It’s amazing how many acronyms we currently use. Most trainers would know exactly what I mean if I were to say, “The launch date for this course is TBD.” (If you guessed “to be determined,” pat yourself on the back.) Where these acronyms really shine is when we come up with one that relates our work to non-work-related ideas. For example, SMART work objectives must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely.
Well, here’s a new everyday acronym that relates to the two most critical factors for success (in my opinion, anyway) in any training program: PB&J. To my kids, it means a yummy snack. But to trainers, it means: Performance-Based, and Justified. In any course design work, the designer should stay focused on these two goals. During any course delivery, the facilitator should guide learners towards these two goals. I’m sure just the words themselves elicit particular thoughts about good training, so I’ll elaborate and let you decide what to take away from my own vision.
Performance-based training teaches people skills they can use back on the job. In my experience, one of the biggest mistakes a training professional can make is to focus too much course content and activity on information. Don’t get me wrong, I believe information can be crucial to improving people’s job performance. But information alone rarely helps people address ongoing problems in their job. What learners need, along with this information, is how to use it. They need clear, workable, practical procedures to perform the problematic parts of our jobs. In short, training should focus on people’s job tasks, rather than on topics.
Justified training is connected to real opportunities or problems the organization is experiencing. It’s sad to see training misused. How many times have trainers been asked to design courses for the wrong reasons? Those wrong reasons range from misunderstanding training (“Our employees need something to help them…”) to outright dubious intentions. (“This problem is a poison apple, so I’ll just pass it off to the training group…”) Heck, even we have to accept some of the flak for this problem. (“Our course list is looking rather short, we should design a new one…”) Justified training has specific, measurable end results that relate to actual business outcomes desired by the organization.
There are hundreds of ways to implement PB&J training, so here’s a short list of ideas for designers and facilitators.
- During course design, if a SME (Oh look, another acronym! If you guessed Subject-Matter Expert, pat yourself on the back again.) starts rambling about topic-based stuff, ask: “But how did you use that knowledge to do your job better?”
- If there are too many quizzes in your course design, try replacing them with more realistic practice. Ask yourself, “How will these people be expected to do their jobs better after this course? How can I make them practice that?”
- Look at your course objectives. Do they describe what people will do in the training, or back on the job? (The back-on-the-job ones are performance-based.)
- While delivering a course, consider using the following phrases to conclude lessons. “When you get back to work…” or “Not just during this course, but back on the job…”
- Suppress the urge to share the information you’ve learned while preparing to give a course. Save training time by focusing on the procedures that make up the course content, and get right to the practice as soon as possible.
This is just a smattering of ideas that make training more PB&J. I could go on, but this is a blog post, not a blong post. I’d love to hear your ideas, though. What kinds of things have you been doing, or might start doing, to make your training full of PB&J goodness?
Alan
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