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Curso: Diseño de Experiencias de Aprendizaje - Novo Ed

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Curso: Diseño de Experiencias de Aprendizaje - Novo Ed

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Learning Experience Design Course | LXD Certificate & Training | NovoEd

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Join our free Learning Experience Design course that will enable you to think in a more powerful way about learning experiences and more.

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Strategy Activation Through People - TiER1 Performance

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Strategy is only as valuable as the activation behind it-how it shows up, how work gets done, how your employees own it, and how your customers experience it. Because every strategy requires people activation to realize the best results.

Identifying and aligning on the performance factors needed for activation.

Your people live your brand. But skills, mindsets, buy-in, process, and culture can get in the way. We align these factors to your success metrics.

Creating the performance experience and everything needed to sustain it.

Based in neuroscience, we craft experiences and transformations that engage and empower your people to achieve their performance potential.

Activating strategy through engaging, results-focused deliverables.

Experience portals. Change communication. High-volume training. Whatever the asset, we enable your people in innovative and compelling ways.

Empower successful strategy activation through training, coaching, and more.
Equip your organization with methods, resources, mindsets, and models to activate your strategy from within by empowering people to lead the transformations required for sustainable results.

JOIN US NOVEMBER 9-11 FOR OUR ANNUAL EXLEARN CONFERENCE

TiER1's annual EXLEARN Conference is for L&D professionals who want to focus on the human side of learning and performance. EXLEARN brings theory into practice with real-world, business-tested solutions. You'll have opportunities to elevate your skills with sessions dedicated to cultural evolution, improving performance, leadership development, learning evaluation and transfer, professional development, skill-building, and more. Attendees will walk away from EXLEARN with insights to guide long-term planning balanced with information and frameworks that can be implemented right away. Register now for a truly unforgettable experience that will leave you feeling inspired, connected, recharged, and with a clear plan of action

WITH EXCITING OFFERINGS FOR YOU AND YOUR TEAM

Your people are at the heart of bringing your organizational strategy or vision to life. When you design workplaces that enable people to do their best work, it creates better organizations and a better world. You unleash the potential of people. Through their performance, you empower transformation required for sustainable results.

TiER1 Performance Institute is designed to elevate people-centered performance. We enable leaders to create better workplaces and build healthy, high-performing teams through:

Curation of the art and science of performance to bring theory into practice

Education for teams and individuals on people-centered models, methods, and mindsets

Collaboration to co-create new performance approaches and connect with a like-minded community

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Strategy Activation Through People - TiER1 Performance

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Strategy is only as valuable as the activation behind it-how it shows up, how work gets done, how your employees own it, and how your customers experience it. Because every strategy requires people activation to realize the best results. Identifying and aligning on the performance factors needed for activation.

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Scribe automatically generates visual how-to guides and gets them to your team when they need them most. Save time, stay focused, help others.

How will you use Scribe?

Here's what a Scribe looks like

Scribe's been a real game-changer for me, no more having to stop and take screenshots while I'm working. The best part? It's all automatic. No more manual documentation for me - that's a huge win in my book.

Founder & Business Manager

Read the Case Study

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Scribe | Create Step-by-Step Guides - Fast.

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Scribe documents your processes for you. Build visual guides with text, links and screenshots instantly.

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El poder de la curiosidad con Stefaan van Hooydonk

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El poder de la curiosidad con Stefaan van Hooydonk

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El poder de la curiosidad con Stefaan van Hooydonk

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Desde el año 2002 se celebra en España, en las ciudades de Madrid y/o Barcelona, y desde el 2010 se han celebrado 7 ediciones en América Latina en: Lima, Bogotá, México y Chile, y un Taller en Costa Rica.

También hemos participado en eventos de e-learning, en: Argentina, Perú, Chile, México, El Salvador, Estados Unidos, Francia, Inglaterra, Alemania, Portugal, Turquía y en varias ciudades de España.

Otros EVENTOS organizados

Álbumes de fotos Congreso Internacional EXPOELEARNING 2022

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Desde el año 2002 se celebra en España, en las ciudades de Madrid y/o Barcelona, y desde el 2010 se han celebrado 7 ediciones en América Latina en: Lima, Bogotá, México y Chile, y un Taller en Costa Rica.

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Listado

Compatible con los sistemas de gestión de aprendizaje populares como Google Classroom, Clever, Canvas, ClassLink y Schoology, Storyboard That hace que la organización de sus estudiantes, clases y tareas sea muy sencilla. Además, compartir tareas con los estudiantes y hacer un seguimiento de su progreso es tan fácil como hacer clic en un botón.

Colaboración en Tiempo Real

Saber trabajar juntos es una parte importante de la educación de un niño. ¡A los estudiantes les encantará trabajar en parejas y en pequeños grupos en el mismo guión gráfico!

¿Quiere que sus estudiantes agreguen escritura a sus guiones gráficos? Tenemos toneladas de opciones para voz y texto.

La prueba gratuita del creador de guiones gráficos para profesores te permite probar todas las funciones premium durante dos semanas. Miles de actividades copiables, hojas de trabajo y carteles son suyos para usar y guardar en su biblioteca de guiones gráficos. A los educadores les encanta Storyboard That porque ayuda a los estudiantes a procesar y comprender la información de una manera profunda y significativa. Cuando los estudiantes hacen un guión gráfico, participan activamente en el proceso de aprendizaje y pueden establecer conexiones entre el texto y sus propias vidas.

Los guiones gráficos también promueven el pensamiento de alto nivel al alentar a los estudiantes a sintetizar información y pensar críticamente sobre lo que han leído. Finalmente, los guiones gráficos son una excelente manera de evaluar la comprensión de los estudiantes porque brindan una representación visual del aprendizaje de los estudiantes.

Storyboard That es la herramienta perfecta para nuevos planes de lecciones y actividades porque es muy fácil de usar y extremadamente versátil. Con Storyboard That, puede crear una amplia variedad de guiones gráficos, como la historia desde la perspectiva del personaje principal o el punto de vista de cualquier otro personaje.

Al combinar el creador de guiones gráficos con sus planes de lecciones, puede cumplir con el plan de estudios y los estándares requeridos, mientras se asegura de que sus estudiantes se involucren y se entusiasmen por aprender. ¡Otra ventaja adicional es que nuestros planes de lecciones prefabricados están alineados con el Common Core!

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Software Gratuito de Creación de Guiones Gráficos - Creador de Guiones Gráficos en Línea | StoryboardThat

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¡Cree guiones gráficos con nuestro software gratuito de guiones gráficos! ✩ ¡A los cineastas, maestros, estudiantes y empresas les encanta usar ❰ Storyboard That ❱ para guiones gráficos y cómics en línea!

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Top 100 Tools for Learning 2022 - Jane Hart

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Top 100 Tools for Learning 2022 - Jane Hart

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Here are the Top 100 Tools for learning generated from the 17th Annual Tools for Learning survey. There were a total of 2,022 votes and this year there were more votes from the education sector than last year, which is why many of the educational tools have regained lost ground on this year's list. New tools on the list are shaded yellow in the table below, and tools returning to the list are shaded green. The big news for this year is that ChatGPT has jumped straight into the chart in the No 4 place. 2023 is the year that AI has finally taken off. For a categorisation of the tools (both as a list and in graphical format), take a look at By Category

To work through the list tool by tool, start with YouTube and follow the link at the top right of each page.

Total Page Visits: 921732 - Today Page Visits: 295

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Top 100 Tools for Learning 2023 – Results of the 17th Annual Survey published 4 September 2023

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Here are the Top 100 Tools for learning generated from the 17th Annual Tools for Learning survey. There were a total of 2,022 votes and this year there were more votes from the education sector than last year, which is why many of the educational tools have regained lost ground on this year’s list. New tools on the list are shaded yellow in the table below, and tools returning to the list are shaded green. The big news for this year is that ChatGPT has jumped straight into the chart in the No 4 place. 2023 is the year that AI has finally taken off. For a categorisation of the tools (both as a list and in graphical format), take a look at By Category

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2022 Top Tools for Learning - Mike Taylor

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2022 Top Tools for Learning - Mike Taylor

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It is time once again for my top 10 list of learning tools for Jane Hart's Annual Top Tools for Learning roundup.
Submit your top tools by August 25th
Here is my list for 2022:

1. Feedly

Feedly continues to be my favorite tool for learning. It allows me to keep up with everything I'm interested in efficiently by giving me control over how I consume information. I'm able to organize everything I want to see from websites and Twitter to YouTube channels and email newsletters all in a single place.

If you're not using an RSS reader, I really believe you're missing out on an opportunity to better manage your information diet.

http://feedly.com
Addins/Extras:

Buffer - share what you learn via social media

Kill the Newsletter - get your email newsletters via RSS/Feedly

FetchRSS - create an RSS Feed for sites that don't provide one

2. WordPress

WordPress has been where I hang my online hat since 2007. Great option for creating a website - it is quick and easy to work with and I've never had any issues.
wordpress.com
3. Twitter

Still one of the best places for me to access the thinking of smart people doing great things. As well as a great place for finding a community of people doing what you do. You never have to send a single tweet to get benefits from Twitter - but I think you'll get even more if you do!
twitter.com/tmiket
4. PowerPoint 365

PowerPoint has been adding a lot of new capabilities lately. Which, taken in combination with amazing enhancements like BrightSlide, make it an attractive tool for digital projects including motion graphics, videos, ebooks and more.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/powerpoint Addins/Extras:
5. Bublup

I've always valued a better way to manage my bookmarks. Bublup has become a trusted way to save, organize and share just about anything including links, notes, files, etc. It will even generate web pages from the things you want to share - they're called rolls and they're pretty cool. Here's an example.

