PIAF - I need you

All this week, I have been discussing a simple four-phase model for the design of workplace learning interventions:

• Preparation: Helping the learner to prepare for a productive learning experience.
• Input: Providing the formal element which hopefully will inspire the learner and act as a catalyst for changes in behaviour and on-going skills development.
• Application: Providing opportunities for the learner to test out new ideas and skills in the work environment.
• Follow-up: Helping the learner to continue their learning journey using on-demand content, coaching and support from peers.

I end this series of posts with a call to action.

Next year (probably nearer the end than the start) Onlignment will be publishing More than blended learning, my attempt to build on what I started eight years ago with The Blended Learning Cookbook, based on countless encounters since with workplace learning professionals from around the world. In this book I would like to include something like 6-10 case studies of great blended solutions, particularly those that include all the four phases described above. By 'great' I mean that they met their performance objectives without wasting organisational resources, while at the same time taking account of the hopes and fears of the target population.

If you agree to participate (and your employer/client is happy to make the case study public), I will arrange an initial discussion, to talk through the case. Where practical I would like to take this further and conduct interviews on video.

Please contact me using the contact form at http://onlignment.com/contact/ if you would like to help.

PIAF - the ideas adventure

From Monday of this week, I have been sharing with you a simple four-phase model for the design of workplace learning interventions:

• Preparation: Helping the learner to prepare for a productive learning experience.
• Input: Providing the formal element which hopefully will inspire the learner and act as a catalyst for changes in behaviour and on-going skills development.
• Application: Providing opportunities for the learner to test out new ideas and skills in the work environment.
• Follow-up: Helping the learner to continue their learning journey using on-demand content, coaching and support from peers.

Yesterday I demonstrated how the four phases could be applied to a typical skills development intervention. Today, I will attempt to do the same for an intervention that explores ideas.

First of all, what do I mean by exploring ideas? Well, I mean more than the teaching of the knowledge (facts, concepts, rules, etc.) which underpin work performance. Knowledge may be a pre-requisite to the exploration of ideas, but it won't take you all the way there. Ideas are key principles which underpin your decision making. It is not enough to know about ideas; before you can put them into practice you have to believe them too. Here are some examples of subjects which are fundamentally driven by ideas:

• Leadership
• Equality and inclusion
• Project management
• Art and design
• Marketing
• Strategic management

These topics will often form the basis for academic programmes, but the four phases of PIAF imply a focus not on learning for its own sake (or to obtain a qualification) but on learning as a basis for changing work behaviour. Here's how an adventure in ideas might look:

Again I have attempted to show how, as the intervention progresses, we see the shift from push to pull, from courses to resources.

Tomorrow, in the final post, I ask you to help me by sharing your own case studies for blended solutions which utilise all these phases.

Next: I need you

PIAF - the skills journey

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, I shared with you a simple four-phase model for the design of workplace learning interventions:

• Preparation: Helping the learner to prepare for a productive learning experience.
• Input: Providing the formal element which hopefully will inspire the learner and act as a catalyst for changes in behaviour and on-going skills development.
• Application: Providing opportunities for the learner to test out new ideas and skills in the work environment.
• Follow-up: Helping the learner to continue their learning journey using on-demand content, coaching and support from peers.

In this post, I intend to demonstrate how the four phases could be applied to the development of skills, whether motor (driving a car, lifting a heavy object, using a mouse), interpersonal (dealing with customer complaints, providing feedback, negotiating) or cognitive (troubleshooting a computer fault, solving an equation, developing a strategic plan). All skills have one important thing in common, which is that they will not develop without lots of practice, ideally with helpful feedback.

You will see an outline for the skills journey below, mapped to the four phases and also to that old favourite - the model which sees the learner move from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence:

• Unconscious incompetence: Ignorance is bliss. Skilled performance looks so easy when applied effortlessly by experts - surely it can't be that hard.
• Conscious incompetence: So then you have a go. 'Oh dear, this is much harder than I thought. There's so much to think about at the same time - I don't know whether I'll be able to manage this.' Unfortunately, that is the stage at which many learning interventions finish - the learner is in a worse emotional state than when they started. Ideally the Input phase would not leave the learner in such an uncomfortable position; they should be along the way to �
• Conscious competence: You continue to practise, with lots of constructive feedback. In time you will begin to believe you can really do this, even if it takes a lot of conscious effort.
• Unconscious competence: In time and with enough practice a skill will become unconscious - you will be able to perform it without effort. Eventually you will wonder what the fuss was all about - this is so easy it almost seems intuitive.

I must admit I've been wary of this four-step approach - the play on words seems too good to be true. However, it does conform quite well to the realities of skills development, so I'm happy to use it here.

You will see from this table that I have also mapped the shift from courses to resources, although in reality the distinction will be much less clear-cut.

Tomorrow I'll demonstrate how PIAF might apply when the aim is to explore ideas rather than develop skills.

