Using the Six Thinking Hats? to Analyse Training Needs and Evaluate Training Programmes

 Elyn has been tasked by her boss to plan out her company's training plan for the forthcoming year. "Elyn, can you help us identify a few training programmes that will help us in our teamwork, communications skills and general productivity for the coming year?", that was what Elyn's boss tells her. No clear budgets, no specific training needs and no indication how to measure training effectiveness.

     As what she did in the past, Elyn calls up a few training vendors whom she knows and ask for the training outlines, trainer profiles and of course the pricing of those programmes they have. She then meticulously schedule the training workshops for each of specific groups of colleagues in her company. When she is done, she presents her "training plan" to her boss, showing her meticulous schedule she has created.

    Without looking at the line-up of training programmes, the boss takes a glance at the total training costs and makes a very simple comment, "Wow, that seems like we are spending a lot of money on training. Are you sure we can get the effectiveness from these training?

    Before Elyn can comment on her boss's comment, her colleague, the Sales Director who is also present at the meeting makes the following remark, "I don't think my sales team needs simple things like communication skills training. We need something that is more relevant to our work. I don't think I will be committing my department's budget to this training."

    Now Elyn is feeling really red-faced. After spending weeks to come up with a "training plan", what she gets is doubt from her boss, and downright rejection from her colleague in front of her boss. 

    Being the very meticulous and highly responsible person that she is, Elyn turns to the Six Thinking Hats?to find out how she can analyse her company's training needs and evaluate training programmes more effectively. 

Conducting Training Needs Analysis Using the Six Thinking Hats?

    If you don't know what are the Six Thinking Hats? as yet, you can refer to our past newsletter to get more information. To help us understand how to apply the Six Thinking Hats? in Training Needs Analysis, here's a brief overview:

1. Blue Hat - The focus and purpose of any training is to make trainees change their behaviour (for the better, hopefully). Hence, throughout your Training Needs Analysis, you need to stay focus on what behaviours you want your colleagues to change, so as to improve their performances
2. White Hat - Information on what kinds of behaviours need to be changed does not exist in a vacuum. 
3. Yellow Hat - While training IS about changing behaviours, it may make sense to start asking your BU Heads and functional managers what are the strengths of their respective teams first, before you start asking what are their weaknesses. When you start with asking the weaknesses, people get defensive. When you start with asking their strengths, people become modest. Besides, there may be some strengths that need to be strengthened, which is also a positive change in behaviour.
4. Black Hat - Once you understand the strengths of your colleagues, find out what are their weaknesses, or areas of improvements, or performance gaps. This is usually the biggest reason why the respective BU or department is willing to allocate budget to the training programme, as the training is viewed as solving a critical problem.
5. Green Hat - As there will always be demands to measure training effectiveness for different types of training programmes, this is where you need to be creative to find out cost-effective ways to measure training effectiveness. The Green Hat is also very much required for cases where standardised training programmes are not suitable, and customisation is required.
6. Red Hat - At different times in the development of your training plan, you can calibrate the emotions of your colleagues as well as yourself, particularly if you or your colleagues feel confident or cot confident in a certain approach. If any party feels hesitant, there might be some unresolved concerns that may require your attention.

    When putting on your White Hat, here are some other sources where you can collect more information:

• Performance appraisals or performance management plans (PMPs) or talent management plans;
• Talking to Business Units (BUs) Heads and functional managers to find out what are some of the performance concerns they have for their team, and which behaviours need to be addressed;
• Conducting in-depth conversations with targeted trainees

    Perhaps the Red Hat of some readers at this point could be: if I'm going to put on my White Hat and collect so much information, how do I have the time AND resources to do so?

    The good news is that you don't need complete information of all that is happening within the BU or the department. You just need to get the relevant information about what behaviours need to be changed. 

    It is also very important when putting on the White Hat is NOT to ask your BU and department heads what training courses or workshops they think their team needs, because the courses mentioned by the BU Head may not be the right remedy to change behaviours. After all it is you, not them, who is the expert in training matters. 

     Better to put on the Yellow, Black and Green Hats to find out their team's strengths, weaknesses and possible solutions to make them better. 

Evaluating Training Programmes Using the Six Thinking Hats? 

    Now that you have found out what are the behaviour changes are required for your colleagues, the next thing is to identify ways how best to effect those changes. Here are some suggestions:

1. White Hat:

• What are some of the information that you already know about related training programmes?
• What are some information that you would like to know? Where can you get them?
• How do you measure success?

1. Yellow Hat

• What are their key strengths?
• What are their track records?

1. Black Hat

• Can they really deliver as promised?
• Will the participants buy in to their ideas?

1. Green Hat

• How else can we make the training more exciting?
• How can we improve effectiveness?

1. Red Hat

• How do you feel about it?

1. Blue Hat:

• How shall we then proceed?
• How shall we ensure training effectiveness? 

    The unfortunate mistakes that most training managers make when evaluating trainers and training programmes are:

• Asking if the trainer has experience training their industry. While this might sound like a fair assumption, it depends on the type of training involved. We were approached once by a huge chemical company for our sales training programmes asking if we had experience training or selling in their industry. After some thought, we told them that while both the cosmetics and coatings products belong to the chemical industry, they have totally different customer and selling needs.
• Insisting on working with a world-renowned brand for every single programme. Actually, it's a good thing to work with big brands, since their products are much likelier to be well-tested and developed. It's only a mistake that when you need to have a great deal of customisation and localisation, and yet source for off-the-shelf big-brand training programmes.
• Insisting on older trainers with lots of grey or white hair. Again, the perception is that older trainers are more experienced and therefore able to share their in-depth experiences, which may not be true.

Using the Six Thinking Hats? to Manage Your Time

     At this moment, some Training Managers would probably be wondering "Why on Earth should I go through so much trouble just to analyse training needs, and evaluate training programmes. Can't I just follow what my predecessors and their predecessors did, since nobody complained anything about what they did?" 

    Here are some Blue Hat reasons why you MUST pay more attention to training needs analysis and training programme evaluation:

• Regardless what industry you are in, chances are competition are getting increasingly stronger by the day. Usually, the people who work in your company are becoming the main source of competitive advantage;
• Senior managers are getting more involved in the training effectiveness of their programmes, and they are demanding to get more results for every dollar spent on training; and
• The Training Department is getting more professional and effective, and younger Training Managers and Assistants (those born in the late 80's) are doing what they could to measure training success. Hence, my dear current Training Managers, it's either you shape up or you ship ou

    As Sun Tzu says in the Art of War, "If you can march 1,000 miles and NOT feel tired, you will be undefeatable" (行千里而不劳者，行于无人之地也). What it means is that if you are able to do the extra work and deliver better results for your company and colleagues, you will eventually be the main beneficiary.

    Need help in conducting better training needs analysis and training programme evaluation without over-working yourself? Simply e-mail [email protected] or scan the QR Code below.