A design for design Part 2

Welcome back to part 2. So far we have:

• a process flow chart for creating change
• a set of training objectives describing the knowledge, skills, behaviours and attributes needed to create change using the process described in the flow chart.

You might want to check out Part One to for a little more detail on how we got this far in our workshop design.

Onto the what we did next:

We then looked for gaps where steps in the process only had a few training objectives linked to them and decided whether this was important or not. Next we thought about a theme for the session.

To do this, we asked ourselves this simple question (This is one of Ally’s favourites)

What is this “a bit like”?

We brainstormed potential themes by completing the statement, “This is a bit like…”, for each step in the process and each learning outcome.

Eventually we agreed that it was a bit like the Olympics.

• You had to win the bid to get your change programme off the ground and to convince people to join in.
• There were going to be “Hurdles” to overcome.
• There were elements of “Relay” with information being passed around and links to team working.
• Rolling out changecan be tough and demanding so we introduced a “Marathon” element addressing sustainability and emotional strength.
• We introduced “Gym” to promote flexibility.

At various stages in the session we added short pause points where participants could revisit the process flow chart and see which elements of the course addressed the stages in the process flow. Finally we started to develop content for various elements of the theme which delivered the training objectives.

By working this way we were able to layer in common behavioural and skills based elements building the complexity as we went along.

By the time we had finished we had a brain friendly training event with layered content developed around a simple theme and we had complete confidence that, at every point in the programme we had solid measurable training objectives underpinning the sessions which were in turn linked to the steps in process flow.

This is a far cry from just going through the process steps one by one and looking at the step, it’s associated actions and the skills, behaviours and attributes needed to succeed for each one.

We also realised that we could reduce the programme from two days to one and half days (actually initially it was thought it would need to take three days to deliver this) freeing up a half a day for the participants to begin working on their own change programmes while the “experts” were still around to help, coach and support them.

If you have a process based training intervention to develop why not try this way out for yourself.

If you need some help let us know.

Thumbs Up image by vernhart
Olympic cake image by clevercupcakes

Hi thanks for coming back to our site. Paul and Ally will be running the morning session of the Brain Friendly Learning Group (Southern) in February. To find out more (and see what Ally looks like!), check out the video. Thanks for visiting again!

Related posts:

1. A design for design Part 1
2. Acoustic guitar and flexible training design
3. Do you over-complicate the simple?
4. Podcast: Interview with Stella Collins Part 1
5. Are your’s firm or fluffy? (Outcomes that is)