DCaulfield

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Building a Personal Apprenticeship

What have you always wanted to do but didn't give yourself time for? What skills have you wanted to master in the past but never spent the energy doing so? Have you ever looked at your skills and thought "I should have done more".

It's common to look back on our education or personal development and think we could have done better. We look at ourselves now and think "Ok - I'm going to fix this and do another degree" or "I'm going to get that course done". But there is another path to mastery we never consider - the personal apprenticeship.

What is an apprenticeship?

Apprenticeships are commonly a company-sponsored program. They allow the employer to train new employees in relevant skills. After completing the apprenticeship, the employee has a set of valuable skills for their industry whether it be a trade, a medical discipline or something like software engineering. Compare this to a university student who has very few job-relevant skills after a university degree. All of this and the apprentice gets paid. It's win-win.

Industrial apprenticeships are fantastic programs, but we don't have to rely on companies for them. We can take the same apprenticeship model and apply it to anyone who has a career or hobby they are passionate about.

An apprenticeship more generically is...

An apprenticeship is a period of focused learning. The apprentice isn't focusing on income or title - they're focusing on their work. The objective is to acquire practical skills and sow seeds. The more seeds sown during the apprenticeship, the more opportunities will open up. The apprentice focuses on developing a few high-quality skills (ie. not lots of things). Over time, the apprentice combines their skills together, building them into a toolkit of mastery for their craft.

Secondly, apprenticeships are unique to each person. Everyone falls into the trap of looking at someone else we admire and trying to copy them. It is useful to look at others' paths, but only as a guideline. Following someone else's path will lead to a loss of focus, disinterest and ultimately burnout. We see this all the time in certain disciplines - just look at the dropout rates in universities for software development and medicine. These are financially attractive disciplines, but they require a person who is dedicated to the craft.

Apprenticeships must be challenging. An easy apprenticeship is pointless - nobody learns anything. We learn fastest by overcoming difficult situations. A good litmus test for a person's progress is how many difficult things they have accomplished. This could be a research paper, writing a blog or article, giving a speech or presentation, delivering a project or passing an exam. The more challenges someone encounters in their apprenticeship, the more they learn.

Designing your own apprenticeship

The apprenticeship model is extremely practical and useful for sowing seeds for future success. But we don't need to rely on a company or university to design an apprenticeship for us. Look at the three criteria for a good apprenticeship:

  • The objective is to learn.
  • It is unique to you.
  • It must be challenging.

The objective is to learn

Tell yourself that you are carving out a period of time specifically to learn and develop your skills. You're not looking for promotions (though if they come then great!). You're not looking for a career change (not yet anyway). This period is about focusing on the domain or set of skills you believe are important.

It is unique to you

The apprenticeship should focus on something that drives you. It should be something that grips you - a vision of your future.

For example, let's say you want to become the CEO of a large company someday. Your apprenticeship might focus on setting up a very small, profitable business. This would enable you to learn about things like tax law, business finance, profit and loss, marketing and product development.

Or if you wanted to switch careers into university lecturing, your apprenticeship could focus on developing the skills for a PHD.

Another great thing about a self-directed apprenticeship is there is no time limit. You can take it slow and build up your big, deep ideas for yourself. If you are busy with work or family and can't commit lots of time to your apprenticeship, that's great! This will allow you to hone your skills over a longer period of time.

It needs to be challenging

If your self-directed apprenticeship is easy, don't bother with it. Good learning requires you to struggle with the content or skill. A challenging apprenticeship also means you won't get bored after a week. Your perseverance will give you wins to be proud of.

Finally, if it's not challenging, you're not setting the bar high enough. You need to decide if your apprenticeship is worth it. Why do you really want to go down this route? What grips you about this field or study or skillset? A high bar will produce expertise you are proud of. It also means nobody else will have the same expertise - other people don't want to do the difficult things you've done!

A personal example

I've just kicked off my own personal apprenticeship in Learning Science. I've ticked off the three criteria:

  • Period of focused learning: The first phase of this personal apprenticeship will be over 6 months and split into monthly increments. Each month will focus on an overview of an area I want to study, from learning science to organisation change to neuroscience. After the six months, I will take a recap of everything learned and decide on next steps.
  • Unique to me: It connects a bunch of skills and work experiences I've enjoyed over the last few years.
  • It's challenging: The skillset is a bit of a rarity in my field (ironic considering the title "Learning and Development"). I've incorporated difficult challenges to complete along the way, which you can see highlighted in the diagram below. (Right click => Open image in new tab)

The Rewiring

Slowness is a virtue

Slowness is a virtue

Speed is important. Life passes quickly, so we need get things done. We need to build things. We need to meet deadlines. We need to uphold our responsibilities.

The kids need to be dropped to school before school starts. The assignment needs to be submitted on a Friday. The work needs to be completed by end of Q2. Time is of the essence for many things.

But not for everything.

We've forgotten how wonderful being slow feels

Yes, many things need to be done quickly. But we can fall into the trap of believing that good work always requires speed. We think "If I'm not finished task X by date Y, then I'm not being as productive as I could be." Then I feel guilty and demotivated.

There are many things in our lives, often the most important things, that requires slowness. And if we are in the habit of getting everything done as fast as possible, it is difficult to switch to something slow.

Remember what is what like as a child to do something without thinking about when it would be done? Building the lego set didn't have a deadline. There was no pressure to level up in Call of Duty (good thing too because I was slooow). We didn't care how long it took to explore the fields.

Slowness is a virtue we have forgotten.

Big, deep ideas are better without deadlines

If you are lucky, you remember a time when something gripped you. Something you couldn't escape - you thought about it every day and maybe still do. You might not even know what to do with this gripping thing. But you think about it all the time.

When you were a child, that gripping idea might have been a new hobby. Or maybe it was a scene you wanted to paint.

Don't forget about your idea because it feels slow

As we get older, these gripping things become more important. But if we're not careful, they also become more fleeting. We find excuses to discount great ideas because they won't be done by a certain time.

  • The idea is too big.
  • I don't have time for it.
  • Nothing will come of it anyway.

