…. Actually following today’s eLN event ‘Innovation in Compliance Training’ maybe it isn’t an oxymoron!
I’d had really been looking forward to this particular event as my organisation is heavily regulated and delivers a great deal of compliance training; to that end I was really keen to discover how other organisations and Instructional Designers have gone about dealing with the dry, uninspiring beast that is Compliance Training. I was so excited about the potential of the event that I invited my organisations Health & Safety Manager along, which he duly accepted… now the event had to deliver….
The day kicked as usual with @RobHubbard welcoming everybody and we were swiftly into the 1st session…
Creating a successful compliance culture – Viv Cole
This was a great intro session for many reasons, not least of which was that it was a group discussion exercise (so it got us all talking, first thing in the morning) on the subject of our thoughts and opinions on a compliance culture/training. Our particular table recognised the need for a lot of the Compliance Training that goes on, however a consistent thread of discussion was the fact that a lot of organisations adopt a ‘carpet bombing’ approach to compliance training. There was even an example of a financial sector organisation forcing there groundsmen to undertake basic FSA training; talk about ‘LARGE hand, small map’! I was pleased to explain that in my organisation there are only 2 x events that every employee has to undertake:
Fire SafetyDisplay Screen Equipment Awarenessand that we have adopted an Assess-Train-Assess approach to many of the other compliance events that we deliver, meaning that an individuals competence (or lack of) is the driver for refresher training as opposed to a refresher period expiring. This was something that I had hoped to deliver a Pecha Kucha on at today’s event, but circumstances unfortunately prevented me from doing so.
Viv then went on to share a list with us of the crucial ingredients to a successful compliance that had been created during a round table event with a number of compliance managers earlier this year list:
Leaders walking the walkclear responsibilitymandatory inductionregular updatesconsequence of non-complianceautomation of chasing mechanisms2-way relationshipalignment to business driversStephanie Dedhar -User focused design to deliver gold-standard compliance training
I had been looking forward to Stephanie’s session in particular, as we had been tweeting in the run-up to the event and I was really intrigued as to how she was going to incorporate the Wordle that she had been requesting words from via Twitter.
What she did, which I thought was a really clever idea (and one that I intend to steal in the near future) was to use the responses from eLN members as a TNA tool to determine the content of her session, and here she is in full swing…
Stephanie extolled a 3 stage principle of:
Making the learners careShowing them that it mattersHelping them to live itLike any good speaker, she inspired me to look into a few of her ideas in greater detail/implement a few actions on my return to work; they were:
Review this YouTube video on typographyAsk our Compliance department to provide facts and figures on fire-related incidents and Display Screen Equipment related injuries. This data would be broadcast over our info-screens to (hopefully) make the learners ‘care’.Review Stephanie’s award-winning piece of compliance elearning (Stephanie has subsequently informed me that she is no longer able to provide access to the content itself, but has directed me here)Laura Overton – How the recession has impacted elearning
Laura Overton then took to the mic, to launch the Towards Maturity Learning Technology Benchmark 2010. Given that these were the results of an in-depth survey, there was a lot of data which would not be done justice by my Blog, so why don’t you mosey on down to the the Towards Maturity website and have a look at the report yourself? What really surprised me was that the use of Virtual Classrooms was reported as dropping compared to the previous benchmark??? How come? Surely in the ‘greener’, more cost-focussed world are living in, the uptake of tools such as this would be on the increase? Maybe @barrysampson’s tweet hit the nail on the head?
My action planning point from this session is actually a carry-over from a conversation with Laura at WOLCE and that is to:
Clive Shepherd – Competency or Compliance?
@cliveshepherd started off by regaling a tale of some time that he had spent in Uganda (which has been, and still is still considered as a risk-area) which had been preceded by a piece of understandably necessary elearning. The point that Clive was making was that the moment he was told it was MANDATORY, he became turned off to it.
To use Clive’s own words “we are the keepers of our brains, if we put ourselves of the learning itself then there is little if any chance of it happening“. This struck a real chord with me as my organisation does make many pieces of learning MANDATORY, now given that a significant % of our learning activities are H&S related, then perhaps this is inescapable, but for me there was a tie-in to what Stephanie had said about making the learner ‘care‘ about undertaking the learner.
Clive mentioned the great Blog post by @shackletonjones on the Affective Context Model. I’ve seen/read this blog post a few times and I get something different from it each time; it’s definitely worth a view, or 2, or 3….
Action planning points from this?
Review the Affective Context model blog (again)Consider a coloured hue with a photo to reinforce the context of the image (I spotted Clive has done this with a couple of images taken of him sitting at his PC)Holborn Bars once again came up trumps with the lunch and we were back in for the Pecha Kucha 2010 final between Phil Green, Tony Frascina and Matt Brewer with Matt Brewer walking away with a Kindle for his efforts, which I hope he will be donating to his daughter, given her efforts in producing the images for his Pecha Kucha 
Peter Phillips – Zzzzzzz Wakey Wakey, compliance doesn’t need to be boring.
Peter took us on something of a whirlwind tour of good and bad elearning design. He reminded us how easy it was to write bad multiple choice questions and how quickly you could fall into the trap of just designing ‘click next’ type elearning – in fact he showed us an example where the learner had to undertake 41 (no that isn’t a typo) consecutive mouse clicks to progress!!!
Peter referenced @CatMoores work a number of times, in particular her ‘Dump the Drone’ blog post
And Tom Kuhlmanns work in relation to do we really need instructions on how to use an elearning course?
He also showed us some great examples of engaging, emotionally charged elearning in these 2 examples
What really struck home for me though was his statement “good learning is good learning, regardless of the ‘e’” – and I do believe he’s right!
It was during the ensuing comfort break, that I had a quick chat with @larshyland who came up with a great phrase “think campaign, not course“. Great point Lars, and with my organisation now having a graphic designer and TV film/production crew, this is something that I will look to leverage in the future.
What am I planning to do with this sessions content?
Critically review the multiple choice assessments within the elearning I have producedDonald Clarke – Compliance or Compliant?
Last up before the mad-dash for the tube was Donald Clarke who opened up by saying that he had no issues with the H&S related compliance training that took place, but it was the ‘Equality and Diversity’ type compliance training that he took issue with. Donald referenced several pieces of US research that disproved any benefit from undertaking such learning activities and came out with a fantastic soundbite
“The plural of anecdote is……. ‘not data’”
He also described the simple social media policy that the Channel 4 head implemented which went a little something like “Don’t be a dick!” – he then compared this to the tomes of rules that the BBC had produced, interestingly my organisation is considering implementing a Social Media, I wonder which approach model they will use
As previously mentioned I had taken my H&S Manager with me and I was really encouraged by his positive comments throughout the day and the vision and ideas that he had already started to formulate for the future.
There wasn’t much Tweeting going on throughout the day (which always surprises me, given the nature of these events), but for those of you who are interested here is the TweetDoc.
As always, the informal conversations that took place during the day were just as valuable as the formal sessions so I would like to thank everybody who contributed to an excellent day in whatever way. – Cheers!
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