in this issue
	Mastering Training Design - Training Opportunity Icebreaker: How Did You Meet? Beat the Clock Master Thespian Anatomy of a Workshop: Time Management for 70

Icebreaker: How Did You Meet?

Here's an icebreaker for a team or group that knows each other. Have each person share what they remember about their first meeting with another group member. For example, my husband tells the story about when he first met one of his employees. The man had just moved from Western New York to Houston and had been told by friends that it was fashionable for men to wear white shoes in the South. Wanting to make a good impression, he went out and bought white shoes, and on his first day of work he wore them with his navy blue pinstriped suit. We all still laugh about this today. People can share humorous memories, first impressions that turned out to be wrong, traits they observed right away, or any other memory that is positive. They can also explain how that memory illustrates something about the person they have learned over time. For example, in the white shoes story, what we learned about this man was that he wanted to make a good impression, and that he was a great target for a practical joke. One goal of the activity is to give people information about how they might be perceived by others. It can be a real eye opener. If you have time, you might allow several people to share their first memory about a given person and have the person being described share how they felt during the first meeting (if they remember). This creates more shared knowledge within a team, which often helps the team connect. And it can be lots of fun, too! ------

Beat the Clock

This activity is a game you can use with a technical training class - when you're teaching a work process or computer procedures. After teaching the process or procedures, when you know everyone is clear about how to correctly complete the steps, tell them you're going to have a contest to see who can beat the clock to complete the process correctly. Establish a time to beat, explain the rules, and tell them when to start. Award a prize to all who beat the time. You can expand the activity every time you teach a new step in the procedure or process. Have them again try to beat the clock, but don't change the overall time by much. After all, they should be able to do the first part even quicker, and you've just added one more step or series of actions. Another way to approach this is to have them compete to see who finishes first, or beat their previous time. Use a timer that counts down so they can see the time remaining as they go through the activity. We use one called the Teach Timer, which can project from an overhead. It's available from www.TrainersWarehouse.com for about $45. ------

Master Thespian

Here's an activity for those who like to take center stage. Have participants act out a short play illustrating a key point from your training. Then use the play to discuss that point. Ask for volunteers to play the actors, and give them time to prepare (over lunch, overnight, etc.). They don't have to memorize the lines, but they should be familiar with them when they read so that it sounds natural. You can also give them some flexibility with their lines, as long as the overall message comes through. How do you make this happen? First, write a play (or find one already written) that lasts about 5 minutes. The nice thing about this type of play is that you don't have to follow some of the rules for good plays. You don't need a resolution at the end of the play. It actually works better without, because that gives your group something to discuss. Let's say you're teaching a workshop on risk. You might write a play in which the main character is working on a project and talking to herself about that project: "It's going so well. I hope nothing goes wrong, but I'm sure I'll have plenty of warning if there's a problem." Meanwhile, a second character that is silent but carries big signs is walking around next to the main character, trying in vain to get her to see the signs. The signs are bright and have lots of warnings, such as "Employees hate this idea, Watch out!, You've got a problem!" The main character might see some signs but dismiss them ("I'm just being overly cautious") or not see them at all (pushing them out of the way - "what an annoyance"). The point of the play could be that we see warnings and ignore them or don't see them at all. You follow up the play with discussion about how we do that in real life, and what we can do to better read the signs around us. This is a fun way to get people involved in the learning (by acting) and have them analyze a situation without simply presenting them with the "right answer." As an alternative, you can even ask your actors to write the play. Just be sure to give them clear direction about the content and length, and plenty of time to prepare.

Anatomy of a Workshop: Time Management for 70

I recently faced a design challenge to develop and deliver a 3-hour time management workshop for a group of 70 people. Our audience was a team of people in the United Way responsible for representing the United Way at corporate accounts during their annual fund raising campaigns. With such a large group, it would be tough to tailor the training to individual needs. It was unlikely that they all faced the same time management challenges. I wanted to create a design that was easy to deliver and helped them understand the challenges they might face in managing time in their role. I began by interviewing people who had filled that position and learned that their two biggest challenges are prioritizing daily tasks and developing strategies for managing their accounts (each person is responsible for 30-50 accounts). I decided to build the workshop around 3 key activities: An in-box exercise, time challenges brainstorming, and an account strategy activity. Each activity would take some time, but I knew that they would learn much more from their own work than from any lecture I would give. The In-box Exercise included a series of 30 different tasks to prioritize and schedule. We created the list of tasks from actual email provided by the United Way. Individuals worked alone first, and then with their team to agree on priorities. Then we discussed their work. As they shared their ideas, they had an opportunity to ask the "experts" (their managers) for advice. Next, we had them brainstorm the challenges they expected to face in their jobs (some of which had been illustrated in the In-Box Exercise). Each challenge was posted around the room on a flip chart. We had people select the challenge they wanted to work on, suggesting that they go to a challenge that they had already mastered so that they could share what works for them. They brainstormed solutions and presented them to the rest of the group in very quick reports. In the Account Strategy Exercise, we gave them an overview of 5 different accounts and instructed them to identify the opportunities and challenges with each account, along with their recommended approach. Again, the experts were there to answer questions and share best practices. The training was a great success, and really easy to deliver considering the size of the group. They had fun and so did I.