Help from trainers.... Please

Hi,

Does anyone have experience of delivering a global training programme?

I've got a job interview next week where I have to do a 10 minute presentation on the 'Challenges of delivering a global programme'.

Any ideas? I know a little about it but I've never actually done it!


Thanks

Anna

If I had just 10min to give a presentation here’s the points I would PowerPoint to within an inch of their life

-) The biggest headache with global programmes is language. Are you going to deliver in English only? Most of my colleagues speak at least two languages, some as many as seven. Being a Brit I don’t see the point but the question is if you plan to deliver in more than one language do you have the resources? As well as a trainer you have to consider the materials, they will need to be translated and tested. It can be an expensive business.

-) As a follow on to that you need to consider culture as well as language if the delegates are going to come to you you have a certain flexibility if you have to go to them you need to be culturally aware. For example a colleague of mine was teaching a course in Lebanon to a group of women a while back. Every time he asked a question he just got silence, it wasn’t until the second day he found out that it was considered improper for a woman to address a man who hadn’t been officially introduced to her.

-) After language and culture you need consider the presentation method. If you go to a client site there is an additional cost of air fare, accommodation etc. that may be passed on and make your quote less competitive (or if it’s internal just more expensive) you may consider a net-based presentation. For example we often use a client called Centra, this software allows the trainer to sit at home and give a presentation to a group through a headset to a shared GUI. You also have whiteboard and see-what-I-see abilities and the delegates can ask questions through headsets or through a text client, it’s a nice product and although it will never be as good as being physically in a classroom it returns big savings and delegates are, on the whole, very positive about it. Plus you get to do a days work lying in bed

Welcome to the site Smurf. Good post and squarely hits the nail on the head for what I do.

At present, locally engaged staff are sent to the UK for their training. And its been interesting to say the least as their English varies from very good to the Mongolian lady I was training this week struggling a little.

But aside from language, culture is another consideration as you say. One chap from Kabul needed an hour 15 minute lunch in order to go to the nearest mosque to pray then find a halal shop to get his lunch. Not something the trainer on the course automatically considered.

With our rollout of IT equipment next year, the team of trainers I work in will be going to post to train. The sheer cost of shipping 6000 UK staff based overseas, plus all locally engaged staff vs sending 13 trainers worldwide to train after the new equipment has been installed makes this more viable.

And tbh a course like sys admin which has a lot of practical work cant easily be set up to be cbt/blended learning. Others can - and we are certainly looking at extending the ECDL to work on that basis. Certainly one of the main challenges as a trainer is how to train depending on peoples learning styles. One challenge is to ensure that what you train encompasses all styles if possible.

The only other consideration for me is security of the material. We have to abide to stringent security procedures. If the material is particularly sensitive we have to make sure that the proper procedures are followed and that may actually make a system too slow if that is the case.

Thanks. long time lurker, first time poster.

Yeah that international travel is fun, well for a few months anyway. You know it's been too long when you find yourself discussing the relative merits of Frankfurt Vs Berlin airport lounge to a total stranger. Just shoot me now

Very true about the practical side of things too and that's another point for you Daphne, do you require a lab environment for the students to practice in? If so it can be a major pain. In the bad old days it meant either sending a technician out to the site before the training to setup the environment or couriering out a bunch of pre-built laptops which is another major overhead.

This is becoming less common now and if this is an ongoing project rather than a one off some investment in a virtual training environment would pay for itself fairly quickly. This would need a set of servers back at base that you could slice up with a tool like VMWare and the delegates could access through something like RDC (Programs >> Accessories >> Communications) It can be a major saving and boost sales. Company X in Azerbaijan no longer has to send their two delegates all the way to London for that Weblogic course they can just sit in their office and take the course through their laptops.

Thanks guys,

It will be added to my presentation

Anna