This week, much to his own surprise, Godfrey Parkin finds himself impressed by the learning practices of the US military and IBM. It's not a revolution, it's devolution.
I have just spent a couple of days at a small highly-focused symposium titled “Innovations in E-learning.” It was put together by the US Naval Education and Training Command and the Defence Acquisition University (DAU), who have among the best and brightest training minds that the American taxpayer’s money can buy. They are not short of budget, manpower, or technology, and they get to mess with lots of experimental stuff.
For several years now, training departments have been transfixed by the evolving internet in the same way that dinosaurs were probably awe-struck by the approaching comet. So what does the future hold? I’m happy to report that learning will thrive, but trainers will have to merge back into operational roles. Oh, and training departments are dead, at least as we know them. As are Learning Management Systems and any other relics of centralised distribution of learning. Learning that is informal, collaborative, contextual, real-time, and peer-generated, will be the mode of tomorrow.
It seems counter-intuitive that military types whose culture is defined by command and control hierarchies would advocate devolution of learning to the swab on the deck-plates or the grunt in the foxhole, but that was the gist of what was being said. Admittedly, it was being said by the civilian gurus who write their white papers for them. And devolution of learning does not necessarily mean relinquishing control – in fact there are some very scary big-brother systems being deployed that will tell anyone with access pretty much what any individual sailor anywhere in the world had for breakfast last Tuesday and, to five decimal places, what his or her competency rating is on any given skill.
Amongst the sessions was a real eye-opener from a VP at IBM. IBM used to be a blue-suit red-tie operation as monolithic as a bank, but it has been doing a lot of shape-shifting in recent years. These days any organisation that is unwilling or unable to do that is unlikely to be around very long. It’s Darwinian – those who can adapt most readily are most likely to survive in times of rapid change. IBM’s consulting wing, adrenalised a couple of years ago by their acquisition of Price-Waterhouse Coopers consulting, is doing what big consulting firms rarely do – they are advocating unique solutions that they don’t already have parked in a truck around the corner.
Here’s my quick version of the IBM line on “embedded” or workflow learning:
The most profound shift that will take place in training over the next three years is a movement away from traditional, formal, course-based learning (classroom or online) and towards clever integration into the workflow of learning-enabling tools like Instant Messaging and informal collaboration processes. As we move learning from its “separate service” role to a more integrated coal-face role, one of the biggest obstacles is the political question of who owns it. The other is the need for a deeply rooted culture of collaboration throughout the organisation.
A simple example of workflow learning in action: Tom in Finance gets an urgent request to authorise foreign travel funds for an executive. He learned how to do that in a training course last year, but has never needed to do it in practice, so he’s lost. The help system, typically, doesn’t. The FAQ gives no guidance either. So he sends out a broadcast Instant Message to a small group of SMEs and experienced practitioners asking for help.
So far this is not a lot different from “prairie dogging” – popping your head up above your cube divider and yelling “Does anyone know how to…” But here is where it gets interesting. Jill, an experienced practitioner in another city, responds to the message. She remotely takes control of Tom’s computer and talks to him as he watches her go through the steps on his screen. She identifies that the help system, the FAQ, and possibly the original training are inadequate, and updates the FAQ in wiki-like fashion.
Then she identifies a group of Tom’s peers who might benefit from knowing what Tom now knows, and sends them an announcement of a 10-minute webinar for later that week. During the webinar, she records the session, and saves it to the system where those who could not make it, or those who may encounter the problem in the future, can easily find and watch it. Then she notifies those responsible for basic training, and those responsible for the help system, that they might need to pay attention to the issue. Tom, in the meantime, evaluates the help he has received, and his ratings and comments get added to Jill’s profile for reference by future aid-seekers, and her management.
The technology is not complex, or even expensive. Most people have it on their computers already. Aspects of this are widely used already in e-commerce and e-customer support. Individuals already learn this way intuitively. What is hard is achieving the mindset and the culture that allows and encourages this to happen across an organisation.
There is nothing revolutionary in the IBM vision. If you have followed those who advocate informal learning and collaborative learning (and indeed many of my own rants), you will realise that the ideas are not new. But, for me, the amazing thing was to hear them coming from IBM. If Big Blue is advocating this approach, and is actively setting about trying to get it to work in its clients’ cultures as well as its own, then there is something serious going on. Workflow learning has moved from the drawing board to the boardroom. They say that in theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is. IBM is taking its theories on the road, and, in practice, is being taken seriously.
Celia Redmore , 26 June 2005 @ 17:32 PM This future is already here
The situation described in this article has become rather usual practice in the US, where distances between cities (and offices) make travel expensive.
