20 Ways for L&D Professionals to Spend Use-or-Lose Budget Before December 31

The holidays are fast approaching, which means the Train Like A Champion 1-word resolution post will soon be here. Before we get to resolutions, however, we have some ideas for you in the event you find yourself with some extra funds that need to be spent before your finance team can close out the books for 2019.

Books for Your Professional Library

While you can always browse our list of must-read books for any L&D professional, a few more have come to my attention in the past year, including:

Microlearning: Short and Sweet (Karl Kapp and Robyn Defelice)
Interact and Engage: 50+ Activities for Virtual Training, Meetings and Webinars (Kassy Laborie and Thomas Stone)
Dare to Inspire: Sustain the Fire of Inspiration in Work and Life (Allison Holzer, Sandra Spataro and Jen Grace Baron)
The eLearning Designer’s Handbook: A Practical Guide to the eLearning Development Process for New eLearning Designers (Tim Slade)
Digital Kindness: Being Human in a Hyper-connected World (Lauren Hug)

Handy Gadgets

There are a few little gadgets that can make any trainer’s life a little more fun, including:

A basic PowerPoint remote to advance your slides without standing behind the podium
A fancy PowerPoint remote that does some cool tricks
A Bluetooth/wireless speaker for playing video or music during a session
A really good power bank to re-charge your devices when you can’t find an outlet
A good travel backpack for your computer
Mr. Sketch Markers (I know they’re not really an electronic gadget, but I had to sneak them into this list somehow!)

Cool Online Tools

Snagit for screen capturing and more
Camtasia for video editing
Soapbox for creating your in-person training sessions in about 5 minutes
Storyline for rapid authoring of elearning

Professional Development Opportunities

Take an employee out for a cup of coffee and some informal coaching (formal training isn’t always the answer!)
Join your local ATD chapter
ATD TechKnowledge (February 5-7, 2020)
Learning Solutions 2020 (March 31, 2020 – April 2, 2020)
ATD 2020 International Conference and Expo (May 17-20, 2020)

What did I miss? If you have extra use-or-lose money budgeted for this year, how would you spend it?

Brian Washburn

Brian has over 25 years of experience in Learning & Development including the last 7 as CEO of Endurance Learning.

Brian is always available to chat about learning & development and to talk about whether Endurance Learning can be your training team’s “extra set of hands”.

See author's posts

Instructor-Led Training Resources

These are some of our favorite resources to support everyone involved with instructor-led training.

Training Delivery and Facilitation Competency Rubric

A rubric is a way to assess performance with a standard set of evaluation criteria. The next time you need to assess the performance of someone delivering training (even if that someone is you), you may find this rubric helpful.

263 Training Activities to Boost Your Workshop

Get quick access to the training activities and workshop activities that help you generate ideas for your next training session.

The Role of Co-facilitators

Co-facilitators play an important role in a training workshop. The most obvious benefit is that when you co-facilitate, you get a break from leading the

18 Instructor-led Training Activities

Engaging, intentional, face-to-face and virtual instructor-led training activities can make the difference between a session that helps learners to apply new skills or knowledge and one that falls flat.

Articles Similar to 20 Ways for L&D Professionals to Spend Use-or-Lose Budget Before December 31

ILT & VILT

Accessibility and Inclusion in Instructor-Led Training (ILT)

Is your ILT designed with accessibility and inclusion in mind? Gwen Navarrete Klapperich wants to make sure you consider accessibility and inclusion in your ILT design, and offers some suggestions on how to do just that.

ILT & VILT

Training Delivery and Facilitation Competency Rubric

instructor becomes the pupil with kassy laborie and zovig garboushian

ILT & VILT

Turning the Tables: From Trainer to Student

As people who have designed and delivered effective training, Kassy Laborie and Zovig Garboushian know a thing or two about good learning experiences. So what nuggets have they gleaned from a 9-month course that they’re both attending, and that all of us should consider when designing our own programs? Today’s podcast answers that question.

ILT & VILT

Is this the world’s most effective role play?

When it comes to your training participants, two of the dirtiest, or perhaps scariest, words you can say during a session may be: role play. In today’s podcast, John Crook, Head of Learning at Intersol Global, offers some thoughts on how to make role plays more authentic and robust.

Jessica Kriegel on keynote presentations

ILT & VILT

What can training designers learn from a popular keynote speaker?

What can anyone who designs training learn from the way a keynote speaker designs and refines their presentation? Renowned keynote speaker, Jessica Kriegel, answers that question and more in today’s podcast.

using a whiteboard in a virtual classroom

ILT & VILT

Using a Whiteboard in a Virtual Classroom

Do you remember the time way back before COVID when we all gathered in classrooms for training? We have seen some Instructor-Led Training (ILT) return,