when remembering REALLY matters

Presented by Sharon Boller, President & Chief Product Officer

WHO AM I? Game-lover, learner, instructional designer, product owner, game designer, dog-lover and owner, Mom, wife, cyclist. Oh…and president and chief product officer, Bottom-Line Performance.

OUR GAME PLAN

The challenge of remembering… and the cost of forgetting 2

The research on remembering…and forgetting 3

Strategies for remembering…and for learning 4

Two case studies that use the strategies 5

The requirements to learn something 1

What’s Required to LEARN?

Motivation Relevant Practice Specific, timely feedback

Ability to retrieve later

Right?????

MEMORY TEST #1 1 x 12 = ____ 2 x 12 = ____ 3 x 12 = ____ 4 x 12 = ____ 5 x 12 = ____ 6 x 12 = ____ 7 x 12 = ____ 8 x 12 = ____ 9 x 12 = ____ 10 x 12 =____ 11 x 12 =____ 12 x 12 =____

Times Tables

Raise your hand if you feel VERY CONFIDENT that you can answer this set of multiplication problems without pausing.

MEMORY TEST #2 Spelling Words

Write down 5 words as I say them…don’t think hard. Just write the words.

Receive Believe Experience Neighbor Friend

1.  What year did the Civil War begin?

2.  Where did Robert E. Lee surrender, ending the Civil War?

3.  When did Abraham Lincoln deliver the Gettysburg address?

History

Three American history questions; write your answers to each one. Do NOT use your cell phone, iPad, or any other device to answer. Use your brain only.

MEMORY TEST #3

So…why did you remember some of this stuff, but not other stuff?

Some stuff you need to know “cold”

Other stuff you can “find/

locate”

Does Memory

HERE

? Matter

You are a customer support engineer for a medical device company. You train lab technicians how to operate and troubleshoot the $250,000 piece of machinery their hospital purchased from your company.

Will the hospital be okay if its lab techs have to find/locate info on using the equipment – or does the hospital expect lab techs to know common procedures “cold?”

Does Memory

HERE

? Matter

You are a rep in a sales meeting. Your customer just shared her needs, and she wants a response. You need to mentally think through your company’s eight product lines, select the RIGHT ONE, and then share the appropriate product benefits and features. She’s waiting….

Can you Google that? How long will she wait while you find/locate info? Or…does she expect you to formulate a fairly immediate response based on what you ALREADY KNOW AND CAN RECALL?

Does Memory

HERE

? Matter

You are a “skip tracer.” Your job is to recover cars if their owners have defaulted on a loan. There’s a lot of defaults, and the skip tracing process contains numerous steps!

How efficient will you be at doing your job if you are constantly finding/locating? What’s okay to look up…and what do you simply need to know and know how to do from memory? What assets go unrecovered if you are slow at the job?

Does Memory

HERE

? Matter

You are a lab technician. You just dropped a vial of blood being tested for HIV. It just went SPLAT! You KNOW the blood poses a risk. You take annual training for this…but that was months ago. You recall some steps, but you are not sure of all of them.

With blood splattered can you look up the procedure or do you need to be able to recall it and apply it to the situation at hand?

PEOPLE NEED TO REMEMBER A LOT OF STUFF IN THE WORKPLACE Product Knowledge

Industry Facts Policies & Procedures

Research Data Sales Messages

What else do people need to “know cold” (i.e. from memory?)

Per ATD, we’re spending about $164 BILLION on training per year. Are we getting results?

Time saved…or not wasted in the first place?

Money saved…or

money gained?

People producing more, faster,

more accurately or feeling less

stressed?

WHAT’S REMEMBERED?

During training? A week later?

How much forgetting? 30% in 3 to 6 days’ time

50% in 3 to 6 days’ time

70% in 3 to 6 days’ time

90% (or more) in 3 to 6 days’ time

A  

B  

C  

D  

IT DEPENDS

Let’s be REALLY generous and assume 30% forgetting.

Which 30% is the business okay

with?

