The benefit that resonated with me was how digital game based learning can enhance an individual’s ability to identify and fulfill needs.  Consider this quote from the author.

“In the process of understanding individual components that form complex systems, gamification practitioners learn about the underlying nature which surrounds these systems.  In doing so, they are practicing to identify a specific group’s needs and demands……The new workforce needs to be able to recognize subtle market demands and realize that need.  In other words, there is a new place for problem solving skills and gamification enables one to do just that.”¹

The design of our sales negotiation training course breaks content into small packets of information and then the learner spends 90% or more of the training by “doing” via the game.  The combination of learning and doing in real world situations is very effective in helping learners understand the specific dynamics of the sales process and develop the behaviors – like understanding customer needs - they need to be successful.

In our course, learners assume the role of Carlo Vecchio, an aspiring Venetian merchant in the late fifteenth century, an era when Venice was the center of commerce in the Mediterranean, and therefore the world.  Through an exciting competition with their colleagues, learners are challenged to grow their maritime trading company as well as to be the best negotiator and the top merchant in all of Venice.

The learning experience is managed by the most sophisticated game simulator in the training industry.  Under the guidance of Carlo’s mentor at each level of the game, learners negotiate their way through a series of increasingly challenging situations including customer conversations, acquiring business resources and hiring and managing employees.

Learners continually practice and apply the skills taught at each level of the game while receiving tips, tricks, and tools directly applicable to persuasive conversations with those inside and outside the organization.  The course helps learners:

• Apply strong negotiation and persuasive communication skills to achieve business results and long-term relationships.
• Uncover the interests and needs of different parties and how they impact the negotiation strategy.
• Utilize tools and strategies to creatively generate negotiation and proposal alternatives to reach mutually beneficial agreements.

What do our learner’s think?  Here is some feedback from their perspective:

“Fun and effective!  I had lots of fun and I learned so much!”

“Very interesting cases.  You learn very efficiently and effectively.  “Applicable to real life.”

“I found it very interesting, especially the lessons of the mentor.  The main concepts are completely applicable to our day-to-day.  I am already looking forward to the next course!”

Contact one of our Game Changers at (888) 725-GAME to learn more about how our sales negotiation training can help your employees identify and fulfill the needs of your customers, or send an email to info@gameonlearning.com to request more information.

1 http://www.gamification.co/2013/05/02/why-gamification-matters-as-a-student/

How can we use corporate soft skills training to help foster employee engagement?  Let’s start by defining what engagement is and is not.  It is not what you get when you publicly agree to get married. J   

Learning is engaging if it is interesting, timely, relevant to a skill the employee wants to (or must) improve, and delivered in such a way as to capture the attention and efforts of the learner.

Engagement results from the effective design of the online game based experience using elements like a story, characters, competition, recognition, real world scenarios, and continual individualized feedback. 

GameLearn^®, whose digital game based courses we distribute in the United States, has measured learner engagement levels from over 30,000 students who have taken their online game-based courses.  Here is a summary of those measurements:

• Average overall course evaluation:  9.4 out of 10.
• Percentage who find the course applicable to their job: 98%.
• Percentage who would recommend the course:  99%.
• Percentage who complete the course after starting it: 91%.

Contact one of our Game Changers at (888) 725-GAME to learn more about how our sales negotiation training and time management training games can help your employees enter the “Age of Engagement,” or send an email to info@gameonlearning.com to request more information.

1 http://gsummit.com/

The article cited a study by Leadership IQ which found that approximately 90% of new hires fail because of factors other than the lack of a technical skill required for that job. ¹   The article identifies “Influencing across boundaries” as one of the top soft skill success drivers. 

“Influencing across boundaries.  Having the ability to sell one’s vision to others is a powerful soft skill, particularly for those in leadership, sales or marketing roles. Individuals who can articulate the “what’s in it for you” message project confidence, credibility and enthusiasm when presenting new ideas, products or services.”²

Our entire focus at Game On! Learning is providing corporate soft skills training that helps employees change their performance game.  Our communication skills training program has helped hundreds of organizations develop employees who are skilled at communicating their vision to both internal and external customers.

This highly interactive, digital game based course teaches the persuasive communication skills needed to help employees become expert communicators and achieve “win/win” results for their internal and external customers.  Employees develop skills to help them communicate to build trust, resolve conflict, engage in collaborative (rather than competitive) negotiation, and hone the skills to reach agreements.

