Great Chevalier session

Back to my blog again, off and on, up and down, it's like a stream of consciousness that periodically fades in and out...

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a full-day workshop with Roger Chevalier of ISPI International. The session was here in Vancouver, which was a rare opportunity. There are some great post-workshop resources here.

One of my biggest learnings / ah ha's was that Level 1 (Reaction) evaluation can provide misleading information; I've always known and believed that it was not enough, but by way of example, Roger shared that it can provide some invalid data - a definite ah ha moment. The example he used was of an instructor who got the lowest Level 1 evaluations from learners, but the highest Level 4 (Results) results... He was keeping his class late for application activities (hence, the better results), so the class didn't really like it - but they did learn. And, with reframing of how he set up the evening session, his Level 1 ratings did increase. This was a brilliant example.

Other ah ha's:
- more of a reminder than an ah ha for me was an example of how classroom time was cut by 1/3 through the addition of job aids (complicated task, only occassionally done, provide a job aid rather than training); I'll put that lens on again
- a reinforcement of how valuable role playing is -- I got caught in my own comfort of understanding theory and - like most people in the workshop - saw where I went wrong only when we applied our questioning in a large role play (gee, it's always good to be sitting in the learner's seat!)
- the process (and sequence) of behaviour engineering questioning: information, resources, incentives, motives, capacity, knowledge and skills -- and if you don't pay attention to one it will bite you
- plus the accompanying performance improvement leverage model (things earliest on this list have high impact + low cost; things at the end of the list have low impact + high cost); again, great reinforcement and good examples to deepen my learning
- the Hawthorne effect reminder as it relates to evaluation of learning and performance improvement

I also liked how Roger applied force field analysis to performance analysis. I first learned about force field analysis in a marketing context, and haven't reallly seen it applied well in a performance context before today. I'll use this for sure.

A favourite quote from Roger: "training is our drug of choice"

Also learned that the famous "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it" that has been attributed to many people was actually first said way back in in 1902 (though not sure by who).