design Archives - Keystone Development and Training Ltd

Designing Training for Designing Training!

March 20, 2019Uncategorizeddesign, training, training design

The Training Designer’s Club is only a couple of weeks old, and we already have over 50 members – a real mixture of experienced designers and people coming to it for the first time; freelancers and internal designers. So far. I’m delighted with the feel of it and the conversations that are starting to place. And it made wonder if there would be demand for more formal assistance for new training designers? I don’t know about you, but I just picked it up, and then over the years discovered why some things worked than better than others, and started to add to my toolkit. It’s taken a long time. And its time that many people don’t have. So I’ve had a genius idea (or perhaps I’m living in cloud cuckoo land)… Please take 5 minutes to watch this video and let me know your thoughts. So – what do you think? If you want to be told when I’ve developed the idea, please add your details here, and I’ll email you when I have more to show and tell. And, if you haven’t already, why not join the Training Designers Club on Facebook?

Introducing the Training Designer’s Club

March 5, 2019Uncategorizeddesign, OD, training, training design

I’m getting excited about the development of my Training Designer’s Club. It’s a support group for anyone involved in designing training – whether it’s at a strategic level or at the nitty-gritty end of creating session plans and delegate materials. If you are a lone L&D person in your organisation OR new to training OR responsible for learning design, it’s for you. Please come and join me, and help me to shape the direction of what I hope will become a valuable community. LEARN MORE or JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP NOW.

Creativity in Learning Design

March 3, 2019Uncategorizedbusiness, design, HR, managers, OD, training, training design

Last week, I attended the Manchester L&D ‘Unconference’ – an opportunity for L&D professionals to meet, agree their own agenda and have the conversations they want to have about all things L&D. The first session I joined was all around the question “How can we be more creative in training design?”. It was quite insightful, and here are the summary thoughts that I came away with. Firstly, what do we mean by creative, and why do we feel the need to be creative? We quickly agreed that creative doesn’t mean ‘wacky’. Creativity can be quite serious! Creative training is defined in relation to the topic and the audience. Yes, sometimes creative training may involve crossing streams and building rope bridges: It may involve Lego, singing, or lots of coloured pens; It may simply involve a live demo, detailed case study or expert interview. Creativity in training is simply about providing an alternative way in to the learning – a different way of exploring it from the norm. It’s about providing multiple touch points and appealing to different learning preferences. It’s about getting people off autopilot and grabbing their attention, taking them out of their comfort zone, but only by a…

Is the future of L&D simply being curious and connected?

January 28, 2019Uncategorizedbespoke, business, coaching, design, HR, OD, training

“That’s what I do: I drink and I know things”. One my favourite quotes from my favourite character in Game of Thrones – Tyrion Lannister, played by the brilliant Peter Dinklage. Yesterday, as I took a short but very bracing walk, it occurred to me that my quote would be very similar: “I think and I know people”. After 12 years of running my own business, I’ve got the two off to a fine art. But I always feel under pressure to increase my skill set and prove my ability through qualifications. I don’t have a Level 7 coaching qualification – should I get one (even though I don’t want to be a coach)? I don’t have digital design skills – Should I invest in a course and expensive software if I’m going to stay in business? I’m not an apprenticeship or ILM provider – perhaps I ought to get accredited (even though I’m very rarely asked to provide this)? This feeling of inadequacy was heightened on Friday when I was talking to a freelance trainer just 3 months into her journey. She believed that she needed to have a raft of qualifications in order to be taken seriously, somehow…

Thank You

December 18, 2018Uncategorizedbusiness, design, HR, OD, training, training design

I’ve been working for myself for 12 years now. And for the first 4 or 5, I really did work by myself. I got by. Then, Pam Case, Deborah Dean and Lynda Walkley invited me to a monthly networking group in my village! So I started networking. I met some lovely people who lived near me and a few of them have become friends, which is great and I loved the social side. However, they weren’t the right people for me to talk business with. They didn’t really get what I did or know the people I needed to connect with. So when Rebekah Ayres started a networking group in Liverpool for ‘people’ people I made every effort to go. It was fabulous. I made some more friends there (Hi Simon Jones!) and was able to grow my professional network and meet potential clients through these contacts. I was able to do the same for others. They helped me to gain confidence in who I was and what I did – simply by taking a genuine interest, and being able to have a detailed conversation. They pointed me to useful resources, introduced me to other helpful people and also encouraged…

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…

Tag: design

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