6. Zapier

When there isn't an add-in or marketplace available for what you want to do, Zapier let's you connect thousands of apps with each other yourself. And it couldn't be easier - no code involved. No matter what your role or industry, you'll find value in Zapier.

7. Google Docs / Workspace

Docs is my 'go to' for writing and sheets for managing data. Lots of helpful, time-saving addins worth checking out depending on what you're working on.

workspace.google.com

8. MailChimp

Mailchimp powers my newstetter and I've used it many time as part of learning campaigns.
mailchimp.co
9. Canva

It seems I'm doing something in Canva almost every day. I keep discovering useful new things that it can do like editing PDFs, exporting designs to PowerPoint, create & edit videos and more.

10. Xtiles

This is the only new entry for me this year. xTiles is a visual note-taking application that enables you to replace several tools at once. I've been using it for personal notes and curation. I love the flexibility and options for saving/presenting all types of information. Give it a try! Here is one example.

Check some other L&D pro's Top 10 Tools lists:

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It is time once again for my top 10 list of learning tools for Jane Hart's Annual Top Tools for Learning roundup. Submit your top tools by August 25th Here is my list for 2022: 1. Feedly Feedly continues to be my favorite tool for learning.

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Acceso Total Más de 500 cursos y 10 carreras. Contenido nuevo todas las semanas.

Atención Prioritaria Esquiva la cola y recibe respuestas más rápidas.

Live Mentorship Agenda sesiones en vivo con nuestros mentores para resolver todas tus dudas.

Diploma físico Si te gradúas en una Carrera ¡te enviamos el diploma a tu casa!

Acceso gratuito a nuestros eventos

Participa en los Crehana Fest, Craft, Gram y Photowalks de manera gratuita.

Descuentos exclusivos Accede a descuentos exclusivos y muy atractivos en nuestro Crehana Market.

Chat Premium Chatea con nuestros mentores y profesores en un canal personal.

Webinars exclusivos Interactua con otros alumnos y profesores y ¡pregúntales lo que quieras!

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Acceso Total Más de 500 cursos y 10 carreras. Contenido nuevo todas las semanas. Atención Prioritaria Esquiva la cola y recibe respuestas más rápidas. Live Mentorship Agenda sesiones en vivo con nuestros mentores para resolver todas tus dudas. Diploma físico Si te gradúas en una Carrera ¡te enviamos el diploma a tu casa!

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Como volvernos relevantes para el futuro del trabajo? - Roi Benitez

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Como volvernos relevantes para el futuro del trabajo? - Roi Benitez

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Se habla y se especula mucho sobre el futuro del trabajo, sobre las habilidades "del futuro" y de las carreras emergentes. Se habla y se especula mucho sobre este panorama cada vez menos claro y cada vez más incierto. Una realidad borrosa.

A medida que los robots y los algoritmos continúan ocupando un lugar central en el lugar de trabajo, los trabajadores/as y empresas se enfrentan a la enorme tarea de descubrir cómo hacerle frente a esta situación. La automatización ya no es una cosa del futuro, es cosa del presente: McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) estima que la mitad de las actividades laborales actuales coordinadas por humanos podrían automatizarse con la tecnología actual.

Ya existía una brecha significativa, provocada por la digitalización, entre las habilidades que tienen las personas y las que necesitan las empresas. Si bien la transformación digital ya mostraba su brío en relación a los cambios en el mundo del trabajo, con COVID-19 de por medio, se aceleró el proceso de reskilling de cientos de miles de trabajadores en el mundo.

El impacto de la automatización es real: Según el informe Future of Jobs 2020 del Foro Económico Mundial, el 50% de los trabajadores/as necesitará volver a capacitarse en los próximos cinco años, a medida que se estabilice la "doble perturbación" de los impactos económicos de la pandemia y la creciente automatización que transforma los empleos.

La fuerza laboral de hoy no tiene las habilidades para los trabajos del mañana.

Las transiciones laborales no son fáciles. Generan desigualdades, descontento y mucha incertidumbre. Las transiciones laborales muestran una realidad dolorosa, si pensamos en términos de inclusión y acceso. Las brechas que antes estaban invisibles, hoy se hacen presentes más que nunca.

Cómo personas, no podemos esperar a ver que pasa para movernos. En esta ambición permanente y constante de adaptarnos, tenemos que renovarnos y tenemos que hacerlo rápido por qué la velocidad hace difícil que nos mantengamos vigentes. Vivimos en una invitación constante de aprender nuevas y más habilidades.

La pregunta es, ¿cómo podemos hacer para volvernos relevantes en este contexto? Mantenernos relevantes es el driver para adaptarnos inteligentemente.

Del empleo a la empleabilidad

Según la Organización Internacional del Trabajo, la empleabilidad es "la aptitud de la persona para encontrar y conservar un trabajo, para progresar en el trabajo y para adaptarse al cambio a lo largo de la vida profesional".

En la vorágine de ocupaciones, roles y oficios corren el riesgo de ser reemplazados a partir de la digitalización de la economía, resignificar el empleo por la empleabilidad es una oportunidad para los trabajadores/as y empresas, porque proyectar el futuro del trabajo es desarrollar capacidad de empleabilidad. Este es el momento.
La palabra empleabilidad nos habla de empleo + habilidad. Mientras que el empleo es fijo, la empleabilidad es dinámica, se nutre de nuevas habilidades, está siempre en desarrollo y es el motor del desafío adaptativo.
Empleabilidad es, en resúmen, la capacidad que cada persona tiene de tener empleo de manera sustentable, ya sea empleándose o emprendiendo, más allá de las circunstancias a través del desarrollo de habilidades que trascienden los puestos laborales.

La empresa puede ser el espacio contenedor y habilitador del desarrollo de la empleabilidad, pero también estamos en un momento de la historia en donde debemos volvernos protagonistas nuestro propio viaje de aprendizaje y hacer que nuestros trabajadores/as también lo hagan.

¿Qué pueden hacer las empresas para desbloquear la empleabilidad de las personas?

Esta cuarta revolución industrial acelerada por Covid impacta en el conjunto de habilidades cómo en el número de roles y perfiles requeridos por el mercado. Los desarrolladores/as, cientistas de datos, analistas de datos, ingenieros/as digitales cómo para nombrar solo algunos están posicionados en el núcleo del nuevo perfil de habilidades y representan la escasez de talento en esta área. Pero en el otro extremo de la ecuación tenemos roles de operación básica y repetitiva con una disminución significativa en el número de roles requeridos. Aquí tenemos un desafío como una oportunidad.

Muchas empresas hoy están creando sus propias academias de aprendizaje en la corrida de cubrir gaps de habilidades de puestos tecnológicos que faltan en el mercado. Es el ejemplo de la Universidad de Google que ayuda a las personas a obtener las habilidades que necesitan para conseguir un trabajo o hacer crecer su negocio. En Argentina por ejemplo, se encuentra el caso de la carrera Certified Tech Developer, una iniciativa de Globant y Mercadolibre en articulación con Digital House para entrenar a 10 mil jóvenes en los próximos dos años de Argentina, Colombia y Brasil.

Pero cómo llevamos esto a nuestras organizaciones? Veamos 3 caminos posibles para apoyar la empleabilidad:

1. Inversión masiva en habilidades digitales: Las organizaciones pueden crear sus propias academias o construir alianzas con actores clave que hoy lideran la agenda de capacidades digitales. Cuando hablamos de ser digitales, no hablamos solamente de habilidades tecnológicas sino de poder hacernos flexibles, y más que una serie de conocimientos y de habilidades, requiere un reseteo de los modelos mentales y los modelos cognitivos porque implica cambios estructurales en la manera de observar, analizar, reflexionar y actuar.

2. Empresa "biónica" responsable: A finales del 2020, la consultora Boston Consulting Group publicó un informe haciendo referencia a este tipo de empresas 4.0 que no solo hacen uso de la tecnología sino también de los datos. Llorenç Mitjavila, socio responsable de BCG Gamma indicaba que "la empresa biónica es una compañía que, a partir de un sentido del propósito y una estrategia bien definida, es capaz de priorizar una serie de objetivos de negocio ligados a la digitalización". Para cumplir estas metas existen dos grandes elementos habilitadores: la tecnológica y las personas. Las empresas biónicas responsables prospectan el futuro de la automatización con y desde los/las trabajadores/as acompañándolos/as en el proceso de aprendizaje, upskilling y reskilling de manera responsable.

3. Desarrollar la empleabilidad: Desarrollar empleabilidad implica acelerar la reconversión a través del reconocimiento y autoconocimiento habilidades actuales que permitan optimizar la brecha, no se trata de comenzar de 0. Las organizaciones pueden mapear brechas actuales y futuras y acompañar a los trabajadores/as en su autodesarrollo. Debemos generar el espacio contenedor para que las personas continúen aprendiendo a través de carreras dinámicas y distribuidas que se nutran de las habilidades propias de cada trabajador/a.

Estamos operando en un mundo que se está recuperando de una gran interrupción.

No hay una receta para acelerar el cambio a través de la empleabilidad, pero si aprendizajes que he compartido en estas líneas. Hay muchas más preguntas por responder y debemos estar atentos/as, flexibles y abiertos/as para el futuro del trabajo que construimos juntos/as.

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🚀Para seguir leyendo:

📍 ¿Pueden soñar las máquinas?

📍Aprendizaje como sistema

📍Cómo convertir tu organización en un hub de aprendizaje

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Estas líneas son producto de años de investigación, lecturas profundas y conversaciones sentidas. Sin querer plantear respuestas, estas líneas son una puerta para dar vida a nuevas posibilidades. Espero que este ejercicio de escritura te nutra y te genere también, preguntas nuevas. Mi trabajo crece con tu feedback, siéntete bienvenido y bienvenida a dejar tus comentarios.

