design Archives - Keystone Development and Training Ltd

Effective training doesn’t have to be boring!!

November 26, 2018Blogbusiness, design, management, OD, talent, training

I can say with confidence that the Johnson’s Apparelmaster Academy is a highly effective training programme. Not only did it win the Personnel Today award for Talent Management on 21st November 2018, but the feedback from delegates offers plenty of proof. When Keystone Development and Training Ltd had finished delivering our part of the Academy, I asked for feedback. here are just some of the things that people said: I am more efficient when dealing with problems. People now trust me to sort things out. This has given me so much confidence in my ability. I now feel able to step outside of my comfort zone. Because of the training, I was able to bring an angry and disruptive (but very influential) team member on board to implement a necessary change. My line manager has seen my confidence grow and now gives me more strategic work to do. I’ve been able to adapt my management style and achieve 180% of our target. I am now able to get my production team to work as a team – which is quite an achievement. And in terms of the style and content of the programme, I’m delighted that our brain-friendly approach to…

How to Create an Award Winning Development Programme

November 22, 2018Uncategorizedbespoke, business, coaching, design, HR, management, managers, OD, performance, talent, training, training design

In L&D circles, the fashion is for agile learning; for bite-size sessions, or even micro-learning; for self-direction and curation. Surely no-one still attends workshops? Even worse, 18 month programmes? Well. Yes they do, and there’s a reason for it: They work. They work AS LONG AS the right people are on the programme in the first place, the programme is designed to take them on a development journey, AND those people are given high levels of support and challenge. I’m delighted to have played a supporting role in such a programme for the last 9 months – The award winning Academy at Johnson’s Apparelmaster. The Academy is multi-layered (internal) development programme that I’ve been supporting for the last 9 months. Here I am (on the right) with (L-R) Charlene Howard, Michela Deegan and Jan Fisher-Payne who each manage and deliver a specific stream. I have been supporting the largest group – the Intermediate level. Although my part has ended, the Academy is just half-way through. Twenty-Four people have been through 9 months of structured development, including self-directed learning, five 2-day workshops, telephone coaching and practical assignments. So far, the results have been pretty impressive. I’ve seen the majority of these…

World of Learning – Key Ingredients of Learning Impact

October 21, 2018Uncategorizedbehaviour, design, HR, managers, OD, training, training design

This is a short blog post based on the notes I made during this session at the World of Learning Conference in October 2018. It may not be complete or totally accurate – it’s just what I took away. I have to say that this session was one of the most insightful and useful – based on transfer of learning, which is a topic that is very important to me. This was an interesting session about an area of learning that matters to me… transfer to the job. Ina Weinbauer-Heidel explained that in most traditional training, 15% of learners get a positive outcome in that they transfer learning to the job successfully; 70% attempt to transfer learning but (for a range of reasons) fail to do so; and 15% don’t even try. So what is the reason for this lack of transfer? Her research identified over 100 factors that influence transfer of learning… she focused on 12 factors that L&D professionals can influence, which she has called 12 Levers of Transfer Effectiveness. These Levers fall into 3 categories: Trainees, Design and Organisation – You can imagine my delight when the importance of training design (not delivery) was highlighted as one…

Training Design and Learner Maturity

October 4, 2018Uncategorizedbespoke, design, HR, management, OD, training, training design

In September I ran 2 (identical) workshops for one of my main clients. One of the topics we were covering was Conflict management. It’s not my strongest subject to cover, so during the design phase I spent a lot of time researching different theories and models to get myself up to date. None of the models or theories jumped out at me as being particularly relevant for my client and the likely conflict situations my delegates would find themselves in. So I did something I would never normally do… I DIDN’T design part of this section of the workshop. As someone who ALWAYS designs in detail (I figure it’s better to give the trainer more than they need than not enough – even when that trainer is me) I felt nervous about this. Just to clarify – I didn’t leave a hole full of nothingness: I did include a section on exploring what conflict is, what causes it and created some bespoke case studies/role plays to explore the practical side of conflict resolution. What I DIDN’T do was prescribe HOW conflict should be resolved. Instead, I asked delegates to complete their own independent research into conflict resolution as pre-course work,…

The Great British Train Off

August 29, 2018Uncategorizeddesign, HR, talent, training

I was asked a question by a freelance trainer in my network who had been running events for a client – “Should I hand over my training materials?” The client then asked to have all of the training materials so they could mop up and run events in the future. My contact was reluctant. The client felt it was their right. It’s a tricky one unless (like me) you always intend to share materials and factor the cost of design into your work: If my clients pay me for the time it takes to design the materials, they can have them. If they don’t, they can’t. It’s quite straight forward, and I’ve written before on this topic. Ultimately, it depends on the agreement between client and supplier and there’s certainly no right or wrong approach. But, as the Great British Bake Off started again this week, I couldn’t help but compare the two situations: You could provide me with all the equipment, the ingredients and detailed instructions to make some of those show-stopper cakes, and they would be a disaster (though I’d like to think I’d make a reasonable success of some of the challenges!). Skill and experience make the…

