#9/10 learnings from re-inventing workshops in times of Corona

This is a short learning – and pretty down to earth – but I have seen just too often that forgetting this detail can kill your success – so watch out:

3 ways to contain the devil in the (scheduling) detail

When migrating a 1 (or more)-day physical presence workshop into the virtual world we probably all agree that the result won’t be an 8-hour online session. It would neither be a good experience nor create a good outcome – so (as discussed in previous posts) the skilled facilitator provides some content in self paced elements (reading, interactive online tasks, videos or podcasts) that participants will take whenever it suits their schedule. A certain part of the session will still be done as live online sessions – most probably split into 3, 4 or more sessions. Sounds easy but there are a few tricky parts hidden in the boring task of setting up these sessions:

• You won’t have everybody in every session – deal with it

If you have e.g. 3 live online sessions as part of a blended learning session, even if you fix the dates well in advance, not all participants will actually attend all live sessions. Bosses (or participants themselves) will de-prioritise the session, kids might fall ill, a mayor soccer game might be on or another virtual session might just be too much to digest. Assuming that the content of the live session is relevant for the overall learning journey – how will you deal with the fact that part of your audience in session 2 did not attend session 1?

Don’t assume that recording the session is the silver bullet. How often have you yourself actually watched a recorded session? Be honest! At best, you fast forward through the recording and check out the slides. At a minimum, have the participants answer a small quiz after having watched the recording so that they see if they have understood the main point.

Alternatives to offering a recording are short extra sessions (delivered by yourself) that provide a fast walk through the essential contents – this should be offered e.g. in the 30 min right before the next live session. Another (my preferred) alternative is assigning learning buddies right at the beginning of the project and giving them the task of bringing their peer up to speed.

• The nightmare of agreeing the timing for coaching sessions

A very effective element of blended learning approaches is adding 1:1 or small-group coachings between live online sessions. At the F-Top Institute we have found that this greatly improves both the participant experience and also the overall learning impact. However, defining the dates for these coachings was difficult at first (when the administrator on the client side took care of it). It took ages to get all bookings done (since it was of course not on top of the administrator’s list) and whenever something unexpected happened (like participants asking for an alternative time slot) it made the whole procedure rather cumbersome.

The best solution we found (for the case where the facilitator and the participants were not part of the same corporate IT system) was – you probably would have guessed it – a simple online tool. Setting up a Doodle gives all participants the chance to see all available dates; you can define settings so that the bookings are unique (one data only booked by one person/group and every person/group can book only one date). There might be other tools around but in my opinion, Doodle is good value for this task.

• Timing with impact in mind

Good old Ebbinghaus is still right – unless re-enforce and applied, we forget 80% of what we’ve learned within a few weeks, so spreading the various parts of the learning over too much time results in little impact and a lot of frustration. Make the spacing effect (check out Cecil Alec Mace for more details) work for you by timing the various parts of the blended learning not mainly by sheer convenience but mainly in order to optimise the learning impact.

Agree? Oppose? Leave your comments!

Check out these previous learnings:

#1 Blended is the key  

#2 The 120/5 rule   

#3 It’s probably new for the client, too

#4: This is not the time for sharing

#5: Murphy’s law applies  

#6: Developers or impact drivers – it’s our choice  

#7: Think like an explorer, deliver like a pro

#8: The two C’s in success: Confidence + Competence