Many learning-design models are based upon theories and practices that date as far back as the mid-’50s. Research shows that a training-only model yields ineffective performance and transfer over time. It’s not that training is bad; it’s just that it’s incomplete. It’s not a performance-based model. If we don’t change our methodologies and design approaches, we are destined to achieve the same results, and minimize our effectiveness and importance to the organization over time.

Participants in this session will learn a new performance-centered design model that allows learning departments a systemic way to adapt their current approach into one that is performance centered to create effective training and include performance support. It takes into account all current learning assets and helps designers broker an effective end-to-end learning approach that addresses all five moments of learning need: when learning for the first time, when learning more, when trying to apply and remember learning, when keeping up with change, and when solving a problem.

• How to adapt a traditional learning-development approach to a performance-centered model
• How to address multiple learning outputs in one single design
• How to administer a rapid-development design process that keeps up with the rapid pace of change we face today
• How to better broker existing learning assets through performance support
• How to communicate the five moments of need to your enterprise to gain buy-in

Training sucks … literally. It sucks budget, time, resources, and the enthusiasm of the learner. But performance … ah. The learner feels great about improved performance, and the company appreciates the budget, time, and other resources that went into creating the performance based-learning because it made a difference. How can you get your eLearning program to be more performance-based, rather than just training? Competing for eLearning budgets is much easier when you can show performance results.

Participants in this session will learn how to approach learning strategy, design, development, and assessment differently to better achieve performance results.

In this session, you will learn:

• What performance-based learning is
• The key elements in creating performance-based learning
• How you can tell if it’s making a difference
• How to approach learning strategy, design, development, and assessment differently

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers, project managers, and managers who have some basic design knowledge.

Saint Vincent Health Center (SVHC) used both classroom and eLearning programs over the last 10 years, but both systems had problems with information overload, retention, and poor transfer of learning to the job. Moving toward a performance support culture has provided it with a method of giving associates the information they need, when they need it, where they need it. It’s also converting its education to a three-part performance support model, to include prerequisite information, classroom time dedicated to practice with a skill or concept, and follow-up performance support on the job. How does a company deal with such a big culture change?

Participants in this case-study session will examine the role of performance support in the workplace and how Saint Vincent Health Center is applying it. You’ll get a description of the steps taken to acquire executive and management buy-in for performance support as the new organizational learning philosophy; how stakeholders were involved in the process of building the performance support solution; a demonstration of one of its performance support solutions and how it works; and how implementation has alleviated long-standing problems.

In this session, you will learn:

• The cultural aspects of performance support
• Steps taken by SVHC to implement a performance support philosophy for education
• Methods used by SVHC to involve administration and stakeholders to assure success
• The lessons learned by the implementation team during the process

Audience:
Intermediate professionals.

Many organizations are making significant investments in tablet technology and are looking to their training departments to capitalize on the investment. However, many training professionals don’t have good examples that they can build on of how to use tablets and other mobile technology to improve performance.

Session participants will explore several examples of apps designed for tablets that are improving employee performance, both through performance support and training. You’ll learn about the instructional design thinking that drove successful solutions, so you can leave with tangible ideas for designing mobile training for your own organization.

In this session, you will learn:

• The current state of the mobile ecosystem
• How organizations are using tablet technology to successfully enhance employee performance
• What instructional design choices made those apps effective
• Design ideas that you can apply to your own projects

Audience:
Novice designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

As performance support (PS) technologies have improved and the need for employee productivity has increased in recent years, we have witnessed a resurgence of interest and adoption in PS. Because of these factors, we no longer have the luxury of deciding if our respective organizations should adopt performance support, but when and more importantly how.

In this session, participants will explore a performance-support maturity (PSM) model that you can use to objectively assess your organization’s existing performance-support practices. Using this information, you will be able to identify areas to enhance your PS efforts, future targets to invest time or money, and opportunities to drive continuous improvement. You will compare and contrast level 1 PS organizations against levels 2 through 4, assess your organization’s current maturity, and apply strategies that you can use to elevate your organization’s PS maturity level.

In this session, you will learn:

• The five factors that drive an organization’s performance support maturity (PSM) level
• Describe the four level of PSM
• Assess your organization’s performance support maturity level
• Apply management strategies to elevate your organization’s current PSM level

Audience:
Intermediate and advanced managers, directors, vice presidents, and CLOs. Participants should have some prior knowledge of what a performance support system is as compared to a traditional learning management system. In addition, some familiarity with another maturity model such as CMM is helpful, but not necessary.

Most organizations have one thing in common: people despise their annual review processes. Too often reviews focus on ratings and past activities rather than on learning and future opportunities, and the performance reviews rarely tie into organizational goals. At best, it is a perfunctory exercise.

ACDI/VOCA created an online performance system, AchieVe, chosen as a finalist for innovation at the 2012 HR Leadership Awards. Participants will learn how to define performance areas relevant to their organization, how to replace ratings with meaningful statements that link performance to company objectives, and how to build the system online so that it can become part of their organizations’ routines.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to define performance areas relevant across your organization
• Why ratings are unhelpful in driving learning
• How to create a review form that provides meaningful feedback
• How to link performance reviews to organizational goals
• How to facilitate this process online

Audience:
Novice professionals who are involved in implementing or facilitating the performance review process.

Instead of just helping people learn what they need to know, why not go further and help people achieve what they need to do? While performance support was first introduced 22 years ago in Gloria Gery’s groundbreaking book Electronic Performance Support Systems, in the last few years it has finally begun to emerge as a product category in the eLearning marketplace. But there’s still there is a good deal of confusion around what it looks like, when it is useful, and how to make it happen … not to mention whether it is actually an eLearning solution or something else.

