be the change you want to see
I tried something a little risky today... well not risky in a big sense but risky in terms of personal comfort and in terms of challenging someone else's role just a bit.
I'm working on a review of a colleague's work (an 87 page manual for the new version of Live Meeting - Microsoft provides absolutely no manuals or training to us of any kind... or perhaps the corporation doesn't purchase that service - so our department must create the manual and training from scratch).
This colleague is one of the members of the [former] employee education department. Prior to our departments becoming one department (Big Ed) - the employee education department created most of their own training materials (including manuals) without a real review process. This is understandable, as they were a department of 3 (1 manager, 1 trainer/designer/developer, and 1 training coordinator [administrative staff]). Now that we are all part of one department (and now that there are a few more people working on internal education projects) we are making an effort to bring the internal learning materials into the four phase process that we use in client education (envision, design, develop, stabilize). An important part of that process is the editorial and content reviews. Generally, content reviews are performed by Subject Matter Experts and editorial reviews are performed by Learning Developers/Designers. Because we are under a great deal of daily pressure to keep our production level high, the internal training materials as yet don't generally go through a full set of two editorial reviews (one at the design phase and one at the development phase)... we do try to conduct one editorial review though.
Now - because employee education did not have an established style guide and client education did, it was decided that we would start with client education's style guide and modify it as needed and where appropriate for employee education projects. Our colleagues from employee education are not yet familiar with our style guide, so some of what they write and develop doesn't meet the stated requirements. The other important factor is that our new Big Ed department has 5 Learning Developers and 4 Learning consultants... the division of job duties in the past has been that the Learning Consultants work with the SMEs, develop the vision scopes, act as liaison between the SMEs and the LDs, and often also conduct instructor led training. But - this was only true for client education... now that the department is responsible for both client ed and employee ed, there are learning consultants who are also designing and developing training materials (such as the manual I'm currently editing).
There are those in the department who want to keep the task of designing and developing all instructional materials as one for LDs only. Those who want that don't believe that the LCs should be developing the actual content and training materials.
Given the current demands on the department and the current corporate culture, this is an unrealistic expectation. Given the talent and value of our LCs this is, in my opinion, also and unnecessary expectation... more of a control issue than a quality issue.
So - that's the background... now here is what happened today.
I'm working on this 87 page document and it is requiring quite a bit of editorial work - not only for the style guide issues but also for basic writing technique and instructional design.
When we perform editorial reviews for other LDs, we never make changes w/o discussion (w/o giving the original developer the opportunity to review and accept, deny, or modify our changes). If it isn't a typo/grammar/usage correction, we generally call our changes "suggestions" and leave the final decision up to the original designer/developer.
As I work on this 87 page document, I'm approaching it in that way. So rather than just make a change w/o explanation, I'm making suggested changes and explaining the rationale for the changes. It is taking much longer than if I just "re-did" the document.
One of the other LDs (one who is of the opinion that LCs should not be designing/developing content) commented that it would be much quicker and easier if I were to just rewrite the manual in the "correct" way. This colleague further commented that LCs shouldn't be creating learning events and training materials anyway (implying that I should not be spending the time to give the project a full editorial review but should just "fix it"). Ordinarily with this particular colleague, we all just sort of nod and then quietly do what we were doing. This colleague has very strong opinions, exerts them on the whole department, and many of us often choose to just not rock the boat. I'll admit, I've done that plenty of times... it is often much easier to do that. I sort of pick my battles. Well... I decided that this was one of those battles.
So - I stated in as non-confrontational way as possible that given the current demands on the department and the need for internal (non-revenue) as well as external (revenue... client) instruction, LCs would, for the foreseeable future, be creating content and learning events. We cannot realistically put all the internal and external content creation in the hands of 5 LDs and expect to have the training we need when we need it. So - rather than frustrate ourselves and waste our time and energy fighting something that won't change, we need to figure out a way to work within the situation and still produce valid and valuable internal training. My (LD) colleague sort of agreed... grumbled about the "management" but agreed. So - I saw an opening there and I explained that if I just "fixed" the manual then the next time our LC colleague created training materials the same mistakes would be made again and I (or another LD) would have to "fix" it again. I felt it was worth my time now to at least offer this colleague (LC) the opportunity to learn how to create better training materials. I know this colleague well enough to believe that they want to write better training materials and I know this colleague is capable of it. I told my LD colleague that it was like the saying about giving a man a fish versus teaching him how to fish. I don't know if I got through any further than simply making it clear that I had a thought out reason for doing what I was doing. Time will tell. It is difficult to change a culture from one of ownership and competition to one of shared vision and shared paths to reaching that vision. I thought standing up for that vision would energize me... but in fact I'm quite exhausted tonight... it feels like such a struggle sometimes and I've been wondering more and more lately if I want to continue this specific struggle. I guess time will tell me that too.
