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Now that the team has a BASE and knows the PURPOSE, you have a newly engaged group ready to do amazing things.  There's a small window of opportunity to apply the strength before the status quo tries to take over. This is the time to really challenge and push outside the realm of their 'real work'.  Here are some ideas: Systems Thinking (Causal Loop Diagrams)  This is a graphic way from the Fifth Discipline Fieldbook of discovering interventions for gnarly issues that won't go away.  For example, a team attacked the problem "Why is the Help Desk not helping?"  No matter what they did, their solutions helped for a while but didn't make a long term impact.  The premise is that these issues are systemic and likely not 'solvable' but it is possible to create small interventions that lessen the impact of problems.  Put another way, small assumptions and decisions can be adjusted when discovered to improve processes.   The team picks an appropriate WHY question and begins to sketch the 'wheels' of the diagram, which are the cause and effects.  As they learn more from each other, the WHY question can evolve.  Start with a 'Nirvana' loop - if everything were perfect, what would happen?  Here's an example: Help Desk Calls increases => Customers Helped increases => Customers Faith in Help Desk increases => Held Desk Calls increases (circle) This is called a reinforcing loop - it just gets better and better if nothing changes.  But flip any of these three behaviors in a negative direction, and the whole loop spins down as fast as it came up: Customers Faith in Help Desk decreases => Held Desk Calls decreases => Customers Helped decreases => Customers Faith in Help Desk decreases… Clearly, there is more going on here because the Help Desk is not getting better and better OR worse and worse.  To continue, teams discover and add small loops around the outside to document the other triggers that change the system.  For example, As Customers Helped increases => Wait Time for HD increases could be a factor in keeping the Nirvana loop from always getting better.  You will likely need  to hire a facilitator who knows how to lead these types of meetings.  This process requires both analytical and innovative thought, and a good facilitator will be required to balance these two. (Shameless marketing - Call US! 317-475-9311)  Scenario PlanningAnother technique, also from the Fifth Discipline Fieldbook is Scenario Planning. You'll notice this is similar to the HAVE/WANT exercise above.  The team comes up with two criteria to vary over the four quadrants and describe the future state. I generate these two by gathering words from the team that describe 'why you work at the job you have now'.  For example, the team might come up with GROWTH and ENGAGEMENT.  Next, the team breaks into two to four groups and each describe a future in the organization including, people, process, technology, culture, careers, etc.  for the following possible futures.  Here's a simplified version of the stories they might create: GROWTH/ ENGAGEMENT (Heaven) - people/process/culture are aligned, low turnover, etc. No GROWTH / ENGAGEMENT - work is fun but there is no career planning.No GROWTH / No Engagement (Hell) - high turnover, sweat shop, work and shut-up. GROWTH / No Engagement - the company is reaping the benefits of the hard work, not the employees. The imagined future becomes a story the teams tell to each other.  Once the stories are shared and discussed, the team creates strategies, projects and tasks to move to the future they want to be in. GROWTH/ ENGAGEMENT (Heaven) - we need to work on balance and collaboration to engage great teams. No GROWTH / ENGAGEMENT - we need to remember that growth is the goal and fun can't be enough.No GROWTH / No Engagement (Hell) - we've got to keep the lines of communication open so when employees feel oppressed, we find it out early enough to intervene. GROWTH / No Engagement - we need to establish some sort of incentive for employees based on their contributions to our growth. ​

Customers are smart, and they are usually pretty familiar with our product. They use it all the time and have figured out a lot of the tips and tricks to make it work for their environment. To reach this point, customers sometimes need to contact Customer Support. And, incoming requests are more often created to check if there is a feature that can do what they have in mind, and less to report that something doesn’t work as expected. We connect everyday with new users who are trying to get familiar with their new TalentLMS portal, or old users who, as they admit, have the memory of a goldfish, and all start with the same line: "I would like to do X. So, where is this button?" Sometimes, things are easy, and our structure and service matches the expectations of our customers. But there are also times that there is not a simple button for performing an action, or our system has not been designed in the way users happen to need, which turns out to be frustrating. But we’ve noticed a strange paradox: it’s when your customers have a problem and you fix it that they are actually even more satisfied than if they never had a problem in the first place. This phenomenon makes the job more challenging for our team and leads to new exciting features. Inspired from such cases, it’s worth mentioning an existing feature that has saved much time for our customers and a new feature that it will be much appreciated when it soon arrives: the Custom Reports, and a new Action button that assigns courses to users depending on the "score" of the user within the course. Custom Reports If you are registered to a Plus plan or higher, then you most probably have noticed that you have access to custom reports. You missed that? Too bad! With Custom Reports you can create coherent reports, run filtered lists of learners and then perform mass actions on them. Have you ever thought about how you can remove a course from a group of users? It can be easily done by creating a custom report under the event "select users that belong to group", run the report and then select to unenroll users from the course from the mass action button. Cool, eh? New Action How neat would it be to assign courses based on the score a learner gets on a course? Well, from the next release this feature will become available. Sweet! Let’s see how this feature works: A learner who needs training on handling a particular type of machines completes a course with a 60% passing score. He can be automatically assigned to the next course, "Machine Basics". On the other hand, a learner that gets a 95% passing score on the same course will be assigned to the course "Advanced Machines". If your user requires more training, give it to him! All you need to do is to set up the rule from the Events Engine, and Actions, and the rest are taken care from the system. Note that the course score is calculated from the average scores of all completed Tests & Assignments within the course. TalentLMS features are born from your ideas and needs! TalentLMS features are born from your ideas and needs!Click To Tweet eLearning is constantly changing, and having a tool that can really train people with less effort for you is a great advantage. And, from our part, providing a team that can listen to your thoughts and turn them into features is a feature in and of itself. So, the next time you wonder, "Where is this button?", it all starts with a small click here.   About the author: Maria is the Customer Support and Training Assistant for TalentLMS. She likes solving problems and helping people get the best out of their eLearning portal. The post Where is this button? appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