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¿Cómo volvernos relevantes para el futuro del trabajo?

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Se habla y se especula mucho sobre el futuro del trabajo, sobre las habilidades "del futuro" y de las carreras emergentes. Se habla y se especula mucho sobre este panorama cada vez menos claro y cada vez más incierto.

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The 17 Best Books on Instructional Design: Classics and Hidden Gems

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The 17 Best Books on Instructional Design: Classics and Hidden Gems

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Books may have lost the leading role in education, but they remain an invaluable source of unique and fundamental knowledge. We have collected the best instructional design books and some other books that don't guide through the practice of instructional design directly but can be and are used to create eLearning experiences much more effectively. Let's begin.

The Classics

We don't hesitate to call these books classics because they are most often mentioned by experienced course developers, company leaders, and eLearning pioneers - people who know both sides of instructional design: theory and practice. If you've just started in ID or want to deepen your knowledge, these books are exactly what you need.

Perhaps all of us have had some useless learning experiences. A boring book, an endless article, or too much entertainment with too little information. Julie Dirksen wrote a book that helps to create courses that both hook learners and educate them. Reading it, you'll be able to find the golden mean between giving knowledge and provoking interest. And you'll learn how to make people remember new information long after they've completed a course.

This is one of the greatest books for people who have decided to change their profession and become instructional designers quickly. It will guide you through nearly every aspect of the online learning design process and share some insights from the author's personal experience. You'll learn best practices, read case studies, and find out the most common mistakes to avoid when designing an eLearning program. And, yes, by the end of the book, you'll know everything you need to know to transition from an accidental instructional designer to an intentional one.

As Chandler Bing would say: "Could it BE more classical?" Michael Allen's Guide to e-Learning is a must-read for every instructional designer. This book is a collection of invaluable insights from one of the most important people in the eLearning industry. Here, you will learn about Mr. Allen's three pillars of online learning, the importance of applying them to your projects, and the results you'll get if you do. Michael will take you through history, show you common pitfalls, give some tips, and take you to the path that led him and his company to success.

Unlike the previous books, this one is intended more for advanced instructional designers rather than beginners. Here, Mr. Allen introduces SAM - the Successive Approximation Model. While the title is fairly provocative, Michael himself reassures us that SAM is only an alternative model and if ADDIE works for you, "by all means, use it!" Still, if you're looking for a new approach to make work more effective, you might want to take a look at SAM. In this case, this book would be just what you need. You'll learn every detail of the working process in SAM, conceptions it offers, etc. - anything you might be interested in. And when you finish the book, you'll face the main question: "Will you leave ADDIE for SAM?"

Cathy Moore's Map it is considered to be one of the best instructional design books. It deals with a big issue many instructional designers and developers face sooner or later - online training that doesn't help people improve their working skills. Moore gives her own solution - action mapping, an approach that allows you to shift the focus to something really important. After reading her book, you'll learn the soft and hard skills you need to use this approach. You'll be able to distinguish between cases that need training and those that need something different. And this will make the eLearning content you design more engaging and effective.

William Horton doesn't just guide you through the process of creating eLearning content, he also offers you a range of learning activities that can be included. If you're a beginner, this might be one of the best books to start with. Here, everything you need to know is explained and presented right from the start. Explanations are simple but not over-simplified. After reading this book you will have quite a comprehensive understanding of the eLearning industry, what it consists of, and what you can do with it.

Why do we do things the way we do? Why do we make particular design decisions? These are the main questions that this book answers. Many instructional design resources often come out with their statements on what makes eLearning good and effective but don't provide solid evidence. All the statements, claims, and conclusions in this book are based on scientific research. It is essential both for beginners and professionals to read this book and to have certainty on how and why eLearning can be productive.

When you start a new profession, you want to know everything: what you should do, how you should do it, what you do it for, what the basic principles of your industry are, etc. Fortunately, Abbie H. Brown and Timothy D. Green wrote a book that fulfills this need. The information in their book is truly essential. It covers all the aspects of instructional design from the very basic ones, like learner analysis, to more complex ones like learner evaluation. Besides, unlike many other ID books, it has assignments at the end of each chapter, which is a useful option when you're studying on your own.

There are instructional designers who tend to ignore the importance of visual design. Some of them really don't find it so crucial, yet others just don't think they are capable of creating it. Well, this is a skill. And as with any other skill, it can be learned. Robin Williams' book is all about this. It is a great introduction to the visual side of ID. Once you grasp it, you'll see how much more effective your courses have become.

Although Make It Stick was written for teachers, professors and psychologists, it also became popular among instructional designers. Designers try their best to make the learning process more effective. And, according to common belief, this is achieved by making everything as simple as possible. The authors of Make It Stick claim the opposite: sometimes it is "desirable difficulties" that can increase effectiveness. And they prove their point by providing the results of discoveries in cognitive psychology. The book offers a completely different approach to ID and concrete techniques you can try so as to decide for yourself if your eLearning will or won't stick.

This is one of the most famous books on eLearning gamification. Summarizing research and game theory, Karl M. Kapp shares his opinion that gamification can and should be much more than just badges, levels, and points. It is about fundamentally rethinking learning design. After reading this book you may reevaluate the role and the aim of gamification in the eLearning process, which can lead you to some great new ideas on how to make online training even more engaging and effective.

Hidden Gems

If you've already read all the classics or wish to learn something less popular but extremely useful, check out these hidden gems.

It's useless to ask your mom's opinion about how to succeed in your job. She loves you. You will always be her best. This lack of real evaluation is true not only for your relatives and friends but also for those you work with. Here, you will learn how to get a person talking, what questions to ask, and how to avoid one-word responses. Although this book is mostly about the work performed with clients, the rules of interview it provides can be applied to working with subject matter experts.

Why do I need online training? Why should I spend my time on courses? Learners need to have answers to such questions in order to be motivated and engaged. This book provides real cases of successful companies that managed to answer "why" questions and became innovative, profitable, and influential. Sinek claims that all great leaders are similar in a way and gives a framework upon which you can build anything you need - such as a learning community or an eLearning company. After reading this book, you'll know what learning goals and objectives you should set to inspire your learners.

Some issues you face in instructional design are not connected with the essential "why" and "what" issues. Sometimes everything is great. Your idea is brilliant. You know the project will be extremely productive but... you can't explain that to others. Lee LeFever's book is all about this. Apart from learning how to explain brilliant ideas, you will also get to know how to present some formal, pretty boring material in a fascinating way. In this situation, neither you nor your learners will regret the time and effort you invest, and student engagement will increase overall.

This one should have been listed in the classics, because if anything is classical here, this is it. Somehow this book remains poorly known among instructional designers despite the great importance of its subject. Language and style are the first thing employers and learners pay attention to. If you lose them there, there's little you can do. Unlike a great many other books on writing, Messrs. Williams and Bizup's Style is based on research in the psychology of reading and linguistics. It is regularly being updated in accordance with the changing norms of the language. All of this makes this book an up-to-date must-read for everyone.

Storytelling is a skill every instructional designer must have. Nancy Duarte's book will teach you how to establish a good structure for your story, where to find inspiration, what kind of storytelling to choose, and how to write an engaging story that will resonate with your audience. Every piece of advice and tip Ms. Duarte gives is accompanied by an example from the real lives of such great orators as Steve Jobs, Ronald Reagan, and Martin Luther King.

Instructional design requires a good amount of creativity. But what should you do if you don't have that? There's a widespread misconception that creativity belongs only to "creative types." Tom and David Kelley prove this wrong. They claim that everyone is creative. After reading this book, you'll know some principles and strategies that will allow you to use your creative potential. With it, you'll be able to develop innovative approaches for solving issues and create unique content.

Conclusion

Well, now you know the best instructional design books. We hope you found at least a few of them that you can't wait to read. Good luck!

Useful Resources

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The 17 Best Books on Instructional Design You Must Read

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Books may have lost the leading role in education, but they remain an invaluable source of unique and fundamental knowledge. We have collected the best instructional design books and some other books that don't guide through the practice of instructional design directly but can be and are used to create eLearning experiences much more effectively.

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Curso: "How to Create an Online Course: The Official Udemy Course"

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Curso: "How to Create an Online Course: The Official Udemy Course"

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Are you excited about creating a course with Udemy, but not sure where to get started? Do you want to make sure the course you create will appeal to students? Then you're in the right place.
Introducing, the official Udemy course about how to create an online course
In this official course we will guide you through the recommended course creation process and share best practices in teaching and instructional design, as well as resources you can use to help you plan, produce, and publish your own course. Creating a course is a journey, but you don't have to go it alone! We're here to guide you throughout your journey.

Learn from one of our learning design experts who has partnered with hundreds of instructors to create high-quality courses on Udemy, who will walk you through the steps in the course creation process along with experienced instructors who will share tips for building an impactful online learning experience on Udemy.
Bookmark this now, reference it later
We will share a lot of helpful information and resources throughout this course. Bookmark it so that you can refer back to it as needed while you're on your own instructor journey.
Learn how to create a course in 90 minutes
During this 90-minute course, our information-packed lectures will give you the insight and tools to make the course creation process as smooth as possible for you so that you're confident in delivering a high-quality online course that students will love. We'll also include practice activities for hands-on learning which you can apply directly to the course you're creating.
Get step-by-step guidance
By the end of the course, you'll be ready to get started creating your course - and have a solid understanding of the steps required to create an online course.
Plan your content

Use the Udemy Marketplace Insights tool to choose the best course topic

Define who you're creating this course for, what your students will achieve upon completion, and how they'll learn it by planning learning activities and assessments

Create a course outline to plan the structure of your course

Write your course script to get you prepared to record your course

Produce your course

Create your course videos, resources, and activities following best practices for delivering value to your learners

Get tips from pro instructors about speaking on camera and setting up your recording space

Receive personalized feedback on your audio, video, and delivery with our Test Video Review service

Edit your videos to be polished and professional

Publish your course

Upload your videos and content onto Udemy

Create an optimized course landing page that will make your course more searchable for learners on Udemy and on external search engines

Review the instructor verification process and the course approval process

Promote your course and more! Thank you to these Udemy instructors for sharing their best practices: Ready to embark on your instructor journey? Let's get started!

