Micro-Learning: A Blog of Two Halves

There’s a growing movement that suggests that we should ban full day training workshops. I don’t agree with that, sometimes a full day workshop is the right thing to do, but I DO agree that we shouldn’t just assume it is the answer. Learning in the flow of work, bite-size and micro-learning are all highlighted as being ‘better’. I flip flop between the two positions and here are my reasons.

For

Listening to one of David James’ podcasts really, he mentioned how L&D professionals dutifully do a training needs analysis but then due to pressures on time and resources, end up grouping similar needs, generalising the underlying issues and then creating a workshop that sort of covers everyone’s issues but not anyone’s specially, or even if it does, it’s only a small part of the day. Been there, done that, and with good reason. Businesses don’t want 14 different communication skills courses to be written or delivered – its not easy to administer or cost effective to offer.

I’ve long been a fan of bite-size learning (I created Power Hour Training in 2010 specifically to help people to deliver it), but it needs to be used appropriately. For example, I was recently chatting with one of my Training Designer’s Club members about her challenge to write a time management workshop that met everyone’s needs when the roles in the organisation were so different. I suggested that instead of writing one 8-day workshop, she writes four 2-hour ones, covering specific challenges: Planning and organising, handling interruptions, beating procrastination and managing monkeys. Of course, people can attend more than one, but it’s unlikely they would need more than 2. This can be supplemented by signposting useful resources.

To us, that felt like a better solution – yes, it will take slightly longer to develop, and there are now 4 courses to organise, not one, BUT people are more likely to attend and less likely to drop out at the last minute because it’s a two-hour workshop on something they have a problem with.

So bite-size works well here!

Against

A fellow trainer in an on-line forum has been asked to deliver the content for her successful 2-day management and leadership course in another way – but there’s no budget for e-learning, and people can’t be off the job for more than an hour at a time. Lots of us have offered suggestions (self-directed learning, bite-size sessions and coaching being mine) BUT…

Sometimes we need to need to take time out to think and reflect. We can’t just instantly switch from one mode to another. Think about when you go on holiday… for most of us, it takes a couple of days for us to mentally change pace and let go of all those work things in our minds.

If I’m trying to learn something quite tricky like how to have a difficult conversation, watching a YouTube video isn’t going to cut it. I’m not saying it adds no value at all – of course, it can. BUT we need to do a bit of self analysis, reflection, explore attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. We need to be challenged, practice and get feedback. We can’t do that in an hour, especially if for the first 15 minutes, I’m thinking about that message I didn’t pass on, that person I need to chase, and for the last 15 minutes, hoping we don’t run over so I can catch so and so before they disappear into a meeting for the afternoon, and that email I really need to send.

Longer, off the job training allows us to mentally switch. There’s a reason that the first half hour of a workshop is all about introductions, scene setting and managing expectations. It’s the half hour when people unpack everything else that’s going on in their head – they don’t come instantly ready to learn – we need to allow time for that to happen, and it can’t with micro-learning.

Of course, if you are learning a very specific task, you don’t need it – I recently used YouTube to learn how to do French knitting. I didn’t need that mental space/warm up to do that: It was a simple task, not something that required me to make a personal change.

But to come back to the point, and for reasons of mental time and space, I’m not sure that bite-size learning will work as well in this Leadership and Management example.

In summary, I’ll use an analogy of a restaurant – by adding Vegan meals to a menu, we expand our offering. It doesn’t mean we need to stop offering sausages and mash.

As L&D professionals, we have more choice than ever, and we should be using the full range of options available to us.