Mr Parkin’s scenario, however, assumes that Jill has the presentation skills, time and willingness to create a usable and recordable webinar from her interaction with Tom. In practice, casual desktop sharing and IM chat almost never result in a permanent record.
The presentations that do get recorded are more likely to come from trainers doing their best to identify the kind of tasks that Tom might need to refresh his memory on. These mini-recordings are wonderfully useful - and commonplace in the US. In fact, with a substantial online library of such recordings, they become the first place to look for information.
To add my own thoughts to this subject, this method of working assumes that we primarily need specific task knowledge. Tom needs to know how to authorize foreign travel funds. He doesn’t need a week long class in general financial practices. There is, perhaps, the danger that employers may learn to see task knowledge as a substitute for industry or field knowledge. That risks our developing a workforce that can deal with mechanical tasks without having an intelligent understanding of what they’re doing.
Godfrey Parkin , 15 June 2005 @ 18:58 PM Training triage
You can't treat every headache with brain surgery. Perhaps what is needed is some kind of real-time electronic "training triage" system that evaluates the context and decides whether the problem requires an asprin, a prescription analgesic, or specialist surgery.
One of the core concepts of workflow learning is the ability to learn best practices from identified best practitioners -- it is specifically not a kind of electronic prairie dogging, which can result in wasted time and the perpetuation of worst practices.
If people are being encouraged to give their time and expertise to others, you would expect the value of those contributions to be measured and for that value to factor into their overall performance appraisal. There are many ways of capturing and evaluating informal guidance. Those who sought help can evaluate it (much like those dealing on eBay evaluate vendors); supervisors can evaluate it, specifically or on aggregate; and training professionals can evaluate it. You exclude poor performers from the system, or you train them to be better trainers...
As an aside, is it just me, or does anyone else wish that "managers" had a big chunk of their salary dependent on their performance as a coach/mentor/trainer to their people? Helping others to perform better instead of doing your job? Surely that IS an important part of your job?
David Medcalf , 15 June 2005 @ 17:09 PM Sitting with eNellie
Firstly apologies to 99% of the people reading this but I'm going to use flying training as an example as well. Coming from ground training in the RAF and helping to establish a centralised Flying Training Development function I was struck by the off-the-cuff nature of flying training and the lack of formal quality controls and measures (however their system did work and the training was good as it was delivered by the best of the best – but that is not the point.). I would be concerned with workmate Jill's understanding of Tom's need, the quality of what she was "teaching” him, the process itself and how the event is recorded, monitored and evaluated. Sitting with Nelly works to a point (your scenario was a high-tech version perhaps Sitting with eNelly.). But the training is put at risk if Jill isn’t the guru she thinks she is, has missed the point, or gives duff information or tells each person she “helps2 something different.
This leads to situation where lots of Jills are spending their time on pointless interventions rather than what they are supposed to be doing. Sounds like we need some form of training specialist to identify what is needed, when it is needed, what depth is needed, and who needs it. And most importantly how and by what media it needs to be delivered.
Howard Jones , 14 June 2005 @ 11:25 AM It's all in the culture
OK, It’s time to come clean, my first 21 years as a trainer were spent in the RAF where I was an aircrew instructor: for Martin I was a QCI and spent time as the CFS QCI examiner.
I have to agree with Martin about the informal learning that goes on in crew rooms and the like, but one has to ask why this culture exists. Well firstly there is the time to do it, not something that is perhaps available to many workers. There is also the experience of the wise. Not to be too dramatic, but there is an element of take off, stay alive and land. Flying schools and conversion units can only teach so much; the rest has to be learned from experience – hopefully before it needs to be applied. And this experience is often handed-down. But perhaps the biggest factor in ‘life-long learning’ is the fact that aircrew are in an almost continual examination cycle, typically being examined in the air and on the ground every 18-months, spaced so that there is an examination every 9-months. Not something I think that many in civilian life are subject to.
There is another cultural dimension, aircrew are the elite, they are the top of the pyramid, don’t take my word for it, ask them! And most of them want to be the best of the best; who wouldn’t. They don’t actually dwell that much on learning, it’s just a conduit for them being better than their peers.
RAF aircrew are a unique case, but there are lessons to be learned. I think the whole thing is about culture; one on the biggest wake-up calls I had when I left the RAF was the difference in motivation between the aircrew I left behind and others; but please don’t take that as a derogatory remark. Oh how I wish I didn’t have to motivate people to do the training I write: why is it that the first question I usually have to address is,” What’s in it for me?” Having a learning culture where people want to better themselves is over half of the battle: wouldn’t it be great if training managers were inundated with people knocking on their doors and complaining about the lack of training available, perhaps not. We need to create that aircrew culture, where people are learning without a positive acknowledgement that they are being ‘trained’, and that this learning can take place as much in the crew room as it can in the classroom.
