At my last post The Effectiveness of Learning – Ready Set Go (Part 2) which discussed the implementation of e-learning, I mentioned I’d write next about a implementation that was surprisingly and refreshingly simple.
For many years there has been discussion about the optimal way to go about introducing e-learning into an organisation. There have been many consulting hours spent working through “e-Learning Readiness” checklists and so on.
Part of the preparatory work is to gain learner acceptance of e-learning , but the effort required to ensure acceptance depends a great deal practical considerations and on the way in which stakeholder expectations and risks are managed against the level of sophistication of the following key organisational engredients:
- Human Resource availability
- Adequate technology
- Defined business processes
- Learning integrity measures
- Sustainable business outcomes and alignment
- Continuous improvement
A great deal of time and effort is commonly spent pondering these issues and, in particular, speculating the likely reaction that learners may have towards the use of e-learning.
I have seen very successful implementations proceed where planning seems to have been excessive with much time spent obtaining the “buy-in” of learners prior to the release of e-learning.
On the other hand, I have witnessed the rapid execution of detailed plans with minimal effort taken to ”sell” the use of e-learning to potential learners, and with outstanding success. In one particular case we simply approached this aspect of implmentation of e-learning with the argument “ no-body asked me if I wanted to use e-mail!” In that organisation e-learning was accepted without question, without debate. People just got on with it. No fuss, no trouble.
Badly managed expectations about learning technology is usually the more serious issue.