# Presentation: 488480

## Web Based Training Producer 2000 Conference Recap

***By***
***Karen E. Thorn***

## Agenda

**Why attend WBT Producer 2000?**
**Conference Tracks Attended**
**eLearning Strategic Planning**
**Project Management**
**Instructional Design**
**Case Studies**
**Pre-Conference Seminar entitle “How to Conduct Needs Assessment”**

## Why attend WBT Producer 2000?

**NASA’s Code 586/587 contract calls for developing on-line tutorials on extremely technical material.**
**Special interest in development of eLearning solutions.**

## Conference

**Conference held at San Diego Marriott Hotel April 26-28, 2000.**
**Conference Sessions broken into 9 different tracks:**
**Project Management**
**Management Tools**
**Instructional Design**
**Interface & Usability Design**
**Delivery Approaches**
**Best Practices**
**Case Studies**
**Development & Programming**
**Tools & Technology**
**Vendors from ~40 different companies present at the Vendor Expo**
**Approximately 1700 in attendance**

**Notes:**
PM: Effective team selection, Project needs versus budget, Time allocation, Resource Management,  Upper management communication
MT: Evaluation of delivered training and assessment of utility, reporting to stakeholders
ID: Content creation for rich, effective solutions
IU: Content organization focusing on the interface and usability issues
DA: WBT + instructor led
BP: Techniques, approaches and solutions used by top notch in the industry
CS: Examples offering lessons learned
DP: Translating ID into web deliverable product
TT: Software for infrastructure to media.

## Key Note Speaker

**Alan Webber of Fast Company Magazine which is considered a combination of the Harvard Business Review and Rolling Stone Magazine**
**New economy paradigm**
**Mind-set change occurring in all markets**
**Quantum leaps and bounds of growth**
**Intangible assets valued**
**Flexibility, with teamwork stressed**
**Web Influence**
**Intuition rules (decide now, analyze later)**
**Iterate**
**All power to the customer (choice, time, speed)**
**Global thinking**
**“****Companies build their own coffins”**

## eLearning

**An internet business service**
**Collapses both distance and time**
**Enables directed learning across the enterprise**
**Improves upon existing learning methods**
**Primary value is as a competitive business tool**
**Should **_**not**_** be considered a “support function”, but integral to the enterprise**

## eLearning by Definition

**Filling the “Knowing/Doing” Gap**
**Not about technology, but about people**
**Knowing versus doing**
**Experiment through questions and answers**
**Self-paced learning**
**“****Work yourself out of a job, you become invaluable”**
**It’s not “Training”, it’s Learning!**

## eLearning Strategy

**Enterprise wide**
**Global implementation of strategy**
**Selling the strategy to company and audience**
**Effective implementation of eLearning model**
**Change in management**
**Not technology focused, but content focused**
**Stakeholder Buy-in a MUST**
**Success must be measurable**
**Revenue increases**
**Error rate reduction**
**End user’s clamoring for more**

## Steps to Building a Company Strategy

**Build a learning culture**
**Technology is a tool, not a strategy**
**Push for **_**real**_** senior management commitment**
**Embrace the web**
**Create a new framework for learning**
**Avoid “shuttleware” (taking existing training and simply moving it to the web)**
**Develop an enterprise learning architecture**
**Build a business case**
**Communicate well and often**
**Rethink your business model**

## Project Management

**Virtuosity for eLearning**
**Project Plan emphasizes responsibility and key review points**
**Educate client on WBT fundamentals**
**Cost/value trade-offs**
**Tools & resources**
**Communication lines open**
**Project refinement/iterative development**
**Sessions**
**101: Top Ten Ways to Make Your WBT Project Successful**
**401: Fireplaces, Fixtures and Furnaces: What Can You Afford in Your WBT?**
**601: WBT Project Management-Art, Science and Magic!**

## Instructional Design

**Understand how the brain learns**
**Pattern recognition**
**Right versus left brain focus**
**Create engaging content based on learner’s experience level and learning capacity**
**Gauge level of interactivity necessary**
**Delivery media affects instructional design**
**Sessions**
**206: Redesigning Instructional Design for Web-Based Learning**
**510: How to Breathe Life Into Technical Training**
**701: Designing Distance Education-Start with the Border**

## Example of How the Brain Learns

## Case StudyKeeping It Simple for Sales(KISS): Online Training for Reps

**Components of their online training solution which was for training Sales Reps**
**Browser compatibility**
**Functionality implementation**
**HTML with JavaScript**
**Recommendations on using ASP/JSP**
**Gathering of usage statistics to measure success**
**Usage should decrease**

