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Forming and norming groups online

February 27, 2010 By 5 Comments

I am not a great reader of manuals and operating procedures. Nor am I a great fan of pseudo-psychology or simple models, even though the world of L&D is littered with them. My personality leads me more to the “suck it and see” approach which, technically, is known as heuristic – finding out for myself, learning by discovery.

Down the years I have formed many teams, companies and communities of practice. One popular model since the 1960s has revealed itself to be consistent in accurately predicting the behaviour of those groups. It has influenced my way of working and affected my responses when things did not happen quite as planned. I am referring to Tuckman’s model – Forming, Norming, Storming, Performing.

This came to mind again very recently. I often find myself defending the idea of devoting time online to setting up a code of behaviour and simply getting people to know one another a little. Once rapport and mutual interests have been established then it is time to roll up sleeves and tackle the “serious business” of working and learning together online.

Some organisations with a focus on tasks or results, often ban people from spending time on this type of activity. In communities of practice, virtual action learning sets and cohorts of learners for example, the simple courtesy of introducing oneself as a human person is seen as unimportant and trivial. I don’t think it is. When people interact online at a level beyond just a cog in the organisational machine, they always perform better and achieve faster and better results with maximum levels of peer support and contribution.

As these thoughts ran through my head, I looked for some more recent authority than Tuckman. I wandered into the realms of virtual teams and discovered the book “Virtual Teams” by Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps (1997).  Here are some of the nuggets I found: 

Etiquette of behaviour – team charter “To work smarter virtual teams need to build explicit models with common categories and the right relationships”. page 190

“Creating Time together” I believe that you clearly expedite team processes by investing in beginnings – you will recoup time many times over” page 145

So here is my parting thought for those who believe virtual workgroups need nothing more than a work-based agenda to discuss:

Why do people commonly exchange photos online, if they will never ever meet face-to-face?

Finally, I found this article to be well worth reading: http://ezinearticles.com/?does-team-building-actually-achieve-anything?&id=1862658

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Online trainers leave your egos here.

February 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Before we create yet more training, how can we give people space and time to develop their own capabilities? How might online tools and social media help us to devote time and resources and provide positive consequences for people, so they can find out for themselves how things work best within their organisation?

It may be easier to say what NOT to do. There is a risk that the old superstitions of trainers resurface online and so stop webinars, virtual meetings, remote action learning sets and so on from being effective.

We cannot afford to adopt the “Trust Me; I’m a Doctor” stance. Having learners sit back while we fill their heads with ideas, beliefs and concepts drawn from an expert is the Nurenberg Funnel approach, and it’s never been known to work! Nor does, ”Tell them what you’re going to tell them; tell them and then tell them what you’ve told them.” People do not learn online purely by listening passively. Nor can we just leave “electronic wallpaper” for people to find either. People do not move spontaneously from theory to practice. You cannot post your mission statement to a discussion board and expect people to internalise it and be guided in their actions.

Effective adult learners must: -absorb information -reflect on what it means for their life or work -make it fit alongside their previous knowledge and experience -plan how to use this information.

So we should be using online tools to facilitate. Let’s create an online environment that aligns with the practical activities of work – filled with stimulating sounds, images, challenges, games, simulations, toys, case studies, checklists, job aids or indeed anything that gets them trying things out in a practical way.

Trainers, drop your egos and your “expert” personae at the front desk as you enter the virtual building. Concentrate on helping learners to record, make sense of and share their experiences. Support them as they construct their thoughts, ideas and beliefs. Encourage line managers and colleagues to be present and help the learner to apply and generalise their learning to new contexts within a business setting so learning is ongoing and permanent.

So instead of behaving like a trainer, create and manage resources for learning, and then keep out of the way until you are needed.

