If you are a training manager you may (or may not) be aware that the work of the instructional designer is changing. If you follow industry trends and have seen the shift coming then you are already well ahead of your peers. My fear is that there are plenty of training managers within the corporate ranks who have ignored the warnings from their staff. I fear that management has become a road block to their own success.
Of course there is the other side as well. Maybe your instructional design team is too entrenched in their old habits to see the writing on the wall. Or maybe they just aren't buying into the gloom and doom of the "ISD is dead" crowd. Again, the truth will lie somewhere in the middle. New media is changing the enterprise ecosystem significantly empowering employees in powerful ways that directly impact the work of your ISD employee/team.
Your ISDs have long since been the middle man between those that have knowledge and those that need knowledge. The instructional design models, methods, and tools enabled the middle man to connnect with the knowers and the knowees by gathering info and creating media that delivers the knowledge. New media technologies create a simple infrastructure that allows knowers and knowees to connect on their own and create/share content rich media in the format best suited to both parties. No middle man required.
I don't believe ISD is dead, but I do believe the role of this employee MUST, and will, change...significantly. I don't want to go into it in any more detail here. I have a request of all you Corporate Training Managers...
Of course there is the other side as well. Maybe your instructional design team is too entrenched in their old habits to see the writing on the wall. Or maybe they just aren't buying into the gloom and doom of the "ISD is dead" crowd. Again, the truth will lie somewhere in the middle. New media is changing the enterprise ecosystem significantly empowering employees in powerful ways that directly impact the work of your ISD employee/team.
Your ISDs have long since been the middle man between those that have knowledge and those that need knowledge. The instructional design models, methods, and tools enabled the middle man to connnect with the knowers and the knowees by gathering info and creating media that delivers the knowledge. New media technologies create a simple infrastructure that allows knowers and knowees to connect on their own and create/share content rich media in the format best suited to both parties. No middle man required.
I don't believe ISD is dead, but I do believe the role of this employee MUST, and will, change...significantly. I don't want to go into it in any more detail here. I have a request of all you Corporate Training Managers...
Dear Corporate Training Manager:Seriously, I want to help everyone in corporate training manage the coming shift. If we can gather some case studies, and best practices I can help us spread the word. Don't be shy!
Which side of this equation do you land on: I get it, or you're nuts?
What are you doing to help prepare your instructional designers for wave of change heading their way?
I am looking for managers actively enabling change in the ranks of their training staff.
Best Regards,
Brent Schlenker
4 comments:
I couldn't agree more.
Our new motto is "Disintermediate or Die," but my message is that traditional ISD skill and knowledge is essential to the new order, but applied differently.
For example, we are attempting to create "structured" informal learning by enabling SMEs to facilitate peer-to-peer learning workshops preceded by asynchronous foundational learning (WBT, podcasts, narrated Powerpoints, etc., which SMEs also create).
Our value is in creating content-neutral templates and processes that streamlines and facilitates collaboration and experiential learning. These both scale and extend, and take us out of the long ISD cycle times that have been our curse. We have also created Learning Architecture design and solution patterns that are repeatable and standardized as much as possible.
Our business case? The informal learning is already occurring, but is local, haphazard, un-scalable, inconsistent and more expensive in hidden costs. Our approach is intentionally designed to efficiently produce better results, cheaper and faster.
I characterize our role as owning the marketplace for supply and demand for information to efficiently find each other.
Dear Anonymous,
Sounds like you are doing some very cool work in your organization. I would highly encourage you to share your efforts with the greater eLearning community.
Contact me directly if you are interested in writing a case study, presenting a conference session, or writing an article for the newsletter.
Thanks for reading!
Cheers,
Brent
The disintermediated approach and allowing SME's more direct access and control sounds good, but not where we are at now. I've inherited a dysfunctional LMS paradigm, which to implement effectively (we do lots of external vendor development)required intensive templating (as do our ILT course development)and standards development. We are still "course bound" in our approach - but hope to expand into performance approaches later. My biggest bear is that IT makes technology decisions and we have to move to their tune. To whit Sharepoint as internal intranet collaborative team site (no use for me and my external vendors) and as our "social networking" space (aaargh!). I've tried to ensure our voice is heard and tried to influence technology selection but it is an uphill battle. Social networking, community building, corporate knowledge sharing - areas of my interest, but not of my influence.
Hey Brett,
I agree that the "traditional ISD model" is not agile or fast enough to keep up with most training and learning needs in organizations. I've just recently made the jump from corporate e-learning development to higher education (Penn State). As different as these two worlds are, your basic equation is the same: SME (have the knowledge) to MiddleMan (ID) to learner (need the knowledge). In my opinion, the 'middleman' is more important than ever and this demand will increase. The critical skill sets for ID's, however are expanded WAY beyond the ISD model itself. ID's must grasp, to extended levels, countless other skills that mostly include technology know-how and applicability. The successful ID of the future has the ISD model as merely a foundation. They will also need to navigate the organization's learning audiences, technology platforms, applications, etc. I don't believe we can even separate Instructional Design from Technology anymore ("http://tiny.cc/oPT9x"). As more organizations define what they need from their training development capabilities, they are recognizing the need for a resource that knows ID and a lot of technology AND can build relationships, in particular with Subject Matter Experts (the latter element was my presentation at DevLearn 08:http://tiny.cc/AtGgU).
The group I'm with at PSU (Education Technology Services) researches learning technologies and reaches out to work with faculty in implementing the many different emerging learning technologies. What I'm seeing is that ID's need to be able to 'scale' their engagement with SME's, depending on a number of factors, mostly instructional design and technological. And as I become involved with more projects, I see the need for ID's fluent in learning technology increasing.
Case in point: when I came to PSU in January, I'd seen blogging as just a platform to write thoughts and comment. But we used the blog platform for a recent e-learning project as a COLLABORATIVE AUTHORING TOOL! It was also used as the delivery platform to learners (for a review of that project, try: "http://tiny.cc/MG1Hf"). Whether blogs as authoring/delivery platforms takes off, I don't know. But this shows how an "old ID" has to keep learning new tricks (technology) to push learning forward.
From my viewpoint, the "middleman" is needed more than ever, just not the way he/she has been needed in the past. Because the learning experience is never just about creating content, no matter what the authoring tool developer's say!
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