Participants in this session will explore three types of performance support: task support, decision support, and application help. You will learn to identify appropriate opportunities for performance support, conduct the needs analysis, define appropriate metrics, build and maintain sponsorship, extract knowledge from experts, and package it into a performance support solution.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to identify appropriate opportunities for performance support
• How to define success criteria, metrics, and measurements for a performance-support solution
• How to orient the needs analysis for a performance-support solution
• How to outline a process for extracting knowledge from experts
• How to identify the guiding principles for designing a performance-centered solution
• How to establish and maintain sponsorship for a performance-support solution

Audience:
Intermediate and advanced designers, developers, project managers, and managers who have experience developing and implementing eLearning programs and job aids, and who are ready to move beyond course delivery.

Too often employees must take eLearning courses that fall far short of positively impacting performance on the job. Much of this eLearning can trace its roots to bad presentations relying on dense bulleted information and clip art to break the monotony. Replace the presenter with a “Next” button and you have the standalone eLearning that makes up much of the required training within private and public organizations today.

Participants in this session will explore an alternative called realistic performance activities (RPAs). RPAs are short, problem-oriented exercises that emphasize a “learn by doing” approach that uses existing infrastructure such as email and, increasingly, enterprise social media. You’ll learn how you can use social media platforms to facilitate RPAs in a way that has not typically been possible or realistic within organizations in the past. You’ll also explore ways of complementing existing learning programs with RPAs, including adding RPAs to existing online content and using RPAs as an adjunct to larger blended-learning events.

In this session, you will learn:

• Ways to develop and deliver realistic performance activities using existing infrastructure within your organization
• Ways to augment existing learning events to support learning and performance on the job
• How to integrate RPAs into other learning interventions, including eLearning and blended learning environments
• What has and hasn’t worked in RPA development and implementation across clients

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, VPs, CLOs, and executives. Participants who are using social media such as Twitter and Facebook will get extra value from this session.

There is a lot of excitement about “performance support,” but not a lot of information about what other people are using. What should you do once you’re ready to start on your performance support initiative? What technologies are appropriate for your needs? Which products are likely to add value in your organization and for your users? How do you cut through the marketing messages and find out what’s out there that works?

Session participants will examine several types of performance support tools and technologies deployed in real-life settings to help guide you through the steps to pick one that is right for you. You’ll learn the questions to ask potential vendors and the questions you should prepare to answer for your own organization. You’ll explore how to decide which vendor’s approach is most likely to help you achieve your goals—or what to consider if you plan to build your own performance support system.

• The importance of identifying your needs, and whether external performance support is the best solution to assist those needs
• Available performance support categories and tools
• How to determine which solution type is the best for your needs
• The questions you must ask when interviewing vendors
• The steps needed to properly demo to ensure the solution is the right fit for your needs

Social learning is the latest trend in training, yet it has been around since the dawn of recorded history. The Aerospace Corporation has used a variety of techniques to exploit enterprise social media to extend learning into the workplace. This radical change in approach to instructional design not only brings learning, mentoring, and performance coaching to the workplace at the time of need, it also leads to shorter design cycles, more flexible delivery options, and increased effectiveness due to extended engagement over time.

Participants in this session will learn what it takes to plan and execute formal learning programs integrating social media in a workplace setting. You will also get insight into the type of collaborative and social activities that work well in asynchronous, extended interaction between students from the workplace. You’ll see several case studies which used these techniques successfully in workplace learning programs.

In this session, you will learn:

• What instructional design approaches work when integrating social media into formal learning programs
• How to leverage social media to decrease classroom time while retaining effectiveness
• The benefits of extending engagement time between students and facilitators through social media
• The benefits of increased flexibility through use of social media for formal learning programs

Audience:
Novice-to-advanced professionals with a basic understanding of managing or performing instructional design and an awareness of adult learning theories.

After a major shift from a hierarchical structure to a flat corporate structure, Rho needed to change the way leaders and peers gave and received feedback. After company-wide training, changes occurred only slowly until the creation of a mobile-support application, which overcame cultural resistance to change.

In this time of near-constant organizational change, learning and performance professionals must have an innovative, adaptable method for delivering and reinforcing culture change. Session participants will get ideas on how a mobile app can overcome resistance to change, especially when there are many geographically dispersed employees.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to analyze obstacles to culture change
• When a performance support app make sense
• How to communicate and deploy a performance support app
• How to monitor the impact of a performance support app on culture-change goals

Audience:
Novice-to-advanced professionals. A general knowledge of performance support methods is helpful, but not necessary.

You are waiting in the office of a potential client and you want to brush up on their company goals and strategy. Would you frantically hunt through your briefcase to find the pamphlet, or would you rather pull out your trusty smartphone and run a quick search to immediately have the specific content you needed? With the technology now available, you can store your content in the cloud and access it whether you’re in the field, at the office, or waiting to do your next sales pitch. Successful mobile learning is all about personalization and having the relevant content, specific to you and your needs, when you want it; true personalization of your content requires the cloud. The cloud allows you to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly, without the traditional large, upfront investments in new infrastructure, software, or personnel.

This session will explore what this means for you and your organization and how to personalize an entire workforce. You’ll find out how the learning industry can take advantage of the cloud, and how crucial it is that those implementing know how to best leverage the cloud and apps for training.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to leverage the cloud in training
• How to leverage the apps learners are already using
• The basics of a cloud strategy and how to develop one for your organization
• How to personalize learning content delivery

Audience:
Novice-to-advanced professionals.