While listening to podcasts and reading articles that I enjoy, I thought that if we all share our favorite business blogs and podcasts, we might find a few gems to brighten our weeks. Below are some suggestions. What are your favorite podcasts?

From Vicki:

The podcasts I enjoy listening to are:

• Get it Done Guy’s Quick and Dirty Tips to Work Less and Do More podcast by Stever Robbins provides good tips for professionals.

• TED Talks – available in hi-def video or audio only, TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a non-profit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Topics include business, environment, technology, engineering, science.  The podcast can be found at http://feeds.feedburner.com/tedtalks_video.

• To The Best of Our Knowledge (TTBOOK) by PRI and Wisconsin Public Radio. I have subscribed to this podcast for years, both through audible.com as well as directly from their site. I am a fan of this show, its wide (huge) variety of topics, and its excellent interviewers. I have enjoyed shows on topics I would never have thought about or taken the time to look into.

From Rob :

I admit to not listening to many podcasts as I tend to be more of a visual learner. I enjoy a series by RSA called RSAnimate.  You can find them on YouTube for free here:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rsa+animate&aq=0&oq=rsa

RSA creates videos from audio tracks of famous authors talking about their works and matches it up to video of an artist sketching the concepts. Fun and educational for the auditory and visual learner. It includes summaries from Daniel Pink (Drive), Sir Ken Robinson (on education), and many other thought leaders. It’s fascinating to listen to the summaries while the artist expresses the content visually.

As you may have heard, PMI changed the exam on August 31, 2011 by 30%. This was driven by a change in the Role Delineation Study and was designed to make the exam better reflect the updated skills needed and used by project managers. If you started studying to take the PMP® exam using the 4^th edition of the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) and couldn’t take the exam before the change, what do you do?

First, don’t panic. Yes, the exam changed 30%. However, some of that is due to a classification adjustment of where different skills fall. Some of it is driven by how scores will be compiled and reported back. In other words, more of it is driven by administration and less of it due to content change from a practical perspective. That is good news, both for those who took the exam by August 30^th and for those taking the exam on or after August 31^st.

We have reached a point in the project management profession where it is sophisticated enough to be defined fairly well. Yes, we will tweak our standard to keep it current and relevant, but overall, the techniques we will use to successfully define and complete projects and to lead our teams are fairly well defined and will remain the same.  This is a compliment to the work that our profession has accomplished over the years and the work PMI has done to capture and document those best practices.

In my opinion, the biggest impact to those taking the exam immediately following the change on August 31^st is that for 4-6 weeks, your score will not be provided immediately. In my opinion, this is to allow time to collect exam results, verify that the exam is fair and test the new exam process. PMI will notify you when your results are available at pmi.org, probably around mid-October. There you will learn whether you passed or not. 

If you are planning to take the exam shortly after August 31, know in advance that you will not know your pass-fail status. If you are OK with that, great. If not, you may choose to wait to take the exam until mid-October.

In summary, don’t panic. If you were able to take the exam by August 30^th, great. If not, that’s fine too. The bigger change will come after the 5^th edition PMBOK® Guide is issued Dec 31, 2012. I strongly suggest that if you have begun studying under the 4^th edition PMBOK® Guide, that you take the exam before it reflects the 5^th edition PMBOK® Guide. While changes to the 5^th edition will not be as extensive as those made in the 4^th edition and while many (most) of the definitions, techniques and best practices you are studying now should remain intact with the 5^th edition, there will still be new names, terms, processes, etc. in the 5^th edition to learn. Together, the changes made in the 5^th edition will most likely be greater than the 30% change in the exam experienced on August 31, 2011. Therefore, if you have started studying, set a goal to take the exam under the 4^th edition PMBOK® Guide if at all possible.

How do we increase the longevity of a learning solution? In Part 1 of this series, I challenged the learning organization to examine some basics in their processes and create more effective solutions. In Part 2 of this series I challenged the learner to take a more active role in the learning experience and to share the new found knowledge and skill with the team. However, an effective learning intervention relies on three elements: the solution, the learners and the environment to which the learners will return. In this post, Part 3 of 3, I’m going to examine the environment into which the learner returns and the person responsible for that environment: the manager.