These may all be true, but it doesn't mean the big, deep idea doesn't have immense value in and of itself. These gripping ideas deserve time. In fact, they shouldn't be explored as fast as possible. If left alone, time can make them deeper and more gripping, allowing you to commit to them with greater zest when the time is right.

Time will build your hunger for your great idea

If something grips you today but you can't work on it, that makes you hungry to work on it tomorrow. Over months, or even years, that hunger grows and grows. Later, you might find yourself in a unique position that allows you to finally work on your idea. You've spent so long waiting and thinking about it that you have a fierce hunger. You don't care about any excuses now - you're just going to work until your hunger is satisfied.

Think about it - speed makes it seem like you have less time

Don't worry about any deadlines. Agree with yourself to work and think slowly. Great! Now you have infinitely more time than if you worked quickly.

With more time, you can think about things more.

  • You can plan them better.
  • You can engage with them deeply.
  • You can talk to more people about them.

You can build the wisdom for your idea, hammering out something that is potentially great.

We build patience when we practice slowing down

A knock-on effect of our fast-paced lives is that we are extremely impatient. Things we used to do aren't required anymore.

  • We don't need to queue at the bank - it's all online.
  • We don't need to read books or learn deeply - we can just google (or now chatGPT) the answer.
  • We don't need to talk to people - social media and Netflix took care of that.

Everything that once required us to wait is now gone. As a result, we have lost the virtue of patience. We expect things to be answered in the moment - including our own deep thoughts, complex problems and confusing ideas.

  • A relationship isn't immediately gratifying so we opt for one-night stands.
  • A book takes months to read so we go on Instagram instead.
  • A fight with a friend or spouse isn't resolved immediately so we cut them off.

And our big, deep, gripping idea is so big, deep and gripping that we simply cannot comprehend it and choose to forget about it.

Anyone who has lots of patience started small

Is it any wonder we can't hold onto our big, gripping ideas? We wouldn't expect ourselves to squat heavy weights the first day in the gym. Our big, deep idea is perhaps one of the heaviest weights we could ever lift. And it requires the strong muscles of patience. If we haven't built up those muscles before with other, more manageable things that require patience, it won't be possible to lift the heavy burden of our big, deep idea.

Slowing down a big, deep idea allows us to build the virtue of patience. We can take one bite at a time instead of rushing the whole lot.

Things that are better slow

  • Dating + relationships: "Taking it slow" helps to build a solid foundation of values and agreements for the relationship.
  • Careers: Young people can fail to develop good skillsets by changing direction or job hopping too often.
  • Business idea: Many businesses fail because they flip-flop between ideas and don't slow down to choose a direction to focus on.

Are you a leader? You really need to write things down

One of the greatest superpowers that a leader can unlock at any moment is to write stuff down. Here are a few reasons to do so. Write it down

Make more decisions

People confuse talking with decision-making. While it is true that talking is part of the decision-making process, if your decision is not written down, it will be forgotten and you will have to revisit the same conversation in the future. Once a decision is written down, it is concrete and everyone can move onto the next thing. The more decisions you write down, the more progress you make.

Write more, think better

Writing is thinking. Amazon has 1-pager and a 6-pager writing practice which encourages employees to think in-depth about their thoughts and vision for their work. As you write down your thoughts, you are forced to organise them and create a coherent narrative. If you're not writing down your thoughts, you are relying too much on your ability to articulate them. And let's be honest - that doesn't work very well. It doesn't look good when a leader stumbles over their words as they try to get your thoughts in order. You need to at least look like you have an idea what you're doing. So write down your thoughts.

Get agreement

If you don't write things down, you rely on people to spread information via word of mouth. Maybe that used to work when oral, in-person communication was the main form of communication. But in the digital age where most our work in online, relying on word of mouth isn't good enough. It takes just one person to zone out or miss a meeting for everything to be re-explained. Write things down - you will avoid repeating yourself and relying on Chinese whispers.

Write to increase your team's speed

If you don't write things down, your speed as a team, organisation or company slows down. If a decision is not written down, it's not a decision. And at the end of a meeting, if nothing gets written down, nobody knows what happens. They don't know what actions need to be taken. They don't know what happens next. "Oh - I guess we'll need another meeting". Meeting after meeting occurs with nothing written down, no sense of progress or alignment and everything slows to a snail's pace. Write all thoughts down and make sure everyone sees the decision process. At least that way the next meeting will have something to build off instead of saying "What were we talking about again?".

Here's what ineffective meetings looks like. Meetings without writing

Compare the above to a series of meetings where everything is written down. Meetings without writing

Write and take your work seriously

Strong writers are always viewed as professional and good at their work. A leader who writes their thoughts down come across as articulate and clear. Who know where you stand with someone who has written their thoughts down. You know what their decision process was. You know what their presumptions were.

Write more and improve your work and the work of the people around you.

Floppy Funnel Syndrome - A Marketing Antipattern

Effective Marketing

Here is a sales funnel: Sales Funnel On the left, we see all the opportunities for potential new business. As our target market become aware of what I offer them, I work with them to get their interest and hopefully a decision for them to do business with me.

Good sales strategies will aim to be specific. If we make generic statements about what I sell, it's going to fall flat in the sea of advertising noise. I need to make my value heard, and to do that it needs to be specific.

For example, instead of "David's Incredible Deserts" I could focus on "David's Incredible Chocolate Chip Ice-cream". Instead of a generic statement where I try to catch as many people as possible, I just focus on the people who want some great chocolate chip ice-cream.

Here is an example of how a generic message can fall flat. Wide sales funnel

And here is how a specific message can have a better impact. Specific messaging

Floppy Funnel

Notice that by advertising chocolate chip ice-cream, I'm potentially excluding people who only like strawberry ice-cream. What should I do? I could call it "David's Incredible Chocolate Chip and Strawberry Ice-cream", but we can see straight away how it loses its impact.

This is what happens when we make our sales funnel 'floppy' and change the story of what I provide to suit more and more people. In the end, everyone feels like there is no difference between me and the ice-cream they can buy in the shop, so why pay more? Floppy Funnel

My funnel needs to be aimed at a specific group of people or businesses which I know I can bring value to. My offerings need to be tailored to those groups such that I am happy to exclude the majority of people in favour of a few key people who value my services.