Is it truly possible to create a rapid eLearning program? It really depends on who is creating the program and what they are using to create it. Rapid eLearning is not a magic solution to hopelessly lengthy content that needs to be consolidated into "digestible chunks". Nor is it the learning objective contest where an instructional designer decides which one makes it to the eLearning program and which one is struck out. Rapid eLearning implementation is a skill acquired by instructional designers over the years. There are several criteria that help edit lengthy content to fit into a rapid eLearning program. In this article, we’ll share the top practices for economizing a subject area into a quick learning fix. First things first, what is rapid eLearning? Rapid eLearning is any of these: An eLearning program that can be developed in less than a month The primary resource for the program is the SME Complete content is available in the form of PowerPoint slides or PDF Assessment with feedback and tracking capabilities are present An eLearning program that can be completed in an hour or two If you need a program that complies with these points, you have your hands on a rapid eLearning program. If you are pressed for time and are working on projects simultaneously, rapid eLearning may be your best bet. But that does not mean a compromise on quality of content and experience. How can you create effective rapid eLearning courses? 1. Find the authoring tool that works best for you The right authoring tool does not necessarily mean the most expensive or the best selling one. Choose a tool that is easy to use and understand - one with a short learning curve. Also, the tool should yield a quick "first view" of the course. This means that you should be able to see your end product while you are still working on the process. Note that many course authoring tools provide prototyping. They also contain a wide array of wizards and themes to quickly create the course. The layout, navigation, glossary, resources and many other important sections are built-in and ready to use. Rapid prototyping also has provisions for multi-device and platform testing. 2. Create a template for anything you can Talk to your organization, particularly to the line managers who need to see performance updates in employees. What style of communication and content delivery works best? Create one master template that everyone is comfortable with. Use this template for all your prototypes. This helps cut time from moving back and forth between managers and SME. It also helps create the right mood for learning. Learners are gradually sensitized to the master template and are able to realize their learning expectations. They are also familiar with the structure of the template. A couple of quick tips to follow for template design: Make sure your eLearning template is device-independent. It should be experienced easily and smoothly on all types of devices and operating systems. Keep in mind the various learning styles of your audiences. Integrate multimedia like videos, audio, interactive text and references accordingly. Include reinforcement exercises for each module. Try to create a game-format to keep things engaging and interesting. Make use of the concept of Learning Objects and try to create content in a re-usable fashion from the get-go. It not only saves time, it also ensures uniformity and consistency. 3. Prototype, change, repeat A blueprint of your eLearning program is extremely important to get an accurate response from your stakeholders/clients. Ideally, you should work on a very simple storyboard that incorporates some basic rules. Work on the prototype immediately after working with the client. This ensures you tie in all requirements early and both you and the client have a mutual agreement on the project. Changes at this stage are also less drastic and more forgiving. It is more important to integrate changes in the in-process prototype than a complete prototype. A rough sketch or a basic prototype is all you need in the planning stages. In case the client is not happy, you can always go another way by re-starting the prototype design. 4. Ask for feedback, fast After you have shared the prototype with the client, and once you enter the development phase, you need to do one more thing in between. Create a "first impression" or a "first look" model of your eLearning project using the actual design elements (font, style, colors, the breakdown of the flow, etc). Create at least one complete module and share with the client for feedback. Remember, frequent feedback is the only way to get things right. Include details on page design, the navigation, the course structure, the image descriptions, interactivity features and any important design detail. Share any new changes immediately with the client to receive a quick sign-off. 5. Keep yourself updated We cannot stress the importance of this point enough. Keeping yourself up to date with the latest eLearning tools is the key to getting things done faster. Latest tool updates also include latest versions, so keep your tools updated! Revising your skills ensures that you have access to technology tools that aid in speeding up your development process. For example, some course authoring tools offer platform-independent resolution capabilities. This means that, no matter what the resolution of the viewing device, your eLearning solutions will always be displayed with the correct quality. Now this and many such updates like these can earn you a good reputation, quickly. 6. Diversify your team’s skills Apart from updating your professional skills, you also need to ensure your team is updated. Is there a need for a new position? Is your existing team lacking skills? For example, many instructional designers simply hit a wall when they set out to implement their designs. This is because of their limited development capabilities. A programmer or a graphic designer will quickly be able to make up for the lack of development capabilities. Instruction design and eLearning development is truly a team effort. 7. Evaluate the initial structure Ensure the entire navigation and flow of your program follows the desired sequence of your storyline. Share this with the client for any last-minute changes. Locking in the flow and navigation really helps build things faster. It also helps identify what else is needed. Rapid eLearning is not just about prototyping and outlining design. Rather, these actions help define loops, gaps and surpluses in your design. Rapid eLearning is about excellent client relationship and satisfaction. Follow these six steps to achieve faster eLearning production and smoother future projects. The post From Idea To Course: The 7 Steps Towards Rapid eLearning appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

For individuals of a team to work well together, they must have boundaries around the work that they contribute.  The team itself has boundaries that must be clear to stakeholders in the business.  Defining these boundaries explicitly is rarely done or communicated.  Team engagement is at risk when the boundaries are unclear internally or externally.  The leader and team can use these exercises  to make the boundaries internal and external explicit. Want and Have People want to make an impact.  They want to be engaged and in community with others who are also engaged and making an impact.  When things are hectic, individuals and teams often need to step back and 'repack their bags'.  Here are four questions (from Mike Donahue) that I like to reset: What do I HAVE that I WANT?What do I HAVE that I DON'T WANT?What do I not HAVE that I WANT?What do I not HAVE that I DON'T WANT? Start with individual team members answering these questions alone, and share with the team for clarity and alignment. Role Clarity Revisit individual team member roles to ensure that they align to individual jobs and team boundaries.   Competency models for roles are lengthy and difficult to keep top of mind, so I prefer to have each individual carve out 3-5 Key Accountabilities.  A Key Accountability defines a critical, measurable outcome that a role must deliver for the organization to be successful.  If your group finds this challenging, start with these four things to wordsmith a Key Accountability:AUDIENCE - what is the role, for example, Supervisor of a Call Center?BEHAVIOR - what must this role deliver (done), for example, Track Escalated Calls?CONDITION - are there specific job aids, frequency or conditions, for example, Monthly?DEGREE - how will 'done' be measured, for example, 100% accuracy using the Call Center Dashboard by end of month? Purpose Many start to develop teams with this step, but building on the knowns (what I personally Want/Have, my specific role) is a safe path to seeing the big picture of a shared purpose.  Work up from the weeds of the first two SCOPE activities first to build trust in the team. This is the single easiest way to engage a team and without it, disengage a team. The Purpose Statement answers the following questions:Who are our stakeholders / customers /  constituents?What value do we bring to them?  How do they measure our value?  Do we measure it the same way? What emotional words resonate with our sense of purpose? There's a simple process for creating a team Purpose Statement (some might call this vision or mission):  use three verbs and one noun. Although the process is simple, agreeing on the final product is not.  Use these facilitation steps to move from divergent to convergent:List all the verbs on a flip-chart.  There's no critique here, just brainstorming.List possible nouns on a flip-chart.  Again, just brainstorming.Finish the 'puzzle' by finding three verbs and a noun (with a couple of other words if necessary to sound correct) that resonates with the entire team. Here's a sample of the process using my personal Purpose Statement: Verbs: learn, lead, affirm, grow, nurture, develop, build, affirm, sustainNouns: people, team, leadership, growth, self, profit, quality, engagement Final version  (after much adjusting…)I ignite, affirm and sustain learning in self and others.   Notice I've added a couple of words to make it sensible.  If I am emotional self-aware and notice myself getting stressed, I can repeat these words to myself to self-regulate.  Does my stress have anything to do with my Purpose?  Usually not.  This is useful for individual team members as well as the team as a whole.  ​Consider asking the team members to craft an individual Purpose Statement first, and then work together to create a team version.  Continue to reinforce and remind each other of the purpose when the team or individuals run into conflict.

We should never underestimate the personal transition that individuals go through as they move from one level to the next.

