My Learning Blog

Well, so it happened to me as well. Bad global markets, poor financial results, deep budgets cuts, my position ethered (just coined this word. I like the sound of it)! Anyway, so here I am looking for work. While I want the wait to end, the wait has been pretty good...really! A gorgeous son, California spring/summer, camera, and MacBook with its photo and video editing capabilities, need to take their rightful place in this feel good feeling. Stuff I do these days: I catch up on the latest trends in performance consulting, organizational learning and development, and instructional design. I try out new tools for learning solution development. I enjoy blue sky thinking on the merits and application of each tool in an overall learning intervention. Over time, I now recognize learning leaders as people. One leader I admire tremendously follows me on Twitter!! Cool! I sit back, review, and analyze my professional life, and think about the next steps. I hone my selling skills as I get more...

I have finally uploaded the competency development formats for everyone's access. Click here to access the files. Click here for the related blogpost .

We have used mobile learning as just in time learning for our sales team i.e. prior to the ILT on a new product. The learning level was basic i.e. Knowledge in the Bloom's taxonomy. The important design criteria we considered while creating mlearning modules were: 1. Decide the family of devices you will use it for - the platform and technologies for various devices (even within the same brand) are different. So one needs to be very specific about the devices for which the solution is being designed. This turns out to be the biggest challenge for mobile learning solutions. 2. Identify the precise learning objective. What do you want to achieve from the solution? No really, what? considering both elearning and ILT would be more detailed and thorough for the learners. 3. Ensure the images and content elements are light. Obviously! Imagine having to wait for 15 seconds for an interaction download on a small screen! 4. Plan on short learning modules. Maybe 10-12 screens at the most. I...

If localization is the key part of the project, as designers, it is important to know how will we localize? Would we outsource the solution to a vendor or build it inhouse. For larger projects, typically, English language is done inhouse and the solution is outsourced to translation companies for other languages. If the solution is smaller, say the content needs to be localized in one or two other languages, organizations might want to bring the localization experts inhouse so that the teams can work closely. Here are some general guidelines I learnt while working on localization projects: General Think globally. Keeping data and functionality location independent. Different languages convey the same thought differently. Also, some languages are longer than others. Therefore, always, always, always leave room for text expansion in the page while designing space for text in buttons, menu items and paragraphs. Stick to the examples that have similar interpretation globally...

It's been a long while since I last blogged! So much has happened since...I lost my father who I was very close to and whose passing away I am still to come to terms with, I became a mother of a beautiful baby boy, I moved overseas, changed my home a couple of times, got a new job and am now on the verge of being laid off. Phew! We will see how the last one turns out. For now, I should blog more regularly...atleast better than what I've been doing for the last one year or so. 

Develop Vision>Share Goals>Gain Support>Deliver Success Simple!

To direct, coach, support or delegate based on the commitment and competence of the team member in that situation, seems to work for me. Over the last couple of years I have consciously practiced situational leadership model with the teams I have led. My ultimate objective is to be able to delegate a slice of work and get quality output. Once there, the team member moves to higher challenges and we go through few of the other phases again. So far, I have had a little over 1 percent attrition. I guess some of this success could be owed to the situational leadership model. Likewise, I feel more motivated when my manager is able to assess my level of commitment and competence for a given task and align his/her response accordingly. Situational leadership model really seeks to analyze a given situation as a function of the person's will and capacity to perform the task. Because of this reason, this model finds its application outside the professional environment as well.