Utbildningseffekt på riktigt!

För att utbildning skall ge full effekt behövs repetition, allra helst i kursdeltagarens egen miljö och i skarpa projekt så de nya kunskaperna från utbildningen omgående kan appliceras! Detta är inga nyheter egentligen och själv har jag arbetat hårt de senaste åren för att verkligen kunna nå ut med olika lösningar som jag tagit in som stöd och med konferenser med EdTechX i London och den stora HR/L&D-konferensen Focus on Performance i Stockholm (där jag själv föreläste om agilt ledarskap på nu före sommaren) så är jag än mer övertygad att detta tänk är än mer nödvändigt framåt!

När det gäller förändring (disruption) i vilken bransch som helst så spelar det ofta mindre roll hur bra en ny lösning är om det fortfarande är så mycket enklare att diskutera och sälja in det som man gjort i många, många år... Om det inte finns speciella nyckeltal som konkret ger mer för säljaren om denne får till en bättre lösning med mer kvalitet över tid, ja då är det mänsklighetens natur att återgå till det enkla... Om dessutom kunden sedan länge är van att beställa "det vanliga" och kanske inte ens har intresse i själva effekten mer än att pricka av en punkt på HR-tavlan, ja då blir produktutvecklaren den som slåss mot väderkvarnar.

Är ni inne i en fas där flera hos er behöver lära er om Agila metoder, kommunikation, ramverk som ITIL eller Digitalisering av olika slag oavsett om du arbetar som systemutvecklare eller IT-proffs? Ja då har jag programstrukturen klar att stötta er att komma igång omgående med kontinuerlig kompetenshöjning! Har ni andra önskemål om ämnen som ligger närmre er planering just nu? Kontakta mig så berätta jag mer om hur ert stöd kan se ut inför vårens härliga kompetensutmaningar!

Remote Training, a case study

Last year I attended the IMD training ”Being Innovative” and one of the assignments was to use the Rogers Virus Model for Analyzing and Predicting Innovation Success. I chose to take a closer look at Remote education, our way to deliver training on a distance that has proven to be a great success for Informator in Sweden over the years. I'd like to share my analysis of its performance according to the 3 dimensions of the Virus Model.

1) First Infection - Referring to Rogers’ model: benefit-to-cost, simplicity, compatibility, trialability, observability, what is the likelihood of first infection?

I chose a successful innovation for Informator since six years, using live remote class training. Looking back, we might have had faster adoption if we’ve also had offered some sort of trial. It would have been fairly easy to offer some free remote seminars or something alike that would had given our customers a chance to actually get a firsthand look at the service.

We got the simplicity (just turn up in our premises as usual and our technicians has taken care of all IT-stuff), benefit to cost (same learning, less cost for travel), compatibility (no need for you to buy new hard/software) and pretty good at observability (we could have lift this part up better with testimonials and such from pleased clients). First infection without a doubt, was the benefit-to-cost!

2) Staying Power of the Idea: To what extent are “hot-button issues” addressed? Has the project/team been branded? What about durability, “stickiness”? What is the likelihood of infecting over and over again?

Hot-button-issues are addressed regularly, time-restraints is the number one detail when our clients don’t attend training/classes. Working with modern ways of delivering training when, where and how our clients demand is the number one priority!

The project team consists of some thought leaders from various departments, but hasn’t been branded as a specific team. Maybe we should be clearer when communicating this. As the remote class training has been successful when delivered to and from our own class rooms, we have worked hard to take it one step further and now offer Remote Cloud Access where the clients can participate live from where ever. This is our way of taking the innovation one step further and even if the possibility has been there for many years, the tech for actually delivering seamless live education has been less satisfying. Now it works and we work hard with this offer.

As more and more clients use remote training in some way, we do see a bigger demand for this and our costumer managers also gain confident in also speaking more about these values rather than just focusing on our products.

3) Infect the Right People: To what extent have opinion-leaders, trendsetters, highly-networked actors been addressed? What is the likelihood of creating a pandemic?

Over the last years we have spent more time networking and marketing our ways of delivering training in a modern way than just focusing on products that might be similar in comparison with our closest competitors. Key players as me and our CEO has addressed the topics as speakers on conferences and discussions with both our staff, our partners as well as our direct clients. We use the tools we talk about to prove why instead of just talking about the possibilities.

We also work close with organizations as EdTech, Swedsoft (IT & Telecom companies in Sweden) to raise the discussions from a technical platform to a higher level of understanding the best ways of gaining learning and development. Remote Training is for sure a pandemic when it comes to our line of business!

Looking at the bullets benefit-to-cost, simplicity, compatibility, trialability, observability and so on it does make all the sense in the world that all of these are key factors in rapid success and that all is necessary for fast and successful adoption. Even so, sometimes one or two factors might be missing and the end result will still be success. What I’ve learned here is that if all factors are in there from the beginning the adoption most definitely will take less time.

Before this exercise I wasn’t aware of Roger’s model, but the various key moments still feel pretty obvious to me and when reading more I can see the bigger picture. This is definitely something I myself will work harder on in upcoming innovations!

Read more about Remote Training: https://informator.se/leveransformer/instructor-led-remote-training

Read more about Rogers Model: http://www.personal.psu.edu/wxh139/Rogers.htm

Disruption is the new black

In my previous post ”The future was here yesterday” I looked back on the rapid change and need for creative thinking and continuous improvement in our industries that has been the case for at least the last two-three years. Today there are few companies that atually argue they need to look at their business with new eyes and disruption is the word on everyone’s lips. At Informator we’ve recieved a massive interest in our new ways of delivering training, announced programs like “Leading Digital Business Transformation” and “Being Innovative” and lately I’ve also noticed people I’m connected to that also started highlighting these ideas.