Throughout the course, learners continually practice and apply the skills taught at each level of the game through realistic scenarios, all the while receiving tips, tricks and tools directly applicable to persuasive conversation with those inside and outside the organization.  Up to 95% of learning time is dedicated to internalizing the optimal communication behaviors and practicing those skills through highly interactive animated video simulations.

Contact one of our Game Changers at (888) 725-GAME to learn more about how our sales negotiation training and time management training games can help your employees quickly develop the corporate soft skills required to change their performance game, or send an email to info@gameonlearning.com to request more information.

¹http://talentmgt.com/articles/view/these-soft-skills-can-go-a-long-way/?interstitial=tmwb042513

²http://talentmgt.com/articles/view/these-soft-skills-can-go-a-long-way/2

“Churning skill sets require e-learning initiatives.  With job descriptions and daily tasks evolving faster than schools can produce qualified job candidates, many employers rely on constant, on-the-job training to remain competitive. E-learning programs help companies push new skills and critical improvements to line-level staff members quickly and efficiently, without the lag time of classroom or retreat-based training.”¹

The problem is:  traditional eLearning is often not engaging enough to get employees to consume it.  And rarely effective in building and imbedding critical skills – it’s a much better bet for knowledge-based learning.

Our online game based courses are a better solution for this type of learning.  Delivered over a multi-week format, our sales negotiation training and time management training courses flip the traditional skill-building formula upside down.   In each, the learner is given a packet of content to absorb (the premise and goal of the game, plus a scenario-based case study) and then spends 90% or more of the training by “doing” via the game.  Much more experiential for the learner, who must learn what works and what doesn’t in order to succeed in the game.

The likelihood that a learner will attempt to apply the new skills back on the job during and post-training has much to do with their confidence level in using those skills correctly.  We all know what confidence is, but I think the definition that relates best to what we hope to accomplish through training is this one: “the faith or belief that one will act in a right, proper, or effective way.”

Confidence is one of the key points of differentiation between game-based elearning and traditional training.  Confidence is fueled by the growing conviction during training that the new behaviors will make us more effective or successful in our job, and that we have mastered those skills to the point where we know we can perform them correctly as part of our responsibilities.

Research shows that online game based learning is extremely effective in building confidence due to the following characteristics of the learning:

• Maximized skill practice time versus traditional training.
• Versatility in the new skills by applying them in varied types of scenarios.
• Specific, individualized remediation received during the game.
• The competition with colleagues.
• Rewards and recognition earned as the game progresses.
• Being challenged as the game scenarios become increasingly complex, and developing the ability to meet those challenges.

Contact one of our Game Changers at (888) 725-GAME to learn more about how our sales negotiation training and time management training games can help your employees quickly develop new skills that can be applied on the job immediately or send an email to info@gameonlearning.com to request more information.

¹http://www.worldwidelearn.com/elearning-industry/trends.htm

“Learning transfer refers to acquiring knowledge or skills in one context that enhances a person’s performance in another context.”¹

Easy to say, but not so easy to accomplish, especially with traditional classroom based learning.  Online game based learning presents a strong case for its ability to more effectively transfer learned skills back to the job.  The graphic below is designed to provide an at-a-glance view of our rationale.

The managers of learners completing the digital game based courses we offer bear out the effectiveness:

“They found it very interesting, especially the lessons of the mentor.  The main concepts are completely applicable to our day-to-day.”

“It has been a very positive experience.  So far we have had a 100% completion rate.”

“What we really liked the most about this program is the practical application.  The majority of face-to-face training lacks much practical content.”

“You learn concepts to help you plan, and afterwards negotiate in situations that reflect real negotiations that you have with clients.”

Contact one of our Game Changers at (888) 725-GAME to learn more about how our sales negotiation training and time management training games can help transfer learning, send an email to info@gameonlearning.com to request more information.

¹http://theelearningcoach.com/elearning_design/transfer-of-learning/

One of the conference tracks is of particular interest to me –Attract and Retain for Growth–because these are areas our online game based programs can help impact.  I am keen to learn more about how we can enhance our solutions to provide even more value.

Online game based learning measurably increases learners’ retention of the training because of the highly experiential nature of the training.  The volume of research linking improved learning retention to experiential learning is vast, but if you can obtain Pamela Hammers Specht’s complete study on this topic¹, it is quite relevant to the comparison of traditionally-designed skills training to digital game based learning, even though it was published some years ago.

