Outside Training Experts as Mentors

Corporations need to produce technology training fast and inexpensively, but sometimes the lack of internal resources or expertise in training development forces them to look for help from outside training consultants. Four issues arise immediately when companies go outside:

• Consultants have to be brought up to speed on the industry, the technology to be trained, and on the corporate culture and business situation.
• Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from the company have to take time from their regular jobs to train consultants, review their designs and work products, and attend pilot tests.
• All this internal activity plus the consultants' fees make outside training consultants an expensive proposition.
• Training and process solutions developed by outsiders may meet resistance from insiders not involved in the development process. The resistance may be the result of a “not manufactured here” mentality; partially it may also result from fear of loss of jobs or prestige.

A simple shift of focus can result in faster development, automatic “own-in” of the training, and knowledge transfer into the organization. Here’s what the shift involves:

• Bring in high-level instructional designers as mentors to your own staff, who will do the design and development work themselves, perhaps with supplemental developers from outside.
• The mentors can create templates for task analysis, document design, and other tasks and train insiders to use them. They review work products and pass on their knowledge of instructional design to insiders.
• The mentors do not have to obtain detailed industry or product knowledge to be useful. The staff members already have this knowledge. The mentor can concentrate on helping the insiders shape the training to be effective.
• The outside instructional designers can also lead process formation, documentation or process improvement groups, if processes need to be worked on before the training development begins.
• Insiders write initial drafts of training materials and exercises, which are reviewed by the outside instructional design consultants for proper instructional design and format. This is a lot more efficient than having to teach the outsider industry and product knowledge, have them write the documents, then, have the insiders review them.
• Finally, all this participation by insiders in design, writing, and editing documents and forming business processes means that they own the processes and training. Trying to get “buy-in” of externally produced programs isn’t necessary.