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Record Keeping: Performance, Conduct & Ethics Adapted from an article by Emma Pratt - October 27, 2016 In this digital age issues around record keeping are often a source of angst and sometimes confusion for coaches. Throw in the data protection and privacy laws that prevail in different geographies and guidance provided by professional bodies and it can be hard to see the wood for the trees. This brief article attempts to lay down some working principles for record keeping and some strategies to help you apply them. Working Principles By way of a disclaimer, the principles outlined below are the opinion of the author and do not constitute legal advice. If you wish to get a formal legal opinion you should make contact with a lawyer specialising in Privacy & Data Protection in your legal jurisdiction. Respecting Confidentiality Confidential client information should: Be stored securely (whether offline or online). Many in this era of cyber-theft think about the possibility of being hacked but of equal concern could be paper records that are left on a desk overnight for the someone to read, records locked in a filing cabinet that are destroyed by floods or simply leaving your briefcase on the bus or train Only be shared if you are legally permitted to do and if it is in the client’s best interest Be retained for as long as it may usefully be required or for a period which is legally mandated. Many professions (and commissioners) require you to hold records for defined periods of time (such as 8 years) and in these scenarios this requirement takes precedence over the ICO (Information Commissioners Office) guidance which states that records should be held for no longer than is necessary. Maintain Accurate Records Your records should be a comprehensive, clear and accurate representation of the coaching that you provided. In essence, this means that records should be written so that anyone, including the client, can understand your notes without your input. Many who use profession-specific notation take exception to this interpretation but regardless of your viewpoint as the movement towards client engagement, transparency and note-sharing (with clients) advances it’s likely to mean that your notes will need to be readable by a non professional, most notably the person paying the bill. They must also be completed as soon as possible after coaching has been provided. Obviously, this point is open to interpretation but having discussed it with many supervisors and practice owners the general consensus appears to be within 24 hours. If you disagree with this timeframe (and many do) consider a scenario where you see several clients per day and you write up your notes 2 days after you’ve seen a client. Then imagine being cross-examined by a prosecution lawyer in a criminal negligence case about your ability to recall the exact details of one consultation amongst 16-20 un-recorded consultations. Skills Development Whilst you may not view this as a conventional "record keeping" activity most coaches are required to maintain and develop their knowledge and skills. With this in mind, it makes sense to keep a full and accurate log of when, what and how CPD (Continuing Professional Development) was undertaken. Consent You should maintain a record of the fact that your client has granted you the right to work with them. Record Keeping Strategies The following strategies assume the use of a practice management system of some sort rather than a paper-based record keeping system. Confidentiality Your system should: Be password protected Encrypted in flight (as the information is transmitted over the internet) Be backed up daily (minimum) and to a separate physical location by the service provider Be capable of long-term retention and immediate deletion dependent upon circumstances Be capable of revoking access to users remotely Be capable of limiting access by user role so that users who don’t need to see sensitive information don’t get access to it Accurate Records Your system should be capable of: Time/date stamping notes so that you have a definitive (unalterable) record of when the note or assessment was made. Locking down notes or assessments after a defined period of time so that they cannot be retrospectively amended Capturing text-based notes with appropriate tools to aid assessment, coaching and outcomes, including annotation tools, images etc Skills Tracking Your system should be capable of recording time spent on CPD as well as details about the activity that was undertaken. In addition, it is advantageous if the system can provide some sort of auditable list of the CPD activity that you have undertaken over a given period of time. Consent Your system should be capable of recording that consent has been granted along with a time/date stamp of when it was granted. The post Record Keeping: Performance, Conduct & Ethics appeared first on The Performance Solution.

Learn the three conditions that we as leaders should be setting for our teams to create and execute innovative change.

While growing up in the ’90s, I was always a sucker for stories that involved the hero stating that they’re "putting together a team". Movies like this always followed a very specific formula and were made up of standard cinematic elements that filled my younger self with a sense of delight and wonder. It was around this time that I was introduced to the 1960 production of The Magnificent Seven - a piece of cinema history that rightfully earned its place in the US National Film Registry as a culturally, historically and aesthetically important film that should be preserved for generations to come. In lieu of the recent 2016 remake, the 1960 masterpiece (itself in turn a reimagining of 1954’s Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai) has leapt back into the collective forefront and its portrayal of a rag-tag bunch of guns-for-hire by a star-studded cast of Hollywood greats has stuck in my mind as an awesome inspiration point for working as part of a team, especially in today’s workplace. Sure - working together with a group of colleagues on a project may not be as glamorous or glorious as helping to defend a helpless, penniless village from a band of murderous, marauding thieves. However, I have never been happier in my line of work than when collaborating successfully with a team, each of us filling in our niche (or not so niche) roles, and striving towards a common goal. Teamwork vs. Group work It is important to understand some of the subtle differences between a team and a group. Even though linguistically the words are sometimes used interchangeably, notice, for example, that we refer to a group of football players as a "football team". Inversely, football teams are pooled together and play against each other as opponents in the "Group Stage". The main difference is that the team’s strength comes from each individual’s commitment to the team’s common, and well-defined, goal, like "Win the Premiere League Cup", "defend the helpless village", that sort of thing. Groups, on the other hand, can be better defined as collections of like-minded individuals who have formed up for a reason, for a more general cause - for example, a special interest group. When applied to a work environment, the differences become more pronounced. We have all worked as part of a group, either in our professional careers or as part of our schooling. Members within groups tend to work almost completely interdependently of each other, perhaps they’re even comprised of individuals from different departments. There is often a clearly defined leader or manager who dominates the group’s decisions, assigns roles, and expects clear results. When putting together a work team, however, the definitions change. Within the work team it is not uncommon that the leader operates as a facilitator: essentially responsible for pooling together the talent they feel is required to accomplish the team’s goal. Team members can work completely interdependently, however they tend to work more successfully as part of a whole. Teams often come together to discuss their progress or findings, and reach a collective decision as to how the team will achieve their definition of success. In teams, it is far more common to see work assigned very specifically and according to an individuals’ strengths or weaknesses, in favour of serving the team’s overarching goal. It is at this point where the importance of specialisation within the team becomes an observable part of a team’s effectiveness. A team of specialists Yul Brynner’s character in the 1960 Western brings together a colourful arrangement of gunslingers, for an assortment of reasons. Within the rag-tag group, in both the original film and the remake, are individuals who are highly specialised in certain aspects of combat or survival: the Tracker, the Sharp-shooter, the Thief, the Demolitions Expert etc. The list of potential tropes is endless when it comes to creating charters for the silver screen. The element to keep in mind in the real world is that the team’s success and survival depends on what each individual can bring to the table that is both similar and different to the other members within the team. It is of vital importance that the team has common elements among them: for example, a certain degree of skill, or a certain level of professionalism. However, it is the team’s variety within unity which increases their chance of success, up to "sevenfold" (pun intended). It is fortunate that as of late, particularly when it comes to product design and user experience design, companies are observably moving more so towards hiring capable designers with specialised experience among them as opposed to the outdated model of expecting newly hired design team members to wear many different hats, assume multiple unrelated roles, all of which can lead to persons who are jacks of all trade, yet masters of none. Our work here is done It is an amazing feeling to be part of a team that "just works". I can recall an episode from my career where our team entered a corporate hackathon, and we had just 48 hours to design and develop a working concept for a mobile application. Our Creative Director knew the team well, and it showed in how quickly we all filled out our niche roles and started working as a collective and cohesive unit: who could bang out 30 unique icons in an hour, who could get straight to work wireframing the concept, and who should be coming up the rear applying beautiful UI elements and an overall styling to the project before handing over assets? The end result was an outstanding success, and each member of the team felt both valued and valuable. 48 hours later we rode into the sunset on horseback, feeling a deep sense of satisfaction, and stronger bonds between us as a team. So next time you find yourself in need of defending a penniless village, or of creating your next killer-app, think about whether you want to assign just any odd group, or a lone-wolf freelance designer to work on the project, or if you want to form up a specialised team who you trust will get the job done, each in their own way to the best of their abilities. Until next time partner!   About the author: After travelling the world over for years as an English Language Teaching consultant, George specialized in designing UI/UX solutions for businesses for mobile and desktop devices. He is excited to bring his background in both education and design with him to TalentLMS. The post The Magnificent Seven: The importance of specialisation within teamwork appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

