Project Management Training (ASTD Trainers Workshop)

• Revisit your audience. Take time to review what you know about your audience and what you may have previously discovered about their learning preferences. After doing that, scan the activities in the three workshops outlined in chapters 7 through 9 to see if the mix of lectures, discussions, and individual and group activities would work effectively with your audience. Note where you may need to modify or augment.

• Half- hour speed drill. Take a piece of paper and sketch out on one page the project management workshops you would envision as part of your project management curriculum once it is completely in place. Put a checkmark beside the workshops you must have in place right away. Put a plus sign beside the workshops you ‚ d like to introduce right away. Draft fairly detailed outlines for the ‚“right away ‚½ items. Draft a high-level outline for your round two items. Indicate workshops you plan to develop internally, which ones you ‚ ll outsource, and which ones you ‚ ll let your target audience find on their own through external sources or through formal course work at a college or university campus. Keep this list and begin to refine it as the first steps toward a comprehensive project management training curriculum.

• Time-commitment readiness check. Get a reading of how many of your anticipated audience can be expected to participate in two-day workshops. If this timeframe is too long for many, do some brainstorming with colleagues in your organization to come up with alternative ways of delivering the same materials. Can you do it, for example, on consecutive Mondays or Mondays spaced two weeks apart? What activity or activities might need to be introduced to serve as a refresher when participants return for the second day? How realistic would homework be? Is there sufficient management support to ensure that homework actually would get done outside of class?

• E-learning readiness check. It ‚ s not too early to examine what you have available and consider offering an e-learning project management course. Meet with your IT or Web development group to discuss what it might take to implement such a course. Even if you decide not to offer an e-learning course now, it ‚ s good to get an overview of your current readiness to deliver one.

Throughout this chapter, you ‚ ve seen reference to the value of interactivity though discussions, debriefing, and team activity. In chapter 5, you ‚ ll see how your role as facilitator makes real learning possible as you guide students through a variety of learning activities. As you lead them, you ‚ ll be highlighting key learning points, creating shared understanding of the implications of the workshop ‚ s activities, and managing the flow of activities as you resolve or minimize conflicts and personality differences.