1. Be Laser Focused

As a manager, your people are constantly looking for opportunities to learn and develop themselves. Whether they state it in their development plans (as mandated by HR) or keep it rolling in their subconscious we all want to be the best at something. Your job is to help them get there while being laser focused on the goals of the organization and how your team contributes to those goals. There is rarely warm, fuzzy time to send folks away to training when you have reports to create, products to manufacture, clients to satisfy and budgets to meet. It is critical, therefore, to do two things:

1. Be constantly aware of the goals of the organization and how your team contributes to meeting those goals.
2. Grow your people in ways that help contribute to those ends.

Tune in to the potential you see in your employees and their own goals and align their needs to the business. Look for ways to give them opportunities to be better and contribute in a way that makes your team and the organization better. Does this sound self-serving? It shouldn’t. Think about organizations that rely on employees to be highly focused, demand constant improvement and have high standards for how success is measured. How about NBA basketball teams? As I write this, the NBA finals are underway. Consider how those organizations view talent development, even in their star players.

2. Get Help From Experts

Your organization probably has a training team just waiting to help you be more successful. Granted they may feel understaffed and can’t offer all the classes you want or need. But they are experts in the field of learning and can probably offer you options for informal methods of helping your people grow without formal classes or courseware. They can probably help you set up mentoring sessions, job shadowing, special projects, provide learning resources and draft objectives and outcomes that you can use to demonstrate the power of learning and the impact on your work group.

Don’t be fooled in to thinking that learning only happens at a learning event. Some of the best learning comes from actually working at something new and different. It might mean you need some coaching on how to help your people process and get the most from the experience. That’s ok; you are a learner too.

3. You Don’t Have To Be The Expert

One of the hardest parts of moving up the management ladder is change. You were probably promoted because you were the fastest developer, the most accurate auditor, the most analytical financier, or the most profitable salesperson. Your promotion has taken you from those ranks, and now you process reports, communicate goals and track budgets. You’ve stopped doing the work and started leading the work. It was great when you were still the expert, but times change. New hires have better info, faster tools, new ideas and different perspectives.

Again, that’s ok.

Part of leading is knowing when to turn over decision making to the team. Let them be the experts. Be a learner yourself and have your people demonstrate what they know and what they’ve learned so you can be better at leading and showing off how great your team is. Work to understand what they bring to the table and they will continue to want to grow and develop to be better. When you create an environment in which employees have the confidence to stay informed and look for improvements all the time, you build a stronger, more effective team that gets results. The team that gets results looks good and makes you look like the leader you want to be.

When you create the right atmosphere for learning you foster a team that seeks constant improvement, that shares knowledge, and that strives for success. To be effective, learning can’t be something that is done to you, or to your employees. Learning must be something that teams embrace and leverage for competitive advantage. What do you think? How are you leveraging the art of learning in your work group? What do you do well to foster learning and what obstacles do you face that derail the process?

Note: This is Part 2 of 3. Read Part 1 here.

How do we increase the longevity of a learning solution? In Part 1 of this series, I challenged the learning organization to examine some basics in their processes and create more effective solutions. However, an effective learning intervention relies on three elements: the solution, the learners and the environment to which the learners will return.

In this post, part 2 of 3, I’m going to challenge all of us to rethink how we as learners should prepare for the learning and apply what we take from our learning experiences. I’m going to challenge you to think about your own behavior and re-invent yourself as a learner.

Prepare Yourself

As learners we have an obligation to show that the investment of time and resources has a payoff. That’s right, I said obligation. We also have to own our development plan and look for ways to incorporate what we learn into our daily activities.

1. One critical element is knowing how we best learn and apply information. Are you a visual learner? Be prepared to create mind maps and take notes as images of what you see. Learn best by listening? Maybe you want to record the session to listen to later. If you are a kinesthetic learner, keep a small squishy ball handy to fiddle with and be an active note taker. Armed with some basic knowledge regarding how you best process new information can help you plan ways to apply new information and get the most from the experience.
2. Learning is not an event, so quit thinking about it that way. As learners we owe some due diligence to the process. In your favorite journaling tool (notebook, binder, Outlook) jot down some thoughts on why you have enrolled in the learning experience, what you hope to gain, how it benefits your current work, and how it might improve your performance. What knowledge or experience do you have that relates to the topic? When you enter the learning with your own point of view you engage in the content as an active participant rather than a passive one.

