At the end of last week’s post (Four productive uses of your time while quarantined), I added two poll questions:
- How comfortable are you in delivering virtual training?
- Which features of virtual delivery do you use most often?
While the sample size of responses was relatively modest (67 respondents), I thought the answers provided were quite interesting.
How comfortable are you in delivering virtual training?
- I’m pretty shaky: 50.75%
- I’m super comfortable: 49.25%
Of course, one of the biggest issues with poll questions that can influence responses is the way in which the questions and the choices are phrased. In this example, I didn’t offer any middle ground. You had to choose either being “super comfortable” or “pretty shaky”. From a survey administrator point of view, I like forcing people to choose a side without having a safe middle ground (“I’m ok in delivering virtual training… not the best but not the worst”). As a respondent, sometimes being forced to choose between two extremes can make me uncomfortable.
Is this data useful, or is it merely interesting?
There are two questions I often ask myself when it comes to interpreting data in order to determine if the data is merely interesting, or if it’s useful.
- What story is this data trying to tell?
- What (if any) actions should be taken as a result of this data?
Because of the small sample size and the voluntary, self-reporting nature of this poll, it certainly isn’t scientific information that I’ve collected. That doesn’t mean it’s not useful.
One hypothesis this data brings to mind is that there are a good number of Train Like A Champion readers who are being asked to deliver virtual training and would love to have some more information, tips, tricks or ideas on how to be better in their craft.
So what do we do about this?
Based on this data and hypothesis, Endurance Learning will be offering a free, 45-minute webinar offering some ideas on how to match your learning objectives with activities that can be accomplished in a virtual space. These ideas will be useful for both virtual training sessions and virtual team meetings.
To sign up for this session, which will take place at 1:00pm Pacific/4:00pm Eastern next Wednesday, April 15, click here. We’ll limit participation to the first 25 people to register (but we will schedule a second session if there are more than 25 people who are interested).
Wasn’t there another question?
Yes. The second question was: Which features of virtual delivery do you use most often?
- Screen Sharing (69%)
- Chat/Q&A (66%)
- Polling (30%)
- Breakout Rooms (25%)
- I am not comfortable with these features and prefer to talk/share my slides (18%)
- On-screen Drawing Tools (15%)
- Other (9%)
I think the way in which these responses stacked up is interesting for a number of reasons.
By far the most-used features are Screen Sharing and Chat/Q&A. After doing some research into common features available across all platforms – whether Zoom, WebEx, Adobe Connect, Skype for Business, GoToMeeting, etc – it turns out Screen Sharing and Chat/Q&A are the two features available on pretty much every platform.
It’s also interesting to see that almost 1 in 5 respondents said they’re really not comfortable with most of these features and simply share their slides and talk. Sometimes, all you need to do is share your slides and talk. Sometimes there are other ways to get people to engage (especially if you don’t want people checking their email or scrolling through social media as you share your slides and talk).
Whether you’re among these 1 in 5 respondents, or if you’re simply looking for some fresh ideas in how to maximize the use of online tools to facilitate virtually, please do join us on Wednesday at 1:00pm Pacific/4:00pm Eastern.
Out of curiosity…
[yop_poll id=”23″]
