Are You a Pharmacist or a Physician? Performance-Based WBT

You have just gotten word from a process implementation project manager that your learning organization has a new assignment. Your team has been tasked with designing and deploying a web-based training course to support the implementation of a revised process and new set of procedures for your field sales representatives.

Typically with such requests, the parameters and constraints are laid out for you in advance: 1) It can’t take employees more than 2 hours to complete, 2) It can’t cost more than $X dollars, 3) All sales representatives and administrative support staff have to complete the course, and 4) It has to be delivered by X date.

Does this request sound familiar to you?

These sorts of requests are not at all unusual. In fact, this is the way most training requests are formulated – as SOLUTION requests. While it is ideal for the training group to be represented on an implementation project team from the outset, the reality is that often, training is only called in just before the planned roll-out. In this case, the project team has not only decided that training is required, but that web-based training is the preferred medium in order to reach a widely dispersed audience and save travel costs.

The success of any e-learning endeavor depends heavily on quality design of instruction, enabled by interactive technology. It is in this way that instructional designers bring measurable value to students, instructors and organizations participating in e-learning initiatives.

In deciding on a web-based training solution, the project team has no doubt taken several key considerations into account, all of which are important logistical concerns. Factors such as work schedules and loads, budget, target group scope and location, timing, etc. have all been considered.

While you recognize that these are all valid concerns, you also realize that none of them directly address the most critical element – PERFORMANCE. As a result of the training, what is it that the sales organization will be expected to accomplish? – and what performance is necessary to achieve that accomplishment?

Given these questions as your starting point, and knowing that you have to work within the constraints that have been laid out, you still have two choices as learning professional. You can choose to be a pharmacist, or you can choose to be a physician. Pharmacists are highly qualified and well trained health care professionals. Their focus is on delivering the solution. Their goal is fill orders accurately and efficiently according to a prescription. Physicians, on the other hand, seek first to understand the nature and cause of a problem. Their goal is to accurately diagnose and select the best course of treatment to either cure or minimize the problem.

For this example, we will assume that you have chosen to go the route of the physician.