If I have a floppy funnel, when someone asks "What ice-cream can you give me", my response will be "Well what ice-cream would you like? I can give you any ice-cream you want!".

I might not even give them any options: "You just tell me what you want.". When this happens, the customer quickly sees I either don't know what I'm doing or I cannot provide anything of quality.

Contrast the floppy funnel response to a more direct response: "I provide homemade chocolate chip ice-cream with Irish chocolate and dairy from the local farmer's market". The person might not like the price I'm charging, or they might not like chocolate chip ice-cream, but that's ok as long as enough people do like it. And because I'm charging premium prices, I can get away with fewer customers.

Business is the same. A business which has Floppy Funnel Syndrome will respond to the question "What do you do?" with the answer "We can do whatever you want us to do". Everyone knows that response is rubbish - no business can do everything. And if they can, they're not going to be very good at anything. If a business responds like this, they lose all trust before starting any real conversation.

Floppy Funnel Syndrome in other areas

Business is not the only area where Floppy Funnel Syndrome can happen.

  • Career: You can switch career directions too many times so that you never build a deep expertise in anything. Later in life, you will find it difficult to stay employable.
  • Practice: When practising a subject, it can be tempting to switch direction when something gets difficult. Pick a category of work to point your funnel and learn about the things that interest you. As the subject's information gets filtered through your funnel, it will get more difficult. Eventually though, you should have a set of skills that are well-honed.
  • Relationships: Don't try to make everyone happy. Pick the people you care about and who care about you and develop those relationships. You don't need to change yourself so that you can get more friends. Your funnel should be focused on the people who care about you for your own sake.

Make It Unstick: 8 Learning Antipatterns

Intro

Reading through Make It Stick, I keep coming across misconceptions I have about effective learning. Here are a couple of antipatterns I've fallen prey to.

Learning Antipattern: The Path of Least Resistance

...where I choose to learn things that are easy to avoid anything difficult, tedious or tiring.

Path of least resistance

The Path of Least Resistance: Problems

  • Easy learning gets lost. Reading a book cover to cover might retain 1% of the information in the book. But if I slow down, pace my reading and make it more difficult on myself to progress, I will understand and more information.
  • If something's easy to achieve, it probably means lots of people have achieved it. When lots of people have the same thing, it loses its value. Everyone has a bachelor's degree today, which is why it has lost so much of its unique value. Easy things are less valuable.
  • Easy learning indicates unimportant learning. As a corollary, difficult learning indicates important learning. How much does the average person know about the Kardashian's versus Dostoevsky?

The Path of Least Resistance: Solutions

  • Remove any low-value information intake like LinkedIn, Instagram, news + blog sites. If you struggle with this (as I do) start with acknowledging the moments that are wasteful. Look out for endless scrolling.
  • Pick an area of interest and deep dive into that area. Read, write, watch, listen. Make it slow. Make it difficult.
  • Don't fall into the trap of doing easy things all the time. Interleave your easy learnings with deeper, more difficult learnings. For example, after you finish your current book, write 3-5 paragraphs on what you remember and what you found interesting.

Learning Antipattern: Beating a Dead Book

...where I read, read and re-read to remember the information.

Beating a dead book

Beating a Dead Book: Problems

  • Reading alone does not result in retention or understanding.
  • Familiarity with words & sentences gives the illusion of mastery. If I showed you a €1 coin, I'm sure you would recognise it. But if I asked you to draw a €1 coin, could you do it?
  • We default to reading easy things such as blog posts and articles, cycling through lots of low-quality information. We cannot gain deep understanding with shallow information.

Beating a Dead Book: Solutions

  • High-quality learning is a constant cycle of input and output. If reading is the input, pair it with an output such as writing.
  • Remove as much low-quality reading as possible. Cap how many blog posts you read before diving deeper into the topic. Otherwise, you may be trapped into thinking you have mastered the subject matter whereas you only recognise the subject matter.
  • Increase the difficulty of your reading. Difficult material forces you to slow down and unpack the complexity with notes, drawings and scribbles. This helps with deep understanding and prevents shallow thinking.

Learning Antipattern: The False Gospel of Learning Styles

...where I avoid books and tests because I am a kinesthetic learner.

False Gospel of Learning Styles

The False Gospel of Learning Styles: Problems

  • Apart from anything else, learning styles are scientifically bogus.
  • Belief that you learn best through one mode means you are less likely to look at other modes of learning. "I can't learn with tests because I'm a visual learner".
  • It furthers the myth that because you don't enjoy something means you learn less from the experience. "I don't enjoy reading, so I'm going to watch videos instead because that's my learning style." See Path of Least Resistance above.

The False Gospel of Learning Styles: Solutions

  • Don't be afraid of different modes of learning. The more experiences you have about a topic, the better it will stick!
  • If engaging with other people who talk about learning styles, do so politely. "I'd be interested to hear what you think of my understanding of learning styles..."
  • If you've fallen into this trap already, now is the time to build up your toolkit of learning strategies. So you're not a good writer? (My hand goes up here) Start to write!

Learning Antipattern: The Miserable Crammer

...where I treat learning as something to be rushed for an exam.

The Miserable Crammer

The Miserable Crammer: Problems

  • Cramming information and retaining information require very different practices. Your brain is designed to forget about short term memory.
  • Cramming for the purpose of an exam and then passing the exam gives the illusion of mastery of the content. Regurgitating information is not the same as being able to apply the information to solve problems.
  • We often cram for high-stress exams and sacrifice sleep. Poor sleep patterns reduce our ability to consolidate memories and develop neural pathways.
  • Many of us have foregone the joy of life-long study because of our terrible experiences in school. Curiosity is a muscle that requires time to nurture, and sadly it atrophied in many of us due to this antipattern.

The Miserable Crammer: Solutions

  • Where deadlines are not an issue, slow down your intake of information. Write about what you understand of the chapter in your book before moving onto the next.
  • Whenever possible, avoid "1 and done" learning. Repeated practice of the material helps to master it.
  • Diversify your information intake. Read multiple authors about the same topic. Draw diagrams. Write. Look underneath the what to the why and how.