Enjoy the Experience

Think about the learning experience as a chance to reinvent yourself. How often do you have the chance to try and fail without repercussions (not a good example if you are engaged in food or workplace safety training mind you)? A quality learning experience should give you the opportunity to explore the content, roll it around your mind and apply it to build skills in a safe environment.

Close the Loop on the Experience

Once the session is over, it’s time to start applying and sharing what you learned. Here are some things you can do to add permanence to your new knowledge.

1. Take your new knowledge and skills and purposefully apply them to the work. One basic tenet of adult learning is that we learn by applying our prior experiences to new information.
2. Blog about your experience or share it with the team over lunch.
3. Build a new process map and post it in your work space as a visual reminder.
4. Involve your manager or peer group.
5. Ask others for input. Ask others to respond to what you have learned and give them a chance to weigh in. When we broaden the experience pool by involving others we come to a more robust understanding of the content.
6. Plan your own follow-up. Most of use some type of software that allows us to plan to-do items and create checklists. Create some personal items and schedule them 30, 60 and 90 days out. Schedule time with yourself to check in on your progress. Think about what you recall and what you have used.
7. Consider previous challenges and obstacles. How could you have used your new found knowledge and skills to overcome them?

The learning activity itself is rarely the magic bullet that fixes everything. It can be a very powerful experience that adds to your productivity and effectiveness if you participate in the right activities and take an active role in your own experience.

What do you think? How are you owning your learning experiences and making them practical and powerful?

I’ve worked in several organizations supporting schools, restaurants and retailers, and in every one the question is always, “How do we make the learning stick?” In schools, the goal is to make sure students can remember the information to be prepared for college level work or at least to be productive members of society. In business, the goal is to be prepared for challenges in the work place. I’m going to tackle this topic over the next three blog posts: first, what should learning departments do to impart knowledge; second, what should learners do to enhance their retention; and finally, what should managers do to reinforce learning.

1. Build a Better Mousetrap

Learning organizations spend countless hours figuring out the best way for people to learn new knowledge and behaviors that will drive the success of the business. Unfortunately, many organizations get stuck in a rut and find it difficult to break out of their routine of delivering training the same way, time and time again. They produce job aids that look the same or more booklets in a series. The problem isn’t one of creating an internal brand; the problem is that given the available resources it is often easier to use an existing model than to branch out into new territory. For example, the job aid created to help new employees navigate the company intranet is not necessarily the best template to use for other skills.

2. Start With the End in Mind

It doesn’t matter if you are training project management or selling skills, the same set of rules apply to create highly effective training materials.

1. Identify the behavior that you desire and ask what the person needs to know to perform.
2. Design tools that present that information in a way that appeals to multiple learning styles.
3. Provide learners a chance to process the information and try it out through problem solving or experimentation.

This is a very high level look at the tasks of designing the right training tool and there are many steps in between.

3. Provide a Total Solution

You may have an elegant solution in mind but to really serve the organization you should look at the whole performance picture. What obstacles keep people from performing? Are their barriers in terms of time, technology, or other resources? Is the desired behavior currently being rewarded or is it unknowingly punished? For example, while working for a retailer we identified that employees rarely moved onto the sales floor to provide service or suggestively sell. The operations team came to us wanting more “Selling Skills” training. As part of our review of the performance we gave the operations team feedback that the highest priority in the store was placed on “reducing the wait time in line” and customers often became agitated if employees on the floor didn’t open a new register. So along with training materials we also recommended a dedicated floor person and staffing solutions that would keep them on the sales floor helping customers. We also recommended making a change to the Mystery Shopper questions such that on peak nights, the presence of a floor person was a critical success measurement.

