Everyone feels the pressure right now. Many managers feel pressure to deliver more and better products and services. That pressure rolls downhill to the people doing the work. And, the people doing the work, especially if they’re parents? Well, they clearly made the wrong choice to bring children into the world in the last eight […]
I’m pretty sure that online training isn’t going to go away even when some people return to the office. I have already evolved my workshops to several possibilities of “training”: Short-form webinar (20-60 minutes of me delivering content, minimum interaction) Longer-form offering where people (typically) learn at their own pace Self-study with some feedback from
I suggested that I see three kinds of people in online “workshops:” attendee, student, or participant. I want to design for the outcomes these people can expect. I first start with this question: Who does the teaching? Who Teaches Whom? We have a model of teacher-led teaching, in both in-person and online workshops. I prefer
In the Design the Webinar Experience post, I said breakout rooms take longer. It’s not just breakout rooms. Everything online takes longer. People need time to synch online that differs from in-person synchronization. (I’ll talk more about this when I talk about designing interactions.) That’s why I think differently about what I want in each
When I think of a training experience, I separate the training into these parts: The content I hope people will learn. This includes setting the context. The various interactions that will illuminate and reinforce the learning. How to wrap the experience so people get the most of it. I then need to think about which
When I design any form of training, I ask this question: What actions do I want people to take after the training? Do I want to offer principles? A vision of the future? Some possible actions? Maybe a blueprint for the future? How about practice with feedback? When I want to offer principles or a
I bet you’ve been in a class or a workshop over the past few weeks. You were a “participant” in a class that ranged from 20-2000 people. You didn’t find the class organization helpful. First, the trainer/leader lectured at you for an hour or more. Then, you got broken into working groups with too many
I wrote a number of posts and newsletters over the past few weeks to help you see alternatives in this age of uncertainty. I hope you use these ideas to generate other ideas or ask more questions and create more experiments. The posts on this blog: 7 Tool Tips for Your Newly Distributed or Remote
Many people talk about “going back to normal.” We aren’t going to return to normal. That old normal is gone, at least for a year, if not longer. (I suspect we will cycle between remote work and office work for the foreseeable future.) What we can do is discover a new normal. Discovery requires different
Everyone’s distributed/remote/dispersed in these days of COVID-19. Mark Kilby and I have had the pleasure of being guest on a couple of podcasts that released this week: We spoke with Shane Hastie at Agile 2019. Here is the podcast: Johanna Rothman & Mark Kilby on Their Book From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams. We