Online game based learning provides a more memorable context for the retention of the learning, particularly when the game scenarios are designed in such a way as to be applicable to the learner’s job.  This does not mean the scenarios must purely mimic the learner’s work environment. 

In fact, some level of reality separation is desirable for the game to be effective.  The game environment focuses the learner on the training, leaving behind, for the moment, possible distractions from the workplace.  The key is the applicability of the scenarios, and the relevancy of the taught skills.

Watch for future blogs to learn about some of the IMPACT conference highlights.  To get started now, contact one of our Game Changers at (888) 725-GAME to learn more about how our digital game based learning can help you increase employee retention, or send an email to info@gameonlearning.com to request more information.

¹Pamela Hammers Specht: Experiential Learning: The Impact of Degree of Participation and Student Characteristics on Comprehension and Retention.

Games and Meaningful Interactivity, by Clark Quinn¹

A colleague recently queried: “How would you support that Jeopardy type games (Quizzes, etc.) are not really games?” And while I think I’ve discussed this before, I had a chance to noodle on it on a train trip. I started diagramming, and came up with the following characterization.

I separated out two dimensions. The first is differentiating between knowledge and skills. I like how Van Merriënboer talks about the knowledge you need and the complex problems you apply that knowledge to. Here I’m separating ‘having’ knowledge from ‘using’ knowledge, focusing on application. And, no surprise, I’m very much on the side of using, or doing, not just knowing.

The second dimension is whether the learning is essentially very true to life, or exaggerated in some way. Is it direct, or have we made some effort to make it engaging?

Now, for rote knowledge, if we’re contextualizing it, we’re making it more applied (e.g. moving to the skills side), so really what we have to do is use extrinsic motivation. We gamify knowledge test (drill and kill) and make it into Jeopardy-style quiz shows. And while that’s useful in very limited circumstances, it is not what we (should) mean by a game. Flashy rote drill, using extrinsic motivation, is a fall-back, a tactic of last resort. We can do better.

What we should mean by a game is to take practice scenarios and focus on ramping up the intrinsic motivation, tuning the scenario into a engaging experience. We can use tools like exaggeration, humor, drama, and techniques from game design, literature, and more, to make that practice more meaningful. We align it with the learners interests (and vice-versa), making the experience compelling.

Because, as the value chain suggests, tarting up rote knowledge (which is useful if that’s what we need, and sometimes it’s important, e.g. medical terminology) is better than not, but not near as valuable as real practice via scenarios, and even better if we tune it into a meaningful experience. Too often we err on the side of knowledge instead of skills, because it’s easy, because we’re not getting what we need from the SME, because that’s what our tools do, etc, but we should be focusing on skills, because that’s what’s going to make a difference to our learners and ultimately our organizations.

What we should do is be focusing on better able to do, moving to the skill side. Tarted up quiz shows are not really games, they’re simplistic extrinsic response trainers. Real, serious, games translate what Sid Maier said about games – “a series of interesting decisions” – into a meaningful experience: a series of important decisions. Practicing those are what will make the difference you care about.

About Clark Quinn

Clark Quinn is an independent consultant who makes companies smarter by improving their organizational learning experience design processes and infrastructure, e.g. their strategy. He has a PhD in applied cognitive science, and his interests are at the intersection of learning, organizational strategy, technology, design, and wisdom. 

¹ http://blog.learnlets.com/?p=3262

When I was a sales manager, I would coach sales representatives to maximize their efforts by focusing on the 20% of clients or prospects that had the potential to yield 80% of the revenue.

Interesting you might say, but what does this have to do with time management training?  Time management training can help your employees develop the discipline to effectively manage their time and routine activities so that they can focus on your vital few.

Our online game based time management training program can help.  It is a highly interactive course that teaches the time management and personal productivity skills needed to create a results-oriented culture that encourages teamwork and significantly increases organizational effectiveness.

In an exciting adventure reminiscent of the Da Vinci Code, learners have to follow clues and solve puzzles and mysteries which will lead to the discovery of the knowledge that Seneca and his disciples developed nearly 2,000 years ago to build a time management system from the greatest body of wisdom on that topic in history.

