How to effectively train an ID

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Planning
  • Determine the recruitment objectives.
  • Identify the required and desired candidate profile.
  • Determine the required personal attributes of the candidates (I place weightage on willingness to learn and share).
Design and Develop

Components of the training (or induction) program:
    1. Corporate orientation: Corporate values, vision, goals, structure, teams, market and competitors.
    2. Organization orientation: Various teams within the organization that the employee will work in (for example, project management, quality, engineering services, learning strategy, visual strategy), organizational structure, values, vision, goals, structure, market and competitors of the organization. #1 and #2 could be merged for smaller companies.
    3. Team orientation: Reporting structure, team interaction, roles and responsibilities and expectations.
    4. Project orientation: Customer orientation, introduction and usage of tools (content management system, authoring tools, time tracking, bug tracking, graphical editing tools), templates (scripting templates) and common mistakes.
    5. ID specific: Scripting workshop covering best practices, styleguide, classroom exercise and an intensive assignment to be completed individually (in consultation with peers, if required). The assignments are evaluated with the entire team as a group. Additionally, a workshop that covers tools and techniques to scope individual course component can also be conducted.
    6. Values and Ethics: Acceptable behaviors, conflict management and values that define the team.
The above components can be accommodated in a timeframe of approximately two weeks (10 working days). For lesser duration, I reduce the number of components or the depth of the topics. However, in any combination, I ensure #6 is accommodated since I consider it to be the most important.

Implementation
  • The topics are allocated to different experts within the organization.
  • Dates are identified. Times for training are determined with an objective to create an interesting mix of topics. Presenter availability is factored into this mix.
  • Once the employees are ready to join the team, the point of contact welcomes them, provides an overview of the training plan and distributes a copy of the schedule. This point of contact is available to the employees for any questions during the training period.
  • The employees are made responsible for completing the entire program in the stipulated timeframe. They are required to handle minor changes to the training plan by themselves. For example, if there is a last minute unavailability of a presenter, the employees need to schedule the session with the presenter for the next available slot.
Evaluation
  • Collect feedback from the employee either formally using a feedback form or informally, say, over a cup of coffee.
  • Update the training program with the inputs received.
NOTE: This post is created on request from an anonymous reader (see comments for Seat Time for an Elearning Course). You probably know of smarter ways to train an ID, it would be great if you could share them here.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hi Aradhana,
That was really informative, you have given me a brief sketch about the ID training. Thanks for that information.

The ISD process you have given is for the freshers, can you just elaborate your experiences on conducting workshops for trained or experienced ID's.
4:37 AM
Anonymous said…
Hi Aradhana,

This is an informative post indeed! I am sure that this post will be useful to all the Training Managers in an e-Learning company. Keep blogging!

Regards,
e-Learning Tyro
5:46 AM
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