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Learning online under pressure

February 15, 2010 By 4 Comments

I often make chicken soup the haimische way. I doubt that my Yiddishe forebears used a pressure cooker, but I do. Everything else, including the dumplings is authentic. Recently I was doing everything in the normal way, but the pressure cooker had some kind of mid-life crisis. It blew exaggerated clouds of steam from the top of the lid, and I could not tell why. I rummaged through the drawer where we keep user manuals. I found blender, grinder, food processor, pasta, ice cream, yoghurt and bread making machines, but nothing for the pressure cooker. I took up my iPhone and logged onto the manufacturer’s website, where I found lots of information about pressure cookers – what are they made of; are they safe; what is the basic principle of pressure cooking. What was missing were the basic instructions I needed. A diagnostic tool would have been very helpful; one which asked, “Can you see steam escaping from the valve?” “If so check this.” I began to examine the reasons for my sense of frustration and disappointment. There was a mismatch between what I needed, and what was actually there. I could follow the link to email for an answer to my question, but my kitchen was like a Turkish Bath NOW.

And that is how things are. We have come to require and expect instant and accessible information at the time and place we need it. It is inconceivable to imagine me, or anyone for that matter, going on a Basics of Pressure Cooking course before we use our pans. It does not fit my personal style to study the manual cover to cover before I begin to make soup. I’m a just-in-time, not a just in case learner. In the event, I was fortunate to find the leaflet for my pressure cooker. A diagram on page two clearly showed that some kitchen gremlin had inserted the valve upside down, and once corrected, the cooker behaved impeccably and my soup and sanity were secured.

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Tutor softly, for you tutor on my dreams!

February 10, 2010 By 3 Comments

We have always known that knowledge decays if it not applied.  Use it or lose it is the cliché we often hear.  But the relentless march of technology means that knowledge decays faster, even when it is applied regularly.  Systems, processes, tools and technologies are out of date almost before they are implemented. That’s why it’s essential above all to learn how to learn.  Knowing how to gather and evaluate resources, and how to measure your progress are skills that adults must sharpen if they are to function in the modern world. Most professionals accept that the major portion of adult learning activity is initiated by learners themselves.  And yet formal teaching and training and over-zealous control denies them involvement in the planning. Content and method is under the control of experts, designers, or teachers.  Despite the feeding frenzy over tutorial-based eLearning, organisations still favour tutor-led approaches to learning.

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7 hints for fostering communities of online learners

February 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

In my childhood, school was rather like the public library; you sat alone in silence until your work was done. More contemporary views of learning and information favour collaboration, connection and social intercourse. The premise is that we accommodate and apply new learning best when we work with others. And why not? In a working day for most of us it is normal to exchange ideas, share information, and construct things together. If that is how we work together, then it’s natural to think that is how we should learn together. And yet to build communities in which people advance one another’s learning may be more easily said than done.

An online learning community might be brought together through web-technology to develop skills and form new concepts. The curriculum ought to be dynamic and flexible. It is not just tutors who design and manage it, but learners too. The tutor is mediator and monitor, while students set the questions and challenges, provide the feedback, swap ideas and seek answers together. A successful community is recognisable by high levels of activity, motivation and spontaneity. If learners are productive and supporting one another, then they are playing a part in sustaining the community. Success comes when students feel part of a group which is learning something useful and relevant to their success at work, or which will add to their personal and educational qualifications.

It’s now ten years since Valorie Beer wrote “The Web Learning Fieldbook – Using the WWW To Build Workplace Learning Environments”, New York: 2000 Jossey-Bass. In it she identified 7 success factors for successful communities of learners. They remain valid today, and we have drawn upon them as well as the work of others to develop onlignment’s own 20th century checklists for online tutors and moderators.

Here is a very concise summary of Beer’s view of what makes an online community tick.

  1. Collaborative Projects: Working together, learners can test their beliefs and ideas on one another. Online collaboration removes some of the technofear and isolation associated with working by yourself through technology.

  2. Mentoring: The instructor or expert has a key role to play in keeping learners on track, helping with problems, and giving feedback on progress.

  3. Moderated discussions: Through structured discussions in forums, students can discuss content and support and challenge one another. The instructor may give periodic feedback to keep things focused, but should not dominate. Forums must set and operate an agreed code of conduct for interaction.