4. Don’t Get Caught in a Rut

Learning organizations often go back to the well of ideas when presented with a new challenge. There is comfort and stability in using the tried and true methods: they are easy to use and modify; they are familiar to management and to the end users; and they have proven effectiveness. As long as you have sound success measures in place and you can prove the value of the training, there is no concern. But if you do find yourself in a rut and you seem to be training and retraining the same skills, you should consider challenging yourself and your learning team to develop some new ideas or exploring new spaces.

Reflect on the solutions you have provided your organization in recent months. Do they target the desired behavior or did other non-relevant info sneak in? Are there other factors contributing to poor performance besides lack of training? Are you delivering a hammer because in the past you created great hammers so you keep modifying the hammer design? You fix these things in your organization and in the next post I’ll look at how learners can enhance their own learning experience after they’ve received your elegant solutions.

If you are preparing to take the Project Management Professional (PMP) examination, I have an idea I would like to share.

You have probably been told the best way to prepare for the exam is to take as many practice exams as possible. I could not agree more. Because of the nature of the PMP examine, the wording of the questions can be very confusing. The Project Management Institute (PMI) also includes wordy questions; correct answers, but to another question; impossible questions, etc. The exam is a challenge even if you know all the material. It is as if you have to know the material AND understand how to read the questions and decipher the code.

I have taught PMP Exam preparation courses for some years now. I recently had a student who had an approach to taking the test that I thought was very creative. It could be that this idea has been around for some time and I have never heard of it. If so, I guess I’m the last one to hear about it, part of the 10% that never gets the word and when they do hear about it, they feel like they need a dunce hat. If this tip is not widely known and I come across as a genius, I’ll never tell that Bryan in my Washington, DC class, came up with the idea.

Here is the deal: when I take a multiple choice test, I do a certain amount of cogitation and guessing. When I’m done with the test and look over the answers, if I get the question correct, I breeze quickly past that question and focus on the questions that I answered incorrectly. Well folks, I’m here to tell you that not all the questions I got correct were because I knew the correct answers. Yes, I guessed. However, because I got the question correct on the practice test, I never reviewed the material that the question was referring to. We both know that this is a recepe for disaster later on. Therefore, the approach I suggest to the small minority of those who guess on questions is as follows. Take paper and write down the number of questions that you have on the test. At the top of the paper, write this scale:

                        Confidence Level 
  1 = Don’t have a clue what the answers is.
  2 = Kind-of think I might have heard the terms before somewhere.
  3 = Know most of the words and definitions of the terms.
  4 = Pretty sure I know what they are asking about and think I know the answer.
  5 = Nailed that one, piece of cake, I wish they were all this easy.

As you answer the questions and write down the alpha character that is associated with the answer you have chosen, also write down the confidence level number associated with the above description.

As you go back through and grade your answers you will now be reminded if you guessed or knew the answer to the question. If you got the answer correct but guessed at the answer, you will know to brush up on the subject. Additionally, you could add up the values of all the questions and divide by the number of questions and get a good idea how confident you were taking the test.

Let me hear from you. If you try this approach and it works for you, let me know, it will make me feel good and feel like I contributed to my profession, which by-the-way is part of the Code of Ethics. If you have already heard of this approach, let me know and I’ll not mention it again and embarrass myself.

Good Luck!

In the book The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, Tony Schwartz discusses many little known facts about sleep and learning, and the effect of too little sleep. In this post, I will discuss the duration of the sleep cycle, the five stages of sleep and what learning occurs in each stage, the impacts of too little sleep, and what constitutes too little sleep. Some of these facts were very eye-opening for me.

First, a study at Harvard showed that four hours of sleep over five consecutive nights impacts our memory, attention, and speed of thinking to a level equivalent to that of being legally intoxicated. Wow!

On the bright side, considerable learning occurs during sleep, and we can learn to take advantage of it. We process, sort, and consolidate memory during sleep. I call this “digesting.”  In one study, subjects were introduced to a problem which had a hidden shortcut. Two groups were trained in the evening with one group getting a night’s rest after the training and the other staying awake all night. A third group received the instruction the next morning and then waited eight hours without sleep before being tested on the training. The group that slept after the training was twice as likely to find the shortcut or hidden rule, allowing the task to be completed more quickly and efficiently than the other two groups.

