Tag: newlearningarchitect

Over the past year we have been publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We continue with the ninth and final part of chapter 11 and the book as a whole:
Real life is messy: less like a mechanical device in which every part has its place and behaves predictably most of the time; more like a weather system, the elements of which interact in complex and unpredictable ways, always catching us off our guard. Even the best models can only ever approximate reality and can certainly never be relied upon to replace human judgement. If a model could be created which captured all the vagaries of real-life experience, it would be unusably complex to understand and apply. The model described in this book is no exception: with any luck it will explain many of the situations in which we find ourselves in l&d and help us to predict what will happen if we attempt certain types of interventions with certain types of audiences; but these are only approximations and every situation will be unlike any other.
Perhaps the best rule is to break the rules when you have to, but to do this knowingly. Ignorant people break rules because they don’t know that they exist. Stupid people break them when to apply them really would make a positive difference. Astute people break rules because they know that, however well they may apply in other situations, this isn’t one of them. They realise that, however well-conceived, no model mirrors reality so well that it is universally applicable.
So, be astute. If you have found the model described in this book helpful then please make use of it as a starting point for your deliberations. Never rely on it as a substitute for intelligent decision-making based on a sound understanding of your unique circumstances.
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10
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Over the past year we have been publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We continue with the eighth part of chapter 11:
The final step in the process is an obvious one but no less important for that. However well you define your audience and your needs, and however carefully you design your solution, the chances of you getting it right first time are slim. With the design of buildings you have some flexibility to adapt as you move into construction, in response to unforeseen problems and new ideas; with a learning architecture, the process of adaptation is on-going and continuous – you will constantly be finding ways in which your overall strategy can be improved. The creation of a learning architecture is not a project, with a clear end date after which the team can be disbanded; it is an on-going responsibility for the l&d team.
The processes of implementation and evaluation will be enhanced if all major stakeholders are involved throughout. In most cases, that will mean the team that manages your target population and representatives of the population itself. Their input will be invaluable in making sure your strategy is well-targeted, realistic and achievable. They will also be the best placed to measure whether the strategy is bringing the desired results.
Coming next: Rules are there to be broken
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10
Obtain your copy of The New Learning Architect

Over the past year we have been publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We continue with the seventh part of chapter 11:
You don’t have to make a conscious decision to support experiential learning, as it will happen naturally as a matter of course. Having said that, there is much you can do encourage this form of learning through targeted interventions.
Experiential learning will flourish when:

• essential skills and knowledge have already been acquired through other formal and non-formal approaches;
• practical experience is critical to the process of refining and consolidating skills and knowledge;
• employees are motivated to take on greater responsibility or broaden their experience;
• the organisation is committed to a culture of continuous improvement and not of blame.

Top-down approaches such as benchmarking, job rotation, job enrichment, project reviews, performance appraisals, action learning, continuous improvement will all serve to promote and encourage experiential learning. Bottom-up activities, such as personal reflection, reflecting with others, blogging and learning from out-of-work activities, will all flourish in any culture that genuinely supports learning and development.
Coming next: Step 7: Implement and evaluate
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10
Obtain your copy of The New Learning Architect

Over the past year we have been publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We continue with the sixth part of chapter 11:
Having identified those needs which require a proactive approach, whether formal or non-formal, you can turn your attention to the ways in which you can support performance reactively, on a just-in-time basis. On-demand learning is likely in most cases to act as a support for formal and non-formal learning, but could in some circumstances stand alone.
On-demand learning will be most effective when:

• the task is performed infrequently;
• the task is complex, involves many steps or has many attributes, and is therefore hard to remember;
• the consequence of any error would be intolerable;
• performance depends on knowledge, procedures or approaches that change frequently;
• there is a high turnover of employees and the task is perceived to be simple;
• it is realistic for employees to have the time to consult a reference resource before carrying out the task;
• there is little time or few resources to devote to training.

Top-down approaches to on-demand learning, such as the use of performance support materials, online books, help desks, and mobile learning resources will work best when:

• the knowledge and skills in question are important and/or used regularly;
• expertise is not widely distributed;
• it is important that you control the quality of the support provided;
• the employees in question are less independent as learners.