REMEMBERING IS HARD FORGETTING IS EASY

FOUR STRATEGIES TO USE

Spaced intervals – not a single “glop” 1 Repetition – several instances of it 2

Feedback – with requirement to do it right after making mistake 3 Stories 4

Spaced Intervals & Repetition

Micro Spacing Macro Spacing

Single Session Single Session Single Session

or

Day 1

Day 8

Day 16

Too Much

Nothing

SPACING RESEARCH Spaced Repetition in the New York Times:http://www.theknowledgeguru.com/spaced-repetition-featured-new-york-times/

Learning  Research  by  Annie  Murphy  Paul:  Distributed  Prac9ce  and  Spaced  Repe99onh<p://www.theknowledgeguru.com/learning-­‐research-­‐annie-­‐murphy-­‐paul-­‐distributed-­‐prac9ce-­‐repe99on/  

Spaced Repetition: What Research tells us by Dr. Karl Kapp: http://www.theknowledgeguru.com/spaced-retrieval-retrieval-practice-knowledge-guru-research-tells-us/  

Learning  vs.  Retrieval  UCLA  Bjork  Learning  and  ForgeIng  Lab:  h<p://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/research.html  

FEEDBACK LOOPS

STORIES Light up our whole brain

Elicit POWERFUL Empathic response

Personalize. Contextualize.

What

when remembering REALLY matters

Things I have learned in this session:: 1.

Case Study #1 – ExactTarget Product Launch (2012 case)

1.  SaaS:  Mul9ple  Product  Lines  and  Mul9ple  Product  Launches  •  9  dis9nct  product  lines  within  organiza9on  •  Product  line  releases  each  month  

2.  Employees,  clients,  and  partners  had  training  overload;  company  needed  a  way  to  “mix  it  up.”  

3.  MobileConnect  was  one  of  the  largest  product  launches  in  company  history.  Success  was  cri/cal.  

LEARN + REMEMBER

Motivation Relevant Practice

Ability to retrieve later

Specific, timely feedback

Spaced Intervals, repetition Story

MOTIVATION Intrinsic is about person realizing learning will help them in their jobs.

Extrinsic can couple with – but not replace – intrinsic. In this instances, motivation was prizes AND recognition.

MOTIVATION

MOTIVATION Meet  Paul  from  Australia  Earned  9tle  as  THE  “Mobile  Connect  Guru”  via  game  play.  “I  have  never  felt  more  valued  in  company  that  I  have  since  becoming  the  Mobile  Connect  Guru”  

STORY as challenge

STORY - context

STORY - context

Spaced Iterations, Relevant Practice, Feedback + REPETITION

Repetition – Interation 1

Repetition – Interation 2

Repetition – Interation 3

Feedback + Re-do

MORE Spacing, Repetition

Business Results Quicker pipeline built: “Of all the launches done in the two years previous to the MobileConnect launch, the sales team built one of the quickest pipelines for this product.” Dramatic increase in first-call support resolution. Greatly increased contract values.    

Case Study #2 Dialysis Treat- ment

Business Problems: 1.  Patient post-training drop rate very high.

2.  Time req’d to train a single patient longer than desired.

3.  Only 1 patient per month could be trained. As a result, less marketshare and growth in marketshare than desired.

Training Goal:

“Patients can safely and confidently perform ongoing treatments at home.”

They had GLOP

We created spacing

Multiple repetitions

Multiple Repetitions

Practice, Feedback

Stories for empathy Characters in the eLearning told stories about their own situations; these mirrored the realities of the patients going through training.  “One of biggest hurdles I had to face was learning to insert my own needles. I don’t care how brave you are, having to stick two needles in my arm every time I did a treatment was scary.” “I was worried about hurting David when I had to stick him with needles…I was not confident I could do it.”

RESULTS? •  Yes! 6% reduction in “patient drops” in patients who

received NxSteps training over those who were trained via another method. (Training for a single patient can typically cost $30K or more to do so 6% is a big deal.)

•  A major NxStage customer who used NxSteps program viewed it as so successful in improving bottom-line $ results for company that it is working to replicate program on peritoneal side of business.

   

Steps You

Take In

Design

Can

Ask: “What business problem is this learning solution solving?” To solve the problem, consider what is ESSENTIAL for people to know, do, believe. Distinguish between need to be able to “find/locate” from need to “know it cold”

1)

Steps You

Take In

Design

Can

If SMEs & stakeholders insist on too much content, ask:

“What 30% - 90% are you okay

with people forgetting…or

never learning in the first

place?”

2)

Steps You

Take In

Design

Can

Think beyond “one-hit wonder.” If remembering REALLY matters, then spacing and repetition HAVE to be part of your design.

3)

Spaced Intervals, repetition

DESIGN FOR: LEARN + REMEMBER

Motivation Relevant Practice

Ability to retrieve later

Specific, timely feedback

Spaced Intervals, repetition Story

4)

Too Much

Nothing

5) Remember…

Want to find me?

Email: sharon@ bottomlineperformance.com Twitter: @Sharon_Boller