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

As a performance “physician,” you first assure your “patient” that you can help, and then you follow roughly a three-step process to determine the best course of “treatment” (training solution.)

Your first step will be to talk to the project team and relevant subject-matter experts to determine the desired accomplishment after the new process and procedures have been implemented. It is important to note that in this first step, you are not focused on what the training will accomplish, but instead what successful implementation of the new process will accomplish for the organization. Once you have clarified the accomplishment(s) or goal(s) of the organization, you can move to the next step.

The second step in the process is to look at performance. In other words, what do members of the sales organization need to “do” in order to achieve the accomplishment? At this stage, input from subject-matter experts (SMEs) will be of critical importance.

Your goal in this step is to identify what the sales team should know, feel and do as a result of the training. With regard to the new process, what do they just need to be aware of from a knowledge perspective? Is there an element of change that will require some level of buy-in to the new process and procedures? Are there new tools or new system functionality that they must have the ability to use? Are there new business rules that the sales team needs to know and apply in a variety of situations?

Answers to these questions like these will lead you directly into deriving the objectives for the web-based course.

Not all WBT is created the same. Clear, agreed upon objectives will drive your decisions about the structure, design and level of interactivity of the WBT training solution.

Knowledge acquisition objectives, for example, would call for simpler, less interactive web-based training where information is presented in an engaging format and learners respond to a series of knowledge checks and a final quiz.

Using a system (or other support tools) to complete a process may call for a more interactive solution where learners practice completing simulated steps in the process (such as filling in key fields in a database.)

To take it a step further, objectives that call for learners to interpret and make unique decisions using business rules may call for a blended approach that would combine interactive web-based learning components followed-up with an online conference call led by a subject-matter expert.

It is clear to see that “web-based training” can take many forms yet still meet logistical and budget criteria.

Putting on the “physician’s hat” and moving beyond the “solution request” to learn more about the real intent of a business initiative and associated performance will help you design and develop high-impact performance-based web-based learning solutions. That’s a prescription for organizational success!