Are you tired of training that is mostly blather from the speaker/teacher/trainer? We use techniques that eliminate this issue. For example, we are fond of “training games” that allow our clients to get some person-to-person and hands on activity. We also ask you to work examples of the kind of material we are training on; for example, if we are presenting material about the work breakdown structure, you can guess that we will have a class activity that includes the creation of a work breakdown structure. In some cases, of course, we have to build documents in the small due to time constraints, but every client should come away with some kind of example of how the document or task is performed! Training is not about the trainer–it is about the trainee and we want to keep our focus on the people receiving the benefit.
We have also found that after-the-training-event follow up is important also, particularly if we want to keep retention of the material covered. A good way to do this is to ask for some kind of reflective practice, which is sometimes as simple as asking for what the trainee learned. Research suggests that reflective practice is one of the simplest methods for getting people to recall the material.