How to Design Training

July 8, 2018Uncategorizeddesign, management, OD, training, training design

I’m very active on LinkedIn and I realised that many people I’d started my career with are now in very senior positions, or have international roles doing very exciting things. I am still doing (more or less) what I was doing 20 years ago: designing training workshops, learning materials and live learning events. I wondered if this meant I was a failure. I am also aware that many small consultancies like mine and putting more content on line – creating videos, running webinars, and so on. My infrastructure is so bad, I can’t do any of those things. We struggle to watch iplayer. Sometimes I feel that I’m being left behind. But focusing on what I HAVEN’T done, and what I CAN’T do isn’t going to bring success, so I flipped these thoughts. I chose not to climb the corporate ladder for 2 reasons: 1) because I wanted my children to be brought up by their parents, not a childminder, as 2) because the further into management you go, the less involved in training you are. I am a creative person at heart, and my skills aren’t in managing schedules and budgets. By staying as a researcher, designer and occasional…

Material Things…

May 12, 2018Uncategorizeddesign, HR, OD, training, training design

There has been a move away from detailed training materials over the last few years, and I totally get it. Whether it’s saving the environment, catering to different learning preferences, curating what’s already out there, or just wanting people to note down their personal learning rather than the theory, in many ways, limiting training materials makes sense. I have cut down the amount of delegate training materials I create, but actually not by that much. Many people still like to have all the relevant information in one place. That said, increasingly delegate workbooks are presented digitally rather than physically. The slides I create are largely visual so giving delegates a copy of the slides is pointless if it is supposed to act as reference material. Anyway, last week, I was grateful for my slightly old fashioned habit of creating detailed delegate workbooks. I was running a workshop and was told (15 minutes before we started) that some of the delegates would be attending virtually, from another country. English is not their first language. They appeared on the screen where my slides would normally be, so I immediately ditched my slides. Thankfully, I always create detailed trainer’s notes and these, combined…

The Secret Benefit of being a Bespoke Training Designer

March 26, 2018Uncategorizedbespoke, business, design, OD, training, training design

In my last blog, I questioned whether bespoke training was always the right thing to offer. Creating programmes especially for a client, reflecting their culture, structure, language and good practice means that there is always the danger that boundaries aren’t being pushed. BUT, pushing boundaries isn’t always what’s needed. Often, we need to share good practice and help people to achieve high standards (which have been agreed) across the whole organisation, and that’s where bespoke training really adds value. As a bespoke training designer, I need to really get to know the business to do this – recently I’ve been getting to grips with Industrial laundry. It also means working closely with the internal L&D team and taking a steer from them about what should be included. And this is where I benefit personally. If I was a typical training provider, I would have a handful of set courses that I was an expert in, and clients would select the workshops (or programme) that they felt best meets their needs. If I’m selling a set programme, it’s set. I would deliver the same thing over and over, reinforcing my expertise in these areas, yet having no incentive to diversify. Any…

Is Bespoke Training Best?

March 18, 2018Uncategorizedbespoke, design, managers, OD, training, training design

Naturally, my view is ‘YES’! (in most cases). This is why… Recently, my husband attended a leadership course. It was the first he’s ever been on, despite being in a senior role for more than 10 years. Naturally, I grilled him about it! It was a good course – no question about that. The trainer was knowledgeable, engaging and experienced. The concepts covered were interesting, up to date, and provoked thinking and debate. He enjoyed it and found it useful… in the main. But it wasn’t bespoke to his role, or even his industry (though in fairness to the trainer, he acknowledge that everyone worked in the NHS). As someone who ALWAYS creates programmes that are bespoke to a specific organisation, I thought this was the one thing that would have made this workshop better – after all, training is all about application to the job. If we can’t apply what we are learning what’s the point of learning it? I put this to my husband, and he agreed to a point: Tech companies and manufacturing work very differently to the NHS, and although it was interesting, it was sometimes difficult to understand the link and apply the principles to…

Training Design – More than just a typing job

February 26, 2018Uncategorizedbusiness, design, training, training design

I attend a lot of networking events, and often find myself explaining what it is that I actually DO for clients and trainers. Clearly I need to work on my communication skills because people assume that I’m some sort of programmer, creating sophisticated e-learning packages. I can just about manage social networking platforms, and am one of the least IT literate people I know!. Or, when I describe that I create live training sessions, I’m told “Our administrator does that for us”. I then have to politely explain that “No, they don’t”. What you administrator does is prepare your training materials. This is quite different from designing training. I am not a typist. My typing skills are average. I’m competent in the use of Word and PowerPoint, but I’m no whizz, but that’s not what my service is about. Indeed, I sometimes employ graphic designers and typesetters myself. I am a degree-level educated person with over 20 years experience of learning and development in commercial environments. People don’t use me (or my associates) to do a typing job for them, they employ me to create a coherent, robust learning and development solution to address a specific business need, that can be…

Tag: design

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