Harold Jarche

Training – the 8% Solution

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Does your organisation live in complicated or a complex world?

When you are developing training, are you addressing complicated or complex issues?

Via Rob Paterson, and the book More Space, are two important differentiations between complicated & complex systems given by Johnnie Moore, in Simple Ideas, Lightly Held:

complicated = not simple, but ultimately knowable (e.g. the wiring on an aircraft)
complex = not simple and never fully knowable. Just too many variables interact.

If you are working with a complicated system, such as an aircraft, then the entire system is knowable, even though it would take much time and practice. Training would be the right tool to develop your skills to fly or fix the aircraft. I know, because I’ve designed aircraft training. There’s a lot of stuff to know and do, but training works and people can eventually master the system.

Complicated systems and the training for them can be controlled. Complex systems and learning how to work with them cannot.

If you are working with a complex system, you will never be able to know everything. For instance, the environment and communities are complex systems that cannot be controlled, only influenced. There are no right answers, there are many ways of trying to achieve your goals and there are too many variables to control.

The other day I was asked about the essence of implementing informal learning, and I believe that it is the act of giving up control. This is scary for many inside the organisation, but it’s the only way to manage in a complex environment. As the world becomes more networked, interdependent and environmentally challenged, all organisations are moving into complex environments.

Here is an indicator of how complex our work is becoming. It used to be that you could master the majority of what you needed for your work. This is no longer the case, as shown by Robert Kelley of Carnegie-Mellon University, when he asked this research question (via Jay):

What percentage of the knowledge you need to do your job is stored in your own mind?

  • 1986: 75%
  • 1997: 15-20%
  • 2006: estimated 8 -10%

This is one more reason why informal learning structures (not procedures) are necessary to support individual learning in a complex environment, where it is impossible to control the process as we could with training. Informal learning is the way in which your employees, bosses and colleagues will have to learn that significant other 92% of knowledge necessary for their jobs – today. It’s not that we don’t need training; we just need a lot more informal learning.

Red Ball Internet

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I went to what my wife calls my downtown office for a coffee this afternoon and read the latest copy of Here magazine. It featured an article on Moncton’s Red Ball Internet. Based on iBurst technology, Red Ball offers wide area wireless Internet access. Subscription fees range from $12.95 to $54.95 per month.

There is a definite appeal to having no cables and an always-on, dedicated wireless connection. Advertised download speed is 1 mbps which is not anywhere near as fast as ADSL (~ 3 mbps), Aliant’s Ultra service (~ 5 mbps) or cable (~ 8 mbps). If you are constantly traveling around the city and need internet access, then Red Ball would be a good service. This iBurst technology also has potential as a service offering for conferences and conventions. I could see bloggers wanting continuous access during conferences.

What really caught my eye is that this service is available only in Atlantic Canada:

“This is definitely a wonderful story; it is a North American first,” gushes C. Sean Adams, leader of business development for Red Ball. “This service is not yet available in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, only in Greater Moncton. We see this service doing for the Internet what the mobile phone did for telecommunications. It is a cost effective, mobile option for Internet users who want the high speed without the high prices.”

The Modern Chautauqua

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Of Conferences, Chatauquas and Boundary Objects, at Green Chameleon, discusses the relationships between small independent conferences; large-scale commercial events; academic sessions and then muses:

If the KM conference scene really is a complex ecosystem, then the failure of any element of it can have unpredictable, perhaps negative consequences. If the role of the conference really is to perform a boundary object role between different communities (vendors, experienced practitioners, corporate sponsors of KM, novice practitioners, thought leaders), then anything that fractures the communities and sends them into self-serving spheres, will surely drive the profession into stagnation and decline.

At the moment, it seems to me, out at the periphery, the cracks are already showing on the walls. Unless the stable centre recognises this, and unless we find new models for the economics and formats of conferences, and new models for collaboration and interaction between communities, my fear is that these cracks will spread. I hope I’m wrong.

The article also refers to those American traveling cultural shows called chautauqua.

 

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I had read about chautauqua in Nine Shift (recommended reading):

In 1920, chautauqua, those great cultural and educational programs that traveled from rural small town to small town, bringing history, music, and entertainment to an agrarian society, had its largest attendance. Some 25 million people were said to have attended a chautauqua that year. The following year they folded, never to put up a chautauqua tent again.

It’s fascinating to look back and see what is taken for granted at a certain point in time. In 1920, with millions of people going to chautauqua, you probably would have the majority of Americans not predicting their demise. Yet, one year later, chautauqua are finished.

