Despite significant expenditures on training, companies often fail to achieve the desired degree of learning. As a result, the anticipated increase in performance and productivity is not realized. To ensure the success of any training design and development effort, it it first necessary to recognize some of the common reasons why training fails

Identifying the underlying problems that result in the ineffectiveness of much of today’s training can be difficult, since training is often analyzed exclusively from a delivery standpoint. A significant number of training problems, however, are not with the delivery. The problems often lie within the training materials upon which the delivery is based.

Quality training materials can prevail through poor delivery, while poor training materials will fail even with the best facilitation.

The following are some frequently encountered pitfalls impeding the design and development of quality training materials. For help overcoming these and similar impediments, please refer to our free resources and/or take our course entitled The Essential Fundamentals of Successful Instructional Design.

1. Unfamiliarity with Learning in a Training Environment

Learning in an organizational training environment differs significantly from learning in an academic setting. Learning in training is completely needs-driven, contains a shorter window of learning opportunity, requires real-world applicability, and is performance-based.

Facilitating learning in accordance with these characteristics requires a comprehensive “learning in training” approach that specifically addresses the unique needs of learning in the context of training. A successful “learning in training” approach encompasses the following critical areas:

• Undertaking a comprehensive discovery effort to determine specific training needs and gather relevant subject information.
• Implementing and completing a targeted and focused design process in which specific training needs are converted to more detailed learning needs.
• Converting learning needs to specific learning objectives that form the basis for all subsequent curriculum content development activity.
• Creating meaningful content through the proper presentation of targeted and relevant information that is packaged for optimal reception by the specific cognitive processes at play.

A training design and development effort that fails to acknowledge and properly address each of these elements will likely not be capable of facilitating optimal learning..

2. Inadequate Instructional Design Skills

To effectively design and develop a successful training curriculum, the instructional designer must possess the following:

• Knowledge of, and experience with, current instructional design principles and practices which are constantly evolving as environmental and technological factors change. Maintaining an effective instructional design skill set is an ongoing process that requires frequent research, regular collaboration with other professionals and careful observation and analysis of the result of past efforts.
• Conceptual skills, which allow the ability to see how the individual parts of the project impact the “big picture.”
• The ability and willingness to learn the product or process that is the subject of the training so as to properly measure the effectiveness of the curriculum content.
• Strong networking and motivational skills capable of fostering effective communication and collaboration across a broad cross-section of the organization..

A deficiency in any of these key areas will make it extremely unlikely that a training curriculum will be able to facilitate optimal learning.

3. Poor Planning

All too often, organizations jump right into training design and development without proper understanding and planning. Without an enforceable plan it will be difficult to complete project tasks in an organized and timely fashion. A proper plan will include the following:

• Specific deadlines for the submission of information requested from subject matter experts,
• A specific review schedule that clearly defines dates by which reviewer feedback is required.
• Scheduled communication events such as status meetings and progress discussions that will enable the level of communication and collaboration required of a successful training design and development effort.
• Clearly defined roles and responsibilities. A failure to properly define and communicate project roles and responsibilities will inevitably lead to confusion throughout the training development process. Without full realization of expectations and accountability, team members will not be able to properly fulfill all required project tasks.

The absence of any of these planning elements will eliminate the possibility of a smooth and organized training design and development process, thereby resulting in a training curriculum with the potential to be incomplete, inaccurate and/or unable to fulfill the required learning objectives.

4. People Problems

When performing a post-mortem on a less than successful training design and development project, a frequently encountered finding is that someone has tainted the effort either through their actions, inaction or inexperience.

Many people problems are related to personality traits such as apathy or arrogance which can significantly impact the levels of cooperation required for a successful  training curriculum. Eliminating personality-related people problems requires the following:

• A strong organizational mandate.
• Proper recourse when expected roles and responsibilities are not fulfilled
• Strong project management to endure compliance throughout the entire training design and development process.

Other people problems are related to skills and abilities which can include:

• Lack of subject matter knowledge
• Poor communication skills
• Poor organizational skills

Skill and ability problems can be eliminated by allocating proper resource to building a winning training design and development team early in the process.

5. Insufficient Needs Assessment

A successful training curriculum is created based on specific learning objectives derived from three types of needs:

• Organizational training needs,
• Audience training needs.
• Subject matter training needs.

Properly identifying organizational training needs requires identifying and obtaining input from organizational stakeholder

Properly identifying audience training needs requires becoming familiar with the training audience, then interacting with a representative audience sample to determine their specific needs.

Properly identifying subject matter needs requires gaining familiarity with the subject matter through analysis of written material, careful observation and hands-on experimentation, and detailed probing with identified subject matter experts.

Training design and development efforts that do not begin with a comprehensive needs assessment phase will likely fail to facilitate the required learning.

6. Platform Problems

Many organizations invest significantly in expensive Learning Management Systems (LMS) with expectations that they will produce better training. This notion is flawed on two fronts.

First, the age-old expression “garbage in, garbage out” still holds true here. A Learning Management System cannot design training. When management wrongly believes that their LMS is their new digital instructional designer, proper resources are not allocated to the many required tasks in an effective instructional design process.

Additionally, many Learning Management Systems are overkill for the scope of many training efforts. They can and often do detract from the learning process by distracting and frustrating users through an overly complex usability experience.

Unfortunately many organizations carelessly purchase a Learning Management System without fully exploring its ability to meet the learning needs of the audience. They ultimately force the training team to use the platform to justify the purchase despite its ineffectiveness at facilitating learning.