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Free Online Course Creation Tutorial - How to Create an Online Course: The Official Udemy Course

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Are you excited about creating a course with Udemy, but not sure where to get started? Do you want to make sure the course you create will appeal to students? Then you're in the right place.

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Ayuda para la formación y la obtención de Certificados

En colaboración con INROADS, Google ofrece 35,000 becas para cursar la formación y obtener un Certificado Profesional de Google. Además, las personas que completen estos certificados podrán enviar luego su CV a empresas líderes, para potenciales oportunidades de trabajo.

Más información

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Ayudamos a miles de personas en México a encontrar trabajo, progresar en sus carreras profesionales o hacer crecer sus negocios. Estamos viviendo nuevos tiempos, y te acompañamos con nuevas herramientas, guías, consejos y cursos para ayudarte a seguir creciendo.

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KM Component 12: Knowledge Management Methodologies

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KM Component 12: Knowledge Management Methodologies

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Methodologies are policies, rules, techniques, and procedures that prescribe how work is to be performed and provide proven ways to do it successfully.

Once a process has been used successfully to accomplish a desired result, it an be codified to allow it to be repeated. In some cases, reusing the process is so beneficial that it is becomes a prescribed policy which must be followed. Policies define what tasks must be followed in specific situations, and procedures provide the details on how these tasks are to be performed. In other cases, useful processes are included in a collection of standard methods and templates that are provided to all those who perform similar work.

Rules define specific actions that are required, allowed, and not allowed in the context of implementing a process. Rules of thumb are insights about how to accomplish a task based on practical experience.

Techniques are methods which have been found to work to elicit information, perform analysis, solve problems, and take action in a particular area of practice.

An extensive repository of methodologies, collected both from internal and external sources, can provide users with process tools to help them do their jobs more effectively. Examples of methodologies include:

16 KM Methodologies

Of special interest are methodologies for KM. The field of knowledge management has a wide variety of techniques which can be used by practitioners.

Using the knowledge management techniques listed below allows knowledge managers to offer practical ways of assisting others in the organization to take advantage of their knowledge. Following are 16 examples of KM methodologies:

After Action Review is a tool pioneered by the US army and now widely used in a range of organizations to capture lessons learned both during and after an activity or project. After Action Review (AAR) is a structured review or debrief process for analyzing what happened, why it happened, and how it can be done better by the participants and those responsible for the project or event. After Action Reviews are now widely used to capture lessons learned both during and after an activity or project. After Action Review is an assessment conducted after a project or major activity that allows employees and leaders to discover (learn) what happened and why. It may be thought of as a professional discussion of an event that enables employees to understand why things happened during the progression of the process and to learn from that experience.

Checklist is a job aid used to reduce failure by compensating for potential limits of human memory and attention. It helps to ensure consistency and completeness in carrying out a task.

Delphi Method is a group decision process about the likelihood that certain events will occur. It is a method for structuring a group communication process so that the process is effective in allowing a group of individuals, as a whole, to deal with a complex problem.

Knowledge Harvesting is a tool used to capture the knowledge of experts and make it available to others. Knowledge Harvesting converts expertise into knowledge assets. The organization can be protected from expensive personnel losses and defections, and from the unavailability of expertise when and where needed. A Retention Interview can be used for this.

Knowledge Modeling is a process of creating a computer-interpretable model of knowledge or standard specifications about a kind of process, facility, or product. It is a cross-disciplinary approach to capture and model knowledge into a reusable format for purpose of preserving, improving, sharing, substituting, aggregating and reapplying it.

Mind Maps were developed by Tony Buzan as a way of helping students make notes that used only key words and images. They are much quicker to make, and because of their visual quality much easier to remember and review. The non-linear nature of mind maps makes it easy to link and cross-reference different elements of the map.

Retrospect is a structured and facilitated knowledge capture meeting at the end of a project, involving as many of the project team as possible. It is a quick and effective way of capturing knowledge before a team disbands. If a member from the next team to undertake a similar business challenge participates in the discussion, a retrospect for one team can serve as a peer assist for the next one.

Ritual Dissent is a workshop method designed to test and enhance proposals, stories, or ideas by subjecting them to dissent (challenge) or assent (positive alternatives). It is a forced listening technique, not a dialogue or discourse.

Sensemaking is a process of creating situational awareness and understanding in situations of high complexity or uncertainty in order to make decisions. It is a motivated, continuous effort to understand connections (which can be among people, places, and events) in order to anticipate their trajectories and act effectively.

World Café is an intentional way to create a living network of conversation around questions that matter. It is a creative process for leading collaborative dialogue, sharing knowledge, and creating possibilities for action in groups of all sizes.

For other methodologies, see KM Method Cards by Patrick Lambe.

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KM Component 12: Knowledge Management Methodologies

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Methodologies are policies, rules, techniques, and procedures that prescribe how work is to be performed and provide proven ways to do it successfully. Once a process has been used successfully to accomplish a desired result, it an be codified to allow it to be repeated.

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Save the date! Featured! February 24 LXD Meet Up #10 (Free) Details & Tickets Featured! June 14 - June 17 LXDCON′22 Hybrid Edition Details & Tickets Join us! Join one of the main LXD events we organise. There are international conferences, local meetups and different trainings. Request a custom tra…

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I recently worked my way through Edmund Morris's first two Teddy Roosevelt biographies, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Rex. Roosevelt wasn't without flaws, but he was by nearly all accounts fascinating and intellectually voracious. He published his first book, The Naval War of 1812, at 23 and continued to write on everything from conservation to politics and biography. According to Morris, at certain periods he was rumored to read a book a day, and all this reading and writing arguably made him both charismatic and uniquely equipped to engage the host of topics he did as president: national conservation efforts, naval expansion, trust regulation, and a variety of others.

Roosevelt was what we might call a "lifetime learner." Learning became, for him, a mode of personal enjoyment and a path to professional success. It's a habit many of us would like to emulate. The Economist recently argued that with all the disruptions in the modern economy, particularly technology, ongoing skill acquisition is critical to persistent professional relevance. Formal education levels are regularly linked to higher earnings and lower unemployment. And apart from its utility, learning is fun. It's a joy to engage a new topic. Having an array of interesting topics at your disposal when speaking to colleagues or friends can boost your confidence. And it's fulfilling to finally understand a difficult new subject.

But this type of continuous and persistent learning isn't merely a decision. It must become a habit. And as such, it requires careful cultivation.

First, developing a learning habit requires you to articulate the outcomes you'd like to achieve. Would you like to reinvigorate your conversations and intellectual activity by reading a host of new topics? Are you looking to master a specific subject? Would you like to make sure you're up-to-date on one or two topics outside your day-to-day work? In my own life, I like to maintain a reading program that exposes me to a variety of subjects and genres with the goal of general intellectual exploration, while also digging more deeply into a few areas, including education, foreign policy, and leadership. Picking one or two outcomes will allow you to set achievable goals to make the habit stick.

Based on those choices, set realistic goals. Like many people, each year, I set a series of goals for myself. These take the form of objectives I'd like to achieve over the course of the year (e.g., read 24 books in 2017) and daily or weekly habits I need to cultivate in accordance with those goals (e.g., read for more than 20 minutes five days per week). For me, long-term goals are tracked in a planner. Daily or weekly habits I monitor via an app called momentum, which allows me to quickly and simply enter completion of my habits on a daily basis and monitor adherence. These goals turn a vague desire to improve learning into a concrete set of actions.

With goals in hand, develop a learning community. I have a bimonthly book group that helps keep me on track for my reading goals and makes achieving them more fun. Similarly, many of my writer friends join writing groups where members read and edit each other's work. For more specific goals, join an organization focused on the topics you'd like to learn - a foreign policy discussion group that meets monthly or a woodworking group that gathers regularly to trade notes. You might even consider a formal class or degree program to add depth to your exploration of a topic and the type of commitment that is inherently structured. These communities increase commitment and make learning more fun.

To focus on your objectives, ditch the distractions. Learning is fun, but it is also hard work. It's so extraordinarily well documented as to be almost a truism at this point, but multitasking and particularly technology (e.g., cell phones, email) can make the deep concentration needed for real learning difficult or impossible. Set aside dedicated time for learning and minimize interruptions. When you read, find a quiet place, and leave your phone behind. If you're taking a class or participating in a reading group, take handwritten notes, which improve retention and understanding, and leave laptops, mobiles devices, and other disrupting technologies in your car or bag far out of reach. And apart from physically eliminating distractions, consider training your mind to deal with them. I've found a pleasant impact of regular meditation, for example, has been an improvement in my intellectual focus which has helped my attentiveness in lectures and ability to read difficult books.

Finally, where appropriate, use technology to supplement learning. While technology can be a distraction, it can also be used to dramatically aid a learning regimen. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) allow remote students to participate in community and learn from some of the world's most brilliant people with the added commitment of class participation. Podcasts, audiobooks, e-readers, and other tools make it possible to have a book on hand almost any time. I've found, for example, that by using audiobooks in what I think of as "ambient moments" - commuting or running, for example - I can nearly double the books I read in a year. Good podcasts or iTunes U courses can similarly deliver learning on the go. Combine these tools with apps that track your habits, and technology can be an essential component of a learning routine.