So what is really happening, is everyone all of a sudden afraid that newcomers will take their place if they don’t re-invent themselves!? The digital transformation is moving so fast now that there surely is needs for quite some big colossus to begin their agile processes unless they want to continue a downwards spiral. But on other hand, many companies has a great product or service that just need to fit in a new world. New ideas combined with the skills and knowledge from experienced people will always be the best way to approach new markets (and yes, every new decade the kids transform to new clients and co-workers).

Whether a business, an organization or association, you can no longer continue working as you’ve always done just because it is the easiest way. If you want new employees, customers or members, the management must embrace new ways of working or choose not to be around in a few years 

The one important detail right now is that you really cannot continue working as you have all the time in world. Decision makers that take two-three weeks to go further with the tiniest details, will find themselves overrun by more fast moving competition. Of course you sometime need a bit longer to decide whether to go ahead or discontinue something you’re working with. But it is crucial that you have the necessary processes to quickly decide this. And management that stay out of reach for the people actually doing the daily work will soon find themselves alone on a sinking ship! Social and transparency should be two main lead words for every company or organization that aim to still be in business five years from now and remember, disruption is the new black!

The future was here yesterday

I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that our digital world is spinning faster and faster. For me working in the education industry this might be closer to heart than for most of you, when everything I do is trying to find solutions for helping our clients with their struggles.

When I started at Informator back in 2004 it still was pretty simple. Microsoft (Oracle, IBM etc) released a new version of an old technology that everyone needed to update sooner or later and there we were with a fast solution to help integrating new skills. And if we didn’t help, one of our colleagues in the training industry would because we pretty much offered the same courses. The years went by and not much changed until some 3-4 years ago when everyone suddenly started talking about disruption, new thinking and the software industry suddenly started sprinting instead of enduring the endless marathon to the supposed finish line.

The time to start was yesterday,
adopt or die was suddenly not just an expression...

All industries were struck by fast moving newcomers and all of a sudden (almost) everyone realized the need for change rather than pressing harder in the same tracks you’ve been successful with before. The time to start was yesterday, adopt or die was suddenly not just an expression as we clearly can see when international giants who all of a sudden started reducing to zero market share. For us at Informator we had to decide quickly, would we settle with being one of the best in what we do or would we have to look at new ways of delivering training!? We chose the latter and then the really hard work began. Change isn’t easy, change isn’t for everyone but change is however necessary to always be the preferred choice and that is where we were heading!!

Where does change begin? 

I and many with me would say that the mental part is the number one place you have to start and also an agile way of working and a transparent chain of command or rather self-governing teams and continuous improvement. When our journey started with a real mission, a true set of values (in actual use every day) and a company united in these ideas, that was the re-birth of our company! Instead of trying to deliver what we assumed was an industry standard, we started evolving with our customers and delivering training in a format they requested.

We looked close on what our core values were and realized that Informator always had been the training supplier for the entire software industry. These days however IT is everywhere and there are so many roles that require so many different new skills that we have to see the bigger picture and team up with other great companies that help us deliver an even more fulfilling menu of courses. We chose to think outside the traditional box and teamed up with companies like Promote that give us the opportunity to deliver training in a more efficient way and other creative ideas as reaching harder into the technology box and starting delivering live courses via Remote Cloud Accessin a way never seen before. I have even more news in my back pocket, but I'll keep them for later this year :)

Innovation & Digitalization

This spring we teamed up with international business academy IMD in Lausanne for their programs in Innovation and Digitalization and I myself will soon attend their global leadership in the cloud program “Being Innovative” together with peers from all over the world. I wouldn’t go so far to say that I have to force myself to be creative, but I’m 100% sure that we have to stop looking at what our competitors are up to and look harder at where the costumers are heading. I must admit that I haven’t even looked at other close branch colleagues lately because my inspiration comes from completely different areas! I surely hope that you or your employer will take this possibility to embrace disruption also, otherwise you might have to start looking for another company that does!

Transparens i arbetet

Ledare från IT, LS, CE, Sales på Informator som lyfter upp möjligheter för alla att se

Hur ofta har du som medarbetare koll på detaljer från andra avdelningar, arbete som kanske egentligen bara berör dig delvis direkt, men ändå påverkar!? På Informator jobbar vi dagligen utifrån våra värderingar tillit - engagemang - mod och jag märker själv att ju mer vi lyfter fram vad vi gör, ju mer får vi tillbaka!

I torsdags hade vi lärarträff igen, första för 2016 och diskussionerna kring vad vi gör och vart vi är på väg känns bara så positiva! Att vi internt har högt i tak och uppmuntrar varandra till feedback och förslag är en sak, men att ha samma öppenhet gentemot medarbetare utanför den interna organisationen känner åtminstone jag är något som inte sker lika ofta överallt. Vi har det senaste året haft en extremt tydlig bild kring hur vi som organisation skall utvecklas och vilket enormt positivt gensvar vi får både från kunder och partners.

Att jag och mina kollegor slitit hårt för att driva på utveckling av moderna leveransmetoder är inte direkt någon hemlighet. Det jag däremot kände nu är att vi verkligen lyckats sätta en bottenplatta som fungerar och att allt vi nu gör bara kommer att förfina varenda liten del kring våra utbildningsleveranser! Det är en riktigt häftig känsla att ha varit med och drivit denna förändring och att vi redan innan nyår hade planer klara som kommer växla upp är bara så häftigt!

2016 är året då Informator redan tagit steget som ledande inom vår lilla nisch av utbildningsvärlden. Nu ska vi ta det till nästa steg och sen... ja det blir ännu en spännande resa :)