Learning Antipattern: Back of the Book

...where I go straight to the solution before attempting to solve the problem.

Back of the book

Back of the Book: Problems

  • Seeking the solution too early gives the impression of success but results in no learning at all.
  • Learners avoid the struggle of figuring out the problem. When there is no option but to figure it out yourself or with others, we make significantly more breakthroughs. This is partly due to the mental phenomenon called (insert link that explains the thing where you continuously think back over the problem)

Back of the Book: Solutions

  • If figuring out a problem for the sake of your own learning, don't ever look up the answer. Your struggle with the problem will solidify it in your long-term memory. Only look up the answer to confirm your own.
  • If you are completely stuck on a problem that has the answer available, seek someone's help to help you understand the method or process behind finding the answer.

Learning antipattern: Act first, learn later

...where I avoid study because I learn best by doing.

Act first, learn later

Act first, learn later: Problems

  • Contrary to popular belief "learning by doing" is not the best form of learning. Popularised by Edgar Dale, his Cone of Experience has been consistently misused to give the impression that learning can be nicely split into categories of varying "effectiveness", where learning by doing is the most effective method of learning. Here is his original cone.
  • Ignoring sources of information in favour of "doing" handicaps the person who is trying to learn.
  • Learning by doing can be downright dangerous. I once met a person who's favourite way to learn was to log into the production system and fiddle around. I don't want him on my team.

Act first, learn later: Solutions

  • Doing is a key part of learning, but don't ignore other sources of information such as books, videos or a teacher's wisdom. A combination of input (eg. books) and output (eg. doing) is best.
  • Be critical of theories like the "Cone of Experience" which has taken grains of truth and created false teachings. Just because things appear in a pretty picture does not make them true!

Learning Antipattern: Testing is the devil

...where I avoid tests of any kind because they make me uncomfortable.

Testing is the devil

Testing is the devil: Problems

  • Testing is a powerful tool for retrieval practice. Apart from using it to score someone's performance (most common form), tests enhance individuals retrieval of information to improve long-term retention.
  • Avoiding stressful testing practices such as flashcards or multiple choice quizzes because they are difficult results in the giving the learner a false sense of mastery. Without the ability to recall information, the learner has not mastered the content.
  • Cynicism of testing is often accompanied by a cynicism of recalling the little things. "Why does it matter if I remember the little things as long as I can do the big things?" people ask. They can just google it, right? However, the brain surgeon who cannot recall how to stitch a bleeding artery is a dangerous brain surgeon.

Testing is the devil: Solutions

  • Flashcards are one of the best ways of testing yourself and improving your long-term retention. Here's a tutorial.
  • Combine flashcards with other efforts such as concept mapping, videos, lectures, podcasts and other multi-media to engage your understanding as well as retention.
  • Another way of testing yourself is by writing what you understand about the concept. Close the book or the video and write in a notepad (full sentences) what you understand.

Learning Antipattern: Topic Tunnel Vision

...where I study one thing at a time before moving onto the next one.

Topic tunnel vision

Topic Tunnel Vision: Problems

  • We have been taught that knowledge is divided into neat categories. Maths is over here. Biology is over there. Philosophy is somewhere else. But great breakthroughs and understandings occur when a theory from one category is applied to another category.
  • Your unique perspective gets lost if you treat knowledge as straight forward and silo'd. You have a unique perspective from your background in social studies or software or teaching that can give you a unique new insight into your study. Any unique opinions about a topic helps you understand the knowledge better.
  • Putting learning into neat categories can stem unique learning opportunities. What happens if I take this mathematical theory and use it to write a piece of music?

Topic Tunnel Vision: Solutions

  • Add colour to your study mediums. If you're reading a book about Plato, supplement it with some videos and podcasts. Each person will explain the concept in their own words and overlap with another person's understanding. This overlap is called "interleaving" and help improve your understanding.
  • Read multiple books in conjunction about the same topic. Your learning will be slower, but you will pick out many more insights.
  • Opinions are good things, despite what we've been taught in school to learn only the "facts". As you write about a concept, think about the why as well as the what. What are people's motivations? Why does the machine work like this? What is your opinion on the matter? Opinions create a 3D model out of a set of 2D facts.

Learning+dev Mastery: 5. Design the initiatives

This is a post from a larger series entitled A Path to Learning+dev Mastery.

The path to mastery looks something like:


Recap

In the last post, I discovered that design is a lot more than a short blog post. We explored how to design the backlog, so now we will explore how to design each initiative in the backlog.

Principles of good design

When it comes to good learning+dev design, we don't need to reinvent the wheel. The best learning+dev design principles should be based off product design principles. Our product is the learning+dev initiative and our customers are our employees. Inspired is a book I repeatedly return to for wisdom on good product.

Obsess over value to your clients

You must obsess over the value your programs bring to the company. Anyone can do your job as a learning practitioner and create courses that are of no value to anyone. If we don't obsess over value, we will water down our value with unecessary elements. For every extra detail you add, ask yourself "What value will this bring to my customer?". If it's unclear whether it provides value, it probably doesn't, so remove it. Your customers have enough to do without trying to bat away more waste.

Everything is an experiment in the beginning

This is key to progressing quickly through wasteful initiatives. No amount of planning or upfront research can tell you what the perfect initiative looks like. You must experiment with everything. So get your idea on paper and test it by trying it on a small group or talk to someone about it.

Everything is a minimal viable product (MVP)

When designing something, the first draft must be small. There should be no such thing as a 12 month program in the first draft - it's too long. There are a couple of reasons for this.

Firstly, you're too busy to build large-scale projects all the time. The needs of your colleagues change daily. What they needed last month they no longer need this month. So building things that get launched quickly is extremely important.

Secondly, people don't have the interest for long-term optional programs. If I want to learn more about leadership skills, I can probably keep that interest for a month at most. A 6 month program? I won't finish it. However, I might be interested in learning more about stakeholder management this month, public speaking next month and crafting presentations the month after. Even thought they're all leadership skills, by chunking it into manageable sections I'm able to retain interest and look forward to the next section.