Bottom-up approaches such as consulting colleagues, online search, using forums and using wikis will work best when the employees in question:

• have little commonality in terms of their needs;
• have more discretion over how they use their time;
• have access to the necessary communication channels;
• are more independent as learners.

Coming next: Step 6: Decide how best to support experiential learning
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10
Obtain your copy of The New Learning Architect

Over the past year we have been publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We continue with the fifth part of chapter 11:
Having identified the situations in which a formal approach is necessary, your next task is to decide how non-formal interventions can contribute to meeting the remaining needs in question or to support formal learning.
Non-formal solutions are likely to be appropriate when:

• on-going efforts need to be made to ensure that the skills and knowledge that employees gain through formal training are successfully transferred to effective job performance;
• there is no requirement for the learning in question to be formally assessed;
• on-demand learning is not enough, i.e. when aided performance would damage credibility or when smooth and speedy performance is a priority;
• the employees in question need to be kept up-to-date with on-going developments in their fields of expertise or prepared for a business change.

Top-down approaches to non-formal learning, such as on-job training, coaching, mini-workshops, rapid e-learning, white papers, podcasts, webinars, internal conferences and online video, are likely to be the most appropriate when:

• the knowledge and skills in question are important and/or used regularly;
• the employees in question are less experienced and/or less independent as learners.

Bottom-up approaches to non-formal learning, such as the use of communities of practice, open learning and continuing professional development, will work well when the employees in question:

• have little commonality in terms of their needs;
• are motivated to learn and develop;
• have more job experience;
• are more independent learners;
• have some discretion over the way their time is allocated (or can be allocated time specially to engage in these activities);
• have access to the necessary communication channels, e.g. internet access.

Coming next: Step 5: Decide what can be addressed on an on-demand basis
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10
Obtain your copy of The New Learning Architect

Over the past year we have been publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We continue with the fourth part of chapter 11:
You can now start to shape your solution, starting with those needs that are best addressed, at least in part, through formal learning interventions.
A formal solution is likely to be your most appropriate option when:

• the organisation can only achieve its objectives if the employees in question possess the relevant knowledge and skills;
• the organisation needs to be able to demonstrate compliance to an external regulator;
• a high degree of proficiency is absolutely vital to avoid the chance of an expensive error, damage to the organisation’s reputation, or risk to health and safety;
• the employees in question are complete novices and are likely to depend on a structured approach to their initial training;
• the attainment of a formal certification or qualification can make a big difference to the career prospects of the employees in question.

Top-down interventions, such as classroom courses, self-study e-learning, outdoor learning, collaborative distance learning, computer games and simulations, and blended learning, are likely to be the preferred choice in most situations. Bottom-up approaches, such as professional and postgraduate qualifications and formal adult education, are more likely to be used for medium-to-long term employee development.
Coming next: Step 4: Decide what can be addressed using non-formal approaches
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10
Obtain your copy of The New Learning Architect

Over the past year we have been publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We continue with the third part of chapter 11:
Your next step is to identify the learning and development needs that you wish to address for the population defined in step 1. Ideally these should reflect the established business needs of the organisation and be reflected in clearly-defined statements of competency.
You can be as flexible as you like in defining the scope of your analysis:

• The totality of all the learning and development needs of the target population.
• Just those needs associated with a particular upcoming business change or project.
• Those needs associated with a particular performance problem.
• The development of the target population to take on further responsibilities in the future.