There’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes at Epignosis HQ, home to the makers of TalentLMS and eFrontPro, so you can have a steady stream of releases and the top class support that comes with them. In this post, we’ll have a look at a non exhaustive list of tools, products and services that our various teams use to get their work done. Xero - Accounting We use Xero to stay ahead of our accounting, and it does the job smoothly and efficiently. We especially appreciate the real-time consolidation of invoicing with bank accounts that helps us know exactly where we stand financially. Salesforce - CRM We picked Salesforce among several competitors mainly due to its deep functionality and status as the de facto standard CRM platform. Its current interface could use some retouching, but there’s an upcoming UI update, codenamed Lightning, that seems pretty solid. Stripe - Subscriptions We can’t say enough good things about Stripe. Having worked with PayPal in the past, we found the ease of getting started with Stripe rejuvenating. Their service understands developers needs — and that shows in every possible way. OneSkyApp - Translations We use OneSkyApp to translate our products in various languages. The best part is the tight integration between the core translation software and a universal community of translators. In the past, we used Transifex and its Gengo integration. It worked fine but started getting too costly. Sorry Transifex, but maybe lower your price? Rackspace - Infrastructure We decided on Rackspace as our hosting provider for two main reasons: simplicity (compared to providers like Amazon it was much easier to be productive) and support (they offered unlimited chat based support, which was something not offered by most big hosting providers). Rackspace is also on par with Amazon on industry certifications and other important metrics. Not that cheap, though. Amazon S3 & Amazon Cloudfront - Storage & CDN Our "hybrid" hosting environment blends Rackspace with Amazon’s S3 for long term storage of customer files. We opted for S3 due to its combination of low cost, security and flexibility. On top of it, we leverage Amazon’s Cloudfront as our CDN solution. S3 and Cloudfront are not that easy to work with, compared to Rackspace’s Cloud Files solution, but they are much more flexible and cost-effective. Sparkpost - Transactional emails For a long time we used Mandrill for our transactional emails (the emails that are sent through the application). However, after the Mandrill fiasco, we had to look for an alternative solution. We didn’t have to look far, though, as Sparkpost offered a painless and affordable migration process. Mailchimp - Newsletters We use Mailchimp to send newsletters to our growing communities. It is a solid product with rich functionality and very good deliverability — both of which come at a price. G Suite - Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Calendar We use Google’s suite of business productivity solutions for handling company email, file sharing, and meetings scheduling. It is from Google, so you know that it works. Asana - Project management Asana is our choice for "light" product management. Most of the company’s projects are run through Asana. An added benefit is the transparency that it offers on the inner workings of the company. Everyone can be kept informed on what all the other teams are doing without a formal meeting or communication session. Slack - Thematic communication We are not yet fully committed on Slack, but seems like a nice alternative to Skype’s informational chaos. Having all conversations in a searchable system is the biggest benefit I see, combined with the kind of transparency that is also present in Asana. Skype & Skype Manager - VOIP We are heavy users of Skype for informal, day-to-day communication. A simple internal rule is that as long as you are "green" on skype, you are working. We also use it to support our international phone numbers through its VOIP functionality. Google Analytics - Traffic analysis Whatever Google’s reasons for creating this and giving it for free may be, we can’t really complain for such a deep and usable product for traffic analysis. Semrush - SEO optimization Semrush is one of those products that you cannot believe exist. It is the Swiss army knife of the marketeer, giving us insight on our competition, website SEO and myriads of other types of information. Inspectlet - Insights on visitors Inspectlet records the sessions of your visitors on your website and lets you review afterwards. This helps your marketing department understand how specific individuals interact with your site, where they spend most of their time, and what they find unimportant. It helped us spot some improvement opportunities that otherwise would have gone unnoticed. Ninja Outreach - Outreach Backlinks and guest blogging is a standard way to increase your traffic. It can, however, be really complex to find people that are relevant to your industry and communicate with them efficiently. This is where Ninja Outreach comes to the rescue, as it can automate this process in several meaningful ways. Unbounce - Landing pages We use Unbounce to build landing pages and A/B test them in the context of various marketing activities. This a full-featured product that helps your marketing team perform many different tests without bothering your programmers and designers. Hackpad - Documents collaboration We are heavy users of Hackpad for real-time content editing. One way or another, all our documents pass through Hackpad. We like the program because of its usability, no-brain sharing tools, and flat learning curve. Instabug - Tracking mobile applications We are building a number of mobile applications at the moment, and Instabug solves an important problem we had; that of tracking crashes and allowing end-users to send meaningful feedback. I especially like the ability to take screenshots and add comments on them. Workable - Hiring Hiring is an integral part of the growing process of a company, and Epignosis does a lot of both (growing and hiring). Workable helps us keep this process organized, while also offering a searchable built-in CV library. InterviewZen - Programming tests Speaking of hiring, take a look on InterviewZen. This little gem of a service allows you to create programming challenges and record the programmers while they try to solve it. This process can give you incredible insight on the skills and seniority of a programmer. Uservoice & Zendesk - Support Support is an essential part of our offering. We currently support customers via Uservoice (for TalentLMS) and Zendesk (for eFrontPro). Both products have their pros and cons, with Zendesk being a more complete product and Uservoice having a feature-voting mechanism which we find invaluable for prioritizing further development. BrowserStack - Browser compatibility If you have worked on support then you understand what it means to have a client saying that your app does not work on some old version of an obsolete browser. BrowserStack has a convenient answer to this problem, as it lets you test your application on any browser you can imagine. GitHub - All the code you can eat We use GitHub to control the development of our software. Despite a number of stability issues now and then, GitHub has nailed it when it comes to the usability and flexibility aspect of managing big software projects. What I really like is the ability to mention issues on software commits that then become comments on related open issues. Adobe Creative Cloud - Photoshop and more The tools of choice for most senior designers, Adobe Creative Cloud includes the full Adobe suite of products, but most importantly, Photoshop and Illustrator. Balsamiq - Low fidelity mockups Balsamiq is a joy to use for creating low fidelity prototypes. Our team uses it to sketch the flow of our apps before building more detailed photoshop mockups and designs. This process saves enormous amounts of time for our designers and product owners. Invision - Collaborate on designs Efficiently collaborating on design prototypes is a difficult problem. Invision tackles it in a efficient way by letting people comment directly on designs. Zeplin - Design specifics Zeplin is another little gem that improves the communication between designers and programmers. It allows programmers to get details like spacing, colors and font selections directly from designs. GotoMeeting & Zoom.us - Video conferencing We often conduct product presentations to potential clients through GotoMeeting and Zoom.us. Both are nice and rather inexpensive products that you can also use to host Webinars. Baremetrics & Chartmogul - KPIs Keeping track of the health of your SAAS is important. Baremetrics and Chartmogul are two excellent products that can help you digest your numbers. We use both, as each has a subset of different features that we find useful. Chartmogul offers more opportunities to slice and dice your data, while Baremetrics is generally more visually attractive. UptimeRobot - Stay alive There are numerous tools that help you build a status page for your service. The main benefit is that they reassure your customers you can maintain a good uptime record. They can also be used internally as a notification service for your operation team in case of an emergency. We opted in favor of UptimeRobot due to its minimal design and price. 99Designs & UpWork - Freelancers for micro tasks We have used 99Designs and UpWork (previously oDesk) for various small tasks, from banner creation to blog writing. 99 design is primarily for visual designs and is based on contests that give you many suggestions from which you select a few that pass to next stage. In Upwork, on the other hand, you opt in favor of a freelancer based solely on personal communication and previous reviews. Both need considerable management effort from your team — and your results may vary, but nonetheless both are worthy additions to your toolbox. Adwords & Adroll - CPC campaigns A lot of our marketing effort revolves around Adwords. Optimizing an Adwords campaign requires a lot of effort and specialized skills, as the complexity and keywords competition has skyrocketed in the last years. A nice alternative can be Adroll. We used Adroll for retargeting campaigns in the past with good results. It offered a more polished interface when compared to Adwords. However, now that Adwords offers retargeting, among myriads of other things, it makes little sense for us to use Adroll on top of it. GetApp & Capterra - Directories Software directories can be an effective way to promote your products. Two prominent such directories that we use are GetApp and Capterra, as they bring targeted traffic that can be easily converted to customers. Just make sure you have a great product listing and strong testimonials. Encodemagic - Media transcoding This started as an internal project but is now also a product by itself. Encodemagic offers a unique blend of conversion profiles between multimedia files. Most other conversion services are limited to video files (e.g., AVI to MPG4), but it also offers some unique conversions like Powerpoint-to-Video. Grumpicon - Turns your SVG images to CSS Last but not least, my favorite little toy of the past, Grumpicon. This tool does something simple; it converts SVG files to (reusable) CSS. We have used this technique with all of eFrontPro’s icons and it has worked greatly. Conclusion In this post we made a small list of the kinds of tools we use day-in, day-out at Epignosis to get our job done. We whole-heartedly suggest those tools if you happen to have a similar use case, and we are interested in knowing what other products and services you have to recommend! The post With a little help from our friends: the services we use to build our business appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