Focus your initiative on one persona at a time

You can't please everyone with everything. So the key to good learning+dev design is to please a group of people now and another group of people in the future. For example, if you are rolling out a leadership program, you could roll out a program that tries to address the needs of all leaders. But this would make the program generic and watered down.

Instead, your leadership program should focus on a small cohort of people first (eg. new leaders), then expand it into another group such as team leads, then another group such as project managers. This allows you to create small initiatives consistently and ensure your participants keep receiving value.

State the goal and expectations

A tool to manage goals and expectations is the Object and Key Results (OKR) technique.

  • Objectives: What business results are you aiming for in the organisation?
  • Key results: What are the metrics you expect to change which would show your initiative is working?

Take each initiative in your backlog. Write out what the objective is for that initiative and the results you are looking for. As you write out each intiative, you may find you have many objectives - this is a sign you are too scattered. Each intiative should have 1-3 objectives. Any more than that and you need to reduce your priorities.

Kill it

The Sunk Cost Fallacy applies to Learning+development as much as any other discipline. Most projects don't work out. Most initiatives don't work out. Maybe they lack engagement. Maybe they didn't address the learning objectives appropriately. Maybe it was a great initiative but the wrong time. Maybe it was the right time but the wrong initiative.

Many things can cause a learning+development initiative to be deemed "unsuccessful". If the initiative is not outputting more value than the time that goes into it, you need to kill it. If the initiative has little to no engagement, you probably need to kill it. If it has simply run its course and does not provide any value anymore, you need to kill it.

Learning+development needs to constantly evolve and meet the business needs again and again. We cannot do that if we are bogged down by managing a long list of low-value initiatives. To quote Steve Jobs, focus is about saying no. To focus in the areas that provide most value, you must say no to the low-value items. Doing so will hurt feelings and egos (most of all your own). But focus is key to success, and learning+development is no different. So get used to killing your projects and ideas.

Cluster initiatives together

Similar to Learning Clusters, Program Clusters ensure I don't provide a single solution to a complex problem. The problem of "My team won't communicate properly to each other" will not be fixed with a single workshop. Complex problems require multi-faceted solutions.

For example, improving team communication could be improved with:

  • A team workshop exploring the problems they face + exercises to bring awareness to their actions.
  • A root cause analysis of the moments where communication is most critical but most lacking.
  • A list of templates containing best practices for the team to base their emails, reports and meetings on to ensure necessary info is captured.

For any complex problem, increase the likelihood of your program's success by adding multiple prongs to it.

The ingredients of effective learning+dev initiatives

After you have your goals and expectations written down, it's time to fill in the colour. A library could be written on this. Best pracitces in workshops, courses, performance enhancement and so forth. Each learning+dev tool has a body of research behind it all with best practices attached to it. So there's little point in me exploring anything too in-depth. Having said that, there are some axioms I consistently obey when designing any program or initiative. These axioms are there to focus on ensuring I deliver value and fail fast with whatever initiative I'm developing.

Curate with Learning Clusters

Learning Clusters are a selection of curated resources based on a topic or need. They solve the problem of providing the correct resource for each individual at the correct moment. By curating a list of resources in different mediums and different depths, I remove the need of having a conversation with the person who has requested the resource or topic. Whether they want to look at a quick cheatsheet or watch an in-depth course, I can provide everything to them in the one place and leave it up to them what they want to use.

Whenever I receive a request for training, workshops or problems in general, I always sprinkly my response with at least 1 learning cluster. The Learning Cluster adds extra strength to whatever initiative I'm designing. Even if only 1 person gets benefit from it, it was still worth the effort to create.

Scrum Intro Learning Cluster

Track participants progress with timelines

I've written before how everything should have a timeline. This goes for both project delivery as well as individual participation for Learning+dev initiatives.

Here is what my excel tracker looks like. Excel Program Tracker

Collaborate as much as possible

Depending on the type of initiative, collaborative exercises can work extremely well. Each program should have at least some level of collaboration with other individuals in the program. Particularly where the initiative is related to "soft Skills" such as leadership. Getting together with other people who are interested in learning from each other can be extremely beneficial to the participants.

Allow people to join who will make the initiative better

Not everyone wants to participate in your initiative. Maybe it doesn't speak to their needs. Maybe they are too busy to even consider what you're trying to teach them. Maybe they just don't care.

Each person in your initiative who does not participate will suck the energy from every other partipant. I have have many programs and courses of 10 or more people and 1 person has destroyed the whole feeling of the group. Try to avoid these people in the future, and if you can detect them before starting the initiative, leave them out. They will shut down conversation and sit in the background like a silent judge, making everyone else uncomfortable.

Homework is a good thing

The great thing about homework is that it's ascynchronous. Many learning programs focus on what the learner achieves in the workshop or class. However, most learning takes place outside the classroom in the flow of day-to-day work. Therefore, having homework which applies to the learner's day-to-day tasks bridges the gap between the theoretical, lab scenario and the real-world scenario.

Homework has the secondary effect of identfying who is taking the program seriously. An optional, low-value program will have increased dropout rate with homework. As a learning+dev practitioner, this is exactly what you want - to reduce the amount of other people's time you are wasting. If they don't find the program important, they shouldn't be doing it. And if nobody does the homework, it is a good sign that your program is misguided and needs to be cut.

For those who do the homework or exercises outside of the regular program meetups, it indicates they are both taking it seriously, find it useful and want to continue. A program where everyone is doing the homework regularly is a great display of its quality and importance to its participants.

For example, let's say you launch a leadership program to develop the internal leadership skills of the company. You get great initial participation. But week-on-week, fewer people show up. Of those who do show up, they have not completed the exercises and seem to just want to waste 30 minutes on a call. At this point, we need to identify if the leadership program is serving its purpose. Maybe it's the case that it's a poor program. Or maybe it's a great program and the participants aren't linking it to their development. Or maybe they're not bought in enough so that when things get challenging, they drop out in favour of easier things. While this result may look "bad", it's better than the alternative of having 20 people show up to a call where they don't bring anything to the table and just waste 30 minutes of their own time. One way or the other, the homework does its job of helping people develop in their own time or highlighting they are not interested enough to complete it and drop out.

