Providing The Right Training Content

MANAGEMENT ARTICLES

Providing The Right Training Content

(Peter Frans - Managing Partner - Trimitra Consultants)

Many of the suggestions on training programs are about how to conduct training events, rather than about what to cover in them. Of course, the content itself is important too.

I hope the following ideas will prove useful.

Link the content of your training event directly to the advertised aims or objectives. Of every component of your planned training event, ask yourself, `How exactly does this relate to the intended outcomes?' If the link is tenuous, the element concerned may be an optional extra.
Remember that most activities take longer than we imagine they will. This is particularly important when devising new activities that you haven't tried out before. It is better to allow 45 minutes for such an activity, then fill in with something else if it only takes 30 minutes, than vice versa.
Don't ride hobby-horses too hard! When we've got a strong belief in something, it's all too easy for us to plug it so hard that it becomes difficult for participants to take – particularly if they have views rather different to ours.
Research how relevant and useful each part of your training event feels to participants. In follow-up questionnaires or interviews, ask which parts of the training event content were most useful, and ask which things could be left out if necessary.
Give participants your content rather than tell them it. It can save a great deal of time to have the main principles of your training event wrapped up in handout materials or summaries, so that participants can spend their time with you exploring the issues rather than trying to write them down.
Check that your content is authoritative, up-to-date and correct. It is very useful to find trusted colleagues elsewhere who will be willing to look at your handout materials and overheads with a supportive but critical eye, and give you feedback about anything that may need to be adjusted.
Remember that content changes. Participants will regard your training event as being as up-to-date as the most recent developments you refer to during the session. Make sure you have some new references as well as well-established ones. A handout sheet listing these is very much appreciated.
Let participants help you to develop your content. Next month's repeat session can benefit a lot by incorporating questions and answers which emerge from your present training event. A sheet collecting together such questions and answers is very useful as handout material for future training events.
Focus on what participants will do during your training event. The activities you devise will be the most important aspect of your participants' view of the content of your training event.
Have plenty of spare `content' up your sleeve! You never know when an activity will take only half the time you allowed for it (for example when everyone already knows a lot about the subject). Sometimes, you'll have to drop a training event element entirely because you find out at the last minute that everyone has already covered it elsewhere. Have ready a range of alternative things that you can use to fill participants' time usefully.

Trimitra Consultants regularly conducts training sessions on training & develoment topics. For Further information, please contact:

Ms. Sisilia N Dachi
Trimitra Consultants
CBD Bintaro Jaya IX Blok G1, Jakarta 12330 - Indonesia
Phone: (+62-21) 745-2275, 745-1948, Fax: (+62-21) 745-2049
Email: dachi@trimitra.com