Knowledge Design and Engineering

These are my three principles that guide all of my consulting projects:

1) Training that is Tied to Results and Provides the Most Quality without a High Cost.
2) Training is Only Part of the Solution; There Must be Follow-Through Management to Ensure the Training is Successful in Producing Results.
3) Teaching the Client How to Develop Their Own Training for Their Particular Needs is My Ultimate Goal.

In developing these principles, I have been influenced by three books. The first is Jane Bozarth's E-Learning Solutions on a Shoestring: Help for the Chronically Underfunded Trainer which inspired me to create my own approach to using open-source and low cost tools to develop teaching and training solutions. I don't believe that the cheapest solution is always the best solution but I also don't believe that only the most expensive software or technology will guarantee good training. Technology is only a support to training and it is the trainer who can make training work.

That is why I follow the six principles as detailed in The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning: How to Turn Training and Development Into Business Results. For training to be successful, you must define the business outcomes of the training and design the training for what happens before and after the training event. The training must demonstrate to the learner how this knowledge will apply to their work and there must be follow-through to reinforce the training. Also, there must be active support from management and the results of the training must be documented.

To achieve this, I form a knowledge-based client relationship as described by Ross Dawson in Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships. This means that I form a close relationship with the client to help them discover assets and methods for developing their own training solutions. To some, this may sound like I am "giving away the store" but I see it as a way of turning clients into repeat customers as I help them develop even more sophisticated and effective training solutions to meet the ever-changing needs of their organizations. In this environment of rapid change, globalization, and increasing demands, last-year's packaged training just doesn't work anymore.

When seeking out clients, I look for organizations that agree with these principles because I believe these make the most satisfying and successful projects.