In the world of technology and software, innovation is always a part of conversation. More than a buzzword, business leaders understand that without innovation, they can simply lose market relevance over time.
Leaders in the learning and development industry have consistently expressed their need to “innovate learning” for 2018 and beyond. But what exactly does that mean for organizations, training providers, and even human resources professionals?
How Innovation Ushered in Adaptation to the Training Industry
Considered one of “the most inexcusable business failures of the last 25 years” Kodak lost its dominance in the photography and film industry with the advent of digital photography.
The tongue in cheek “Kodak Moment” case study has become a textbook example for all businessmen to prevent going the wy of the Dodo. The household name invented the digital camera in the 1970s but failed to market it for fear of cannibalizing its precious film business. It was this short-sightedness that eventually led to their demise.
The lesson?
Companies need to be constantly looking forward, preparing for, and leading innovation in their field. But, trying to achieve two parallel goals – improving core products while achieving breakthrough innovations – is a common challenge and often insurmountable. Many successful companies are excellent at refining their products but struggle to integrate their core business with the pursuit of breakthrough products.
Before it merged with Alcon in 2011, Ciba-Vision became the exception as it managed to successfully exploit the present to better explore the future. In the early 1990s, J&J and its new disposable contact lenses were slowly but steadily gaining Ciba Vision’s market of conventional lenses. Glenn Bradley, Ciba Vision’s then-president, understood that without innovation, the company was doomed to fail. He transformed his company into an ambidextrous organization.
Ciba Vision would continue to make money in its core business of conventional contacts, while at the same time producing innovative products. Bradley succeeded in optimizing the profits of its conventional contacts business and freed resources to grow and support breakthrough initiatives. The training industry can learn a lot from both Kodak and Ciba Vision.
Innovating Learning Starts With Optimizing Your Training Resources
If you ask learning leaders what is stopping them from innovating learning most will blame it on a lack of resources. When asked what is the biggest innovation in the last 20 years, they cite eLearning. The fact is that the learning ecosystem is changing now with the evolution of social media tools, HD videos, gamification on mobile devices, and now AI-based eLearning tech.
Despite new learning methods and fancy tech powered by AI, Instructor-led training (ILT) is nevertheless still the preferred choice of learning delivery due to the benefits it provides for learners and organizations alike
According to Brandon Hall Group’s research for 2017, instructor-led training has the highest use rating. Revisiting the same annual study in 2024 and instructor-led training is still the preferred method of training delivery among learning departments and learners in general. In particular, “on a five-point rating scale where 1 is 0% of total training and 5 is more than 75%, instructor-led classroom rates a 3.4 – 21% more than even eLearning modules, which rated a 2”.
This should come as no surprise since instructor-led classroom methods rate 3.79 in effectiveness as opposed to 3.23 for eLearning modules. However, instructor-led training is more complex to manage and resource-intensive to deliver. To enable innovation, training departments can adopt Ciba Vision’s philosophy to free resources to work on innovation while optimizing their core solutions.
Stephan Thoma, Google’s former global L&D Director, has a similar system to ensure the capacity to innovate he calls “70-20-10”. (This is not the 70-20-10 model we typically talk about in learning so don’t be confused.) Thoma uses 70% of resources on core programs, 20% on developments to the core, and 10% on totally new experiments, like peer-to-peer learning.
By iterating the process, in Thoma’s words, “Your R&D today becomes some of your enhancement work next year, which becomes your mainstream work the year after.” That is, to innovate, and to innovate well, we need to optimize first.
5 Steps Training Providers Can Take to Optimize Training Operations
Training operations encompasses the administrative duties of a training that aims to focus on deploying instructor-led training in the most efficient way possible. Because ILT-based training programs are central to an effective skills development strategy, focusing your optimization activities here will have quick payback towards your innovation plans.
1. Maximize current resources
Have a clear repository of all resources and keep track of occupancy and utilization rates to optimize the efficiency of each session.
2. Create a training plan and monitor progress
Use precise forecasts of training volume and costs to plan long-term, and track improvement of KPI year after year.
3. Apply project management best practices
Create a list of steps to follow before, during, and after each training session. Clarify which team is responsible for each step and track the steps and completion of each task.
4. Optimize your budget
Track investments across different business units, countries, and currencies and eliminate unnecessary spending.
5. Improve collaboration and data-sharing
Discourage siloed spreadsheets and encourage collaborative tools to ensure that logistics, scheduling, and financial processes integrate seamlessly.
Why Should L&D Make Training Optimization a Priority?
Wasted resources, be it time, money, or energy is never ideal for any organization. For training professionals especially, there’s no room for wasted potential or resources. Whether working within a learning department or as a part of a wider extended enterprise, training management is a centralized in a science that seeks to develop a system that utilizes resources for instructor-led training events efficiently.
When the logistics of training are properly managed, L&D teams are given the ability provide more training without wasting time (doing administrative tasks), money (by over allocating scheduling), and energy (by redirecting efforts to learner needs).
Second, by optimizing your core business, you gain a deeper understanding of it. Indeed by learning where resources are used efficiently and where not, you understand more in detail every part of your business.
Third, by understanding each part of your core business better, you bring stability to it. Since innovation is inherently risky, you do not want to risk building on something that is not solid.
You need to have a strong and stable core business to be able to add risk and resources to innovation. Optimizing first will allow you to do all this. Next month I will bring you a story from one of our customers that has successfully applied this “Optimize First” philosophy to drive innovations in learning.
Curious to know how your learning operations are performing within your organization? Get our free template on assessing your learning technology needs to see how Training Orchestra can optimize your L&D strategies.