There are five different stages of sleep, and different learning occurs during each of the stages. All stages are necessary to have complete learning or retention.

• Slow-wave sleep, the deepest of the cycles, is where we process fact-based information, such as a new language or recalling data like state capitals or earned value formulas.

• REM, or Rapid Eye Movement, sleep is where we process more complex and emotionally charged information. This is the lightest stage of sleep. It also allows us to remember “how” to do an activity, like typing or driving a car.

• Motor learning occurs during the middle stages of sleep.

• Visual learning is processed during slow-wave and REM sleep.

One complete cycle of sleep lasts 90 minutes. Completing the full 90 minute cycle is important to maximize learning. This can be used to our advantage when analyzing and solving a problem at work or when studying for the PMP exam. Studying at night and then sleeping on it allows us to sort, think through, and consolidate the information. In other words, we can properly digest it. 

Taking a long nap (1.5 hours or more) after a morning of studying can also help the information sink in. Don’t fight the fatigue felt when studying or working hard on a problem. Study for a while and then rest on it. Allow it to sink in. More complete learning, and more creative solutions, will appear afterward. This is very helpful when working on a complex problem at work or at home, as well as helping PMP candidates answer the situational questions on the PMP exam.

Anyway, I’ve been working hard on a problem. Now I’m feeling sleepy….

I have trained thousands of professionals over the past 11 years and have observed a direct correlation between the different types of students and their success rate. My personal observation and the help of some past students have allowed me to label these different types.

• Vacationer: This person sees training as an opportunity to take a break from work. They tend to mentally check out once they leave the office prior to training, and are present physically but not mentally in the class. They are there for a mental break and a good time. If traveling, these people often stay out late and are therefore very tired in class. Most do not receive the organization’s intended benefit of the training, which is the application of new knowledge and skills, but often do receive their intended benefit of a vacation.

• Explorer: These students are lifelong learners and are attending class to broaden their horizons. They are interested in new learning opportunities and will listen and participate in class, absorbing any new knowledge they can get.

• Hostage: These people are in training because they are told they need it or because they have to be. They often start the class defensively and may not be open to the ideas presented. Sometimes they turn around and see the benefit of the information offered. Sometimes they do not. It is very rewarding for me when a former hostage begins to engage in the class.

• Distracted: These people physically show up to class but are not really mentally present. They are constantly checking their mobile devices, getting called out of class to settle fires, and tend to not return from breaks in a timely manner. Often, they miss more class than they attend. Sometimes this is out of their control. I understand that unavoidable issues arise at times. Sometimes those can be delegated but are not (which may be why they are in the class to begin with). However, I find that most people miss so much that they don’t receive benefit from the training and because they are haphazardly trying to address issues at work, they are not doing their best work there, either. Both the training and job performance suffer and all sides lose. 

• Applier: These students actively participate and are engaged in class and work to apply the knowledge after class. I know they do this because these are the ones who follow up with me, either to let me know they passed the exam or to tell me how they applied something we discussed and practiced in class or to give me new examples or analogies to use in future classes. They demonstrate to me that they have internalized the information in some way.

The students I find most gratifying are the appliers, explorers and transformed hostages. I love the “aha” or lightbulb moments when they connect information presented to what they are experiencing and figure out a way, either individually or with others, to resolve their situation. This is the reason I teach. This is what motivates me to keep sharing what I have seen and learned.

Please let us know if anything we have shared here has helped you…and how. Thank you for your interest in our articles!

After a recent purchase at a chain pharmacy, the associate showed me on my receipt the number I could call to take a quick service survey. She ended by saying, “…and we would appreciate if you gave us fives.” You have probably heard this before at a retailer that you frequent. If you’re like me, you probably get a trifle annoyed by the statement. One day I’m going to have the fortitude to respond by asking, “How would you rate your service?” or maybe, “What exactly was five-worthy about our transaction?” Again, if you’re like me, you nod and smile and go about your business. If an organization wants to earn fives on their service, then every interaction has to start with the end in mind.