I believe that there is a big difference between the roles of leader and manager.  Leaders spend more time on strategy and managers spend more time on efficient operations, though each role has to sometimes play the other.  What is most critical about the impact of each role is that the person fits the job.   This seems obvious, but I see many mistakes made here.  When you meet a great person, your bias is to grab them quickly and put them wherever you have a spot.  This is the fastest way to disengage a stellar candidate.  Let the job speak before the candidate. Finding the magic match between the candidate and the job ensures a productive future including engagement.  Once you have the right people in the jobs best for them, how can you meld a kick-butt team from these very unique jobs and individuals through engagement?  There are three critical steps:Build the BASE of the teamDefine the SCOPE of the teamInitiate the MAGIC of the team  It's important to define ENGAGEMENT.  I do not think that an engaged team is the same thing as everyone on the team liking each other.  I do believe that trust in each other within a team is a prerequisite for team engagement, and that's different than 'liking'.  You can easily think a person you work well with but you don't really like them.  Often people with very opposite skills can work together well, but choose not to have a relationship outside of that work by choice.  It's not that they hate each other, they just don't connect socially.  That's a nice way of saying you really don't want to hang out with them outside of work.  By establishing these three interventions - BASE, SCOPE and MAGIC - you can create a process for renewing the engagement of the team through trust, without requiring a daily love fest.  The Metric - you'll know your team is engaged when they hit a major disagreement and work their way through it without being offended or needing their boss to pave the way.   

Leadership has been the tip of everyone’s tongue of the last decade. From convention keynoters, to coaches, to political pundits, everyone insists they want a cadre of leaders to carry out their mission. So for all the talk, techniques, training, and tips on the leadership topic, you’d think managers, executives, and professionals at all levels would have the concept down pat by now.  Not so.  A few are still off track. Leadership Defined: It’s NOT a Position

Learn how MUSC Health tailored their learning to their leaders and their organization.

