Learning Management 2.0 Has Moved

Learning Management 2.0 has a new home and publishing platform. It also has a new look and will be recieving many enhancements in the short term (forums for example). If you haven't already, visit www.lms20.com and leave your feedback.

I think I fixed the problem with the feed directs, so you shouldn't have to update your RSS but you may want to just in case.

Upcoming Post: Demystifying LMS Licensing Models
Thanks!

Justyn

Stop Shaking a Stick at Sales Training!

I ran across a very insightful article in CLO Magazine today written by Tina Teodorescu (I had to cut and paste that one!). The article, "How Effective is Your Sales Training Program?" talks about the unique challenges of developing an effective training program for people that fund your payroll.

Tina brings light to the fact that we've come to rely on Sales Managers, who were in many cases top performers themselves, to develop their team's talent. The problem is these people were promoted because of their excellent sales skills, not their employee development skills. In other cases we rely on HR or T&D to develop these programs when they don't have a sufficient understanding of the dynamics of sales to do so.

The article mentions using your top performers actual day to day tasks and activity (if I am reading correctly) as the basis for your training program instead of skills and competencies. This is where our opinions start to differ.

I have always been a believer in benchmarking your top performing sales people and developing toward that baseline. I also agree that competencies and skills are very difficult to measure in such a subjective process as sales. However I don't feel that duplicating an activity pattern alone is going to get you where you need to be.

If you have a salesperson who is a terrible communicator, do you really want them speaking to an extra 20 prospects a day? If a salesperson can't close deals, do you really want them working more of them?

It reminds me of the old seminar joke - "don't send idiots to motivational seminars because you only end up with highly motivated idiots."

While I think most of Tina's thoughts are solid, I really feel that there needs to be a balance between process and execution. I personally wouldn't want certain salespeople doing certain tasks - like writing a blog for example - It may be your top performers key to success, but the dynamic of that persons abilities cannot be mirrored in process alone. Communication, comprehension, confidence and expertise are all skills that must coexist with activity.

Let your sales managers help benchmark top performers on both activity and skill, and leverage T&D to figure out how to translate that into a program that can be coached to and measured.

I just don't know if I would worry so much about mirroring activity. Sales Managers have every metric and dashboard you could think of for that stuff already.

Justyn

Updated LMS RFP Template Available For Download

Learn.com has posted an updated LMS RFP Template (including areas for performance/talent management requirements) for public use. It's a pretty comprehensive document and you wouldn't likely need it in it's entirety, but it can easily be scaled down and adapted. Not to mention there are bound to be things on here that you haven't thought of yet.

You can access the template Here - Or if you don't feel like filling out the form, let me know and I will route it to you.

You may also want to browse my previous post: Questions You Should Be Asking Of Your LMS Vendors

I hope everyone is having a fantastic week!

Justyn

Who took the 'consult' out of 'consulting'?

I've recently seen more and more examples of a trend in our industry that alarms me.

I've witnessed more than one example of e-Learning and LMS consultants who are hired by an organization to help select a vendor and create a deployment strategy. These practitioners then simply present 3-4 solutions that they have "referral" relationships with, see which one sticks and collect a check (from the client and the vendor).

I liken this to hiring someone to help you buy a car. They take your money, drop you off at an auto mall, hand you some bus fare and then come back later to collect a fee from whatever dealer you chose to buy from.

I don't mean to speak in generalities, and certainly not to discredit the professionals in our field who are providing a valuable service to their clients. I'm just worried that some folks may be taking the path of least resistance/quickest fee. I've seen some instances where 3 of 4 solutions presented fall completely outside of the clients requirements, or are priced exponentially out of the clients budget range.

I say with conviction that professionals in our space have a tremendously noble role and provide great value to the training & development community. I'd like to see that continually reinforced by the actions of our peers.

If you find yourself in a position of trusted advisor to an organization, take it seriously. We've had enough ruined reputations and dysfunctional buying practices during the 1st generation of e-Learning. It's our responsibility to help organizations put highly effective solutions in place. Pretend it was your money and job on the line.

If you find yourself in a position to retain the services of a professional consultant, be clear on your expectations of the work to be performed and be sure the consultant's goals are aligned with yours. You can even take it a step further, tie a portion of the compensation to the projects success and ask for disclosure of terms of relationships between presented solutions and the consultant.

My two cents, as unpopular as they may be. We're all responsible for the ongoing health of the training & development profession, lets take good care of it!

Thanks!

P.S. - You may have noticed that from post to post I alternate between "eLearning" and "e-Learning". Have we as a community agreed upon one or the other? Am I the only one?