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

Share this

Classic