Having recently run a workshop on how ICF competences overlap with management and leadership competences and are therefore just as applicable for an in-house coach as an external one, I suddenly realized that they are also applicable to those wanting to be a great associate (a person who works as a self-employed resource for another business). The over-riding message is one of collaboration, partnership and integrity. For purposes of this article the customer is the employing organization (yes they are your customer) and the client is the recipient of the service being provided. Great associates need organizational and communication skills, interpersonal and literacy skills. Like the God Janus, they need to be able to look both ways at the same time; focus on customer and on client. You may be doing associate work whilst you build your own business (keep it separate and not at the expense of your customer). You may be a professional associate, hate selling and business management and passionate about delivery - even more reason to do it well. It is all too easy to work on the direct relationship with the client and this causes distrust and unrest. Your customer has valued your knowledge and expertise and taken the risk to employ you to work with their clients. You too need to value that trust and reciprocate. Your customer is also your project manager and any queries or concerns should be referred back, not resolved without communication. Regular updates should be exchanged and all deadlines completed on time. You need to look after your customer’s business as that is the goose laying your golden eggs. You may be an associate to more than one customer - if so you need to have clear agreements with each and be transparent about what you are doing and for whom. Where are the boundaries? So in order to help - the ICF competences are translated in this context, allowing you to be role model for the coaching profession and to use one set of competences across your work. A. SETTING THE FOUNDATION Meeting Ethical Guidelines and Professional Standards - this is where you need to wear several hats. You need to be true to your profession, the ethical guidelines and code of practice and how to apply them in the course of your work being careful not to misrepresent yourself or agree to work which is outside your sphere of competence. You also need to be true to your customer’s brand - representing them and not yourself, selling on business for them and not yourself, and ensure you behave and deliver work in a way that supports their brand identity, referring back work which for any reason is not compatible with your competence, beliefs and values and way of working. The only addresses and contact details you should share with clients are those of your customer - being an associate is not the way to build your network, database and own business. Standards also include care of materials and resources. What is to be shared, loaned or returned. Who is the owner - customer or client? Establishing the Agreement - you need to clearly understand what is required in the assignment, how it is developed and evaluated and confirm your business relationship and specific parameters with your customer as well as the procedures and processes with the client. You need to agree with both customer and client what is appropriate in the relationship and what is not, what is and is not being offered, and the alignment between the customer’s and client’s responsibilities as well as your own. Check whether there is an effective match between your beliefs, values and competences with those of the customer and the client. B. CO-CREATING THE RELATIONSHIP  Establishing Trust and Intimacy with the Customer - they are trusting you to represent their business. Are you able to partner with them to do that, without marketing your own business, arranging to do work on the side or selling in competing organisations? Do you have the ability to collaborate to create a safe, supportive environment that produces ongoing mutual respect and trust. Having established the relationship with the customer, you need to work with the client (on the customer’s behalf) and demonstrate genuine concern for the welfare and future of the client or his/her organisation. Can you continuously demonstrate personal integrity, honesty and sincerity, establish clear agreements and keep promises? Are you able to demonstrate respect for client’s perceptions, learning styles and wellbeing and all on behalf of your customer? If not, then ask yourself whether you should be accepting associate work. Are you able to create and build relationships on behalf of your customer, be honest with yourself, reflect on your work and be open to new learning? Do you use humour effectively and professionally? Are you flexible and can you be professional - managing your state and emotions, keeping personal issues to yourself and maintaining a business relationship. Are you able to accept and solicit feedback and keep your judgements out of the relationships? COMMUNICATING EFFECTIVELY How able are you to focus on the needs and desires of your customer and to support their brand in the context of serving the clients? Are you able to attend to your customer’s agenda rather than your own agenda for the client. Can you faithfully deliver your customer’s materials, ethos etc without changing it ‘because you think you know better’? Are you able to have ‘professional reviews’ with both customer and client without becoming defensive? How much back ground work are you willing to do e.g. client preparation by reading their website and finding out how your work fits into their personal or organisational strategy? How good are you at fact finding and asking questions that help the client move forward? Can you generate future work or interest in future work for your customer? How well do you comply with relevant legislation and manage diversity - using language appropriate and respectful to the customer and client (e.g., non-sexist, non-racist, non-technical, non-jargon)? D. FACILITATING LEARNING AND RESULTS Do you have the ability to integrate and accurately evaluate multiple sources of information, and to make interpretations that help the client to gain awareness and thereby achieve agreed-upon results? Can you go beyond what your customer shares and add value to their perceptions of the client situation? Are you able to work with the client to identify underlying concerns, typical and fixed ways of perceiving their world, differences between the facts and the interpretation? Can you share insights and facilitate new learning that results in new business for your customer? How do you celebrate success with your customer? The associate needs to be able to stick to the delivery plan with the client, to make urgent changes and justify them to the customer, otherwise discuss all changes with the customer as soon as they occur. You need to have the ability to hold attention on what is important for the customer, and to leave responsibility with the customer to take action whilst moving the client towards their stated outcomes. At the end of the day your customer puts trust at the top of his/her agenda. This is followed by; reliability, professionalism, delivering the right thing in the right place at the right time in the right way, feedback and evaluation, more work for the customer and then a choice of more work for you. Partnership is key, along with a great work ethic, positive attitude, independence (no spoon-feeding), keeping up with professional development, honing your practical skills, and not letting your "soft skills" like "personal qualities, habits, attitudes and social graces" fall by the wayside. The post Being the best associate you can be appeared first on The Performance Solution.

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Engagement. One of the biggest buzzwords around. Everybody wants it, craves it, strives to "boost" it. How could eLearning escape this trend? Thankfully, in the case of online training, there is one invaluable tool that can actually help you achieve this. But let’s get to the basics and we’ll talk all about it as we go along. One of the biggest challenges in eLearning is keeping your learners motivated and engaged throughout the process. "Throughout", by the way, is the key word here: everybody can have people engaged for the first few lessons of a course. Having them engaged for the whole course though, is a whole other matter. Attention wanes, work and other more pressuring matters get in the way, lessons get more challenging and difficult to follow, learners get impatient, generally speaking, life works against engagement and your courses. Some learners even see learning as a chore from day one — especially when it comes to mandatory courses and compliance training that they just have to complete because of state or company policy, or to meet certain KPIs. Keeping the course content appealing and presenting it in an interactive and interesting manner (e.g. using multimedia, interactive elements and well written content) is a great start to keeping the learner engaged. But to really take learning engagement to the next level, you might need to bring in the big guns we mentioned earlier. That’s right, we’re talking about… Gamification in TalentLMS Now, with some run-of-the-mill LMS your mileage may vary, but if you are using TalentLMS, gamification couldn’t be easier. TalentLMS offers a complete gamification engine that supports the best and most well-known reward systems, including points, badges, levels and rewards (in the form of discounts) that you can customize to your own needs. Points can be awarded when learners perform various actions in the system — from simply logging in to successfully completing units, courses, tests, assignments, ILTs, acquiring certificates or contributing to discussion topics. You can choose which actions will give out points and customize the number of points awarded for each action. Badges are awarded in a similar way to points, given out when a user has reaches a milestone for a specific action (i.e. 4, 8, 16 logins or 8, 16 passed tests, etc.). TalentLMS’ gamification engine ensures that the difficulty in acquiring badges increases incrementally as the learner advances in his training. You can upload your own badge icons and customize their names. The badging system has been designed to be compatible with Mozilla’s OpenBadges initiative, letting learners collect and display all of their badges in a single place. Levels are linked to courses. TalentLMS lets learners unlock a level of courses when they gather a specific amount of points, badges or course completions. Courses that belong to levels higher than the user’s show up as "Restricted" in the learner’s dashboard and are not accessible until the required goals have been met. For example, you could configure TalentLMS so that each level of courses gets unlocked once the learner has acquired 3000 points. According to the setup shown in the following image, the learner would have to successfully pass 4 tests, acquire 2 certificates and have contributed to at least 5 discussions in order to collect the required points. Levels work similarly to course Availability Rules, where courses will become available based on whether the prerequisite courses have been completed. Similar to "High Score" listings in arcade games, Leaderboards display a ranking of the top 6 learners in your portal in terms of points, levels, badges, courses completed and certifications. Admins can toggle leaderboard visibility to make them visible or not to all learners. Rewards are a performance award that comes in the form of a discount — as such it makes sense for eLearning portals that sell courses. It’s a more tangible form of reward given to users for their continued engagement and loyalty to the program. Admins can choose to offer a Reward-based discount when learners reach a predetermined amount of points, badges or levels. Resetting Points, Badges & levels At any point in time, you can choose to reset the points, badges or levels for users belonging to a specific group or branch. Adding a deadline by which users must acquire certain amount of points, badges or levels creates a sense of urgency to meeting the goals and can dramatically increase motivation levels. You can combine this with external incentives, as well, such as a day-off of work, a prize, or some monetary incentive. Developing a gamification strategy The first step in implementing a gamification scheme would be identifying your goals. Here are some examples of potential goals: 1) Motivate users to complete more courses 2) Increase the frequency of logging into the portal 3) Acquiring higher grades on tests and assignments 4) Promote participation in discussions 5) Motivate users to attend ILT sessions 6) Motivate users to complete more surveys The second step would be designing an implementation strategy. You would need to decide if you will use a specific rewarding system or a combination of them. If we take the scenario that a company’s goals are (a), (c) and (d), the following could be a potential set up using a combination of points and badges. In this case, the learner would get 150 points for each completed course, 160 points for contributing to discussions and 10 points for every upvote on other people’s comments. In addition to points, the learner would also get a badge when they complete 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 courses, as well as when they score 90%+ in 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 completed tests or assignments. To further promote competition you can also enable the leaderboard for points and badges, allowing each user to see how they score against other learners, and even link this scheme to course levels. Conclusion Sometimes, the best way to get some serious engagement is to add a little gaming element. It works with everybody, from little kids, to senior enterprise employees. TalentLMS’ powerful and customizable Gamification engine lets you add as much or as little gaming and competition elements to your training program, and fine-tune it to meet your particular goals and use cases. The post Gamification use cases and best practices with TalentLMS appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