We're all born with a natural curiosity. We want to learn. But the demands of work and personal life often diminish our time and will to engage that natural curiosity. Developing specific learning habits - consciously established and conscientiously cultivated - can be a route to both continued professional relevance and deep personal happiness. Maybe Roosevelt had it right: a lifetime of learning can be a success in itself.

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I recently worked my way through Edmund Morris's first two Teddy Roosevelt biographies, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Rex . Roosevelt wasn't without flaws, but he was by nearly all accounts fascinating and intellectually voracious. He published his first book, The Naval War of 1812 , at 23 and continued to write on everything from conservation to politics and biography.

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SpatialChat | Collaborative online workspace

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Virtual space platform to help remote teams collaborate.

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Aprende a crear y optimizar campañas de marketing online. Aumenta el éxito empresarial liderando áreas como SEO, SEM, email marketing, social media y más.

Aprende a crear páginas web. Domina los lenguajes de desarrollo y programación más populares como HTML, CSS, Angular, JavaScript y a gestionar su contenido y herramientas.

Aprende a crear aplicaciones para móviles. Programa Apps usando Java para Android y Swift para iOS. Crea juegos, aplicaciones con uso de GPS y más

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Cursos online de tecnología digital y negocios | Next U

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Aprende a crear y optimizar campañas de marketing online. Aumenta el éxito empresarial liderando áreas como SEO, SEM, email marketing, social media y más. Aprende a crear páginas web. Domina los lenguajes de desarrollo y programación más populares como HTML, CSS, Angular, JavaScript y a gestionar su contenido y herramientas.

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London, England, UK This is a fortnightly topical podcast show for L&D professionals. Each episode David James will be discussing and debating topics affecting the profession today, alongside various guests. As well as being the Chief Learning Strategist at Looop, David is a prominent writer and speaker on topics around modern and digital L&D as well as an active member of the CIPD L&D Advisory Board. Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 42 min Since Jun 2019 looop.co/podcast
Facebook 32 ⋅ Twitter 3.3K

London, England, UK The L&D community for training professionals. Frequency 2 episodes / week , Average Episode Length 21 min Since Apr 2017 anchor.fm/the-tj-podcast
Facebook 2.5K ⋅ Twitter 19.6K

Raleigh, North Carolina, US The Business of Learning focuses on the intersection of business performance and human capital development. Our guests are experts and innovators in organizational learning and development, and we highlight original research on trends and best practices in corporate training. Frequency 1 episode / month , Average Episode Length 33 min Since Mar 2018 trainingindustry.com/trainin..
Facebook 4.6K ⋅ Twitter 14.7K

Listen to the Learning While Working podcast to hear how learning and development is transforming. The episodes are interviews with leading thinkers in learning. Common themes on the podcast include trends in eLearning and digital learning, performance-driven instructional and learning design, and learning data. Each podcast is packed with ideas, tips, and insights about how to make learning at work succeed. Frequency 1 episode / month , Average Episode Length 26 min Since Oct 2016 sproutlabs.com.au/learning-w..
Facebook 154 ⋅ Twitter 2.1K

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Learning Uncut is about real conversations around real learning solutions and real experiences with real advice from real people. We want to unpack the strategy and how-to's of creating great learning solutions, frameworks and teams. Our podcasts are professional but not so edited and polished that they lose their authenticity. We want our audience to hear real people having real conversations and sharing real examples and advice. Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 42 min Since Jun 2018 learninguncut.libsyn.com
Twitter 4.8K

The Learning Experience Leader Podcast is a project devoted to design, leadership, and the psychology of learning. The aim of the show is to help you expand your perspective of learning design through conversations with innovative professionals and scholars across the world. Frequency 2 episodes / month , Average Episode Length 44 min soundcloud.com/lxleader

Ottawa, Canada A weekly eLearning podcast designed to help peers create better eLearning content and learner experiences. Brought to you by Brent Schlenker and Chris Van Wingerden who talk weekly about L&D, specifically instructional design. Frequency 2 episodes / month , Average Episode Length 47 min Since Feb 2018 Also in E-learning Podcasts instructional-designers-in-o..
Facebook 196 ⋅ Twitter 1.3K

Bangalore, Karnataka, India Stars of Learning, features interviews from eminent industry leaders, management experts, entrepreneurs, educator and many more who has vast experience and in-depth knowledge on the L&D topic. The host, Jyothi G discuss challenges, solutions, latest trends, tools & technology, leadership and their journey in the learning. Frequency 2 episodes / month , Average Episode Length 40 min Since Apr 2019 prajvitaknowledge.com/podcast-1
Facebook 209 ⋅ Twitter 51

Ontario, Canada A podcast for Modern Learning and Development. We discuss trends in content, learning systems, and emerging technologies. We'll also explore what needs are out there for organizations, from large corporate enterprises to small businesses. Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 29 min Since Mar 2020 anchor.fm/willtheylearn
Facebook 342 ⋅ Twitter 303

Cleveland, Ohio, US The BLOC (Building Learning and Organizational Culture) Podcast is a learning and development podcast where Heidi Kirby talks to professionals in the field who are passionate about finding creative, innovative ways to bring learning front and center at their organizations and beyond. Frequency 2 episodes / month , Average Episode Length 25 min Since Jul 2020 feeds.buzzsprout.com/1206305
Twitter 408

Austin, Texas, US The Learning Xchange focuses on the ever-changing landscape of online learning and talent management. It is a place where L&D and HR practitioners and leaders can enjoy an 'Xchange' of ideas, explore innovations in learning, and gain insights from others who share the same profession on how we can improve and influence the future of learning and development. Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 16 min Since Sep 2020 feeds.buzzsprout.com/1320157
Twitter 4.9K

Brighton, England, UK What are the significant innovations shaping the future of learning? How is digital technology and scientific discovery changing the way we learn, train, teach and educate? Join John Helmer in conversation with the people who are visioning and actively creating that future. Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 45 min Since Aug 2019 learninghack.libsyn.com
Twitter 5.8K

East Brunswick, New Jersey, US Vanessa Alzate, CEO of Anchored Training, is passionate about the eLearning and development field. With over 10 years of experience, she has seen it all. Vanessa wants to share what she has learned as she transitioned from corporate, to freelance and now CEO of her own company, to help you succeed in your L&D career. Vanessa speaks the truth when it comes to the struggles and achievements. Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 22 min Since Nov 2020 directory.libsyn.com/shows/v..
Facebook 213 ⋅ Twitter 154

London, England, UK Go1 helps you get better at learning and development. Our fortnightly podcast with learning veteran, Ollie Browning, debates the big challenges in L&D. Ollie and his guests share tactics and stories that you can apply to your own professional journey or rethink some of the things you're already doing. Ollie has over 20 years of experience in the L&D industry working with clients developing organizational performance through learning transformation. Frequency 3 episodes / month , Average Episode Length 41 min Since Dec 2020 go1learning.libsyn.com
Facebook 1.7K ⋅ Twitter 187

Atlanta, Georgia, US The Future of Learning and Development Podcast interviews learning and development executives and global thought leaders on what L&D will look like in the future. The podcast also explores how to effectively lead and learn in today's modern age of work. Frequency 1 episode / month , Average Episode Length 39 min Since Mar 2020 directory.libsyn.com/shows/v..
Facebook 635 ⋅ Twitter 1.9K

San Diego, California, US Learning on the Job is a Procore Learning & Development Podcast. Frequency 1 episode / month , Average Episode Length 37 min Since Mar 2019 learningonthejob.simplecast.com
Twitter 415

Dublin, Ireland Host interviews leaders in learning about their experience first-hand in the world of learning and development helping people and organizations reach their potential. Organizations' learning programs are now major contributors to business success, helping them attract and retain top talent, upskill and reskill, and adapt to the inevitable changes the future will bring. In this podcast, we speak to leaders in the learning and development industry about the learning landscape. Frequency 2 episodes / month , Average Episode Length 16 min Since Oct 2020 learn-to-grow-podcast.captiv..
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UK Welcome to The Learning Effect - Learning Reinvented Podcast brought to you by the team at The Learning Effect. This podcast is based around all things learning, but with a difference. We've designed the podcast to provoke conversation and help drive change in the world of learning. We won't be speaking with the usual suspects, instead will be speaking with innovative players in the learning space, as well as those who are new to it. Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 31 min thelearningeffect.podbean.com

New York, US Your Brain On is a podcast by Learning and Development professionals for Learning and Development professionals. Every day, Salience Learning combines the science of learning with expertise in the business of science to help solve the biopharma industry's most complex business challenges. Listen as hosts Karen Foster and Krista Gerhard discuss the latest in cognitive science and learning strategies as they relate to the ever-evolving healthcare industry. Frequency 4 episodes / quarter , Average Episode Length 15 min Since Apr 2020 Also in Cognitive Science Podcasts saliencelearning.com/insights
Twitter 447

Mississauga, Ontario, Canada This program uses a learning and development lens to look at the rest of the world. Connecting dots until the picture makes sense. Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 65 min Since Feb 2020 mosby.ca/blog
Twitter 109

London, England, UK The Women Talking About Learning Podcast is, well, women talking about learning and development. Underrepresented in senior roles in the learning function, this podcast amplifies women's voices talking about all things learning and development related. Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 44 min Since Oct 2020 womentalkaboutlearning.podbe..
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Austin, Texas, US Let's take the guesswork out of becoming an L&D professional. Are you looking to get into Learning and Development and don't quite know where to start? I went from knowing nothing about training to becoming a Director of Training three times over for companies totaling 5,000 employees, and I'm here to show you how to grow quickly in your learning career. Each week, I interview thought leaders, learning program designers and developers, and high-level learning executives to bring you everything you need to know to be successful in the world of L&D. Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 40 min Since Nov 2020 theovernighttrainer.podbean.com