Perhaps the commercial conference will follow the same path. Who knows? Looking into the past can show us that we too should not take current conditions for granted. Personally, I’m drawn more to the unconference.

Commons Lens

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I’ve just created a Squidoo lens on the subject of the Commons. My aim is to provide a single point of access for anything related to the Commons movement in order to help out communities that may be interested in starting one or linking to others. Any information, resources, photos or advice would be appreciated. One way to help would be to use “Commons” as a del.icio.us tag.

Systems Thinking

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I’m working on a couple of projects where I wanted to review some thoughts on systems design so I went to my bookshelf and re-read sections of Jamshid Gharajedaghi’s book, Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity: A Platform for Designing Business Architecture.

In both hindsight (evaluation) and foresight (analysis), this advice resonated with me:

There is a need to deal with the problem independent of the solutions at hand. We have a tendency to define the problem in terms of the solutions we already have. We fail most often not because we fail to solve the problem we face, but because we fail to face the right problem. Rather than doing what we should, we do what we can. In the systems view, it is the solution that has to fit the problem, not vice versa.

This book can be a tough slog because it breaks new ground on almost every page, but after three years I still value the methods and the case studies contained within it.

e-Learning Project Management Book

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The Canadian eLearning Enterprise Alliance (CeLEA) has recently released its new e-book Plan to Learn: case studies in e-learning project management. Edited by Beverly Pasian (who is working on her PhD in project management) and Dr. Gary Woodill (who has recently become Senior Researcher at Brandon Hall Research), this volume of 22 case studies from 8 countries documents the successes and failures of a variety of e-learning implementations. Case studies are drawn from the higher education, K-12, government, non-profit and corporate sectors. The book also contains a thorough review of the literature on elearning project management. To obtain your free copy, go to www.celea-aceel.ca.

This 192 page PDF from CeLEA covers dozens of case studies on e-learning management (focus = A-DDI-E). Almost all of the cases are academic situations, using the online course model, so this book would be best suited for those developing e-learning in higher education. There is little mention of performance support, knowledge management, communities of practice, or informal learning. Nor is there much reference to aligning the learning methods to operational or business requirements.

One exception is a case study on developing math skills for nurses at Mount Royal College. In this case, the work requirement, or gap, was quite clear:

According to a May 2004 study published by the Canadian Medical Association Journal, one in nineteen adults will be given the wrong medication or dosage upon a hospital visit.

The goal was defined, though too academic in my mind:

The goal of the online Nursing Math Tutorial was to ensure that nursing students were successful in their clinical courses without the need for so much time.

A better goal would have been to reduce the number of incorrect dosages. This is obviously the performance they were really trying to achieve.

The design considered the context of the work:

The intention of the tutorial was to provide practical information to the learner, that being the basic principles and illustrations of math sequences and their relation to practical clinical settings.

However, the ADDIE model seems to have been too constraining and resource-intensive:

In the creation of the online Nursing Math Tutorial, the successes arose from creative project management solutions, which conserved resources and maintained a higher quality of student learning as a result.

I’m wondering if a better approach in this case may have been to create a series of contextual visualizations on the necessary math concepts. These could then be placed in an online collaborative environment, such as Elgg, and the learners themselves could have constructed meaning around these visual artifacts, through discussions with each other and with facilitators. Some of the visualizations could also be the test objects, such as, “here is a case, calculate the dosage”.

For those in the thick of e-learning course development, you may find some helpful nuggets in these pages. Most of the cases discuss tools for learner-to-learner discussions, so we are seeing clear moves away from just information dissemination. However, if you’re looking for innovative performance-oriented alternatives to ADDIE, you will have to look elsewhere.

Canada’s Last Great War Veteran

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A petition from The Dominion Institute:

“We the undersigned feel enormous gratitude for the sacrifice made by all the Canadian Armed Forces through the ages in defence of this country and its values; acknowledge the very special nature of the sacrifice made by those who fought in the First World War in appalling conditions and with terrible loss of life; note that only three First World War veterans remain, and urge the Prime Minister that their sacrifice, and all of those they served with under arms from 1914-1918, be celebrated by offering a state funeral to the family of the last veteran of the First World War resident in Canada.”

Over 600,00 Canadians served in the Great War and almost 60,000 were killed. At that time, Canada’s population was about 8 million. To put it into perspective, the current Canadian Forces number about 62,000 personnel and our population is 33 million.

Well, the sun it shines down on these green fields of France,
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance.
The trenches are vanished now under the plough
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard it is still No Man’s Land
And the countless white crosses in mute witness stand.
To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man
And a whole generation that was butchered and downed.