We talk a lot about how to go into the depths of TalentLMS and customize it, make it work for you. We flaunt our new features for you as soon as we implement them. We dive into the world of eLearning to bring insights and proven methods to make your courses shine. But let’s step back for a moment. Why do you even need an LMS? Well, there’s a simple answer to that. If you sympathize with any of the scenarios that you read below, it is probably time you seriously considered using a Learning Management System. 1. Your approach to learning is disorganized If you need blended learning (meaning using both eLearning and live sessions, either in-person or via teleconference) in ONE place, then you should use a Learning Management System, like TalentLMS. By making learning accessible to all those who need it is the main focus of a Learning Management System. It allows you to make use of a fully responsive and organized platform which will increase the knowledge of your workforce, far beyond what you ever thought possible. This will, in turn, serve to make your learners more satisfied and energized, increasing their productivity. 2. Your learners are bored Better technology means better learning and by using a variety of different learning techniques, including websites, quizzes, and gamification, your learners can stay engaged for longer and will inevitably gain more. To avoid boring them, you can try out a variety of methods and create an exciting learning experience. Encourage social learning and include interactive and immersive features in your LMS to get the most out of your material and coax your learners to excellence. 3. You need to evaluate efficiently In order to track and report on learner performance efficiently and with ease, you need to use a system such as TalentLMS. With reporting features that make the whole process simple and straightforward, you will have access to automatic reporting and tracking, rather than having to do this manually. You can see the results from Courses, Branches Groups, Tests, and Surveys with the click of a couple of buttons. And of course, you can filter these down by user type or by the presence of a certificate. By using these features properly, you will be able to demonstrate how successful each course was or the progress of your learners without any hassle. Automatic results from TalentLMS reporting make evaluation easy. 4. You need to cut costs Learning Management Systems like TalentLMS are a proven way to train effectively while simultaneously cutting costs, meaning you win on two important fronts! You can alleviate some of the pressure in your admin staff by making their job easier, while also saving money on travel and logistics. With TalentLMS, you also have zero implementation costs. And, given that there is zero risk involved, and you can actually decrease annual costs, why would you even stop to think about it? 5. You want to keep everything near With a cloud-based LMS, you can keep everything streamlined, manageable, secure and easy to access. You are also able to integrate with other vital software and can make sure that your data is always up-to-date and accessible. In addition, your learners only have one place to go to for all their training needs. This makes for an efficient learning environment because everything is where it is expected to be, and this level of organization means that the stress of learning disappears. 6. You need to comply with industry standards By using a Learning Management System such as TalentLMS, you can create compliance training courses to comply with any standards you may have to live up to and prove that your staff has complied. You can see who has completed which course and when and have a succinct record at your fingertips. You can use this as proof that your company is in accordance with all industry regulations, with minimal hassle. In some jurisdictions, you can even take this to court, if the need arises. It’s probably obvious by now, but these issues are all too familiar. Most businesses will face one or the other at one point. This, therefore, demonstrates the importance of using a Learning Management System to take the hassle out of the daily management of your company and focus on producing knowledge, not transmitting it. So, don’t stall and don’t hesitate: take TalentLMS for a free test drive and see for yourself just how much eLearning can do, with the bare minimum of effort. The post 6 signs that show you need an LMS in your life appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

Learn the basics about Agile and start building a foundation to explore what it means to be an Agile-ready leader.

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In the previous installments of this series of posts, we took a look at how TalentLMS fares with Compliance Training and Instructor-led Training. This time we’re having a look at using TalentLMS as an onboarding tool. Hop on! Employee Onboarding 101 So what’s this onboarding thing and how does it fit with eLearning? While onboarding is not about training in some particular skill, it is closely related to corporate training, as it involves giving new hires all the information they need to start being productive at their new job. That’s where the name comes from, too, as it simply refers to welcoming those new employees "on board" your company. There some standard items to include in an onboarding program, and some not so standard, that depend on your particular industry and business needs. In general, your onboarding courses will need to have a welcoming message, a high-level description of the new hire’s roles and responsibilities, a short introduction to the company (its history, culture and values), any company or department-wide rules or guidelines that employees need to be aware of (customer service guidelines, professional ethics code, work harassment laws, etc.), and other similar items. Depending on your industry, you might also want to inform your users of particular legal compliance requirements, like food storage, if you run a restaurant chain; safety rules for construction or factory workers, etc. Other nice items to have, include career advancement paths, the company’s organizational hierarchy, job perks, and in general, any kind of frequently asked questions that new hires have. What kind of businesses need an onboarding program? Basically all business above a certain size. Sure, in a small shop you might be OK with just a meet and greet session, where some senior employee welcomes and fills in a new hire about what they will be doing and how. For businesses with a larger number of employees though, especially ones with high workloads and pressing deadlines to meet, an online onboarding program makes sense for several reasons. First, it spares your senior employees from having to onboard and "babysit" new hires. When time is of the essence, they will be much more valuable doing actual productive work. Second, it helps you gather all your introductory material and makes it re-usable and formal, while you giving you total insight and control over what goes in it. This way you don’t get the phenomenon where some new hires hasn’t been told something important because the senior employee assigned to inform them forgot about it, or where new hires are told incomplete or false information. Third, having your onboarding material in an online LMS means you can test your new hires to find out how well they absorbed it, which is especially important when it comes to company guidelines and compliance rules and regulations. Last, but not least, not only can your new hires study the onboarding material from anywhere they are, but all of your employees can refer to the exact same information, any time they want. It will be up there, in your LMS platform. Oh, and with TalentLMS for iOS and Android, your learners will be able to access that info on the field too — even when offline. Employee Onboarding with TalentLMS As we already said, onboarding content is kind of, but not 100%, like regular training content. Thankfully, the two share content creation, editing and management needs, which makes an eLearning platform like TalentLMS a great option for employee onboarding as well. For writing your onboarding content, you just use the same, tried and true, content editing tools that TalentLMS provides for regular training courses, including rich widgets, embedded internet content, multimedia (video, audio) and auto-conversion of all kinds of office formats (PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, Excels, PDFs, etc.). For some onboarding material you might not even have to write anything, as TalentLMS comes with an integrated marketplace with hundreds of lessons that you can just buy and incorporate into your onboarding content (including compliance training material). On top of this, you have all the usual TalentLMS gamification and testing machinery available, to help you increase learner engagement and test their progress in absorbing their onboarding material. And if you decide to combine onboarding with compliance training, then TalentLMS offers a flexible Certificate system so you can tag your employees upon successful completion. Finally, if your business has several departments, facilities or international locations, you can use TalentLMS Branches to create independent onboarding programs (complete with their own customized and independently branded custom online portals) for every different unit in your company. Conclusion In this post, the third in our "many faces of eLearning" series, we had a look at corporate onboarding with TalentLMS. Stay tuned for our upcoming posts, where we’ll be examining further use cases for TalentLMS. The post The many faces of eLearning #3: Onboarding with TalentLMS appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

