Podcast: Get the Most Out of Training Dollars Via Instructional System Design

In this episode of Distilled, CP’s Editor Traci Purdum chats with David Strobhar,  founder and principal human factors engineer for Beville Engineering. Dave is also the founder of the Center for Operator Performance. The two discuss Instructional System Design, a systematic training approach developed by the Air Force to create efficient, measurable, and effective training programs across diverse industrial workforces.

Transcript

Welcome to the Operator Training Edition of Chemical Processing's Distilled Podcast. This podcast and its transcript, can be found at ChemicalProcessing.com. You can also download this podcast on your favorite player. I'm Traci Purdum, Editor-in-Chief of CP and joining me is Dave Strobhar, founder and principal human factors engineer for Beville Engineering. Dave is also the founder of the Center for Operator Performance. Hey, Dave, new Year and new topics. How are you doing?

Dave: Great. Great. I think we can solve all of the industry's problems this year, Traci.

Traci: Well, we're certainly going to try, aren't we?

Dave: Yeah.

Traci: Well, we took a little bit of a break from these Operator Training Podcasts, but they are pretty popular. So I poked you to come up with some more gems and you came back with a great little series on flaws in industry training. The first installment of this flawed series is Instructional System Design, and that's what we're going to be talking about today. So let's go ahead and lay the foundation here.

What is Instructional System Design?

Dave: Well, the Instructional System Design or ISD is a product of predominantly the Air Force from the 1960s where, as you were getting more simulators and time on simulators was very valuable and higher-tech individuals, they wanted to make sure that they were neither over training nor under training. You don't want to spend money that is unnecessary to achieve the training objectives, but obviously we want to meet those objectives.

So, the Air Force came up with what they initially called a systems approach to training, and it was later changed to Instructional System Design. But the overall concept was, well, let's come up with a process, a methodology that, if applied, will create a training program or a training system at a facility that will make sure that you are meeting your objectives in an efficient manner. So it became widely adopted, obviously first in the Air Force and then the other Department of Defense areas and is fairly accepted within the training community as that is the approach that you would typically take in creating a training program.

Traci: Now, you had mentioned that it isn't being used and I guess is that part of the flaw here where we're not using this type of training?

Dave: Correct, correct. So the key acronym with the Instructional System Design is called ADDIE, A-D-D-I-E. And so those are the five elements that you would typically want to see. So that the A in ADDIE stands for analyze. So you would analyze the job, the goal being to identify what are the skill and knowledge requirements associated with that particular position or requirement.

The first D in ADDIE is to design. So, you would then design your training program to best achieve the objectives that have come out of the analysis phase.

The second D in ADDIE is develop, so, you would develop the materials that would be necessary to support the objectives, so whether that be simulation or hands-on or lecture. So this would be sort of creating the lesson plans for the program.

The I in ADDIE is implement, that's pretty straightforward. So, you actually give the training.

And then the key aspect of this sort of systems approach is the E in ADDIE, which is evaluate, did it do what you thought it was going to do?

And so that was part of the goal is to create this closed loop system so that you would feed back the outcome of this process and make adjustments and changes so that you weren't just, "Well, we're just going to train them to things and we're just going to assume that works." You wanted to evaluate it and find out again because part of their objective was this over-training. We're just spending more money than we need to. Is there ways that we can tweak it? Can we do things in less time? Can we change how we're doing things?

So the E, evaluation is part of what was originally this systems approach to training, but let's make training a closed-loop system so that we can understand, "Well, what do we need to do differently now that we've done it?" I don't think anybody is so egotistical that they would say, "Oh yeah, our training program is absolutely perfect and above any sort of changes or adjustments." And so the goal in the Instructional System Design is that should be a component of the training system. How are we going to evaluate it? And how do we make sure that yes, we're getting the most for our training dollar?

How to Align Training with Business Goals

Traci: Now let's go into one of the D's, talk about development. And I wanted to kind of understand a little bit better how people can create these types of learning objectives to align with the business goals. So that it kind of goes into the next question I'm going to ask you about again, is the evaluate the effectiveness and justifying these investments into these types of programs. So I guess I'm throwing a whole bunch at you at once here, but let's talk a little bit about how to align with business goals and then how to justify the investment.

Dave: So the key thing in learning objectives is that they be objective, in that it's something I can measure and that is going to allow the individual to perform whatever that critical task or tasks are that you want to have them do.

And so let's say one of the tasks would be to safely secure a fired heater. I don't want anybody to get hurt, I don't want to burn the heater down. One of those tasks is going to be, "Well, can you safely secure it and make sure there is no more risk posed by that?" So rather than simply saying, "Well, my learning objective is that you safely secure a heater." Well, I can't really measure, I need something to measure. So it would be, you'd have to identify that I've secured the fuel gas, I've closed the individual burners, all the things you've done, but you want things that you could see that the person has done if you're using simulation. If you're doing it in a lecture or paper pencil, have them list the task, list the tasks necessary or the steps necessary to secure a fire heater. All of it being things that you can see.

I would say the majority of industry training programs, there might be something in there that says the student can secure a fire heater and it's left up to trainer supervisor that would sign off and just say, "Oh yeah, they can do that." And there is no objective measure of them having that skill. It's just a subjective, "Oh yeah, they can do that." What you want to do is make sure that those objectives are things that can be seen and measured. Things like, "Well, they need to know." Well, I can't measure knowledge per se, so you need to translate it into, "They need to be able to list or demonstrate" or whatever it is, but something that I can see that they have done to meet that objective.

