from the horizon

The main event for bringing me to India at this particular time was a Training of Trainers which was organized by RedR (Register of Engineers for Disaster Relief) India. I has attended another on of their training in Humanitarian Logistics 3 years ago. For the past couple of years training had occupied a significant (and the most enjoyable) component of my work, as in order to successfully implement a database, staff had to be trained to use it, so I thought that it was time for me to learn how it was done. I felt that I’d got pretty good at delivering trainings, but this course was a welcome eye opener!

The lead trainer was Stephen Blakemore from the UK, who had a long history in human resources and staff development in the humanitarian sector. He was a brilliant trainer, and held our attention over the 5 days without resting on the crutch of PowerPoint slides, but with an innovative use of other props, such as a bicycle horn (great for getting attention), Post-It notes (helpful for collecting ideas and feedback), Ipod and speakers (what’s a training without a soundtrack?), and cartoons:

He also has this website, which provides a newsletter on training: http://www.nomorefruitsalad.co.uk/

The course kicked off with a everyone delivering a 2 minute training. This was a fact that I only discovered when I read the course prep material on the train to Pune. Fortunately after a quick hunt round town I managed to purchase 10m of different colored ribbon, and after printing out a few labels I was more than equipped to give my fellow participants a quick lesson by turning them into a supply chain (or perhaps it was a supply ribbon?).

The course covered a good balance of theory and practice. We began covering the adult learning cycle, and got into some more theory on different learning types.

The different learning types can be linked with different personality types and this paper goes into much more detail. Interestingly research by ALNAP shows that humanitarian workers tend to fall under the Activist and Pragmatist learning types

This website has more information on learning theories, which I hope to investigate further at some point !

Then we got into the practical side of the training process, which seems to be relevant to any other type of project implementation.

It was also interesting to thinking to break up the training into the transfer of knowledge, skills and attitudes.

We looks at a lot of different training methodologies, such as

• Group Work
• Scale Walks
• Buzz groups
• Discussion
• Role plays
• Puppetry
• Problem Solving
• Brain Storming
• Mind Mapping
• Visualization
• Simulations
• Outbound
• Drawing
• Videos
• Music
• Interpretive Dance (OK, I just made that up, but I’m sure there’s potential!)

It just goes to show that there’s more to training that PowerPoint. There are many more: http://www.unssc.org/web/programmes/LS/downloads.asp contains a good number of training methodologies references and www.businessballs.com has a number of training resources .

An outbound activity we ran, to stimulate team building by navigating a “mine field” with all but one of the team blind folded.

Another group demonstrated a puppet show.

Throughout the training we were exposed to a number of different icebreakers/energizers. Somehow I managed to volunteer myself to give one. So through the simple motions of pointing, picking grapes, then screwing in two light bulbs while hoping on one foot (a classic move which I learnt at my last RedR training) plus a backing drum beat from one of the participants, I was (inoffensively may I add)teaching a group of Indians Bollywood(ish) dance moves!

Finally we got the chance to put it all into practice, and in groups, plan and deliver a training of our own , for 45mins. The most valuable part of the course was developing a session plan for the training, something I had never done before (gulp!), although there was some variety in the heading titles between groups the basic skeleton went something like;

• Title
• Goal – The overall purpose for running the training
• Objectives /Key Learning Points – Specific, measurable, achievable, revelant and time based (SMART). A good tips for these was something that can be observed (not understanding or knowledge, but demonstrating or defining.
• Time – Time available
• Structure – What the training consists of
• Materials – What stuff is needed

My group’s training on “How to be a Better Manager” went well. We kicked it off with a video I had pieced together with clips from the participants and then engaged them by getting them to stand on the 10m of ribbon, according to how they ranked themselves as a manager. We followed that up with some visualization to get them to reflect on what they felt made a good manager, then some group work to write up some of the skills, knowledge and attitudes of a good manager and finally some role play of being a manager. Not bad for 45 minutes, I think we achieved some of our objectives although I’m not sure if I’d claim to have drastically improved anyone’s management techniques!

Finally, and something that I feel is missing from the majority of training, was the evaluation, where we looked at the levels of evaluation devised by a man named Kirkpatrick.

• Reaction - Was the training well designed?
• Learning – Were the objective met?
• Behavior – Were the needs met?
• Impact – Was the goal achieved?

I think this also links in with evaluation of development projects.

I left realizing that I have relied far too heaving of PowerPoint and a lecture approach to the trainings I have run. I do feel that it is harder to engage participant with a wide variety of exercise, when the training is specifically on technical skills, such as using a database. But in reflection, most of my difficulties in implementing databases didn’t come from a lack of skills on behave of the staff, but a difficulty in changing habits and motivating staff to want to use the database, so perhaps it would have been more important to focus on attitudes, rather than just skills.

I did ponder about the difference between running a training for staff of a humanitarian organization and running training for beneficiaries or the community. I suspect (although with now research or concrete evidence to back me up) that perhaps training for staff is more focused on the objectives, because the trainer knows the areas which need to improve, where as training in communities is more open to emergent goals, because ultimately it is not necessarily the trainers role to determine how the community should develop. I feel that more participation and giving control to the participant does encourage emergent goals, but wonder if this can be at the expense of concrete objectives. I sometimes think that NGOs may get the balance wrong. Too much singing, clapping and drawing and not enough learning and measurable outcomes (or maybe I’m just resentful after 4 years of engineering school)!

I certainly look forward to the next time I have the opportunity to run a training…