An example of designing a learning program

I'll describe a recent initiative I developed to take the top performers in the organisation and increase the value they bring to the table. The program involved a group of 12 senior engineers who had spent their careers in the telecoms domain. The goal was to increase the number of senior engineers who could consult with customers about their complex telecoms problems.

The first step was to identify the main KPI.

  • Increase number of people who can speak with customers.

Next was to write down what I thought would make the program a success. I used some of the ingredients listed above for this.

  • Collaboration is key. Most engineers do not have the depth and breadth required to develop these solutions. As a team, we can do a lot more.
  • Everyone needed to see everyone else progressing so that they put onus on themselves to do the work. An excel progress tracker was used to visualise this.
  • Domain knowledge, not just technical knowledge, was key here. We employed the Harvard Case Method to deliver and facilitate specific cases around the domain problems we wanted to learn about.

The program we developed was excellent.

  • Highest attendance rate out of all programs in the company: >90% for 4 months.
  • Consistent participation with only 1 workshop delayed.
  • We analysed more than 7 cases around the domain.
  • 5 people were brought into customer-facing conversations within the 4 month period.

Next steps

After looking at these design principles and techniques, next we will move onto executing and managing the programs.

Kill It

Kill your projects The Sunk Cost Fallacy applies to almost every discipline you can think of. Even in the Silicon Valley world of startups, success is only about 10%. Most companies don't succeed. Most projects don't work out. Most initiatives don't last.

Maybe your project lacks engagement, stakeholders or customers. Maybe it didn't address its objectives. Maybe it was a great initiative but the wrong time. Maybe it was effective in the beginning but lost steam.

Many things can cause a project or initiative to be deemed "unsuccessful". And we need to be ruthless with unsuccessful initiatives.

If your initiative doesn't output more value than the effort that goes into it, you need to kill it. If it has little to no engagement, you probably need to kill it. If it once provided value but doesn't anymore, you need to kill it.

In my discipline, Learning+development, we need to constantly shift to meet the business needs again and again. We cannot do that if we are bogged down by managing a long list of low-value initiatives. To quote Steve Jobs, focus is about saying no.

To focus in the areas that provide most value, you must say no to the low-value items. Doing so will hurt feelings and egos (most of all your own). But focus is key to success in all disciplines - we need to be comfortable killing our projects.

Learning+dev Mastery: 4. Design the backlog

This is a post from a larger series entitled A Path to Learning+dev Mastery.

The path to mastery looks something like:

Keep it small, keep it quick

Learning+dev no longer has the privilege of designing and rolling out large-scale projects. The risk that those projects won't meet expectations after delivery is too great. 6 months to design and rollout an initiative is too long. Learning+dev must make speed and agility a priority. We must be able to take new requirements every day, prioritise and execute them swiftly.

As we discussed in the previous post, identifying your stakeholder's priorities are key to identifying your own. Once you have an idea where your contributions will be valuable, you can think about the initiatives that would assist your stakeholders. Remember not to design things in a vacuum. Your ideas must receive constant feedback from your stakeholders.

What is a learning+dev backlog?

At its simplest, a backlog is a list of tasks. The term is extensively used in product management, as it allows fast conversations around details and priority. Since it is a single list which everyone can look at, it provides a single source of truth for projects in progress and future projects. It facilitates team discussion when executing and it makes it easier to assign work.

There are many backlog tools available, from the simple stickies on the whiteboard (my personal favourite) to extensive product management software such as Jira. If you work by yourself, your backlog may even be inside your head, though I doubt such a backlog is of much use for discussions. It's important to write it down somewhere.

How do I create my backlog?

First pick your method. Personally, I like the stickies on a whiteboard - it's good to see what you want in front of you. Stickies also means you can move things around as needed. If you want software, Trello is free and provides all the functionality you need.

Take the priorities you spoke to your stakeholders about. Start throwing out ideas - anything and everything. What initiatives can you launch to support the strategy goals?

Learning+dev backlog

Brainstorming techniques

Your ideas are best written down. Ideas stuck in your head are of no use to anyone. You can't see them, you can't interact with them, you can't visualise them. Brainstorming is the act of putting your ideas in front of you so you can connect ideas together, see patterns and create better ideas.

There are plenty of brainstorming techniques and tools online. Here are the ones I come back to all the time:

Here is a braindump of Learning+dev ideas to help:

  • Workshops
  • Online micro-courses
  • Study groups
  • Communities of practice
  • Mentoring programs
  • Coaching programs
  • Certification programs
  • "Soft" skills programs (eg. Public speaking study group)

As you scribble down ideas and swap things in and out, you will build up a list of initiatives. Well done - you've built your first backlog!

Learning+dev backlog

Can I add anything I want?

In the beginning, you should add anything that comes to mind. If you hit a block and can't think of anything suitable, do your research. All the problems you face have been solved before by someone else. And don't worry about a perfect solution - there are none. In my experience, about 20% of initiatives provide tangible value to the company. This is why it's important to make your initiatives small. 80% failure rate of small initiatives is great. 80% failure rate of large initiatives is terrible.

After listing down things you want to do, go through each one and figure out whether they are feasible to rollout in your organisation. Fortunately, the product managers have been doing this for a long time, so there are plenty of resources to help.

Here are some questions to help you adjust each initiative in your backlog.

  • Does this initiative align with the company goals?
  • Do you have the resources (budget, people, time, tools) to launch and manage this successfully?
  • Are your employees & stakeholders ready and able to engage with this initiative?
  • What does success for this initiative look like? How will you measure it?

How do I pick which initiatives to start with?

Again, there is no 100% correct answer. I usually start by going through the list and asking myself the following questions:

  • What would happen if this wasn't rolled out for 6 months?
  • Does this impact my most important stakeholder?
  • How many people have asked me about something related to this initiative over the last few weeks?

Prioritising your initiatives is as much about understanding what's not needed right now as well as understanding what is needed right now.