As learning professionals we often ask the organization to rate our training programs. We also look for fives on our post-class surveys. We ask participants to rate the materials, the facilitator, the content and the environment. The Kirkpatrick Model is the reference model for measuring training effectiveness. Basic information about the environment and experience is Level 1. When we measure knowledge transfer and retention we are evaluating Level 2 effectiveness. How often the learner actually uses the content on the job is Level 3. Finally, the Return on Investment (ROI) or impact to true business metrics, is Level 4.

Your training organization is likely using this system to measure its performance. To really deliver on high-impact learning is to score well at every level: positive learner experience, knowledge acquisition, skill practice and ROI. In order to achieve this lofty goal, it is critical to start with end in mind.

1. Identify the desired performance. Stay focused on the skills and knowledge that achieve the desired performance and remove the extra that only confuses the issue. We often hear, “But they really should know…” Make sure they need to know it to do the job, not just because it’s a fashionable topic.
2. Be a performance consultant. Ask the hard questions. Is there a performance gap because people don’t know the expectations? Are there obstacles in the way? When they perform the way they are supposed to, are there negative consequences? If they use a non-approved short cut are they rewarded somehow (is the job easier, do they get paid more, are they recognized by their boss)? For a great resource try this book by Robert Mager.
3. Make sure learning solutions fit the situation. Some interventions can be solved with a simple job aid while others require full classroom experiences. Make sure that the solution fits the issue at hand and considers both the desired performance and the learner’s experience consuming the training. You can read more about my thoughts on this in a blog I posted last year.

If you want your people to earn fives for their performance, and who doesn’t, make sure they know what they are supposed to do and have a clear path to get the job done. If the associate at that pharmacy had known exactly what great service looked like and had delivered on it, I might call or go online and give them a five. Instead, I am tempted to respond that the employee did exactly what was expected: she informed me of the survey and asked for a five, rather than making my experience great.

What do you think? How can you make sure your people and your organization earn fives on their metrics? Let us know and please, rate this blog a five.

When I started my career in the world of corporate training, my first assignment was to revamp the field curriculum for a retail establishment. I was brand new to the world of retail corporate training but I had confidence in my educational background and my common sense.

Unfortunately, I was faced with a boss who had an idea of training that was based on look and feel of the materials more than the content. We had many a protracted argument about what the materials should be and in the end, as you might imagine, he won out. Some classic blunders occurred along the way in the development of the materials:

1. The timeline was set without any knowledge of the scope of the work. This put the team under unnecessary pressure to reach an unrealistic deadline. Quality suffered both in the content (major pieces were missing) and presentation (typos, etc.). This led to costly reprints.
2. The presentation dictated the content rather than letting the content determine the presentation. This VP wanted books, flashy, slick, glossy books that were expensive to produce and not reusable. In a business with high hourly turnover, this proved to be costly and inefficient. This led to costly reprints.
3. The VP wanted all of the operations content reproduced in the training materials. There was already a voluminous Standard Operating Procedures Manual (SOP) that included all the relevant information. It was intended to be used as the fundamental resource of the organization. Rather than using this to supplement the training, we circumvented it. When operational procedures changed, the training materials were instantly out of date. This led to costly reprints.

See a pattern developing here? Had we followed some basic best practices of training development, we could have saved the company thousands of dollars. If you want to create quality materials that will stand the test of organizational change, follow some simple steps:

1. Make sure the desired behavioral change drives the delivery format. Work performed on the sales floor should be trained using tools that work on the sales floor or at a minimum simulate the sales floor experience.
2. Examine the scope of work before determining the timeline. Sometimes you don’t have the time for your perfect timeline. In this case, make sure you present the organization with good/better/best options so that your client can make an informed decision.
3. Teach people to fish. If there are tools that exist in the organization and are the standard for performance, make sure that the training materials refer learners to the tools. In the end, learners are better prepared to succeed if they know how to use the resources available.

What do you think? I was just starting in my career and didn’t have the tools or the political credibility to influence my boss. How have you been able to change the shape and direction of training when faced with similar obstacles?