Scenario-based learning

Train how you work, work how you train

Here's a test for any training you create: If a learner finished your course, then started the job the next morning, would they recognize the work from what they experienced during your training?

How do you know they can actually do the job if the training has nothing to do with their tasks or work environment?

Scenario-based learning fixes this by putting learners in realistic situations and asking them to make the same decisions they'll face on the job. Instead of a slideshow with a quiz at the end about "Here are the seven steps of the return process," you give them a simulation of an annoyed customer, a receipt that's three months old, and a sandbox (recreated for training purposes) version of the computer program they're supposed to use. Then they can practice the return process instead of just recalling it.

Knowing a policy by memory in a classroom and applying the policy in a work environment are two completely different skills. Give learners the chance to practice doing the work in a safe environment where it's ok to mess up. Also, if you can change your training from a bullet-pointed list into a story with characters, like an annoyed customer, it's easier to remember.

The goal here is to make the training so much like the work that the work feels like they've already done it.