Next: The ideas adventure

PIAF - blending in

Yesterday I outlined a simple series of four phases through which a workplace learning intervention should progress:

• Preparation: Helping the learner to prepare for a productive learning experience.
• Input: Providing the formal element which hopefully will inspire the learner and act as a catalyst for changes in behaviour and on-going skills development.
• Application: Providing opportunities for the learner to test out new ideas and skills in the work environment.
• Follow-up: Helping the learner to continue their learning journey using on-demand content, coaching and support from peers.

In practice, many interventions consist solely of the Input phase. While formal inputs may be stimulating at the time, they are all too often isolated events that are not fully exploited. While some learners, particularly those who are well supported by their line mangers, will be able to organise their own equivalents of Application and Follow-up, all too often all you are left with are regrets.

PIAF is helpful because it does not unduly focus on the Input phase; it blends this in to a process that starts and ends in the real-work environment. So why is 'blending in' so important?

Preparation: Any sort of formal input - from a series of virtual classroom sessions, to an online simulation, to the meeting of an action learning set - needs a clear purpose. In the Preparation phase, the learner, ideally in partnership with their manager, can reflect on their needs and establish goals. If there is any misalignment between the upcoming Input and the learner's starting point then this can be addressed here: the Input can be adapted to better meet the learner's need; and the learner can undertake some preliminary study to make sure they are fully prepared to take advantage of the Input. Either way, the Input phase will blend in more effectively - it will not be isolated or mis-aligned.

Preparation has another important role which is to start to address the learner's hopes and fears - their emotional response to the intervention. As Nick Shackleton-Jones has pointed out, while a focus on performance is important, it is not sufficient. The Preparation phase can be used to build relationships between peers, to establish ground rules, to address fears and align the intervention with the learner's personal aspirations.

Application: Without Application, all we are left with is good intentions - skills remain rudimentary and ideas untested. Application is when you should start to get a return on the investment that has been made in Input; 'should' because sometimes the skills you have started to develop and the ideas you have provisionally taken on board will not deliver on the promise and will fail to improve performance; but without Application you will never know.

Follow-up: An intervention is just that; it is an interlude on the journey not the journey itself. The Follow-up phase embeds the learning into the everyday job environment, helping the learner to refine their skills and ideas and to keep up-to-date with the continually changing demands of the job. This phase sees a shift from push to pull, and from courses to resources. As their confidence increases, the employee will start to become an actor in supporting others, a teacher as well as a learner.

In the next two posts, I will demonstrate how PIAF can be applied to the development of skills and to the exploration of ideas.

Next: The skills journey

PIAF - no regrets

I don't often have cause to write about French singers on this blog. It is true that, at the time of writing, I am on my way to Lyon to run a workshop on blended learning, but otherwise the connection is tenuous to say the least, as you will see.

I have been refining my method for the design of blended solutions for close to ten years now, testing it against hundreds of different real-world problems. I feel comfortable with the processes I have settled on for gathering data about the requirements of a particular situation, and for the way in which decisions are made about methods and media.

But until recently I did not believe it was possible to follow a standard sequence within blended solutions, a series of phases that could be applied effectively in a wide variety of situations. However, what I found when I looked back over many different designs was that successful solutions seemed to follow a certain pattern of four phases. I struggled to find names for these phases that would apply to both formal and non-formal interventions using a wide range of different strategies, but I'm happy with what I've settled on. You can imagine I was amused when it also spelled out a name, PIAF.

Preparation: In this phase your aim is to prepare the learner for a productive learning experience. You may include measures to pinpoint areas of need, establish goals, address any shortcomings in prep-requisite knowledge, introduce learners to each other and provide an overview of what is to follow.

Input: This phase represents the primary formal element of your programme. This is when you do things like run workshops, provide on-job instruction, make available core learning material, and so on.

Application: In this phase, learners put what they have learned into action, whether directly on the job or through individual and group assignments. With larger programmes, Input and Application are likely to cycle as the learner progresses through a number of modules.

Follow-up: It is very unlikely that you will have achieved your objectives fully at the end of the Application phase. The follow-up phase allows your solution to become an on-going process rather than a one-off event. You will look to provide facilities such as coaching and materials that the learner can access on demand. As the balance shifts from �courses� to �resources�, the follow-up phase will become increasingly dominant. 

PIAF is not rocket science - I'm sure that, given the chance, you'd have come up with something similar - but that does not mean it is common sense. Most workplace learning interventions have just one phase - Input - typically a classroom course or a piece of e-learning. They are disconnected from the real world in which the employee operates. They struggle to make an impact, even when - at the time - they are engaging and enjoyable. What PIAF does is to put formal Input in its place - just one step in an on-going learner journey that will most likely also include non-formal, on-demand and experiential elements.

In subsequent posts this week I will explain more about PIAF and how it might be applied to different types of (mostly top-down) workplace learning interventions. I'm sceptical if it has application in any sort of educational setting but I'll let you be the judge of that. What I'm hoping is that, when it is applied rigorously, you will have less regrets about interventions that start promisingly then fizzle out. Like Edith Piaf, you'll be able to say 'Non, je ne regret rien'.

Next: Blending in