Prioritising your backlog

What's next?

We didn't touch on a lot of other "design" elements of learning+dev initiatives. So I'll expand on this in the next post.

Learning+dev Mastery: 3. Stakeholder Engagement

This is a post from a larger series entitled A Path to Learning+dev Mastery.

The path to mastery looks something like:

Why should we care about other stakeholders in the organisation?

For most of what we do in our jobs, nobody cares as much as us. I think that's a good thing - it's great to be in a job we enjoy that nobody else is interested in. It makes us valuable.

Every so often, I land in the fantastic position where what I'm doing is so valuable to someone else that they care more about it than I do. And this is the position we all want - to bring as much value to our colleagues and organisation as possible. Going back to Learning+dev's purpose, we want to help others maximise their value to the organisation.

This is the power of frequent experimenting. Short, small ideas executed over time increase the likelihood you will land on an important problem. 1 person starts caring about 1 thing you're doing, then another, then 2 more. Eventually, you have lots of people benefitting from your work - a fantastic place to be as any practitioner.

Now, I could create and rollout 10 new initiatives to my organisation in the morning. But if they don't meet with the organisation's strategy, then nobody will care about it and it will become noise. Even if I land on something valuable, it will be drowned out.

This is where stakeholder engagement is so important. Engaging with your colleagues and creating initiatives without your primary stakeholders buy in is a sure way for failure. Without communicating with them, you increase the likelihood that your initiatives are not aligned with theirs.

However, once you get full alignment across the people who your initiatives will impact, then you end up producing valuable initiatives that push everyone in the direction they need to go in. What's more, you will get support from your stakeholders who will work with you to make your work successful. They won't push back against you because you failed to communicate properly.

Caring for stakeholders

Who are my main stakeholders?

There are many stakeholder engagement frameworks to help identify and prioritise your stakeholders.

Or my favourite stakeholder framework is the simple question: Who do I need to keep happy? If you know who to keep happy, your can focus your communication in their direction.

How do I engage with stakeholders for my strategy?

In my experience, the best way to engage your stakeholders is to present your initial strategy in slides. If you want, you can brainstorm with them, but only if the problem is crystal clear.

You can't ask your stakeholders "What do you think I should be doing?". It's not their job to think of what your job should be. So you must always come forward with suggestions, not a blank canvas.

Once you've presented some ideas (called a strategy), you can engage your stakeholders with questions:

  • How will this strategy help you?

    This will help you identify if your strategy is of any benefit at all. If everyone says "I don't think this applies to me", then that's valuable feedback.

  • Will these ideas support your own goals?

    You will get a response like "I don't think this will affect my own goals directly. But we can look at my own goals if you want?". This gives an insight on what your stakeholder cares about. You can throw ideas out as you talk about their goals.

  • I was thinking about doing X. What's your opinion on it?

    Open questions are good for giving people space to think and bring their own creative suggestions. They might say something like "That's not my understanding of the problem. I think we need to improve our programming skills in general - maybe create a workshop for it?". We know they don't need a workshop, but they have given us insight into the kind of problem we need to solve for.

The consulting process is an art. You need to build trust, get their buy-in, understand the other person's needs without them even knowing their needs themselves, lead people who are not interested in being led and much more. With this in mind, it's not a good idea to talk to someone and say "What do you want me to do?". I've fallen into this trap many times. Asking someone "What do you want me to do" is not helpful. You've just placed another problem on their shoulders. So when engaging with stakeholders, we must go in with a proposal. Even if you're not sure what they want, a proposal gives them something to push back against.

Overall, my strategy to engage with stakeholders looks like this:

  • Develop the strategy.
  • Show the strategy to all my stakeholders at the same time.
  • Talk to each stakeholder individually.
  • Note down thoughts, ideas, push backs, problems.
  • Repeat.

The last point is crucial - repeat. There is no such thing as a strategy that is done. What matters is that you get the critical items down on paper and agreed so that you can start to work. Too many people focus on "big bang" approaches to strategy. They fail to realise that tomorrow's environment is different from today's environment. Agility is key, and that means we develop mostly small projects. This way of working helps our stakeholders get on board. We can propose ideas that can get rolled out in a matter of days or weeks instead of a matter of months. Furthermore, a small project that gets rolled out and fails is much better than a large project that gets rolled out and fails.

Engage with stakeholders

Doing things now vs. later

As you engage in more and more conversations, you will develop a backlog. You will uncover the ideas and solutions that are important and put a timeline on them. Your timeline is subject to change as new priorities will arise.

I present a 12 month plan in January with the full knowledge new requirements will come in that will change the plan. This is why it's important to have a strategy attached to the business goals. New requests and requirements will always come in, so you need a way of priorisiting. Or in other words, you need a way of saying "No" to anything that does not align with your strategy.

The exercise of prioritisationg is key to a Learning+dev manager's success. There are an endless number of good ideas. Your job is to figure out what is most valuable to your business' strategy. You can use various different types of prioritisation methods:

Engage with stakeholders

Conclusion

The best way to engage with stakeholders is to just start talking to them. Whether it's a formal meeting in the calendar or a casual chat at the coffee machine, conversation is key to a happy stakeholder.

Learning+dev Mastery: 2. Strategise

This is a post from a larger series entitled A Path to Learning+dev Mastery.

As mentioned before, the path to mastery looks something like:

  • Understand the business objectives and strategy
  • Develop a learning+dev strategy that supports the business strategy - we will explore this here.
  • Consult and receive feedback from stakeholders.
  • Define the programs to meet the strategy including success criteria.
  • Execute the programs and track success.
  • Retrospect on progress and change based on feedback.

Figure out the business strategy first

We mentioned in the previous post how difficult it can be to figure out the business strategy. It's not always clear who has the best information or who is making the decisions, so it takes some time to find the right people to talk to. We will proceed based on the assumption you have at least an initial understanding of your business strategy. If you don't, it's best to start figuring it out as any learning+dev strategy you produce may be contrary to the org's strategy.

Initially, focus on the long-term

In the beginning, your focus should be on long-term objectives for your learning+dev strategy.