Competency based training has become prevalent in the past few years, notably for its ability to adapt to individual learner requirements and test learners in only the areas that they need to be tested. Unsurprisingly, many eLearning providers have become wise to the idea of bringing the principles of traditional competency based training into the production of eLearning delivery, the benefits of which we’ll cover below. But there’s a knack to getting this right; so how should you go about it? What is competency based training? Generally speaking, competency based training works on the principle that learners must demonstrate competency in any given area before being able to progress with their learning. This is best explained with an example. Example: Call Center Let’s say that every new agent that joins a call center needs to go through General Induction Training. The first course may be ’How to Greet Customers When Picking Up the Phone’. In order to display competency in this learning, all new employees are tasked with a role play call. Those that pass the role play can move on to the next stage of learning, but those that fail to meet standards may need to revise that course to reinforce their learning about the different services offered by the business, and how to greet each type of customer appropriately. Why implement competency based eLearning? Why should we study the principles of competency based training when delivering eLearning? 1. Saves time - users can fly through modules for which they already have expertise; the ones that would have usually unnecessarily slowed them down and made their experience less stimulating. 2. Engagement - because users are only being tested in areas in which they do not possess sufficient existing knowledge, they will almost always be in a state of constant engagement, which studies show often leads to learning success! 3. Success in achieving learning outcomes - competency based training demands that learners demonstrate just that; their competency. While eLearning would have to be more rigorous in some areas in order to accommodate for this, if an employee does possess any existing knowledge in an area, they will still have a less cumbersome eLearning experience overall. The necessary programming in adding features and creating extended versions of modules will be an up front investment, when you compare the production of competency based eLearning to that of typical eLearning. However, the combination of a bespoke experience and the outcome of a comprehensive grasp of how to actually utilize the knowledge learners have acquired will result in them enjoying greater satisfaction from their eLearning. If executed properly, the final outcome should be that learners complete their training with greater recall of key information and excel further in their roles. How is competency based eLearning delivered? Repetition and playback Consuming information is different to absorbing it - using a combination of standard assessment methods (such as questions, fill the blanks, etc.) and more pioneering methods (such as video, visuals etc.) to test competency is a best practice. Recalling and understanding are not the same as being able to explain something, which is why deploying a range of methods and technologies for assessing a candidate’s learning helps ensure competency. Context Another surefire way to test whether a learner thoroughly understands their new knowledge is to change the context. Reading off a screen and relaying that information verbally in a calm setting isn’t very challenging - and neither is completing on-screen questions or puzzles. Instead, try case studies or role plays to put the information into a real-life context that challenges the learner and makes them actually think about the information they have (hopefully) absorbed. Segmentation To successfully construct competency based eLearning that allows each individual user to have a truly tailored experience, you need to begin individualizing every independent section of your content. The reason for doing this is to ensure that your LMS enables administrators to deselect users from unnecessary modules of learning in which they are already competent. To begin this process, you should start by mapping out your content - and this process will be much easier if your subject matter lends itself to being sequential, rather than non-linear. If your content isn’t sequential, you should still identify links and relationships between individual courses and create rules based around these. Once again, the initial investment required for this production process will be substantial, but it could prove worthwhile, considering the benefits outlined in this article. Survey Finally, you’ll need to design some form of survey that accompanies your content map. This can allow you to identify a starting point, knowledge gaps and areas of expertise for each individual learner, and serve them the appropriate eLearning courses. In a sense, when learners complete this survey they are crafting their own, customized training! There’s a lot to take in - and that’s without any real specifics on executions or granular details. We haven’t been exhaustive in our listing of benefits and considerations either for this same reason; you first need to decide if competency based eLearning is for you! A good example of a company managing this style of eLearning well at the moment is the popular language learning app, Duolingo. If you’re familiar with the app, you’ll have a better understanding of the principles discussed above. If not, and need a working idea of competency based eLearning, check them out and get a practical idea of how this great methodology works. So, where have we left off? Competency based training is a great way to get learners engaged and focused on what’s important to you and them. It helps them apply their knowledge in the work context, which is, after all, the reason behind having a corporate training program in the first place. Give it a try and enjoy the improved results! The post Competency based training: The why and how for eLearning success appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

To take on the challenges of digital transformation, organizations need leaders who can disrupt the status quo, mobilize change, and be increasingly client-centric.

Years of corporate experience informs my observation that senior professionals work very much as ‘individual experts or brands’ rather than as part of the professional service firm. Previous research underpinning the context is limited, although developing as the time for change approaches. Putting the individual ahead of the firm in this way leads to divisiveness and competition, making the professional firms an unpleasant environment in which to work. It takes a minimum of 10 years working very long hours before a professional can be considered for junior partnership and there are no shortcuts. It is this personal investment of time and effort that focus the individual on ensuring that his/her career goals are achieved despite the amount of competition. The ‘apprentice model’ is key, starting with menial tasks and learning from role models and experience, which makes it very hard to access new and external knowledge, broader perspectives and wider learning. I also postulate that failing to learn the cultural norms (dress code, travel rituals, pastimes) is a serious mistake, and the ultimate luxuries are time and space which are ‘the privileges of rank in the corporate tribe’. I challenge that in order for firms to experience the level of respect, engagement and commitment they want to hold onto within this change, they need to build community by giving value and meaning to each member. They need to create a high sense of belonging, and recognition for contribution by individuals, to enable all to ‘support the whole tribe and not just their silo’. The problem with this vision is that the push for professional standards and maintenance of proficiency in order to achieve professional status, does not leave much time for consideration of change. Instead this produces modern day ‘guilds’, which become closed shops, protecting the interests of individual members and status quo, rather than embracing the collective interest through change and responsiveness. This can be seen in professions such as medicine and education (Ramirez et al. 1996; Daresh,2000) when surgeons and head teachers are pushed into taking management roles, although it appears more concentrated in the legal profession where legal partners have their personal wealth invested in equity in the firm, and with larger numbers at the same hierarchical level, causing a more rigid response to change than those operating in other professions. This style of working is causing massive pressure, especially at senior levels and this is where individual coaching can support and enable a balance. There is also a personal cost where a culture of long hours and stress is driving increasing numbers of professionals to drink and drugs both within and outside the workplace. I surmise that professional people cannot possibly acquire all the new knowledge and experience on an individual basis and have to learn to share, in order to optimize and leverage the knowledge available to the firm. This can be achieved through developing networking and relational databases and sharing understanding of market sectors and demand, all of which suggest a role for a knowledge management function within the firm whilst learning to work collaboratively and smashing the silo structures. The post Evolving silo working to collaboration appeared first on The Performance Solution.