Our first blog post - top tips for delivering virtual training

By Neil Shorney, Director. Time to read: 2 minutes.

I've seen a number of posts on LinkedIn and some Facebook business groups that I'm part of about how to deliver training which was supposed to be delivered in a training room, in an online environment. At Knowledge Bites, this is something we specialise in - our parent brand, Navanter, was one of the pioneers of live e-learning a decade ago.

So, here are my top tips to deliver effective virtual learning - in no particular order and rather hastily compiled in answer to questions from a number of other trainers...
  1. Don't run full-day sessions, it's just too long.
  2. Split a 1-day course into 3-4 shorter sessions, scheduled approx. 1 week apart. In a way, this can improve training impact as they have the opportunity to try a more focussed set of new skills before learning the next one.
  3. Begin each session with a max 10-minute review of the previous session for continuity.
  4. Ideally, have everyone remote - it's much better to have all dialling in individually rather than some in a room and some remote. Communication within the group just works better.
  5. Make full use of the breakout rooms, and dip into each one during exercises as you would circulate in a classroom.
  6. Use Zoom. I've tried a number of platforms, and Zoom is streets ahead of the competition for virtual training, at a price point that doesn't break the bank.
  7. Trainer to make notes in a Word doc of key actions and email round after, as you might on a whiteboard in a training room.
  8. Use ppt slides, and the annotation features to draw on the slides.
  9. Invest in a pen mouse - one of the best investments I've ever made for virtual training. Mind was about £10 (many years ago) and it's basically a mouse, but shaped more like a pen. They're much easier to use on the virtual whiteboard.
  10. Don't be scared - it's "safer" than a training room, because no-one can see you if you need to check your notes ;-)
I hope this helps you all - running a webinar next week on how to run training virtually if anyone would like additional support. Details on this LinkedIn post - please comment if you'd like a place.


Location: Oxford, UK

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Critical thinking - scanning the environment

Image
The first place to look for opportunities and problems is within the organisation. For this, you can use a STACK analysis to get a good understanding of the current situation in the business. Strategy Tolerance for risk & change Available resources Configuration Knowledge & skills A STACK analysis helps us to do a few things: Get a good understanding of the current state of the organisation and its readiness to implement change Understand how well-aligned the organisation is from the top, where strategy is developed, down to individual contributors Consider whether there are sufficient resources to take actions you need Identify whether the way the organisation is set up would be helpful to grasping opportunities or addressing problems Understand whether additional expertise might need to be brought in from outside. Once you’ve understood the internal situation in the organisation, it’s time to look at whats going on externally which could affect your strategy. For this...
Read more

Understanding where problems (and opportunities) have come from

Image
If you can understand the conditions which caused a problem to develop or an opportunity to come along, then you’ll be able to think about how you can replicate those conditions (for opportunities), or change them (for problems). For example, if you realise that an opportunity presented itself which you were only able to take advantage of because of your proactive recruitment strategy, you’ll want to continue that strategy in the future. 5 Whys The 5 Whys technique encourages you to look not at superficial causes, but to look deeper for root causes. For example, imagine you’re waiting for a train and an announcement comes over the loudspeaker saying: “Your train is delayed due to the late arrival of a preceding service.” You likely find this frustrating because it’s not a real reason for the delay – you want to know why the preceding service was running late. The idea with 5 Whys is that you keep asking “why?” until it feels like a daft question. This is likely to be around 5 times. Th...
Read more

Recognising and resolving conflict

Image
There are many definitions of “conflict” in the business world. It’s important to remember that conflict isn’t always visible. Some people might be “in conflict” with others, but instead of raising their voices and arguing, they withdraw inside themselves and go quiet. I like the following definition of conflict: Conflict is when someone is forced by someone else to operate in a way which makes them uncomfortable. If you take this definition, then the topic captures quite a wide range of situations. How does conflict start? Conflict comes about when an event happens which makes someone uncomfortable, and when it then spirals unchecked into a breakdown in the relationship. It goes through 4 steps: Situation: Something happens. One person does something the other person doesn’t like. Example:     Your manager gives you a big piece of work at 3pm on a Friday and tell...
Read more