 persons per day, but can we afford having 4 or 5 persons answering each and every day the same questions asked by 25 or 50 different indiuviduals, especially if those questions could have been avoided by a simple group demonstration? And for peer support, who can support when nobody knows about the new system?

In some instances, you just can’t let people learn on their own if you cannot support their learning. It may be more pedagogically sound to personnalized training, but it’s not always efficient from a managers point of view. In my mind, each situation is different and requires a specific solution.

To me, “learning” underlies all the others, because I see learning as the individual’s activity that results in new or strengthened neural connections. (Not that you sit in your chair and say, “let’s build some neurons.”)

The other three, for discussion’s sake, I see as ovals on a spectrum. Training (gaining competence in explicit / near-transfer tasks) at the low end, education (explicit / far-transfer) overlapping it a bit. I’m not crazy about “development” in this taxonomy, but if forced, I’d have it overlap on the other side of education.

You’re right, I think, about formal training as a shrinking component — I just think it’s hard for learning professionals and line managers to agree on a vision of what comes next.

I was musing earlier today (might have been in a comment somewhere) that one reason traditional corporate training looks as measureable and as effective as it does is that so much other stuff happens to make it look good — people survive information dumps, coworkers aid each other, little guerilla job aids emerge.

A side effect of this rudderless approach, though, is inefficiency and superstition: people doing something in this way mostly because that’s how Ned did it, and Ned knew all about the system.

(Just to be clear — by “rudderless” I mean traditional organizational training, low on front-end analysis and generally bereft of either transfer or on-the-job support.)

In fact, there is a debate going on in the marketing world as to whether the new targeted marketing using new technologies is the way to go. “Viral Marketing” using things such as facebook has really taken off. But more traditional organizations have criticized this form of marketing as it is difficult to measure its impact (sound familiar on the training side?). I think, like marketing, there will always be the traditionalists, but they will start to change as there is evidence of the impact that training 2.0 (for lack of a better term) has on organizational learning and acheivement.

Great post. As a refuge from the corporate training world, I have to say that most adult learners don’t want to come to another class, no matter how wonderfully developed we think it is. And when I think about the intense “mass marketing” we had to do to fill a few seats…I suspect we spent more time marketing than actually training.

While we will continue to have mass training for certain things, much of it will be social in nature. What might social mass learning look like? While it’s true we get lots of junk mail, does anyone actually take it inside the house? Mine goes immediately into the recycle bin in the garage…Apparently without mass mailings, the US Postal Service would fold…

Now that I work in the K-12 world, I see a lot of similarities. Kids, certainly by high school and often before, are ready to forge their own learning path. As more colleges abandon the SAT, GRE, etc., other admission criteria will emerge. It’s an exciting time to watch it unfold.