Ask yourself the following questions about each of the major needs that you are required to address:
How critical is it that the employees concerned have the particular knowledge or skill (regardless of how often they may use it)? Critical skills are those that the organisation absolutely depends upon to meet its objectives and its legal responsibilities. In some cases these skills may be used only rarely, such as in an emergency, but that in no way diminishes their importance. When employees are not recruited with the required skills, the organisation has a responsibility to provide this training, typically using a formal intervention with assessed outcomes.
How frequently will the employees concerned need to use the particular knowledge or skill? The Pareto principle applies as well to skills and knowledge as it does to many other aspects of our lives. It is very likely that 20% of the total knowledge and skills required for a particular job are used to fulfil 80% of tasks. The remaining 80% of skills and knowledge will be used more rarely. The implication here is that the learning and development effort is best applied to the most used 20%, whereas the remaining 80% can be covered more superficially and/or provided on an on-demand basis.
How much fluidity of change is there with respect to the associated tasks and goals? Tasks and goals change much more rapidly in some jobs than they do in others, and this is likely to have an impact on the required knowledge and skills. When there is a high degree of fluidity in tasks and goals, it makes less sense to try and provide training on a formal basis and makes more sense to support performance on an on-demand basis.
To what extent will the employees concerned need practical on-job experience in order to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills? Any work-based skill is likely to benefit from practical on-job experience, but in some cases the importance of this experience, relative to formal off-job training, will be much more significant. This will be particularly true when the circumstances in which the job is carried out are hard to simulate in an off-job environment or where the employee is required to exercise judgement in dealing with a very wide range of possible situations. A good example would be the training required to become a doctor or to learn a trade such as plumber or electrician.
How complex is the skill or knowledge required? When a job requires complex skills or knowledge, which for a less-experienced employee would be hard to recall, then there is an argument for supporting any more formal training with on-going support on an on-demand basis.
Would it damage credibility if the employees concerned were to make use of on-demand performance support to support their learning? There are situations in which an organisation’s credibility would be damaged if their employees had to consult a reference source before responding to a problem. In these cases, there is no alternative but to make sure the required knowledge and skills are in place before the employee takes up their responsibilities.
Is it vital that the employees concerned are able to carry out their responsibilities smoothly and speedily? Similarly, sometimes there is simply no time available for an employee to consult a reference source before responding to a problem. They have to be able to react quickly on the basis of what they already know. Examples include emergency situations, where immediate action is required, or jobs where the employee has to rapidly carry out a series of transactions, such as on a supermarket checkout. The skills and knowledge needed to carry out these tasks must be acquired up-front before starting the job, with minimal performance support.
Do the tasks involve novel and unpredictable situations? Where it is hard to predict the situations that a job holder will encounter, it becomes impractical to provide very specific up-front training or to develop detailed performance support materials. The employee needs to be provided up-front with the core skills needed to deal with the widest possible variety of situations, but also requires the support of recognised experts on an on-demand basis.
Is it essential that the organisation is able to demonstrate compliance to an external regulator? In many cases, an organisation has to demonstrate to an external regulator or an insurance company that employees have been provided with specific knowledge and skills. Classic examples are in financial services and in situations where there are serious health and safety risks. In these cases, it is important that an organisation can demonstrate that each employee has received the required training and, in many cases, acquired the necessary knowledge and skills. As a result, compliance training is much more likely to be addressed using formal methods.
Coming next: Step 3: Decide what must be tackled formally
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10
Obtain your copy of The New Learning Architect