I'm working on a review of a colleague's work (an 87 page manual for the new version of Live Meeting - Microsoft provides absolutely no manuals or training to us of any kind... or perhaps the corporation doesn't purchase that service - so our department must create the manual and training from scratch).
This colleague is one of the members of the [former] employee education department. Prior to our departments becoming one department (Big Ed) - the employee education department created most of their own training materials (including manuals) without a real review process. This is understandable, as they were a department of 3 (1 manager, 1 trainer/designer/developer, and 1 training coordinator [administrative staff]). Now that we are all part of one department (and now that there are a few more people working on internal education projects) we are making an effort to bring the internal learning materials into the four phase process that we use in client education (envision, design, develop, stabilize). An important part of that process is the editorial and content reviews. Generally, content reviews are performed by Subject Matter Experts and editorial reviews are performed by Learning Developers/Designers. Because we are under a great deal of daily pressure to keep our production level high, the internal training materials as yet don't generally go through a full set of two editorial reviews (one at the design phase and one at the development phase)... we do try to conduct one editorial review though.
Now - because employee education did not have an established style guide and client education did, it was decided that we would start with client education's style guide and modify it as needed and where appropriate for employee education projects. Our colleagues from employee education are not yet familiar with our style guide, so some of what they write and develop doesn't meet the stated requirements. The other important factor is that our new Big Ed department has 5 Learning Developers and 4 Learning consultants... the division of job duties in the past has been that the Learning Consultants work with the SMEs, develop the vision scopes, act as liaison between the SMEs and the LDs, and often also conduct instructor led training. But - this was only true for client education... now that the department is responsible for both client ed and employee ed, there are learning consultants who are also designing and developing training materials (such as the manual I'm currently editing).
There are those in the department who want to keep the task of designing and developing all instructional materials as one for LDs only. Those who want that don't believe that the LCs should be developing the actual content and training materials.
Given the current demands on the department and the current corporate culture, this is an unrealistic expectation. Given the talent and value of our LCs this is, in my opinion, also and unnecessary expectation... more of a control issue than a quality issue.
So - that's the background... now here is what happened today.
I'm working on this 87 page document and it is requiring quite a bit of editorial work - not only for the style guide issues but also for basic writing technique and instructional design.
When we perform editorial reviews for other LDs, we never make changes w/o discussion (w/o giving the original developer the opportunity to review and accept, deny, or modify our changes). If it isn't a typo/grammar/usage correction, we generally call our changes "suggestions" and leave the final decision up to the original designer/developer.
As I work on this 87 page document, I'm approaching it in that way. So rather than just make a change w/o explanation, I'm making suggested changes and explaining the rationale for the changes. It is taking much longer than if I just "re-did" the document.
One of the other LDs (one who is of the opinion that LCs should not be designing/developing content) commented that it would be much quicker and easier if I were to just rewrite the manual in the "correct" way. This colleague further commented that LCs shouldn't be creating learning events and training materials anyway (implying that I should not be spending the time to give the project a full editorial review but should just "fix it"). Ordinarily with this particular colleague, we all just sort of nod and then quietly do what we were doing. This colleague has very strong opinions, exerts them on the whole department, and many of us often choose to just not rock the boat. I'll admit, I've done that plenty of times... it is often much easier to do that. I sort of pick my battles. Well... I decided that this was one of those battles.
So - I stated in as non-confrontational way as possible that given the current demands on the department and the need for internal (non-revenue) as well as external (revenue... client) instruction, LCs would, for the foreseeable future, be creating content and learning events. We cannot realistically put all the internal and external content creation in the hands of 5 LDs and expect to have the training we need when we need it. So - rather than frustrate ourselves and waste our time and energy fighting something that won't change, we need to figure out a way to work within the situation and still produce valid and valuable internal training. My (LD) colleague sort of agreed... grumbled about the "management" but agreed. So - I saw an opening there and I explained that if I just "fixed" the manual then the next time our LC colleague created training materials the same mistakes would be made again and I (or another LD) would have to "fix" it again. I felt it was worth my time now to at least offer this colleague (LC) the opportunity to learn how to create better training materials. I know this colleague well enough to believe that they want to write better training materials and I know this colleague is capable of it. I told my LD colleague that it was like the saying about giving a man a fish versus teaching him how to fish. I don't know if I got through any further than simply making it clear that I had a thought out reason for doing what I was doing. Time will tell. It is difficult to change a culture from one of ownership and competition to one of shared vision and shared paths to reaching that vision. I thought standing up for that vision would energize me... but in fact I'm quite exhausted tonight... it feels like such a struggle sometimes and I've been wondering more and more lately if I want to continue this specific struggle. I guess time will tell me that too.
posted by susan @ 9:03 PM
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