And that's probably one of the pitfall areas that you find is that if they have the objectives at all, they aren't really, they're not objective. They're just, do they know this or do they have an appreciation for this? And that's one of the violations in using the Instructional System Design that is quite common across the industry.

Traci: How do you design training for diverse workforces that might include different languages or educational backgrounds? You have to take that all into account.

Dave: Right, and so that's the second D, the development. So sort of the design where you're going to be saying, "Okay, this is what we want them to know," then you're going to want to, in the development, you're going to apply their variety of tools for, "Well, how you train an adult is different than how you would train someone in high school or college." And so there are examples and tools of using that.

The same thing in terms of, is this a language issue, do I have to have it changed and do some sort of bilingual approach on it? But again, it is making that conscious effort in the development to track, "All right, how are we going to handle this? Let's look at our population, what's our student population look like? And then let's develop the actual materials that sort of go into, that matches that."

But that is to a certain extent where you get into this, again, making it objective and so on. If you haven't done a good job in accounting for this and they don't learn the material, you want to know that. They didn't get the necessary skill or knowledge. And maybe it was because the way you were presenting the material was inappropriate for that population, that group. And that's where you want that feedback to say, "Hey, we need to change this because they aren't achieving the objectives we want them to have. And so we need to do something different in order to be able to accommodate them."

Advice for Using ISD Principles

Traci: So it's always being evaluated to make sure that lessons are being learned and that's important. What is some of the advice you would give folks looking to revamp their training programs that they're doing now that maybe aren't as effective using these ISD principles?

Dave: Well, I think getting in touch with those companies that are using this approach, and some of them are members of the Center for Operator Performance and they're quite willing to share what they're doing in implementing ISD across multiple facilities and multiple sites. And they'll tell you they're not at a hundred percent. It is a work-in-process.

But if anybody was looking for input, they can go to the website, which is centerforoperatorperformance.org, send us a question or make a request and we can get it to those major companies such as Marathon or Coke Industries or Chevron or BP and people that are doing this. And they can help guide them in terms of, "All right, what's step one, what's step two?" And then also possibly, "How do I know if the program that I'm doing isn't working very well?"

And that's one of the almost sad issues is I have seen locations try to implement Instructional System Design and spend tens of thousands by hundreds of thousands of dollars changing what they're doing to "match" the ISD approach. They'll have the five levels, but they've done such a poor job because of some past inertia that they wasted all their money in doing that.

So some of it would be able to say, "Well, I think we did this ISD approach" and somebody within the center can look at it and said, "Well, no, you didn't. Simply breaking your training program up into five categories does not achieve the objective that you're looking for." And then again, that would be sort of the example on the learning objectives. "Oh, well we have learning objectives." "Well, let me see them." And it's like, "Well, those aren't learning objectives. You put down these sorts of vague things that they're supposed to know or respond to."

So within the center, there are, as I said, companies that are pursuing this because they recognize this is the right approach, this is what a lot of research, a lot of effort, it's been used extensively and this is really the best approach to creating a training program.

But it's more than just saying, "Well, we analyzed the job." Well, let's see what that analysis looks like. And similar to the whole ISD, is that feedback, did you achieve what you thought you were achieving within each of these areas? And being able to say, "Well, no, you didn't because these are not objective or they don't match what is going to be required of the individual." Or well, you designed your training system and you call say "Hey, we did that first D." But if you actually look at what has been done, you say, "Well, this is no different than what you were doing before. You just put a label on it and said, "Ah, see we're doing it.". And the reality is you weren't doing it before and you're not doing it now. Just because you label it that doesn't mean that's the case and that's where membership in the center helps bring you into contact with people who are doing this and struggling with how do we make this happen?

It isn't something that sites readily jump onto. And if you're talking several hundred thousand dollars to make these changes, well there's going to be some pushback from some people that says, "Am I getting my money's worth out of this? Is that change worth it?"

And that's where again, the whole concept here is that you will be able to measure the change and you will be able to see "Ah, yes, we are getting a return on our investment in our people. We're getting the sort of maximum gain for the minimum input. We are very efficient in how we train our folks." Tapping into that experience and knowledge is probably one of the easiest ways to start looking at "Okay, well what do I need to do to start making these changes?" and obviously step one's going to be assessing your current program It's making a true assessment, not just do you have the correct labels on the various parts of your program.

Traci: And I think that's a good point. True assessment. I think there are folks out there that don't know what they don't know, so they are going through the motions of just labeling, thinking that they're being efficient and effective, but in reality, they're not. So I think that by just hearing that there is potential, that what they're doing is not the right thing, is one of the very first steps is that aha moment.

And then tapping the resources like the Center for Operator Performance to go in and just partner up elbow to elbow with folks that have already been through these types of activities is just a valuable resource altogether. So I appreciate the time that you put into this and helping our listeners maybe realize things that they don't really know as well as they thought they did.

And as I alluded to at the beginning of the podcast, we are working on a little miniseries in these flaws in training. And the next one that we're going to be talking about on our next podcast is job analysis. And then we're going to delve into learning objectives, practice, time to train, and evaluation. So this six-part series is going to be something that folks can listen to and really get their arms around this concept.

Do you want to stay on top of operator training and performance? Subscribe to this free podcast via your favorite podcast platform to learn best practices and keen insight. You can also visit us at chemicalprocessing.com for more tools and resources aimed at helping you achieve success. On behalf of Dave, I'm Traci. And this is Chemical Processing's Distilled Podcast Operator Training Edition. Thanks for listening. And thanks again, Dave. I appreciate it.

Dave: I appreciate it too, Traci. Thank you.