  • Where does the company need to be in 3-5 years?
  • What do they need to do to get there?
  • Who needs to be part of the journey?
  • What does the destination look like?

Forget about the cool workshop you're excited to run with the teams. Forget about the AI course you want to rollout. These are short-term goals, commonly known as tactics.

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." - The Art of War

For example, let's say you work for a software company who wants to enter the automotive industry. Here's what the long term goals might look like:

  • Secure a tier-1 automotive customer within the next 3 years.
  • Generate revenue of €2m per month in the automotive domain within 3 years.

Now let's overlay this with some learning+dev goals.

  • Secure a tier-1 automotive customer within the next 3 years.
    • Establish a process to find new business opportunities in the automotive space such as communities of practice, Hackathons, competitions, industry site-visits.
    • Create a program that prepares the leadership team to engage with this industry.
  • Generate revenue of €2m per month in the automotive domain within 3 years.
    • Identify key talent to enable this growth (eg. Account Managers, Pre-sales engineers).
    • Bring key talent together to workshop long-term strategy.

Notice we're not quite diving into low-level tactics just yet. These goals provide enough direction without describing the finer details.

As you analyse your own company, build two pictures: The company's 3-year strategy and Learning+dev's 3-year strategy. Make sure your learning+dev strategy is linked to the company's goals.

Learning+dev strategy

Brainstorm tactics

Take your two sets of information and pick out the opportunities for you to get involved along that journey. Ignore what you know today as a Learning+dev practitioner - that's beside the point. You need to do whatever is required to push the car towards its destination, no matter what skills you need to learn. But remember your role in all of this. This is not where you shine as the lone hero. Going back to our first article: Learning+development should help people maximise value to their organisation.

As you outline what you need to bring to the table, make sure you have this statement in mind. If you find yourself as the sole player in this strategy, you need to revisit your strategy.

Now for some tactics. Read through both the company strategy and the Learning+dev strategy. Write down any idea that comes to mind to support these strategies. The purpose of these ideas is not to define initiatives or tactics, but rather to give your stakeholders a starting point to have a conversation. If all goes well, most of your ideas will get thrown out. But in throwing out your ideas, you build a better picture for your strategy. Here's an example.

Goal: Establish a process for identifying new opportunities and building proof of concepts in the automotive space. Learning+dev tactics:

  • Create an automotive community of practice lead by our automotive SMEs.
  • Define 5 small projects we could research and build in the automotive area to explore new business.
  • Host a Hackathon under the automotive theme and fund any promising projects.

Each goal should have 2-3 ideas under it, ranging from very small to large. Remember, the purpose here is to get conversation going. This is an early stage - we don't want to execute on anything yet.

This is how I visualise the strategy. Notice how each Learning+dev point is an idea to support a point in the main company strategy. There should never be an initiative that has no ties to the company strategy. Learning+dev tactics

Next we need to talk to our stakeholders and get some conversations going.

Agile Learning and Development

Slowness is a virtue

Make It Unstick: 8 Learning Antipatterns

Intro

Learning+dev Mastery: 5. Design the initiatives

This is a post from a larger series entitled A Path to Learning+dev Mastery.

Learning+dev Mastery: 4. Design the backlog

This is a post from a larger series entitled A Path to Learning+dev Mastery.

Learning+dev Mastery: 3. Stakeholder Engagement

This is a post from a larger series entitled A Path to Learning+dev Mastery.

Learning+dev Mastery: 2. Strategise

This is a post from a larger series entitled A Path to Learning+dev Mastery.

Learning+dev Mastery: 1. Understand the Business Objectives

This is a post from a larger series entitled A Path to Learning+dev Mastery.

A Path to Learning+dev Mastery

What is learning+development?

ChatGPT for Learning and Development Management

Everything should have a timeline

We hate them, but timelines are important

What do leaders do? Communicate.

Celebrating Wins

Learning and Development Theatre

What is L&D Theatre?

How to Develop a Learning and Development Vision

Learning + Development vision

How to Participate in a Retro

Difficulties of retro participation

3 More Onboarding Antipatterns

Given the success of my previous post on hackernews, here are 3 more onboarding antipatterns.

Onboarding Antipatterns

Effective Onboarding

Beyond Root Cause Analysis

Using root cause analysis for people problems

Turning up the Good

Get better results by focusing on what's working

Asking HN Their Favourite Lecture Series

Learning Lab: Case Method

Lost Communication Moments in Remote Working

Remote Mob-programming toolkit

This template is inspired by a number of software coaches including Woody Zuill, Kevin Meadows and Llewellyn Falco.

List of Software Definitions + Phrases

Knowing chess rules does not make me a grandmaster

A Checklist to Onboard to a New Project

What the heck is a 'Learning Culture'?

What is a culture?

L&D Toolkit: Learning Clusters

What is a Learning Cluster?

Retrospectives: The Fuel to Continuous Improvement

What is Continuous Improvement?

Highly Productive Retros

Leadership

Are you a leader? You really need to write things down

One of the greatest superpowers that a leader can unlock at any moment is to write stuff down.

Kill It

Kill your projects

Don't know what to focus on? Develop a vision

How to know you're not focusing

Questions for teams' retros

Why use different retro questions?

Scrum Scenario #2: #NoStandups

*This is a series of exercises in preparation for scrum.org's PSM certifications.

Scrum Scenario #1: Where is the Product Owner?

*This is a series of exercises in preparation for scrum.org's PSM certifications.

A Template for Effective Retros

Lessons From a Tricky Performance Bug

Save Your Team 100s of Hours

How is time wasted in your team?

Why Write?

A Framework to Manage Team Bugs

Transferring a Software Project - Lessons Learned

Techniques for Difficult Team Members

Protect Your Team from Weekend Work

Team Leader Anti-Patterns

Team Improvement Techniques

Leading Within Your Team

Extreme Product Ownership

Listen Effectively

Write Better Examples

Technical

Miscellaneous

Floppy Funnel Syndrome - A Marketing Antipattern

Learn Lots of Tools

Install Ansible on Windows Using Cygwin

6 Simple Ways to Create Clean Code

How to Install Codeigniter HMVC