What is Goal-Based Training?

The ultimate goal of learning and development efforts is to achieve measurable business objectives. Acceptance and usage of a system will be directly influenced by the relevance of the training materials and a deep understanding of the unique working practices of learners.

• How can trainers overcome the perpetual challenge of having to train different people with very different business goals?
• How can the success of the training be quantified to show what trainers have achieved?
• How can it be determined that business and user goals are being achieved and behaviors genuinely changed?
• How can learning be reinforced in the workplace?

Developing a Goal-Based Training Strategy

Step One

Identify business goals and desired changes. This requires a deep understanding of stakeholder expectations.

Step Two

Decide how business and user goals will be evaluated and continuously monitored to reinforce learning.

Step Three

Develop or tailor training curriculum, e-learning and on-going support materials and how users work (their personal goals and behaviors), not the application features they need to know.

1. Validate Goals

Learning professionals need to be kept informed of key business stakeholder expectations. Trainers need to clarify and refine business goals so that observable, measurable, success criteria can be set.

It is essential to know how people work, what they work on, and their workflow frustrations, in order to accurately identify learning goals and anticipated behavioral changes.

By conducting “Goal-Based” interviews with key stakeholders and practice group teams from different offices, trainers become intimately familiar with their working practices and goals so they can link them to training. Strategic technology plans, requests for information, and requests for proposals are documents that contain critical information about the business goals and working processes of a firm. Reading and understanding these kinds of documents will help trainers to validate learning goals.

To accelerate this process and make life easy for trainers, we create generic goals and working behaviors that are based on experience from working with many different law firms. This provides a baseline that can be validated and fine-tuned to match the different practices groups and individual members.

2. Design and Develop

Once goals and working behaviors have been validated for your particular firm, the next step is to validate the learning profiles so you can develop or tailor, relevant, realistic, scenario-based training curriculum. Business goals can now be translated into measurable outcomes that address key expectations from stakeholders and provide indicators to show that the training was successful.

Scenario Based Training

Training should be “scenario-based” and focus on changing behaviors and achieving goals. Scenario-based training increases retention and comprehension. It provides a “day in the life” context that includes specific goals while offering instructions for using features and options to accomplish those goals. It is concise and relevant to the working practices of a particular group of learners. In contrast, traditional training has mainly only been able to focus on what menus to use and which keys to press. This has less impact than a scenario showing a realistic application of the functionality.

Once profiles are validated, and the flow of the work day is understood, it can be used to develop or tailor curriculum for classes, handouts, and online learning that is relevant, with real-life scenarios to deliver the knowledge. The curriculum is goal-driven, not feature-driven. It is concise and may incorporate features and options from more than one application or process. The result is a blended, relevant learning environment that accomplishes practical goals rather than a list of features.

3. Communicate and Implement

When implementing a training strategy, it is vital to communicate the importance, benefits, and processes to build a bridge between the training team and management. Supervisors and managers must partner with the training team to communicate expectations, providing ongoing support, and develop strategies to enforce and reinforce training. This will ensure that training is translated into productivity and support is provided while “on the job.”

4. Reinforce and Refine

Since most learning occurs “on the job” (studies show that 70% of learning takes place at the workplace), it is crucial to provide the right learning tools and coaching to support desired outcomes. Training strategies must include easily accessible support or coaching, a process for reinforcement, and ongoing feedback from users, as well as a method to show that pre-determined goals have been achieved.

The Goal-Based Training approach ensures successful roll-outs.

Goal-Based Training ensures that each user gets exactly the training they need to perform their particular tasks. As a result, it reduces the amount of time it takes to train them. It also makes any time spent in training much more effective. Goal-Based training accelerates the roll-out process, gives the user a more satisfying experience, is less onerous on the training team and costs the firm less.

How do you go about delivering Goal-Based Training?

In all firms, there are a myriad of profiles and differing business goals. Previously, this made it difficult to deliver pinpoint, user-oriented training easily, (other than doing one-on-one coaching.) Recent breakthroughs have been made with software packages like the Capensys Pathfinder which supports the Goal-Based training approach. Pathfinders are built on a specific set of workflow statements. These statements accurately reflect what a person does at their job, how they interact with clients, as well as how they create, edit, review and file their documents. They allow users to identify tasks they commonly used and how they perform them. The responses are then used to generate a recommended training path that helps the user to identify and achieve personal learning goals. The recommended training path can include e-Learning, workshops, or one-on-one coaching with the firm’s trainers.

What about on-going coaching in the work-place where 70% of learning occurs?

Nowadays, users are inclined to use Google and UTube to find answers to their own questions so it’s important for firms to provide equally accessible training which reflects their own best practices and procedures. Tools that offer firm-approved, context-sensitive training from within the application itself are highly effective for improving user adoption, compliance and reducing help desk calls. Innovative tools like the Capensys Coach can provide right-click access to quick reference cards, e-Learning modules, videos and other materials that demonstrate the specific tasks the user is attempting to perform.

A “paradigm shift in how training is delivered” - elevating the role of trainers

Law firm trainers are faced with the enormous challenge of delivering high quality training to lawyers and support staff in a time-constrained working environment. Even if the time constraint gets resolved, helping users to retain massive amounts of information and learning becomes an even greater challenge. These challenges can be overcome with a Goal-Based training strategy that provides on demand, relevant content to users at the precise moment they need it. Using this approach will elevate the role of the trainer to that of a Business Analyst and Performance Professional who is perceived as having a direct and positive influence on the bottom line.

To find out more how Goal-Based Training can help trainers deliver successful rollouts contact info@capensys.com