With the advent of Learning Management Systems (LMS), knowledge management systems and a plethora of other deployment and technology solutions, it is easier to deliver learning solutions to individuals in the work place. The move to technology-based solutions has been matched by a move away from 'technology only' solutions as encapsulated by "blended Solutions" to training. This paper looks at what technology is relevant to which objectives and sets a framework for it. The paper is concerned with individual learning within the context of corporate learning. Corporate learning is distinct from training in that its primary aim is improvement in the corporate performance, not individual knowledge. Although the one may be dependent on the other, corporate learning aims to maximize the benefit of training and education through people.
One indication of this performance improvement is though a recent Gartner study that showed that untrained users require six times more support than trained users and that untrained users took 450 percent more time, on average, to complete a task than a trained user.
Essentially there are four aspects to a person's performance in the context of learning or knowledge:
Skill: The ability to actually perform the actions required. For example the ability to enter a goods receipt into the system
Understanding: The underlying understanding of why the specific action is being performed and the consequences. Understanding enables the individual to correct errors when they occur, for example if a vendor unexpectedly undersupplies against a purchase order.
Aptitude: The individual's predisposition to perform an action or actions, for example numeracy.
Attitude: The person's motivation to do the actions required.
Training can address all of these bar Aptitude and this is ordinarily part of the recruiting process. Attitude can be addressed through training to some extent, but it has wider responsibility through management and for change, through the change management process.
Traditionally all or most of these aspects were taught in the classroom, but cost constraints and experience has shown that there are more cost effective ways to deliver these skills to individuals. It has been shown that adults ordinarily retain only thirty percent of what they learn in the classroom and that even this retention is short-lived if not re-enforced by practice or other means.
Further, Pfeffer and Sutton, in their book "The Knowing Doing Gap", show that understanding is not sufficient: in a company where all management understood the best practices and the message had been repeatedly explained and trained, the performance differences in similar plants was over 300 percent. Instead, as Ikujiro Nonaka has put it, "knowledge is embedded .where it is acquired through one's own experience".
In considering the best means of imparting the aspects of knowledge above both the means and the process are important.
Skills, the ability to perform the action, are best conveyed through experience. Ordinarily, in classrooms, this is through exercises or in many companies it is though on-the-job training. Quite often, unfortunately skills are acquired through trial and error.
While classroom training has been effective in delivering much of this aspect of training to date, it is, in most cases today, prohibitively expensive. Trainers, time away from work, travel and facilities add up quickly to make this form of delivery ineffective.
On-the-job training (or more often sit-next-to-Nellie) has its merits for low volume requirements or where the requirement is small, but inconsistencies in quality, the perpetuation of bad habits and the unreliable manner of this option limit its usefulness. This means of training is also not verifiable in today's industries where standardization is required.
While all the above delivery mechanisms use experiential learning to instil skill, what is required is consistent and verifiable delivery. Pilots know it, Arie de Geus has shown it work for managers, the US army has demonstrated it: simulation works.
Although, in the context of business system technology, there are several "simulators" on the market two aspects of a simulator are imperative:
1. Quality simulation: most commercially available simulations merely offer a flat picture of the system or screen with a hotspot for action. This allows the user to only do one action and allows no room for exploration or real deviation. Pilot simulators are more than a TV screen and a joystick for good reason.
2. Feedback: knowing where mistakes have been made and who has actually carried out the training is imperative for both verification of training and for the improvement of the training. Logged results enable curriculum designers to modify training exactly where problems occur and allow
Conceptual knowledge requires a different approach. Although it may be possible to use simulation to deliver entire processes and hence allow exploration into consequences and allow individuals to deduce their understanding, creating enough and varied scenarios in a simulator would be too time consuming and expensive.
Instead, the theory portion of classroom training has traditionally been utilized to convey understanding. Again, since only a small portion of the classroom knowledge I retained, other means of training are required.
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