Virtual training has become a necessity for remote teams. But designing and delivering effective virtual training is the exception more than the norm.
Virtual training failure is all too common. We’ve seen and heard it all:
It’s easy to say, “There are many pitfalls to avoid,” for any kind of sales training, but virtual instructor-led training (VILT) initiatives take the cake. The decks are stacked against success!
But success is there for those who want it. Those who succeed not only succeed where others fail, but also take advantage of the unique benefits that VILT has to offer over other delivery modalities.
For you to build and deliver the most impactful and effective virtual training—and, yes, so you don’t flop where so many others do—you must attend to the following 3 keys:
We’re asked all the time about which platform for use for VILT. With all of the choices out there—Zoom, Adobe Connect, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, GoToWebinar, On24, etc.—which one is best?
Like any good consultant, our answer to this question is, “It depends.”
Not all platforms are created equal, and not all serve every objective. Different platforms excel at different things. You must choose wisely.
Think first about what you want to accomplish with your training:
Think about the tools you’ll need to deliver the experience you want learners to have. Do you require break-out rooms? Virtual whiteboards? Chat? Polls? Participants being able to share audio and video? All of these are considerations in your platform selection.
Our advice here:
A big mistake we see organizations make is building the training for the platform they already have. This thinking is backward. Could it work? Maybe. But it requires a close look at your training needs versus current capabilities.
At RAIN Group, we’re platform agnostic and don't promote one platform over another. We partner with our clients to determine which platform is right for them and what they're looking to do.
There are, however, three key considerations for platform selection.
Two key questions will drive your platform selection:
Are you doing short knowledge sharing with large groups? If so, a webinar platform could work. Are you doing meetings or virtual coaching? Then you need a virtual meeting platform. Do you want to deliver in-depth instructor-led training similar to a classroom? Then a platform with purpose-built virtual classroom tools such as breakout rooms, virtual whiteboarding, and more is the right pick. (More on tools in the next point.) And is your virtual learning blended into a multi-year, multi-skill, multi-modal education system? Then you’re going to need all this sitting inside a robust learning management system (LMS).
Architect what you're trying to accomplish first. Then, make a plan for how you'll accomplish it and pick your platform(s) to bring it to life. We often use multiple platforms for different outcomes and types of training.
A big mistake we see organizations make is to look at the platforms they’re already using and to build the training for the platform. This is backward.
Think training outcomes and experience first, then select the platform(s) that will get you there.
As you investigate platform options and how they operate, consider the toolkits they provide.
Tools matter. Tools support engagement. Tools aid learning. When participants are engaged, they buy into learning. They're much more likely to retain learning and apply it on-the-job, leading to the business outcomes and results you seek.
Tools fall into two categories:
There are a plethora of participant tools to consider that can drive engagement, interaction, and enjoyment, such as:
Caveat: More is not necessarily better. Just because a platform has all the bells and whistles doesn’t mean it’s right for what you want to do. Review your learning objectives, consider how you’ll achieve them, and find the tools you need to make it happen. Don’t use tools without a learning- or business-focused objective.
The second category, facilitator tools, are often overlooked.
What does the facilitator need to drive engagement? Can they change on-screen layouts to capture and drive attention to important concepts? Do they have access to rich multimedia functionality? Can they monitor the engagement levels of individual participants? Can they call out individuals and pull up video feeds one-by-one? Is there reporting? Is it easy to log on and use the tools? What are the requirements to access and set-up the back end?
All are factors in platform selection.
In traditional instructor-led training (ILT), Learning & Development controls the training process from end-to-end. They:
One of the challenges of VILT is the technology requirement, which typically involves representatives from IT to form your VILT team.
You need your IT team involved early on in the process to support the selection and use of the platform to avoid late-stage headwinds. We worked with one client who had selected their platform and then heard back from IT, “We can’t use that. Our systems don’t integrate with that platform.” After spending weeks evaluating technologies, they had to go back to the drawing board.
The critical technology considerations include:
When it comes to choosing the right VILT platform for your organization, be sure to attend to these three areas, letting your desired outcomes drive your selection criteria.
Engagement Threshold (noun): The point at which attention is captured and maintained, and below which is lost.
We teach the concept of the engagement threshold to sellers that need to hold buyers’ attention in virtual sales meetings.
When we teach it to sellers, we need to gain and keep their attention.
It’s never been easy, but in a virtual environment, it’s significantly more difficult.
A big mistake companies make is carelessly turning their live, classroom training into VILT. They attempt to take what works in a 3D environment and use it in 2D. It simply doesn’t work.
VILT isn’t the web version of your live, instructor-led training delivered through an online meeting platform. Keep the following three principles in mind:
Then think about how you'll achieve these in a 2D online environment. Critical design elements include session flow, virtual sequencing, and engagement.
When it comes to VILT design, less is often more. Expecting to maintain participant attention online in four-hour chunks without decent breaks is setting yourself up for failure.
Instead, develop short sessions with clear messages of what you want the learner to take away. Don’t pack too much content in, and leave plenty of room for discussion and practice. This is how the training comes to life and keeps the session interesting from front to back.
Slide design is another important consideration when it comes to capturing and holding attention. The rule here is counterintuitive. Think: More, Less, More. You want more slides with less content and more visuals that connect emotionally.
With more slides, you’re able to maintain attention because learners crave moving screens.
One client was shocked to see 93 slides for a 60-minute session. They told us, “You have more than 1 slide per minute! You need to cut it down.” My response: “For a live presentation, yes, but for VILT, no. In fact, I pared down the content already, but increased the number of slides. Imagery and motion will help maintain participant attention and focus.”
After we delivered, it all made sense and he was happy we kept all the slides.
In VILT it’s much easier to lose the room and harder to get it back. If your instructional design and classroom management don’t tackle distraction head-on, upfront, and forcefully, your chances of failure increase exponentially.
The secret? Don’t think about capturing learner attention. Think about capturing it over and over and over again. In VILT, learners need to be doing something, seeing something new, challenged to think about what they’re seeing, or contributing frequently to maintain attention. If not, assume their attention will keep drifting away.
These best practices will help you capture and sustain participant attention:
For training to have the greatest impact, you must engage participants—make sure they’re present, focused, and fully involved. While engagement goes hand-in-hand with attention, we’ve singled it out because it’s so critical to successful VILT.
The key to driving engagement—assuming the training is important to the participant’s role and success—is interaction, activities, and application. This is another reason why platform choice is so important: it governs your interaction options. When you design for VILT, you want to design frequent and diverse interactions.
First, you have to open strong. If you don’t, you’ve lost the participants out of the gate. Let’s assume, however, you capture their attention at the beginning. Once you have it, you want to keep it and increase it. The key to driving engagement—assuming the training is relevant to the participant’s role and success—is interaction, activities, and application.
For example, you can use:
As a best practice, use one of these or some other method to re-grab attention every three minutes or so on average. If you need to explain a concept for longer than that, do what you must, but consider breaking it up. Also, consider delivering longer one-way communications through pre-training videos or micro learning.
According to Edgar Dale’s Cone of Experience, people generally remember:
This is why engagement and contribution during virtual training is so important.
What makes for a great facilitator in the physical world does not automatically mean great facilitation in the virtual one.
Facilitators need to learn how to deliver and engage participants differently. As you think about the delivery of your virtual training, be sure to:
Many organizations struggle to build virtual training or convert their in-person training to virtual. Virtual training that works is still in its infancy. With rampant technical, facilitator, and learning design-issues, virtual learning too often doesn’t go well.
When the entire experience is designed with the virtual learning environment in mind, you can create impactful and engaging training that achieves business results.