Over a period of 21 simulated days in the video game, learners will learn to more effectively manage the daily chaos of mail/email, meeting after meeting, phone calls, competing priorities – and more – while staying on track with key projects, goals and responsibilities.  How successful each learner becomes will depend on their increasing proficiency as a manager of time.  At the end of the program, students are able to:

• Discover and apply a process for decision making that can reduce work load and stress.
• Learn to define goals, develop plans, and discover strategies for achieving them.
• Increase running speed, improve concentration, reduce distractions and multiply productivity through Looped Focused Work Flow^©.

Contact one of our Game Changers at (888) 725-GAME to learn more about how our digital game based learning can help your employees master the 80/20 rule, or send an email to info@gameonlearning.com to request more information. 

1http://management.about.com/cs/generalmanagement/a/Pareto081202.htm

As you think about the model, please consider the following key points.

• This model intelligently uses elements from multiple levels of evaluation:  perceptions, actions and results.
• As you can see, this model uses a high level of involvement from the sales managers, but that is a huge strength.  Their hands-on observation, mentoring and coaching approach greatly increases not only the performance impact of the training but the credibility of the data gathered.
• The last step in this process sets up ongoing evaluation tests to guide the sales managers and learning and development staff in training and coaching refinements to the program that will further imbed the skills and improve the business results, and ensure ongoing alignment with business needs.
• As the increased skill proficiency translates into increased sales, the sales managers are in an excellent position to partner with the learning and development staff to quantify, in conservative terms, the ROI of the overall program based on criteria established at the beginning of the process with the executive team.

Contact on of our Game Changers at (888) 725-GAME to learn more about our digital game-based programs and how you can measure the impact of your training programs, or visit https://zd121.infusionsoft.com/app/page/na18 to download our free whitepaper “Game-Based eLearning: Learning Transfer and ROI versus Traditional eLearning".

  1Measuring the Impact of Sales Training, Huthwaite, Inc.

Do you remember taking a “soft skills” training class earlier in your career?  Perhaps a sales skills training course?  A leadership communication skills class?  I’m betting you spent the majority of your training time listening to an instructor, watching a few video segments and taking some notes. What percentage of the time in your class was focused on role plays or other behavioral learning activities that allowed you to practice the skills you were supposed to learn?

If the training was online, was it elearning?  What percentage of the training time was at the application (skill practice) level?  Was it a trainer-led webinar or blended learning program?  Any role plays or practice exercises included as part of the program?  Hopefully the answer is “yes”, but again, take a second to calculate your estimate of the training time in the program devoted to skill practice.

In my own soft skills training experience (coupled with my ongoing unscientific poll of several industry colleagues), the training time dedicated to application-level practice in most soft skills training seems to fall into the 10% to 25% range.  What is your personal experience?  If it varies greatly from this range, please share it in a comment below this article.

Lack of Skill Practice Shrinks Training Effectiveness

I have two concerns with most corporate soft skills training and the small amount of focus on actually practicing and anchoring the skills.  The first is the failure to engage.

• If employees spend most of their time listening to a lecture, watching a video, or other passive learning activities, this translates into a low level of learner engagement and interest.  Learners often leave the training feeling it was just a waste of time, or of limited practical value.
• And elearning developers that count clicking on the “forward” button of their courses as an interaction?  Or provide audio that simply narrates the text on the page and claim it is “multimedia” training?  Don’t get me started.  Admit it:  there is an engagement issue with most training we connect our employees to.

It’s not that internal and vendor content developers are lazy, or don’t know how to develop engaging training.  It’s almost always a function of the volume of training needed by the organization, the amount of development time available, and/or the budget available.  Tight constraints make for thin soft skills training.

The other concern I have with the lack of skill practice in most soft skills training, and this is the serious one, is the employee’s low likelihood of effectively internalizing the taught skills.

It often seems that everyone in the business world, both corporate and government, is trying to reduce formal training time.  Managers want 2-day classes shortened to 1 day, and 1-day classes shortened to a half-day.  As we implement more learning via social media in 5 to 10 minute chunks, what happens to soft skills training?  Let’s be realistic – the acquisition, mastery and internalization of complex skills requires hours of practice in a safe environment, not minutes.

Practice-deficient soft skills training is not likely to be effective in improving performance in the targeted skills.  So why spend the time to develop it, or the time for the employees to take it?  Why even call it soft “skills” training?  Collectively, we have to address this issue, not only to maintain our credibility, but more importantly to improve the business impact of the organization by REALLY increasing employee proficiency in critical business skills.

