Tips to Design and Deploy, Virtually and Quickly

Now more than any other time, L&D teams need to start looking at rapid deployment of virtual learning solutions, here are a few thoughts to help you along:

o  Think journeys; more effective than a single virtual classroom or e-learning

o  Use micro-bytes:

1. Before and after the virtual class or the e-learning. There are enough micro-bytes out there, curate. If your organization has knowledge management function, partner with them
2. Use micro-bytes to lead up to an e-learning and/or virtual class and after it to reinforce the learning
3. Videos work well, these days they can be shot quickly using mobile cameras and deployed rapidly through social media handles or information sharing tools
4. You can’t typically figure out who is read or seen the micro-byte, hence send more
5. Use any real-time virtual class for sections of your design where you need an instructor to show complex application and handle real time questions
6. Design micro-bytes for the medium you are expecting your learners to leverage, for example, are you expecting your managers to see the micro-byte on their phones? Also, think best time for micro-bytes, for example, would your managers be more open to looking at a micro-byte around 11ish in the morning, once they have handled the morning rush

As a design principle in any journey design, if you can’t run governance on something, send out of more it.

o  Use live virtual platforms instead of building e-learning, building e-learnings will take time. Much quicker to have a subject master expert run a visual backed live session.

o  Keep the duration of any live session to 45-60 minutes.

o  Have a compelling narrative for your virtual learning push, for your live virtual sessions and micro-byte videos, look for speakers who will attract learners, build peer recommendations for the sessions

o  If you are quickly trying to convert a classroom training to a virtual solution, think in terms of the human learning process for any skill, my very simple version of what a learner needs to go through is:

1. For most skills, in a virtual journey, you can do all the above, except for ‘feedback on application’. You can use simulations, however the build for complicated simulations will take time. Basic assessments can be built on most types of LMS, scores can be shared with the skills expert or the performance managers, so there is a work around.
2. Get custom built examples to show application of the skills, learning is more effective, when you show application of the skills in the right and wrong way. Want to teach report-writing? under ‘see application’ from the phases above, get 20 examples of reports made. 10 good and 10 bad, with the bits that make these reports good and bad clearly called out. Send one out every day for two weeks, keep the length to under 5 minutes of reading or viewing
3. How many examples to share? Do this, look at the skill and speak with someone who is good at it, let’s continue with report writing as the example. I will go looking for someone who is very good at report writing, and ask them ‘how many reports did you see before you got a sense of a good and a bad report’, an average of how many reports a month the person was seeing in their learning phase would also do, work with this baseline and then constantly tweak.

This sort of a model can be used rapidly create baseline proficiency of a critical skill across large group of learners.

This is the time for the L&D community to step up and respond in a fashion that is agile, meaningful and effective.

Hope this help, best of luck.

Please note: Expresses views are personal in nature