7. Reliance on Specific Methodologies

There are many “experts” at the trade shows, online and in training industry magazines touting the latest “must-use” instructional design methodologies. And there are many instructional designers who fall for the hype, fanatically embracing these branded methods without properly evaluating them on their merits. Using unsubstantiated “branded” methodologies as the basis for an instructional design approach has two significant drawbacks.

First, their use can cause training designers to deviate from the basic fundamentals required in effective curriculum design and development. Additionally, the use of specific methodologies detracts from reliance on common sense and past experience in determining the best overall training design and development approach.

Many training designers become fixated with a methodology that has been successfully used in one instance, and allow it to become the sole basis for all subsequent training design and development efforts. However, a curriculum design that works well for one training project cannot be expected to work for another project without a degree of customization. The means by which learning is facilitated will always vary depending on audience needs and the nature of the subject matter.

Specific methodologies are not a prerequisite for a successful training curriculum. Some of the best training designers have never been exposed to any of the instructional design methodologies that are frequently touted, yet they possess the degree of common sense and real-world experience necessary in facilitating optimal learning.

On the other hand, there are many training designers who possess a wealth of academic knowledge and a familiarity with numerous instructional design methodologies. Yet they lack the common sense and real-world experience required in designing an effective training curriculum.

8. Obsession with Specific Productivity Tools

You don’t hear carpenters talk incessantly about the tools they use to build houses. Nor do you hear artists discussing the brands of brush or paint used to create their works. Why then, is there so much talk in the training world about the specific software applications and productivity tools used to create a curriculum?

Many training designers tend to grasp onto familiar applications and tools with the unrealistic expectation that the tool will drive their training development effort. While there are any number of tools that can help those designing a training curriculum, there are none that can replace the human knowledge and ability required for successful instructional design.

A good training designer knows the instructional design process and thoroughly learns the subject matter that the training curriculum will address. A solid training curriculum is then created using whatever tools the designer sees as most suitable for meeting current training and learning objectives.

When specific software applications and productivity tools are allowed to influence training development, valuable instructional design knowledge and ability is relegated to the limitations of those tools. The limitations are often significant and diminish the overall effectiveness of the resulting training curriculum. While there are many productivity tools that are useful and beneficial when developing a training curriculum, they are effective only when it is acknowledged that people, not tools ultimately design and produce successful training products.

The delivery platform must be the recipient of your curriculum content, not the driver of it. Design for learning first. While some adjustment may be required to adapt the final content to a particular delivery platform, a properly designed curriculum is extremely versatile and will support any number of delivery formats.

9. Conflicting Agendas

It is not uncommon to see a training effort fail due to a lack of proper content control.

Training development efforts are often viewed by opportunists in the organization as a way to promote their own agenda to a captive training audience. In such cases the agenda of a potential content contributor may not be the same as that of the training design and development team.

Without strong leadership and stringent content control, training development efforts can often be commandeered to include content injected for other purposes. Since the injected content is not related to specific learning objectives, and often not related to the subject matter in any meaningful way, the extraneous messaging will confuse the training audience. The learning process is disrupted and the overall effectiveness of the training effort is diminished.

The only agenda that should be allowed to influence training development is that of the training design and development team. Successful instructional designers must be highly selective when determining what content will become a part of the resulting training curriculum.

10. Favoring Form over Function

The function of a training curriculum is to facilitate learning. Its form is the way in which it is presented to the training audience

A common error when designing training materials is to allocate too many resources to the “form” aspect at the expense of the far more important “function” aspect of the curriculum development process. Common “form” issues that detract from the success of a training curriculum include allocating too few resources to the learning aspect and allocating too many resources to the following non-critical areas:

How the curriculum looks.
Too much time is spent on fonts, colors, page layout and other stylistic attributes that will have little impact on learning.

The size of the curriculum.
Many mistakenly associate the value of a training curriculum with its physical size, then bulk it up with extraneous content that provides little or no value towards meeting learning objectives. A curriculum that is deliberately and unnecessarily large in physical size can negatively impact the learning process by cluttering and diluting meaningful content. Additionally a curriculum too large in size can intimidate the training audience, making them less receptive to learning.

The grammatical style used in the content delivery.
Some training designers and content developers use a writing style best suited to impress other writers rather than the training audience. The training audience is not expecting and does need a scholarly curriculum, and will likely be unreceptive to it.

11. Micromanagement

Unsuccessful training efforts can often be attributed to some form of micromanagement. When a training design and development project is led by a control-oriented micromanager, the curriculum inevitably suffers as a result of one or more of the following conditions:

Wasted resources.
Valuable resource can be wasted complying with unnecessary project management tasks, status meetings, emails and other factors not directly related to the training curriculum. These items become the focus of the manager- and subsequently the team. As a result, the actual project tasks are neglected.

Lack of ownership.
Micromanaged team members are not given proper ownership of their expected contributions to the project, and as a result are prevented from performing to their fullest potential.

Lack of collaboration.
Team members who are micromanaged do not properly collaborate with one another as a result of the manager’s insistence upon controlling communication.

Inability to see results.
Micromanagement results in a frustrating lack of feedback, as team members are unable see how the results of their efforts impact the project at the macro level.

Low morale.
Team members feel demeaned as a result of excessive scrutiny and become demoralized. The resulting lack of motivation reduces productivity thereby negatively impacting the curriculum.