The Answer:  Get Your Game On

This is where I’ve been really impressed with soft skills training developed from the ground up as a serious learning game.  Is digital game based learning engaging?  Short answer:  yes.  The soft skills game based learning courses developed by our supplier in Europe have produced phenomenal engagement numbers.  Over 30,000 learners have completed the courses, and here is a summary of their feedback:

• 94% rated the game based learning experience at the highest level on the feedback scale
• 93% felt the game designed course had a high educational value.
• 99% would recommend the online training course to others.
• 98% felt the game based training was applicable to real-world concerns and situations.

The learner engagement of digital game based learning is what gets most of the buzz over the last year or two.  And the engagement factor is frankly what first drew me to investigate corporate training games.

But I’ve come to believe that learner engagement, while important, is not where game based learning provides its greatest value.  The learning models employed by serious games are simply better at teaching soft skills and critical business skills.  Our comprehensive training game in persuasive communication and negotiation skills is a great example.  This negotiation training, called Merchants^®, and taken online over a 5 to 6 week period in cohorts of 20 to 40 learners, provides a learning experience where employees spend 90% to 95% of training time at the application level.  Think about that for a moment – over 90% of training time is spent practicing the skills and behaviors.  Add in the highly individualized learner feedback on that practice from the skill simulator, and you have to ask:  how can traditional classroom training or elearning build skills as effectively?

Is game based learning the answer to every learner engagement challenge?  Hardly.  But if the workforce performance challenges in your organization include significantly improving proficiency in persuasive communication, negotiation skills, personal productivity or time management skills, this cutting-edge training strategy is worth a look.
And the time and cost to implement?  That makes it a no-brainer.

I recently found a whitepaper that offered an interesting perspective.  In Why Sales Training Fails, the authors identify seven reasons, two of which really resonated with me¹:

• Failure to deliver training that engages.
• Failure to reinforce learning so that it sticks and transfers.

The following quote is illustrative of the challenge.

“When training is boring, not applicable, not at the right level, and too focused on lecture versus practice, participants don’t engage."

No engagement = no learning = no improved behavior.”¹

Our clients have found Game On! Learning’s game based learning programs to be very effective in answering the engagement and knowledge transfer challenges.  Learning is not automatically engaging just because it is “game-based”.  Wrapping leaderboards and achievement badges around traditional elearning or a poorly designed game will not address the engagement challenges we face in our training.

Engagement results from the effective design of the game based experience using elements like a story, interesting characters, recognition and rewards, and individualized feedback.  Oh, and especially for sales professionals – competition with their colleagues!

As a case in point is our sales negotiation training program.  In it, learners spend 9-10 hours over a 5 to 6 week timeframe engaging in the game and developing strong negotiation and persuasive communication skills.  These skills are critical throughout the sales cycle, from the first call through the close.

Over 90% of that training time is spent at the skill application level by successfully completing a variety of scenarios that utilize the world’s most sophisticated negotiation simulator ever created for corporate sales skills training.  A mentor also imparts personalized feedback as the student progresses through the game.  In short, there is constant reinforcement of the knowledge and skills learned.

The combination of the engagement provided by the game and the spirited competition with their colleagues plus the amount of time spent at a challenging skill application learning level plus the detailed individual feedback and remediation produce a much higher level of competence in the taught skills.

Contact one of our Game Changers at (888) 725-GAME to learn more about how our digital game based learning can help your employees bring their “A” game to work, or send an email to info@gameonlearning.com to request more information.

¹Why Sales Training Fails whitepaper.   Mike Schultz & John Doerr .  © RAIN Group.

Training Magazine cited this as a best practice for delivering training - “promoting ongoing knowledge and skill development and giving  learners takeaway information for continuing study and skills for continuing practice.”¹

Our online time management training provides learners with a suite of tools and tips through our innovative email follow-up system.  Lasting for three months, the follow-up program starts in the last 1/2 of the training and extends over 2 months after the course is complete. 

Emails provide reinforcement of skills learned during the training, relevant exercises, and additional personal productivity instruments and tools.  The follow up reinforcement also provides additional approaches to adapting the time management system to the learner’s work and personal time.