  4. Mutual Trust: This applies to the reationships amongst students but with the instructor too. When face-to-face, learners judge the mood of others and their own status in the group by reading body language as well as verbal cues. Online facilitators must provide more explicit instructions and feedback. Written comments need great care and diplomacy otherwise they run a high risk of causing offence and so damaging self-esteem and trust.

  5. Common objectives: With a powerful shared goal in sight, learners will work together. For a community to prosper every memebr must have the same focus regardless of their job role, status or qualifications.

  6. Contact with instructor: Positive reinforcement is essential, whether in the form of recognition or of constructive criticism. The community plays a part but the instructor is responsible and accountable for information and guidance.

  7. Access to individual support: When the community cannot satisfy a need, then an individual should be able to gain timely help from the course tutor. It is part of the skill of the facilitator to balance the needs of the individual alongside the needs of the group.

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If at first, you don’t succeed, cheat!

February 9, 2010 By 6 Comments

The last time you bought groceries, did you take a shopping list with you? What about when you moved house or packed for a trip or holiday; did you use a checklist?

These questions came to mind for three reasons. One was because we’ve just created a set of checklists for e-moderators. The second reason was because I’d come across the book – The Checklist Manifesto – How To Get Things Right http://www.amazon.com/Checklist-Manifesto-How-Things-Right/dp/0805091742. The third reason was that I stumbled upon an article I wrote in the early 1990s about performance aids.

My own article reminded me of the work of a very clever yet modest man, Peter Pipe. He it was who created a classification for performance aids, tagging them as one of 5 different sorts, which became known as Pipe’s Types. He mentions checklists as one of a group of performance aids he called “Prompts”. This group also includes recipes, labels, diagrams, rules, coding and mnemonics. Feel free to download the whole picture from http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3063607/Pipes%20Types.pdf.  If you want to see Onlignment’s e-moderators’ checklists then just ask.

Atul Gawande’s book talks about how we all manage complexity to some degree in the modern world. It’s easy to get things wrong. The headline example is from a hospital in the USA where a CCU specialist wrote down five things that doctors must do to avoid infection when they insert catheters into major veins.The advice includes basic things such as washing hands with soap and wearing sterile barrier clothing. These steps are so obvious that it seemed patronising to use a checklist, but you could reckon on one line in nine being infected and doctors were routinely skipping crucial steps. A five-point checklist was given to nurses and with the backing and authority of senior management they checked off each step as doctors did their work, and badgered them if they missed anything. Within one year, infection had reduced from 11 percent to zero. After 2 years it was estimated that the checklist had stopped 43 infections, prevented 8 deaths and saved 2 million dollars.

Other examples with similar success rates abound in Gawande’s book. He shows how, while Government spent days mobilising itself, before Hurricane Katrina had even reached land Walmart stores were over-stocked with essentials such as water, flashlights, batteries, and canned food. He relates how a rock band’s insistence on having a bowl of M&M’s with all the brown ones removed was a cunning test of whether attention had been paid to details that might make the difference between life and death!

We should heed the message that the volume and complexity of knowledge today goes beyond the capacity of any individual’s ability to manage it consistently without error. Even we whose job is to train and support must acknowledge two fundamental weaknesses:

  1. With minds in constant overload, we easily overlook routine and banal matters
  2. Experts have a tendency to skip steps even when they remember them if past experience has shown that they usually don’t matter.

If you need persuading think about Captain Sullenberger and the crew of US Airways flight 1549. By rigidly adhering to their checklist procedure, they covered the “never does but one day might” issues and so achieved the “Miracle on the Hudson” landing. Checklists and clear communication among teams are essential for eliminating errors and improving performance whether in the construction industry, aviation, surgery or, dare I say, the design of instruction and information processing. We aren’t perfect. Systematic approaches make us better.

Final thought in case you feel checklists are too basic for you to use – When hospital staff were shown the benefits of using a checklist, many said it would take too much time and would not improve safety. Guess what percentage said yes when they were asked, “Would you want the checklist to be used if you were having an operation?”

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