Why do we blame the tool?

In Brent Schlenker's post "20 years of death by PowerPoint", he talks about all that is wrong with PowerPoint. This has got me wondering, why do we blame the tool for its misuse? Why do we blame the big guy?

It is partly this attitude that led me down the path of using more complicated tools to do the same job that PowerPoint itself would do. In creating training material, I used Illustrator and Frame to create most of the content. PowerPoint was only used to create the final instructor slides, as this is what PowerPoint was indended for. The problem with this solution: no one but me could maintain the content. When anyone wanted a minor change in a graphic, I had to make that change. One of the beauties of a pure PowerPoint solution was that everyone had it. Not everyone was good at using it, but everyone had it!

So that leads to the heart of the problem. It isn't the tool that is wrong, it is the lack of appreciation for the skill in using the tool appropriately. Too many people do not recognize that developing a decent PowerPoint presentation takes more than just subject matter expert skills. Figuring out presentation flow as well as developing decent look-and-feel are skills that go under appreciated in many places.

That being said, one of the key learnings from my last job was that often even the client (or student) does not appreciate the difference between excellent, good, and mediocre training material. If the client can't tell the difference between mediocre and good, why waste your time and money producing something good. Just have your subject-matter-experts throw together some PowerPoint slides and run with it. That is the beauty of PowerPoint.

One of the bigger issues with the use of PowerPoint is that corporate templates kill effective presentations. Frequently the header and footer information on corporate templates take away the emphasis on the content. (For a good tips on how to generate good presentations, see Beyond Bullet Points). Too often corporate templates are developed by people that do not understand nuances of the delivery medium. I have seen many a presentation that looks good on the developers computer, but doesn't display well on the projected screen (I too have made that mistake). Finding the balance between branding and good presentations is a challenge.

One other point that Brent brings up is the use of PowerPoint to generate quick and easy E-Learning. I think this CAN be done well. The issue is not the tool set, it is the people behind the tools. Too many people do not understand the complexity of creating good e-learning. That being said, you still need to ask yourself, does it need to be good? Will mediocre meet the training need? If it will, then go for it.

Of course, when mediocre training meets the need, it leaves me without a job! It is OK to recognize in industry, that mediocre is often all that is required. And there are many people out there that can develop mediocre training and many tools out there to make it fast and easy to do. I just need to find myself the organization that actually NEEDS good, or better yet, excellent training.

Cheers,
Becky

How not to introduce a new presentation paradigm

Hi all,

This is the first in my series on what I learned in my last job as training specialist at a small high-tech start-up.

I picked up the book Beyond Bullet Points and wanted to give the new presentation paradigm a try. I was able to make some minor modifications to the corporate template to meet my needs, and I had complete control over content creation. I wasn't giving the presentation, I was just writing it. The presentations would be presented by instructors that where knowledgeable on the topic.

I created what I though was an amazing PowerPoint presentation, that used full sentence titles. If you looked only at the slide titles, you could follow the presentation's "story". The slide content itself was mostly graphical. As a general rule, the slides avoided bullet points. Some slides did have a key statement that supported or provided additional information relating to the slide title.

So, I setup a review meeting and asked one of the instructors do to the presentation for the review. I was really excited about the new graphics and the new format. I thought that everyone would find the presentation easy to follow and would be impressed by the ease with which the instructor presented the material. Unfortunately, that is not what happened :(

I did not brief the instructor, and the instructor did not really look at the slides in advance. As a result, he struggled to present the material. He would open a slide and look for the bullet points to help him figure out what to say next. Of course, there were no bullet points. Also, the new template had the unfortunate characteristic that the slide titles were faded out, so they were not obvious. The instructor struggled through the entire presentation without reading a single title! The entire presentation was build around the idea that the first thing that the instructor said was the slide title.

So, what did I learn?

First, when you are trying out a new template, make sure you preview/test the template on a projector (not just your screen) prior to the presentation. The titles which looked OK on my screen became washed out and almost invisible when they were projected.

Second, when you are trying something new and having someone else doing the presentation, make sure you brief the instructor on the new paradigm. It never occurred to me that the instructor would need to be "re-trained" on how to view and present the material. All I needed to tell the instructor in advance was to be sure to read the titles. (I did this with a different presentation and different instructor and it worked brilliantly). When titles are topic based, you often don't read them. However, with this new paradigm, the titles were a critical component of the story.

In the end, I think the new paradigm that uses full sentence titles really does help communicate the intended message. It also helps ensure that the instructor knows what the instructional designer intended with the particular slide. However, the instructors do need to be re-trained on what to expect and how to present the material. Without bullet points, the instructors need to be more knowledgeable on the subject and more familiar with the presentation itself.

Cheers.

Full sentence slide titles makes it easier for others to use your slides

It has been awhile since I last blogged. I've been reading various blogs, but haven't felt the inspiration until today.

I am about to embark on a new project. I want to figure out how to integrate the good parts of ISD (identifying objectives and outlining the flow before developing) with the concept of storytelling and the Beyond Bullet Points approach to writing slideware.

My requirements are pretty standard. The products I write training for are rapidly changing (isn't everything in high tech?). The folks teaching the training are not trainers, rather they are technical folks (programmers and troubleshooters). So, the goal is to create PPT presentations that can be presented well by anyone, and to do it in a manner that doesn't take a tonne of time to maintain, since the products constantly change.

I tried incorporating full sentence titles in my slides (rather than topic headings). Apparently research shows that students remember more of the presentation when this technique is used. I found a useful side effect to this approach: it makes the slides easier to present. Specifically, it makes it easier for someone who didn't author the slides to present them. I found that the instructors knew what the intention of every slides was -- because it was written in the title! I'm a convert. I will no longer use topic titles for slides .... that being said ....

The use of full sentences doesn't align well with a "topic" based approach to course design. The process I have been using definitely promotes the use of topic titles rather than full sentence statements. So, this is my next journey. I'm going to try and figure out a process for developing training that involves excellent PPT presentations (full sentence titles and lots of graphics), and takes into account learning objectives. I'll share this on my blog as I discover things that work.