Learn more, and design for, The 5 Moments of Learning Need with your co-hosts Bob Mosher and Dr. Conrad Gottfredson. This series will help you to better understand the theory and best practices behind this powerful methodology. Frequency 1 episode / month , Average Episode Length 29 min performancematters.podbean.com

Edinburgh, Scotland, UK The Mind Tools L&D Podcast is a must-listen for anyone involved in Learning and Development or Human Resources. The weekly show features regular appearances from the Mind Tools team plus special guests to get right to the heart of issues affecting the L&D and HR communities. From learning needs analysis and evidence-based practice through to the impact of technology on work and hot topics at industry conferences, you'll get critical insights into the world of work, performance, and learning. Frequency 1 episode / week , Average Episode Length 35 min Since May 2016 emeraldworks.com/resources/p..
Twitter 52

Saint Albans, England, UK This HR L&D Podcast is focused on helping HR and learning and development professionals get the best out of their workforce and improve business performance. Frequency 2 episodes / month , Average Episode Length 50 min Since Oct 2018 Also in HR Podcasts, Payroll Podcasts, UK HR Podcasts jgarecruitment.com/the-hr-ld..
Facebook 2.9K ⋅ Twitter 3.1K

Hagerstown, Maryland, US Listen to Powered by Learning, a podcast produced by d'Vinci Interactive, to learn best practices for designing, developing, delivering, tracking, and evaluating your learning and performance improvement programs. Hear learning and development leaders discuss the latest approaches to creating learning experiences that engage learners and achieve improved performance for individuals and organizations. Frequency 1 episode / month , Average Episode Length 28 min Since May 2020 feeds.buzzsprout.com/925729
Facebook 209 ⋅ Twitter 275

Madrid, Spain A series of overlong discussions between Learning & Development professionals about L&D stuff. Frequency 2 episodes / quarter , Average Episode Length 42 min Since Jan 2015 trainertools.podbean.com

Leeds, England, UK Two learning professionals having a chat about all things Learning and Development. Frequency 3 episodes / quarter , Average Episode Length 36 min Since Dec 2019 anchor.fm/anotherldpodcast
Twitter 1K

Auckland, New Zealand Learning as we know it is changing. In order to keep up, organizations are rapidly making changes to their learning and development teams. I'm interviewing the world's top L&D leaders to bring you their insight into how this will look, and addressing some of the tough questions L&D are facing at this time. Frequency 1 episode / quarter , Average Episode Length 37 min Since Jun 2020 shows.acast.com/learning-30-..
Facebook 978 ⋅ Twitter 1.5K

Welcome to the learning and development podcast that focuses on the learning and delivery of training within whatever business you are in. We will be starting from the ground up, from basic delivery methods to new ideas. Frequency 1 episode / quarter , Average Episode Length 20 min Since Apr 2020 anchor.fm/learninganddevelop..

Washington, District of Columbia, US Research shows that peer to peer learning is one of the most common ways to learn something new and grow your skills. With each episode, imagine that you're in a lounge with learning and development professionals. All are welcome in this virtual lounge, those who are in the field and those who are simply interested in learning about it! I'm your host, an elementary teacher turned trainer and learning and development professional who has a graduate degree in adult learning. Frequency 2 episodes / month , Average Episode Length 28 min Since Apr 2020 yolandafraction.com/podcast
Twitter 65

England, UK Talking all things leadership, coaching and challenging the status quo to make Learning and Development accessible to everyone. The podcast is run by Alex Firmin a Leadership Consultant with his own Consultancy - Promethean and Louisa Rodriguez, Facilitator, Coach and Training Manager. They both share a passion for Endurance Running and Learning and Development. Frequency 10 episodes / year , Average Episode Length 45 min Since May 2020 anchor.fm/talklandd

UK Punit Jansari from JAAN Learning and Development invites guests to SHARE their knowledge and skills for all to learn and inspire continuous development. Frequency 5 episodes / year , Average Episode Length 22 min Since May 2020 jaanlandd.sounder.fm
Facebook 395 ⋅ Twitter 945

Corvallis, Oregon, US LXD Talks is the weekly learning experience design podcast with Alex Salas and Tristia Hennessey. Learn about the various disciplines contributing to what is known as LXD. Learn ways you can prepare for a career in learning and development (L&D). Check out our discussions with recognized speakers in instructional design, UX, web design, eLearning development, learning facilitation, and more. Frequency 17 episodes / year , Average Episode Length 36 min Since Jul 2020 anchor.fm/lxd-talks
Twitter 58

Hi there! We are Cecilia and Jhon! Join us on this exciting journey as we explore the fascinating world of Learning & Development. Frequency 2 episodes / year , Average Episode Length 13 min Since Dec 2020 anchor.fm/driven-by-ld

Albany, New York, US Spearheaded by noted learning scientist and consultant, Will Thalheimer and the President of The Thiagi Group, Matthew Richter, Truth in Learning explores all aspects of the Learning and Development field- validated tools and resources for better training, debunked learning models, controversies in the industry, and so much more. Matthew and Will are often joined by Thiagi and a wealth of other experts as they dive deeply into what makes training and development more effective and beneficial for its end-users, stakeholders, and practitioners. Frequency 2 episodes / year , Average Episode Length 71 min Since Sep 2019 truthinlearning.com

Manchester, England, UK A podcast where host Danny Seals speak with some of the best people in the industry to discuss what shapes them and their thoughts, from learning and development, experience design, product/service design right through to marketing, comms and corp culture. Since May 2018 mindchimp.podbean.com
Twitter 1.6K

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US The L&D Forecast is a podcast about Learning & Development, corporate training, performance, people, and the future. Frequency 2 episodes / year , Average Episode Length 29 min Since Oct 2019 anchor.fm/emily-sheetz

Sarasota, Florida, US The Learning and Development Stories podcast is an interview show in which we pick the brains of L&D experts and individuals who have adopted a learning mindset to innovate in their own career. Hear their stories. Take action based on recommended tactics. Frequency 3 episodes / year , Average Episode Length 36 min Since Sep 2017 experientialcommunications.c..
Facebook 85

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia An L&D podcast deep-diving into the tools, concepts and terminology of workplace learning. Frequency 1 episode / year , Average Episode Length 41 min Since Jan 2020 anchor.fm/click-next-to-cont..
Twitter 320

San Antonio, Texas, US This podcast exists is to help business leaders, trainers, and teachers level up their skills in learning and development in order to effectively train and equip their learning participants by discussing training tools, concepts, trends, and emerging technologies, such as microlearning, adaptive learning, outcome-driven training, performance enablement, and more. Frequency 5 episodes / year , Average Episode Length 17 min Since Dec 2019 podcast.conveyour.com/episodes
Twitter 4

Nigeria A Podcast on Learning & Development for young professionals to learn and connect with ground breaking and emancipating thoughts, stories and lessons from refined minds, thought-leaders and professionals. Frequency 1 episode / year , Average Episode Length 14 min Since Jul 2020 anchor.fm/emmanuelegenti
Facebook 539 ⋅ Twitter 633

Denver, Colorado, US I'm an instructional designer and master's student in learning & development just documenting the journey. In this podcast, I'll share what I'm learning, learn more from others, and spread the word about this well-paying, creative field that has a relatively low barrier to entry. Frequency 1 episode / year Since Oct 2020 anchor.fm/michael-harris807
Twitter 133

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Top 45 Learning and Development (L&D) Podcasts in 2021

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London, England, UK This is a fortnightly topical podcast show for L&D professionals. Each episode David James will be discussing and debating topics affecting the profession today, alongside various guests. As well as being the Chief Learning Strategist at Looop, David is a prominent writer and speaker on topics around modern and digital L&D as well as an active member of the CIPD L&D Advisory Board.

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The Importance of Trust in Knowledge Sharing

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The Importance of Trust in Knowledge Sharing

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How does the presence, or absence, of trust affect knowledge sharing and the effectiveness of a knowledge management program?

People may be afraid that if they share knowledge, people they don't trust will misuse it or use it without attribution. Or that if they ask for help, they will be criticized as ignorant or unable to do their job. And they may think that their leaders don't trust them, and thus might be afraid of being told to stop wasting their time.
Their concerns include:

Can I trust the answers and advice provided by others?

Can I open up and be candid?

Can I share information without being embarrassed?

Can I ask a question without appearing ignorant?

Can I trust people not to misuse the content I share?

Can I trust people to give me credit for information I provide?

I'm worried about giving the wrong answer to a question.

I'm reluctant to share information that may not be the very best.

I'm worried about being criticized, blamed, or ridiculed.

I'm afraid that I might be perceived as wasting my time by participating in an enterprise social network (ESN).

These concerns ay prevent them from asking for help in the open, from sharing information, or from spending time participating in communities and ESNs.
Leaders may be concerned about the following:

Can I trust people to behave properly? I don't want to enable flame wars, abuse, bullying, harassment, political or religious discussions, commerce for personal benefit, solicitation, or anything else that is inappropriate for our work environment.

Can I trust that people won't waste their time in an ESN? I don't want to encourage idle chatter, irrelevant conversations, or pointless sharing of personal photos, videos, music, or other social media content.

Can I trust that the organization's proprietary information will not be shared improperly? I don't want to make it easy for people to leak confidential content, either intentionally or accidentally.

Despite these concerns, leaders should trust people to do no harm. It doesn't mean that people won't do harm. They may do it intentionally or unintentionally, but if they do it in such a way that you can see it, then you can counsel them and intervene.