The Green Fields of France

Aliant delivers

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For those not familiar with my high speed Internet woes, this story began in July 2005 with a significant update in September 2006.

Here’s the basic storyline. I purchased an additional, higher speed, ADSL Internet service from my ISP (Bell Aliant), but was not able to get the advertised speed. I called customer & technical service and checked the hardware and firmware at my own end. I posted my situation on my blog, and over the course of a year I received some good information in the comments. This caused me to push harder and finally, after two technical interventions, confirmed what the problem was – the switch had never been set by the ISP.

Two months after my speed had been correctly adjusted, I still had not heard from the company, nor received a rebate. I contacted customer service, but they were not authorised to give me a full rebate, and had no record of my July 2005 experiences.

A little bit of searching and I found the e-mail of one of Bell Aliant’s VP’s and sent my story, with links to my blog. Within 24 hours, Aliant had delivered:

  1. an apology directly from a VP
  2. a rebate on the High Speed Ultra service for which I paid
  3. a year’s worth of free Ultra service

I am satisfied with this situation, and am particularly glad when the company tells me that they have learned from the situation:

We have made some changes to our processes and done some coaching with our representatives to ensure we improve the customer experience.

Here are my personal reflections on this experience:

My problem was a result of customer service not being able to level with me and treat me as an individual – I was a protocol to be followed. In spite of my insistence that I had checked all wires and connections, I was initially told that the problem was at my end.

Even though customer service stated that they had no record of my July 2005 experience, I was able to show the date-stamped public record of my experience on my blog, thus giving my case more credibility.

The highly trained technical service staff are professional, knowledgeable and friendly. Customer service staff, who have the first contact with any problems, should be treated and trained in a similar manner as the technical staff.

Had there been a forum, such as a blog, to discuss these issues and concerns, the situation would have been rectified much quicker.

Once senior management understood the problem they were able to take action very quickly, and I greatly appreciated this. It took little effort to keep me as a customer.

Finally, it’s very difficult to understand the differences in Internet and telephony services. For instance, during this past year, I’ve learned:

  • If you have telephone service with Eastlink, you only have 30 minutes of local stand-by battery power in the event of an outage. Aliant’s telephone service has a separate power supply for the system.
  • It’s next to impossible to compare one company’s bundle of services with another, and this is done on purpose by the respective marketing departments.
  • Aliant’s ADSL gives you a dedicated pair of wires, whereas Eastlink’s cable service, which has higher speeds, is shared and may decrease with additional users in your area.

Anyway, after 11 years as a customer, Aliant is still my best choice, especially since my issues are all resolved. Hopefully, this is the end of the story.

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Moodle Manual

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I’m back into learning how to use Moodle, after a couple of years (yes, it’s been that long) away from Development (the second “D” in ADDIE). We are using Moodle to create the knowledge base for our Unworkshops, so I’m back into content development. What we’re doing is less structured than a course but Moodle fits the bill quite nicely.

I’m using the book, Moodle: e-learning course development by William Rice as my guide, and it’s quite practical. I had already asked Wendy Wikham for feedback on this book, and here is what she told me:

So far, I’ve found 2 Moodle books – Rice’s and Jason Cole’s Using Moodle. They seem to be written for different audiences.
Rice’s book is more for course administrators and more technically-oriented teachers. It describes the setup and functions in detail. During the initial basic Moodle setup – it was easier to find the information in this book than in the forums. Since we are installing Moodle within a corporate network, we had more issues than the book rightly covered. Ta found it was a good introduction to what Moodle does from a technical perspective. For more advanced issues – the forum is more useful.
Rice doesn’t focus on the pedagogy and doesn’t give step-by-steps for completing particular tasks. Cole’s book focuses more on step-by-step how to’s and the pedagogy behind each of the modules. I would hand teachers the Cole book before the Rice book.
I suspect that I will be referring more to Cole’s book than to Rice’s book now that we have the baseline courses set up. Cole’s organization makes more sense and he does a better job of putting the tools in context.

For me, getting back into the technical aspects of creating and organising a knowledge base, the Rice book is great. I’ve also noticed that Susan Nash has reviewed this book:

Packt’s Moodle is a fantastic resource, although the title is a bit misleading. It is, in reality, a technical manual for using Moodle. It has very little to say about e-learning, except in the sense that it is implicit that learning via Moodle is e-learning. Its major deficiency is that it does not include any elements of instructional design that would allow a user to start developing courses that are pedagogically sound in terms of commonly accepted best practices for e-learning. Further, it does not contain templates for typical courses, which would also be quite valuable for institutions that would be most likely to be interested in open-source learning management systems.

Anyway, it’s one more for my virtual bookshelf.