Contact one of our Game Changers at (888) 725-GAME to learn more about how the follow-on tools and tips in our time management digital game-based learning program can help you extend the value of your corporate oft skills training, or send an email to info@gameonlearning.com to request more information.

¹http://www.trainingmag.com/content/fostering-behavior-change

Yes, You Do Have To Change, by Clark Quinn¹

Of late, I’ve seen a disturbing trend. Not only are the purveyors of existing solutions preaching caution and steadiness, but it even seems like some of the ’names’ of the field are talking in ways that make it easy to think that the industry is largely doing ok. And I do not understand this, because it’s demonstrably wrong. The elearning industry, and the broader learning industry, is severely underperforming the potential (and I’m being diplomatic).

We know what leads to effective learning outcomes. And we’ve known it for decades (just because MOOCs are new doesn’t mean their pedagogies are): clear models, annotated examples, and most importantly deep and meaningful practice focused on significant skill shifts (let alone addressing the emotional side of the equation). Learners need to perform, repeatedly, with guidance, over more and more complex contexts until they achieve the level of performance they need. However, that’s nowhere near what we’re seeing.

What we see are knowledge dump/test tarted up with trivial interactions. People will pass a test, but they will not have achieved the ability to affect any meaningful business outcomes. If it’s knowledge that performers need, create a job aid, not a ‘spray and pray’. And facilitate people in self-helping.

As things get more complex and moving faster, there’s no way everything can be kept up with by new course development, even if it were a useful approach, and mostly it’s not.

We’re even measuring the wrong things. Cost per seat hour is secondary (at best). That’s ‘fine-tuning’, not the core issue. What’s primary is business impact. Are you measurably improving key performance indicators as outcomes?

And that’s assuming courses are all the learning unit should be doing, but increasingly we recognize that that’s only a small proportion of what makes important business outcomes, and increasingly we’re recognizing that the role needs to move from instructional designer to performance consultant.

More emphasis can and should be on providing performance resources and facilitating useful interactions rather than creating courses. Think performance support first, and communities of practice, only resorting to courses as a last result.

Tools that make turning PowerPoint presentations into page-turning content aren’t going to fix this, nor are tools that provide prettified drill-and-kill, nor ones that let you host and track courses. There are places for those, but they’re not the bulk of the opportunity, and shouldn’t be the dominant solutions we see.

There’s so much more: deeply engaging scenarios and simulation-driven interactions on the formal side, powerful job aid tools for performance support (particularly mobile), coaching and mentoring as a better solution than courses in many (most) cases, performer-focused portals of tools, underlying powerful content management suites, and rich social environments to support performers making each other smarter and more effective.

I’m not quite sure why the easy tools dominate the expo halls, except perhaps because anyone can build them. More worrisome is that it can let designers off the hook in terms of thinking deeper. We need to focus first on rich outcomes, and put the tools secondary.

While the industry congratulates itself on how they make use of the latest technology, the lack of impact is leading a drive to irrelevancy.  Learners tolerate the courses, at best. Operations groups and others are beginning to focus on the performance solutions available. Executives are beginning to hear a message that the old approach is a waste of resources.

Hiding your head in the sand isn’t going to cut it. The industry is going to have to change. And that means you will have to change. But you’re a professional in learning, right? So lead the way. The best way to change is to take that first step.

About Clark Quinn

Clark Quinn is an independent consultant who makes companies smarter by improving their organizational learning experience design processes and infrastructure, e.g. their strategy. He has a PhD in applied cognitive science, and his interests are at the intersection of learning, organizational strategy, technology, design, and wisdom. 

^{1http://blog.learnlets.com/?p=3232}

The theme of the 2013 CLO Learning Symposium in Austin, TX this year piqued my interest because it challenged some long held assumptions regarding the “home range” of organizations and highlighted opportunities for innovative learning professionals.

“The home range is no longer just the head office or the local market. It’s a global community.  The challenge to chief learning officers isn’t just to bring development to employees no matter where they may be………It’s also creating a learning environment that feels like home, where all employees have the opportunity to grow and advance their skills.”¹

Game based learning offers an educational experience that can help you build community among your learners and help them feel connected and “at home.”  Our courses provide the ability for learners to become a member of a cohort of their colleagues who learn from one another, participate in fun and exciting competitions, and be rewarded for their success.  The interactive video game design engages students and is familiar because it is reminiscent of video games they play with friends, family members, or by themselves.