If you don't trust people, why did you hire them? People are working for your organization. You hired them. You entrust them with the work that they're doing. You should trust them to use good sense also when it comes to sharing information.
Leaders, you should:

Trust people, unless they give you reason not to do so.

Earn the trust of others and respect the trust they give to you.

Proclaim publicly: I will insist on trust, truth, and transparency in all dealings - earning and respecting the trust of others, communicating truthfully and openly, and demonstrating and expecting accountability.

5 Ways to Build Trust

Facilitate conversations between people. Make time in meetings and calls for people to get to know one another.

Encourage frequent storytelling by leaders and knowledge workers. Have them tell their personal stories to let others know who they are and allow others to relate.

Schedule regular face-to-face meetings. You need to meet in person to establish trust between team members.

Support communities of practice. People don't want to share with anyone unless they have an existing, trusting relationship with them. But once outsiders join and contribute in a community, they become trusted, and the original concern is reduced or eliminated. And the expertise and dependability of other members becomes clear over time.

Implement an ESN with open groups, and lead by example by being active in it. Connecting people, giving them a voice, and allowing them to express their individual personalities increases trust and enables better collaboration.

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The Importance of Trust in Knowledge Sharing

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How does the presence, or absence, of trust affect knowledge sharing and the effectiveness of a knowledge management program? People may be afraid that if they share knowledge, people they don't trust will misuse it or use it without attribution. Or that if they ask for help, they will be criticized as ignorant or unable to do their job.

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Aprender no es fácil. Motivante, sí. Retador, también. Pero fácil, no. No si aprendemos de verdad, que no es lo mismo que estudiar, ni siquiera leer. Que, por supuesto, con uno y otro se aprende, pero no son aprendizaje por sí mismos, porque este sucede cuando le ponemos intención.

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Aprende a aprender para la era digital. Porque aprender ya no significa memorizar, sino aplicar lo que sabes. Las empresas buscan"aprendelotodos.

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Make your super powers grow by learning

It's been a year since I started working on an exciting project that ambitioned to disrupt the world of learning. Easier said than done, of course. But this journey and all the exploration our team have done around learning led to some beautiful findings and I wanted to share the ones that inspired me the most.

This compilation of learnings combine insights from formal and informal research studies and also some personal thoughts on my particular learning journey.

After a survey we foun out that the great majority of people consider themselves lifelong learners. Even if they hadn't learnt something intentionally for quite a while, just the willingness and the appreciation of learning made them consider themselves lifelong learners. Sounds very promising but for our product to be successful we needed learning to be effective and not only aspirational. So there was still a lot to be discovered in terms of how we could turn those learning admirers into learning practitioners through an enjoyable experience.

Apparently human beings are one of the few species that keep their willingness to play and their curiosity after reaching adulthood. And, spoiler alert, that has a lot to do with effective learning.

But let's start from the beginning. We decided to map users' learning moments. We wanted to understand what was perceived as learning and where and when it happened the most. We set some guerrilla diaries for that purpose and immediately fell in love with some of the insights. From 8 a.m to 11 p.m. there was no moment of the day in which no one learnt nothing. Learning could have many sources and could be something you caught from a tv series, or even a twit, or something more formal, like a book or a training course. Meetings at work were the main trigger for learning something - Someone would just say something you don't know and you'd go check what she was talking about, and there you go: learning. - When we asked people with kids though, the biggest trigger was their kids' questions - How long does a whale live? and there you go, exploration and learning not to leave your kids' curiosity unsatisfied. -

So we know learning can come from many sources, but we found out that it will be more effective if user is really convinced of the need of that learning. It's also more effective when learner can play an active part on it. If user can interact, exercise and somehow evaluate their progress then magic happens. Let me explain this. When we see we succeeded in learning because we achieved something we were not capable of before, we generate dopamine. Dopamine makes us feel very good, and therefore it's quite addictive. If we want users to really engage with their process of learning we should enable a way for them perceive they are achieving their goals.

Time is crucial, also. Not only because our brain has limited attention but also because we generate some barriers before committing to learn something, specially if we foresee it's going to take a big piece of our precious time. Splitting knowledge into microlearnings is a good way to avoid those commitment barriers and earn a place in our users' brain and heart.

And speaking about heart. We are sensitive human beings and if we connect emotionally with a piece of knowledge we will be more likely to really acquire it. Components like humor, a friendly face, or a known and admired professor will help create this emotional bond.

And for all aspirational lifelong learners who don't see the moment of becoming practitioners, this insight is for you: Our learning capacity is flexible, the more you learn, the more capable of learning new things you are. So don't be lazy, don't be shy, start exploring that thing you always wanted to learn. Split it into small bites, fix achievable goals, and go for it! It's really worth it.

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It's been a year since I started working on an exciting project that ambitioned to disrupt the world of learning. Easier said than done, of course. But this journey and all the exploration our team have done around learning led to some beautiful findings and I wanted to share the ones that inspired me the most.

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Cómo crear un centro de formación online

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Cómo crear un centro de formación online

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En la actualidad, conceptos que hasta hace años nos parecían incluso extraños como la digitalización, el bigdata y el teletrabajo van cobrando cada vez más fuerza. De hecho, recientemente el Banco de España en un informe aseguraba que hasta el 30% de las profesiones existentes en el mundo se podían desarrollar mediante la modalidad de teletrabajo. Si esto es cierto, ¿Cómo no optar a estas alturas por la formación online o formación e-learning?

Dar el paso a ser un centro de formación online no debe por qué ser una tarea complicada. Ni suponer quebraderos de cabeza para la organización: con una buena gestión y planificación, se puede convertir cualquier escuela física en una academia o centro de formación online.

10 pautas esenciales para crear un centro de formación online

Plataforma de teleformación

Contenidos interactivos

Contenidos dinámicos y atractivos

Contenido multimedia

Aulas virtuales

Videoconferencias

Chats y foros

Los chats y/o foros de las plataformas de teleformación son también otro de los elementos imprescindibles en un centro de formación online. Los chats y foros permiten compartir dudas -el equivalente a "las preguntas de clase" físicas-, que el profesor pueda ofrecer una información complementaria de interés para los alumnos o que éstos puedan plantear dudas grupales que el centro o el profesor puedan resolver. También un apartado donde el centro de formación trasladar alguna noticia de interés o una información corporativa del centro importante.

Seguridad online

Trabajos en grupo

Estrategia de marketing online

Es importante recalcar la importancia que el marketing online ha adquirido con el paso del tiempo y también la importancia que va a tener para estos centros de formación online. Todo proyecto de e-learning debe tener una estrategia para la captación del alumnado pero también para trabajar la imagen de marca.

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Cómo crear un centro de formación online - eLearning Actual

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En la actualidad, conceptos que hasta hace años nos parecían incluso extraños como la digitalización, el bigdata y el teletrabajo van cobrando cada vez más fuerza. De hecho, recientemente el Banco de España en un informe aseguraba que hasta el 30% de las profesiones existentes en el mundo se podían desarrollar mediante la modalidad de teletrabajo.

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Drive Proactive Training with Upskilling & Reskilling Focus

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Drive Proactive Training with Upskilling & Reskilling Focus

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Online training is often the product of a conversation between a manager or executive and an L&D professional that starts, "We need training on ..."

It's time for L&D to take the initiative in driving proactive training development. Rather than wait for a problem to surface and then throw some training at it in an attempt to solve the problem-which might not even be solvable with training-L&D can anticipate needs and fill them before they create problems.

This is a roundabout way of suggesting that L&D leaders embrace the trendy enthusiasm for upskilling and reskilling while taking the lead in figuring out which skills their organization will need in six months, a year, or five years.

L&D departments worldwide are focusing on upskilling and reskilling initiatives within their organizations, according to the LinkedIn Learning 2021 Workplace Learning Report . This drive accelerated when COVID-19 shutdowns forced thousands of workers to quickly pivot to remote work-but the need extends far beyond brushing up on virtual training and collaboration skills.

Reskilling and upskilling are inherently proactive, as they prepare learners to take on new roles or apply new skills in their existing roles:

Reskilling a worker teaches them new skills that may prepare them to take on new responsibilities or move up or laterally into a different role.

Upskilling a worker enables them to adjust to changes in their job role, as new technologies are used, automation changes their job, or processes shift for other reasons.

An organization with a strong learning culture that supports proactive training is one that is future-proofing its workforce and preparing the flexibility to adapt to future changes, whether related to a pandemic-or stemming from demographic changes, automation and emerging technology, regulatory changes, or changing employee expectations.

Ongoing upskilling and reskilling programs enable organizations to invest in the future of their workers, in addition to anticipating and preventing knowledge gaps. This training can develop soft skills and prepare high performers to take on leadership roles as their careers evolve. In fact, leadership and management training closely followed upskilling and reskilling as an area of focus for L&D leaders in the LinkedIn report.

Upskilling and reskilling support internal job mobility

The 2019 Deloitte Human Capital Trends report highlighted the need for organizations to look inward to fill open jobs and fuel growth. The 2021 Deloitte report goes even farther, pointing to ways that the COVID-19 crisis showcased workers' ability and willingness to apply their creativity and potential to helping their organizations not just weather the crisis but thrive.

The COVID-driven need to hire and promote from within dovetails with workers' eagerness to explore non-linear career paths and new challenges. This focus on reskilling and upskilling existing employees empowers both organizations and their workers to develop "the latent potential within the workforce-and the value they can create when their potential is understood and harnessed," according to the 2021 Deloitte report.

Upskilling and reskilling employees shows them a career path within the organization and sends the message that the company believes in them and their future potential. Organizations with greater internal mobility and robust opportunities for learning experience significantly lower employee turnover and double the longevity among employees, which benefits organizations in myriad ways. Investing in upskilling and reskilling workers is a way to retain and motivate those employees as well as prepare for the organization's innovative future.