Over the past year we have been publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We continue with the second part of chapter 11:
It’s possible to apply the model very generally across a large population, say an organisation’s entire workforce, and this may help in making very general policy decisions; but the model will be most useful when applied to a relatively heterogeneous group, whether that’s a vertical slice of the organisation (by department, by division, by region) or horizontal (by management level, by level of experience and so on).
You’ll know if you’ve defined the population appropriately if you are then able to make some generalisations about its characteristics. If every characterisation can be summed up as “some are like this, some are like that”, then you will have difficulty in coming up with a coherent architecture and would do better to sub-divide the population further.
The following questions will help you to characterise the population. Hopefully, most or all of these questions will be relevant in your case. However, you may need to extend the list to capture the important subtleties of your particular situation:
How much knowledge do the employees concerned already have about the field in which they operate and their particular job responsibilities? The more knowledge they already have, the easier they will find it to add to or modify this in response to changing circumstances. This is because memories do not exist in isolation; they are formed as connections to existing memories. Those with plenty of experience in a particular occupational area will have a solid base on which to build and are likely to have a good idea of what gaps there are in their knowledge. Conversely, novices in a field will have little prior knowledge on which to build and little idea about what gaps there are in this knowledge. They require, and will be grateful for, more structured approaches to learning.
How widely is expertise distributed among the population? When expertise in a particular domain is concentrated in a relatively small group of people, then you will be constrained in your choice of approaches to learning on the basis of simple capacity. You can’t expect the same few people to be instructors, coaches, reference sources and champions of good practice when you are also relying on them to use their expertise to fulfil their own, critical job responsibilities. In these circumstances you are more likely to try and capture their expertise in some way that allows for more scalable forms of dissemination.
How fast does this population turn over? In some occupations, the employee population turns over very rapidly, making it even more important than usual to minimise the time it takes to bring new entrants to competence. To make this possible, formal training should ideally concentrate on key skills and core knowledge, leaving less essential information to be delivered on-demand. Another implication of high turnover could be that less emphasis is placed on experiential and developmental learning, although it could be argued that this would make employees less inclined to move on.
How independent are the individuals as learners? Those with good metacognitive skills are better equipped to learn independently. They have a good feel for what they already know, what’s missing and how to go about filling the gap. They will benefit from top-down learning but they don’t depend on it. For this reason, where resources are tight, efforts are more sensibly directed at those who most need the assistance, i.e. the dependent learners.
How motivated are the employees concerned to learn and develop? Motivated employees are more likely to undertake independent learning activities and to contribute to the learning of those around them. Conversely, those lacking in motivation, perhaps because of poor management or because the job is, for them, no more than a means to an end, will do the minimum required to fulfil their basic job responsibilities and no more.
How much discretion does this population have over the allocation of their time? There are many jobs in which the employees involved have very little choice over the way in which their time is allocated – they are needed to carry out their tasks at specific times if the organisation is to function successfully. These jobs range from the un-skilled to the highly professional, from assembly line workers to soldiers and airline pilots. When an employee’s time is rostered, it is unrealistic to expect them to make time for less formal learning activities in the same way as, say, an office-based professional who is working to longer-term objectives. This is not to say that those whose time is rostered cannot engage in a wide range of learning activities, just that these will typically need to be formally added to their list of responsibilities and time specifically allocated for them.
What channels of communication are open to this population? Many learning interventions depend on the availability of particular communication channels. Some, such as on-job instruction or classroom training, rely on face-to-face contact. Many others need to be mediated in some way, through the telephone or through devices, such as smart phones, PCs and laptops, which connect to an organisation’s intranet or the internet. Communication channels are an important enabler for learning, so you’ll need to know exactly what channels are available to the population in question and what functionality they are capable of supporting. What devices are provided? What bandwidth can these devices access? What communication tools (web conferencing or social networking for example) are available on the networks in question?
What commonality is there within the population in terms of the tasks performed? It is important to get a feel for the numbers within the population who carry out the same tasks and are therefore likely to share many of the same learning and development needs. It is much easier to justify top-down approaches when the target audience is sizable, particularly when this involves the creation of content.
How important is it to individuals that their learning achievements are formally recognised? In some situations it will be important to employees that their learning be recognised through some formal certification or qualification, particularly when this will have a major influence on their future job prospects either within or beyond the organisation. In these cases, there will undoubtedly be a pressure for more formally-structured interventions.
Coming next: Step 2: Identify needs
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10
Obtain your copy of The New Learning Architect

Over the past year we have been publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We continue with the first part of chapter 11:
Models are fun. In their attempts to explain the complex cause and effect relationships of life, they encourage us to believe that we can become masters of our own destinies. If we’re discerning, we’ll reflect on the assumptions underlying the model, and test these against our experiences and the experiences of our peers. If the model holds up, it may even provide us with insights, helping to explain why things have happened the way they have in the past, and how they might just turn out in the future, if we were only to make more use of the model as a basis for our decisions.
Having got this far with this book, you may be encouraged by the prospect of becoming a new learning architect yourself (assuming you’re not one already). If so then this chapter is for you. It provides some guidelines for ways in which you can put the model to practice in real situations involving real learners. It will also help you to structure your analysis and your decision making, but having said that, there’s still plenty of work for you to do. After all, every situation really is different and architects are professionals who are used to thinking for themselves.
The process is described below as a series of steps:

1. Define the population
2. Identify needs
3. Decide what must be tackled formally
4. Decide what can be addressed using non-formal approaches
5. Decide what can be addressed on an on-demand basis
6. Decide how best to support experiential learning
7. Implement and evaluate

Coming next: Step 1: Define the population
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10
Obtain your copy of The New Learning Architect