The Next Wave of Learning Has Arrived.

Is Your Team Ready?

Over the last few weeks, we’ve had to create new routines for daily work and new modes for learning remotely. My new routine includes a daily walk through the neighborhood each night. These walks help me transition from work and unwind from a long day of conference calls, remote meetings and video chats with my team.

On my walk the other night I saw something incredible.

There’s a house in our neighborhood with a giant TV screen directly visible through the front living room window, and there is always a movie playing. Like passing a drive-in theater, I can’t help but wonder: What’s showing tonight? The other night, it was one of my favorites — The Incredibles.

Spoiler Alert: As I walked by, the scene unfolding showed The Incredibles racing downtown to stop Syndrome’s evil robot from destroying their city. The movie was at the exact point where Dash asks: Are we there yet? I could lipread his question and Mr. Incredible’s response: We get there, when we get there!

Snapping back to reality, I couldn’t help but wonder: Are we there yet? Has the time for virtual learning to break out of hiding and save the day finally arrived? Are we the new, superheroes poised to save our organizations from outdated modes of instructor-led training? Are we ushering in a new dawn of something exciting? Maybe even something incredible?

While few of us could have predicted the COVID-19 crisis, or the speed at which half the US would be working remotely, as learning and development professionals we shouldn’t be surprised by the shift towards virtual learning. We’ve been talking about the digital transformation of learning for the past ten years. While some organizations have moved forward with virtual learning, a large number have been slow to adopt these new practices. Like Mr. Incredible, many of us have been biding our time at an insurance job while admiring the cape and all its potential behind the glass. Josh Bersin recently shared that now is the time for the Big Reset; my hope is that the big reset includes many organizations adopting the world of virtual learning.

Recently I attended a DDI webinar on getting real results from your virtual classes. It was delivered by a professional friend of mine, Janice Burns, along with one of her team’s best virtual facilitators, Lynn Packham. DDI has been successfully delivering virtual classes for 12 years, and we have learned a lot from DDI and their good work in establishing best practices in virtual classsroom delivery.

Despite our focused efforts over the last few years to deliver virtual classes using these practices, until quite recently, only one-third of our leadership development programs were delivered virtually. Enter ‘shelter-in-place order,’ and in just one-week, the number of virtual classes we delivered shot up to 100%.

For my organization, we’re finally here! Our journey over the past month has been an incredible ride; sometimes fast, sometimes bumpy, with a few hard touchdowns along the way. Through all that, this past month has been one of our most re-invigorating development experiences of the past 10 years.

Below are a few guidelines my team uses to design, produce and facilitate successful virtual classes for our organization:

Before designing any class (virtual, blended or ILT), ask three questions:

1. What problem are you trying to solve?

2. What do you want your participants to be able to do at the end of the session?

3. Based on the answers to the first two questions, determine the best solution: virtual meeting, interactive virtual class — or frankly something else.

If the appropriate solution is a virtual class, help your client’s understand three critical success factors:

Intentional interaction. Virtual classes can be designed rapidly using a skilled, experienced designer. As one designer said: 94 slides is not a virtual class when you only have 75-minutes. You need to create a design that has intentional engagement every 5–7 minutes, and gives participants something usable right away.

Designate two key roles.

1. Producer — manages the technology and online experience

2. Instructor — focuses on learners, content and engagement

Practice. Allow sufficient time for at least two rehearsals before your first delivery — a content walk through, and a full technical rehearsal.

In my next post, I’ll dig into to HOW your producers and instructors create great virtual learning experiences, and I’ll share how to create a path forward for virtual learning.