My only caveat is that, along with those wise heads, there are always those purveyors of duff-gen, and they usually talk the loudest and longest.
Martin Schmalenbach , 13 June 2005 @ 15:10 PM Not so new...?
I fear I may be missing something here?!
The concept outlined by Godfrey does not appear at all new to me. Involved as I was in the mid 1990s with aircrew training for the RAF I noticed that a huge amount of learning was being done informally, in the crew rooms, in the bar, and that, despite all the tall tales of daring-do, real learning was going on, and was an integral part of the culture.
I guess Godfrey is suggesting that this type of approach will become much more common-place, with specific tools to facilitate its use?
I guess for me the hook here is the culture of the organisation - how it shares, or doesn't, the learning and experiences of others. Howard's observation about Tom's colleague in Godfrey's article having the time is apposite and perhaps is a good place to highlight my point: in the 'right' culture Tom's colleagues will take a more altuistic approach to learning and helping others - I'll help you because at some point in the future I'll want some one to help me. Further, as learning becomes endemic in the organisation, there will be more time for this sort of interaction as less time will be spent 'firefighting'.
Godfrey Parkin , 13 June 2005 @ 13:41 PM Most of our training resources go to marginally effective activities
Howard, I share some of your reservations, and of course formal training is not going to become redundant. When I first came across the concept of workflow learning a couple of years ago, I wondered if it was just a re-hash of Performance Support Systems, new wine in old bottles. But I am more of a convert these days, especially as I see it moving from theory into practice.
In Tom’s case, was the training that took place in the first place inadequate? Probably. Every survey that I see says that less than 20 percent of what employees learn is learned in formal training; the rest is learned in the workplace, through application, informal coaching and counseling, emulation of peer behavior and so on. Yet most of our training budgets still go to those formal training experiences, instead of towards developing systems, processes, skill-sets and even attitudes that could enhance the informal learning. Jill may not be a trained trainer, yet she is providing a more immediate, contextual, relevant, performance-impacting service to Tom – and to the company – than that provided by the original trainer. Maybe we should be teaching our people how to learn, how to teach, and how to collaborate, rather than fire-hosing them with content and hoping that when the time comes to use it they will rise to the occasion?
Howard Jones , 13 June 2005 @ 13:06 PM Prairie dogging - the future
As ever, an enlightening article, but on this occasion I’m not buying.
I’m sorry but I feel your scenario may not stand up to scrutiny. It only seems to address Tom’s problem after he has completed a training course. I thought we were moving away from course-based learning, so perhaps it would have had more credence if he had come across a task that he had not done before, or had not been trained to carry out.
I’m glad that Jill had the time to reply to Tom and help him out, but as for taking control of his computer and letting him watch her go through the process, surely it would be better for him if he went through the process with her giving guidance where necessary. We’re also left to assume that “experienced practitioner” Jill has the required skill set to remotely teach Tom what he needs to know; although her method would suggest not.
She also has time to identify that the “help system, the FAQ, and possibly the original training are inadequate”, a training analyst as well perhaps. She then identifies Tom’s peers and sets up a webinair: this lady really has got time to spare.
Jill starts to look like a trainer, albeit a fire-fighting trainer. It strikes me that if the original training had been adequate and that the help files and FAQ had been up to scratch then Jill could well have got on with her own job and Tom would have been able to sort himself out.
I’m sorry but all this scenario seems to say is that the existing training available to Tom, in all its forms, is inadequate, not that a new approach to training is necessary. However, that is not to say that I don’t believe that progress is not needed, I see nothing wrong with experienced practitioners passing on their knowledge and experience, I just think we need to be very careful about who is going to be doing the informing. No offence, but how often have you consulted an experienced practitioner who couldn’t put a cohesive sentence together even if their life depended on it? I’m not an expert on any of the training that I write, I take what the SME and experienced practitioners tell me and communicate it to their learners; if they could already do this, then I’d be out of a job.
“achieving the mindset and the culture”, unfortunately this is probably not going to happen if the case is not watertight, and in this instance, I don’t think it is.
This prairie dog is now popping its head back down behind the partition.
This week, much to his own surprise, Godfrey Parkin finds himself impressed by the learning practices of the US military and IBM. It's not a revolution, it's devolution.