Throughout our online time management training and persuasive communications sales training programs, learners receive immediate and personalized feedback from a mentor to help ensure they feel supported throughout the training.  Because our games are available in multiple languages, you can implement a “home-based” global program with ease and effectiveness.

Contact one of our Game Changers at (888) 725-GAME to learn more about how our digital game based learning can help bring much more impactful corporate business skills training home to your employees, or send an email to info@gameonlearning.com to request more information.

¹http://clomedia.com/events/view/spring-2013-clo-symposium

A recent article in a major corporate training publication discussed how to present the ROI of e-earning versus traditional classroom learning to senior executives.  Unfortunately, it focused entirely on the comparison of costs.

While certainly important, a critical component of ROI analysis is demonstrating the return your organization will get from its investment.  As a result, focusing only on a cost comparison will often earn you a quick exit from your presentation to the executives.

Calculating the ROI from training programs accurately isn’t always easy, but it is worth the time, especially given that this is an investment in one of your most important corporate asset – your employees.

One of the most practical sales training impact measurement approaches was published several years ago by Huthwaite, Inc.¹  Following are some key highlights from the model:

• It intelligently uses elements from multiple levels of evaluation:  perceptions, actions and results.
• This model uses a high level of involvement from the sales managers, but that is a huge strength.  Their hands-on observation, mentoring and coaching approach greatly increases not only the performance impact of the training but the credibility of the data gathered.
• The last step in this process sets up ongoing evaluation tests to guide the sales managers and L&D staff in training and coaching refinements to the program that will further imbed the skills and improve the business results, and ensure ongoing alignment with business needs.
• As the increased skill proficiency translates into increased sales, the sales managers are in an excellent position to partner with the L&D staff to quantify, in conservative terms, the ROI of the overall program based on criteria established at the beginning of the process with the executive team.
• Business impact should be the key driver of training programs.  This is the return you will get from an investment in the right program. 

Contact one of our Game Changers at (888) 725-GAME to learn more about how to demonstrate a strong return on your training investment.  You can also download our whitepaper on this very topic by clicking here.

 ¹ Measuring the Impact of Sales Training, Huthwaite, Inc

A recent article in Training Industry Quarterly identified that one of the key trends in sales training is to focus on “team alignment and speed of execution….and executives at Cisco and many other companies are now demanding that sales training not just deliver skills and tools, but do it in ways that helps selling happen faster.”¹

We have designed our sales negotiation training program to do just that.  It is delivered in an innovative game based learning design and teaches the persuasive communication skills sales representatives need to be persuasive communicators and achieve “win/win” results for your organization and your customers.  Key skills developed include communicating to build trust, resolving conflict, collaborative (rather than competitive) negotiation, and identifying the needs and interests of prospects to more quickly close agreements.

Because 95% of the learning time is dedicated to internalizing the optimal negotiating behaviors and practicing those skills with real life scenarios, your sales professionals can apply their newly acquired skills to help accelerate the sales process immediately.  The result?  99% of our learners find this training applicable to real life.

Contact one of our Game Changers at (888) 725-GAME to learn more about our digital game-based learning programs can help you increase the time to close or send an email to info@gameonlearning.com to request more information.

¹Training Industry Quarterly.  Winter 2013.  Three Emerging Trends in Sales Training.

• Generation Y integrates technology into their lives like no other generation.
• According to Business Insider, feedback and recognition is extremely important to them and they are thirsty for acknowledgment.¹

How will Generation Y change the way we deliver corporate soft skills training? I read a recent blog post about learning in the 21^st century that offered some interesting insight.  Interactivity and involvement were cited as being essential and making video/gaming core to the delivery of training was identified as a way to achieve this.  With respect to feedback, personal and customized is the way to go.²

Game On! Learning’s online time management training and negotiation training programs are a perfect match for this generation.  Each is video-based, highly interactive, and features a mentor who provides constant, individualized feedback to the learner.  Peer-based competition offers a fun and effective way to learn and receive recognition. 

The proof is in our measurement.  Over 91% of individuals who start our courses complete them.  99% percent would recommend our courses to their colleagues.

Contact one of our Game Changers at (888) 725-GAME to learn more about our digital game based learning programs can help you engage your Generation Y workforce, or send an email to info@gameonlearning.com to request more information.