## Pre-Conference Seminar“How to Conduct Needs Assessment”

**2 day seminar conducted April 24-25, 2000**
**Performance analysis**
**Kinds of information to gather**
**Process used to gather that information and prepare a detailed solution framework**
**Up-front legwork **_**before**_** “training” and needs assessment**

## Performance Analysis vs. Needs Assessment

**When a manager says his people need training, what does he actually mean?**
**Performance Analysis is the front-end analysis of the solution effort**
**Where We Find Opportunities**
**What We Seek: Optimals, Actuals, Drivers**
**Where We Look: Sources**
**What We Deliver: Solution Systems**
**Training Needs Analysis**
**Identifies specific training needs (e.g. training length and course materials)**

## Performance Analysis (PA)

**Partnering with clients and customers to help them define and achieve their goals**
**Reaching for several perspectives on a problem/opportunity**
**Taking a high-level look at the problem in order to define where to go next**
**Determining any and all barriers to and drivers towards successful performance**
**Proposing solution systems based on what is discovered, not what is typically done**
**Systematic**
**Systemic**

## Where We Find Opportunities

**PAs are unique to a situation**
**Typical requests for assistance**
**Rollout of a new product, computer system, or philosophy**
**Problem existing in an ongoing situation**
**People development for those in a particular position or job**

## What We Seek

**Optimals**
**Vision of how the situation should be or what people ought to be doing**
**What is to be accomplished? Why?**
**Can the changes people would like be described?**
**Does documentation exist on what should be done and why it’s important**
**Do examples of exemplary work exist?**
**Example:**
**Sales should increase 50% yearly**
**Salespeople are correctly entering sale information**
**Joe Salesguy has been meeting this increase and using the sales tool properly.**

## What We Seek (cont’d)

**Actuals**
**Information about the current performance, activities, successes and failures.**
**What work is being done correctly?**
**Are there examples of flawed work?**
**Is there someone doing it as you wish others would?**

## What We Seek (cont’d)

**Drivers**
**Information about what now keeps or might keep individuals from realizing the optimals.**
**Causes or barriers**
**Typically fall into one of four categories**
**Skills and knowledge**
**Motivation**
**Incentives**
**Tools and work processes**

## Drivers

**Skills and Knowledge**
**They don’t know how to do it**
**There’s too much to know or it’s volatile data**
**Motivation**
**Why do they need to do it (value)**
**Don’t believe the can do it (confidence)**
**Motivation = confidence x value**
**Environment**
**Don’t have the right tools**
**Insufficient time**
**Policies prevent**
**Incentives**
**Aren’t asked to perform optimally**
**Doing it is a hassle or it is ignored, or not doing is rewarded**

## Where We Look 

**Sources of Information:**
**Person, product, or document providing information on optimals, actuals, and drivers**
**Examples:**
**Executives – optimals, solutions**
**Literature – optimals, drivers, solutions**
**Subject matter experts (SMEs) – optimals, solutions**
**Supervisors/managers – actuals, solutions**
**Job incumbents/workers – actuals, drivers**
**Customers – optimals, actuals**
**Work products - actuals**

## Solution Systems

**The difference between the optimals and the actuals is the Gap.**
**The nature of the drivers defines the Solution System**
**The idea is to eliminate the Gap by addressing the drivers.**

## Solution Systems Address

## Training Needs Assessment (TNA)

**Process for determining and defining what is in or out of an instructional effort.**
**Forms of instructional design**
**Education and training**
**Documentation**
**Job aids**
**Coaching**
**Long-term versus short-term memory**

## Training Needs Assessment (TNA)(cont’d)

**Gathering of information**
**Interviews**
**Focus Groups**
**Surveys**
**Observations**
**Approaches to TNA**
**Audience Analysis – focuses on prerequisite skills, knowledge and motivation of the training**
**Goal Analysis – agreement on details of excellence associated with abstract concepts**
**Subject Matter Analysis – optimal perspectives and knowledge**
**Task Analysis – captures the detailed operative skills associated with effective performance on visible tasks**
**Critical-incident Analysis – based on “war stories”, both successful and unsuccessful**

## NASA Code 586/587 Contract

**Developing 4 separate tutorials**
**3 Science Data Format tutorials, including programming APIs**
**1 Science Data Processing Pipeline tutorial**
**Highly technical in focus**
**Customer’s first and our first eLearning solution**
**Project Management**
**Instructional Design**

## Conference Materials

**Slides from most of the presentations is available on the web at www.influent.com**
**Click on the “Conference Archive” button**
**Click on the WBT Producer 2000 icon**
**User Id “wbtattendee”, password “material”**
**Hardcopy materials from the Performance Analysis seminar available for borrowing**
**Conference Advertising**
**If interested in receiving notice of upcoming eLearning conferences, send me email karen.thorn@appnet.com.**