The moment of need is an interesting concept to me. When we are evaluating our learner’s level of training, many of our instincts tell us to train them on every step and every term because we don’t want to turn them loose untrained for goodness sake! But training isn’t isolated to what happen in the classroom or virtual course and we need to consider to what degree information should or rather will be retained when people exit.
I am working on a few projects right now that require different levels of performance support. What is interesting about them is how much digging it is taking to understand enough about our learner’s moment of need to support their training/performance support balance. As I work through these projects, I find myself setting a couple of common rules on implementing performance support. Here is what I have come up with so far.
Use performance support when there…
are a lot of steps participant won’t or can’t memorize.
If you find yourself writing steps of a process that your participant will not do on a regular basis, consider turning it into a resource. Instead of spending time in the training teaching them the steps of the process, turn it into an activity where they learn how to access and use the resource.
is a lot of new technology or terminology to digest
A good example of this is new hire training when people want to acclimate staff as quickly as possible. Acronyms, company jargon, and technical lingo fly around, and eyes glaze over like a donut. Taking the time to develop solid resources and teach people how to use those resources to amplif the learning experience for everyone involved.
How do you use performance support in your training? Let’s talk about more ways to use it in the comments below.