¹http://www.businessinsider.com/4-ways-to-manage-gen-y-employees-2013-1#ixzz2Np7xNC00

²Thoughts on education in the 21st century organization, Kevin Wheeler, February 2013

A recent blog post on the Training Magazine Network gave me some food for thought.  These three criteria really resonated with me.¹ 

• “Memorable – if they don’t retain anything from the learning then they can’t apply it.  Engaging with their emotions, using repetition and spacing the learning out over a period of time all help.”
• “Actionable – they must be able to put their learning into practice. If they can’t, you’ve wasted your time and theirs.”
• “Efficient – it needs to have been an efficient way for them to reach the level of performance or achieve the outcome they need to.  Focus on the material that will help people to change their behavior and improve their skills. Ditch the rest or put in links to it instead.”

Keep focused on that last point.  Many organizations I meet with are spending their scarce resources on “dumbed down” information-based training.  Invest training time on teaching skills and behaviors.  Provide information and knowledge via more efficient tools.

Our game based learning courses have these components and many others that help to produce an amazing learning experience for your employees.   Our online time management training and persuasive communication/negotiation training programs feature design elements like a storyline with engaging characters, peer competition, and constant skills practice, all of which help learners internalize the new skills so that they can apply them immediately on the job. 

Contact one of our Game Changers at (888) 725-GAME to learn more about how our digital game-based learning can help increase the effectiveness of your eLearning programs, or visit www.gameonlearning.com to download our latest white paper.

¹http://www.elearninglearning.com/elearning/

There has been a lot of emphasis over the past few years on packaging training into small “nuggets” of information that can be easily consumed.  

Training magazine recently published an article entitled Improving learning outcomes with a bite sized strategy and described this strategy as involving:

“Identifying pertinent information, breaking it down into smaller pieces, and streamlining the delivery of information.  By giving employees “one bite at a time” over the course of a longer training program interspersed with days on the job, they will be more likely to remember important information and apply the new skills on the job."

We have found this type of training delivery to be very effective.  In fact, our online game based learning programs follow this model.  The key is the design of our negotiation skills training programs and time management training courses.  

In each, the learner is given a packet of content to absorb (the premise and goal of the game, plus a scenario-based case study) and then spends 90% or more of the training by “doing” via the game.”  Much more experiential for the learner, who must learn what works and what doesn’t in order to succeed in the game.

As a case in point, learners who complete our sales negotiation training online game based course will have spent 9-10 hours in the game over a 5 to 6 week timeframe.  Over 90% of that training time will be spent at the skill application level by successfully completing a variety of scenarios that utilize the world’s most sophisticated negotiation simulator ever created for corporate training.

Contact one of our Game Changers at (888) 725-GAME to learn more about our digital game based learning programs, or send an email to info@gameonlearning.com to request more information.

This theme really resonates with me because I have spent my career helping learning leaders develop and implement business skills training and other programs that are measurable and help drive strategic objectives.

For those of you who have been in the business a while, you know that demonstrating the business impact from your training programs can be one of the most complex and difficult of all learning metrics to determine.

Here are some “truths” to help guide you.

·         Training, regardless of the design or modality, is not enough by itself.  Beyond the training, here must be a plan to manage the practice and application of the new behaviors after training.  ASTD research estimates that up to 80% of new skills are lost if not used within 1 week.  The training must be actively reinforced to fully anchor the skills, and much of this reinforcement must come from the managers and colleagues of the employees, not just Learning and Development.

·         ROI measurement efforts are an ongoing process, not a project.  It is often too costly to do a “once and done” project to measure business impact.  ROI is maximized when initial measurements are analyzed to find tweaks that can increase the ongoing accuracy of the measures as well as the impact of the program.  Think of it as a continuous improvement process focused on the program and the metrics – and their alignment with the business need.  Daniel Stufflebeam said it best about 40 years ago: evaluating training results is not done to “prove” but to “improve”[1].

·         If there were a simple, sturdy way to reliably measure ROI, it would be widely used.  Developing an ROI measurement process that is unassailable would be cost prohibitive.  Therefore, each organization must develop their own process in light of their specific priorities, and be aware of the tradeoffs and ambiguities that are certain to be a part of that process.

Contact me at (888) 725-GAME or bryan@gameonlearning.com to learn more about how our game based elearning can help you demonstrate the value and ROI of your elearning programs, or visit www.gameonlearning.com to download our white paper.