This are amazing set of Tips..very clear & concise..!! Really helpful..Thanks

These are great suggestions. I would add two that have proven to be very effective;

1 - Pre-work - Sending participants a brief description of the session and its importance along with a short article and/or quiz can whet the participant's appetite for the topic. Also, sending a note to the participant's supervisor, encouraging them to have a brief discussion with the participant prior to the session about the training topic and how it relates to the participant's responsibilities can be very powerful.

2 - Session Sponsorship - Securing a senior leader to act as the session "host" can make a memorable impression. The senior leader need only be there at the start of the session to make a few comments about the importance of the topic to the organization's strategy and/or her own experience with this topic.

Brilliant. Concise. Helpful. Thank you for calling our attention on those tips for getting better results. And also for David's suggestions.

I would add:

3. Feedback report to participants: Insert pictures of participant's "production", working in groups, end of course picture 

Jason, 

This is a great piece, highlighting some important areas that are often overlooked and undervalued e.g. location & settings, and relating it back to the audience's own job. 

I think its also highly important to think about how the learning is going to be reinforced post event.  This responsibility fits with the learner,  the manager,  L&D staff and the trainer as well. 

Whenever employees are planning on undertaking learning both L&D and Managers should have plans and processes in place to support the employee use their new knowledge and skills in order to improve their performance.

Keep up the good work. 

Blake

repetition of the key messages; thiscan include before/during and after the training but the more often a message is repeated the more it will be remebered.  Repetition works.

emotion: if a strong emotion can be triggered it increases the likelihood of rembering a message.  It almost doesn't matter which emotion but a STRONG one.  Everyone who was alive then remebers what they were doing when they heard Kennedy was shot or that the World Trade Centre had been attacked......shock is an emotion.

don't forget repetition

need: if you really need to remeber this because your career depends on it today or your life may tomorrow, things stick in the mind.  I can still remeber stuff I learned at Sandhurst in the late Jurassic becasue if I forgot my military career eneded there and then.  I still remember the First Aid I learnt 25 years ago because it was drilled into us that this could save a life (yes, most of it is probably out of date now)

don't forget repetition

Jason, the list is disappointing, bland, and banal.

I'm not sure why, but of the five, the most important one is the one you leave to last. Great training is defined by what the learner does after the program and it's this issue of being "directly practical" that affects this the most.

We've known since 1992 when Mary Broad and John Newstrom published "Transfer of Training" that to ensure "the value of any training course be maximised" we need to consult with the managers of the participants first and foremost .... P53 the Transfer Matrix. ....

Ensuring that your training is memorable happens before you start talking .... it's the research and preparation and the consultation with managers (who then talk with their team about their expectations) that gets the mindsets of participants into the right place on arrival. 

Think back to all your previous training courses and which ones stand out - for me its all about the trainer.  I did a First Aid course (for about the fourth time!) in a dull square room in the back of an industrial estate.  I guessed I knew what I would be taught, the room wasn't fantastic and we had to make our own coffee but I remember it because the trainer was great.  He had the right amount of "fun", he involved us, yes we did get us out of our seats and he realised when we needed a break.  His tone was varied, he move around the room, no powerpoint (!), and varied methods of delivery.  A great trainer will be able to overcome the negative issues raised above by adaptation.

Thanks for the comments and the feedback, and for adding, commenting on and critiquing the ideas. 

Surely I could add more, but I wanted to keep this as an entry-level list of tips.  

And I very much agree that initial training sessions are meant to be just that: a start.  The real work - and the learning - continues after, and is a process.

Great ideas but it seemed to me that the focus was on the "sage on the stage" type of training and there are more active methods (discussion, doing it (role-play, case study, simulation)) - where retention is greater. Research done by Motorola University links retention with methods (summarised here http://www.simulations.co.uk/pyramid.htm).

Very interesting article. I agree with the comment above around the use of case studies and role play. Training that learners can directly relate back to their day-to-day tasks and they can visualise how their new-found skills and knowledge will improve their performance in their job, is very powerful indeed!