Determining which skills will be needed by an organization and how best to proactively meet that need will depend on the organization. But two broad areas of focus crop up again and again in workplace learning research: Preparing for automation and the threat of a leadership gap as current leaders retire. These may offer guidance to learning leaders looking to launch an upskilling or reskilling initiative.

Train to prepare for automation

The Future of Jobs 2020 report, released in October by the World Economic Forum, found that automation is accelerating partly as a result of changes forced by COVID-19. By 2025, the Forum expects "a new division of labor between humans and machines will disrupt 85 million jobs globally." The disruption will affect large and small businesses across 15 industries, the report forecasts. While it's expected that 85 million jobs will be displaced by automation, 97 million new roles are expected to emerge.

Upskilling and reskilling efforts might benefit from studying on how automation is already affecting an organization or industry. But the skills needed to prepare organizations and workforces for the impacts of automation are broad and not necessarily industry-specific; in fact, the upskilling needed to adjust to technology and automation reprises skills that proved useful during the pandemic: critical thinking, problem-solving, active learning, stress tolerance, flexibility.

Proactively head off a looming leadership gap

According to Pew Research Center, the COVID-19 crisis accelerated another trend: the retirement of Baby Boomers. These experienced employees, now mostly in their 60s and 70s, may leave an experience and leadership gap that younger generations are eager to fill.

Learning leaders, working with company leadership, can identify potential future leaders and ensure they get necessary reskilling training-along with leadership-development coaching and mentoring.

Skills to build include strategic planning, ideally with opportunities for potential leaders to participate in key projects while learning. Future leaders also need opportunities to learn and practice people management skills.

The need for hands-on practice to support leadership skills training underscores why transition coaching ideally involves not only the up-and-coming leaders but also veteran leaders, as well as other stakeholders. L&D leaders cannot shoulder this responsibility alone but can play a critical role in getting the process started and ensuring that appropriate and effective training materials are available.

Proactive upskilling and reskilling benefits the L&D team, as well as the rest of your organization's learners. When considering skills needed to remain effective into the future, L&D leaders should not neglect themselves or their teams. If you seek the strategies and skills required to navigate the needs of today's ever-changing workplace or wish to connect with a community of learning leaders, look no farther.

The Learning Leaders Alliance is a vendor-neutral global community for learning leaders who want to stay ahead of the curve, and for aspiring leaders wanting to build their skillsets. The Learning Guild's Alliance Membership package includes access to exclusive digital events and content curated for today's modern learning leader, as well as opportunities to attend in-person learning leadership events held around the globe. See the details here.

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Drive Proactive Training with Upskilling & Reskilling Focus

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Online training is often the product of a conversation between a manager or executive and an L&D professional that starts, "We need training on ..." It's time for L&D to take the initiative in driving proactive training development.

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Upskilling, Reskilling y Outskilling... las claves para prepararnos para el futuro del trabajo

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Upskilling, Reskilling y Outskilling... las claves para prepararnos para el futuro del trabajo

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En línea con la mayor automatización de procesos en las compañías, la mitad de los trabajadores a nivel global deberá reciclarse y aprender nuevas habilidades de ahora a 2025. Por qué el Foro Económico Mundial habla de doble disrupción en el mundo laboral. Cómo capitalizar las oportunidades
Uno de los aspectos que más preocupa a las organizaciones es cómo se podrán capitalizar las oportunidades que presenta el mercado laboral en los próximos años con el talento apropiado, las capacidades requeridas, en el momento oportuno, en el lugar adecuado. Del mismo modo, una inquietud que cada uno de nosotros como profesionales y trabajadores de la más diferentes actividades compartimos es el temor a quedar obsoletos y ser reemplazados por algún sistema inteligente. Es lo que se denomina "la angustia de los robots".

Pero a esta intranquilidad que ya veníamos teniendo en los últimos años, desde principios del año pasado le hemos agregado un punto adicional: el efecto COVID-19, con la aceleración de muchas de las tendencias y la eliminación de innumerable cantidad de fuentes de trabajo. Es lo que el Foro Económico Mundial - una de las instituciones que mejores y más profundas investigaciones realiza en este campo- denomina "la doble disrupción": automatización y pandemia. Ello trae aparejado una transformación de la mayoría de los trabajos.

Y el propio informe del Foro Económico Mundial -Future of Jobs Report- destaca un dato clave: el 50% de los trabajadores a nivel global deberán reciclarse y aprender nuevas habilidades desde ahora hasta el año 2025, a medida que a la adopción de nuevas tecnologías se incrementa.

Otro factor a tener en cuenta es el que destacan en el informe The Future of Work After Covid-19 de McKinsey, donde se puntualiza que es probable que las actividades en áreas de desempeño con niveles más altos de proximidad física experimenten una mayor transformación después del coronavirus, lo que desencadenará efectos colaterales en otras áreas a medida que los modelos comerciales cambien en esa dirección.

Es importante visualizar cómo las tendencias se van haciendo realidad muy rápidamente. La mayoría de los trabajos más atractivos para 2021 se pueden realizar de forma remota, según un análisis realizado LinkedIn. No sólo eso, según esta investigación - Jobs On The Rise- publicada por la red social/profesional más importante, se generarían unos 150 millones de nuevos empleos tecnológicos en los próximos cinco años. Y es justamente esta revolución digital -que ya se está transformando en normalidad digital- la que genera un cambio en las trayectoria para muchos.

LinkedIn analizó las proyecciones en 15 países de diferentes continentes y concluye que las personas con sólidas habilidades digitales tendrán una ventaja significativa en el mercado laboral. Y son bien precisos al puntualizar que en los próximos 10 años deberemos volver a capacitar a más de 1.000 millones de personas (1 de cada 3) para que puedan seguir estando activos.

No solo eso, para los próximos 24 meses proyectan que cambien el 42% de las habilidades básicas necesarias para realizar los trabajos existentes. Enfatizan que el mundo se enfrenta a una emergencia de reconversión.

El planteo central, que también se realizan los principales líderes mundiales, es: en un mundo de 7.700 millones de personas, de las cuales 3.300 millones están empleadas actualmente, mejorar las capacidades de 1.000 millones de personas es el comienzo de un viaje. A la larga, todos necesitaremos mejorar nuestras habilidades de alguna forma.
El diagnóstico es claro y debemos considerar tres poblaciones:
a. Los que hoy tienen trabajo, ya que muy posiblemente lo que saben en este momento no les sea suficiente para los desafíos futuros

b. Los que hoy se encuentran en el proceso de transición o a la búsqueda de nuevas oportunidades

c. Las nuevas generaciones que se están preparando para ingresar al mundo laboral en los próximos años
¿Cuáles son las habilidades que se requerirán?
Todas estas tendencias, no hacen más que reafirmar la idea presentada hace 3 años por el profesor Joseph E. Aoun en su libro Robot Proof y sus ideas de cómo podemos prepararnos mejor para no convertirnos en los analafbetos del siglo XXI. Puntualiza que hay tres tipos de alfabetizaciones que tenemos que considerar: datos, tecnología y humana. Todos pensábamos que saber leer y escribir ya nos posiciona como personas alfabetizadas, sin embargo, ello ya se ha convertido en una condición necesaria pero totalmente insuficiente. Y no solo eso, fuimos educados en un modelo en el que, teóricamente, estudiábamos la escuela secundaria, a los 17 años definíamos la carrera universitaria, donde nos formábamos los siguientes 5 o 6 años y con ellos ya nos alcanzaba para el resto de nuestras vidas profesionales. Ese modelo ha quedado obsoleto y todos nos tendremos que convertir en "long life learners", aprendientes de por vida.

Y es el mismo Foro Económico Mundial el que lista las 10 habilidades clave para los próximos 4 años:

· Pensamiento analítico e innovación.

· Aprendizaje activo y estrategias de aprendizaje.

· Resolución de problemas complejos.

· Pensamiento y análisis crítico.

· Creatividad, originalidad e iniciativa.

· Liderazgo e influencia social.

· Uso, control y monitoreo de tecnología.

· Diseño y programación de tecnología.

· Resiliencia, tolerancia al estrés y flexibilidad.

· Razonamiento, resolución de problemas e ideación

Como podemos visualizar, la dirección está claramente definida, la gran pregunta es cómo llegamos, qué camino recorremos. ¿De qué manera aprendemos e incorporamos estas habilidades, conocimientos y competencias?
Las propuestas que se están sugiriendo desde los diferentes entes especializados y referentes a nivel global pasan por tres opciones, complementarias: upskilling, reskilling y outskilling.
¿De qué se tratan cada una de ellas?

Upskilling (perfeccionamiento):

Las competencias, habilidades y capacidades con las que contamos hoy en día, pasan rápidamente al estado de obsolescencia, requimos mejorarlas, actualizarlas, darles sentido en el nuevo contexto. Es capacitación específica en ciertos aspectos, reconocer que para desempeñarnos efectiva y productivamente con lo que tenemos ya no alcanza. Es mejorar, optimizar, incrementar, actualizarnos, renovarnos, potenciarnos.

Tomando como base nuestra situación actual, implica incorporar las nuevas y diferentes herramientas, conocimientos, saberes, formas de aproximarse a las problemáticas y resolver los problemas para enfrentar los nuevos desafíos.

Reskilling (reciclaje):

En este caso, es cuando debemos resetearnos, "recablearnos", cambiar el sistema operativo. Implica un auténtico reciclaje profesional. El tomar consciencia que aquello que fue nuestra receta del éxito hasta el presente no lo será en el futuro. Y ahí empieza el proceso de incorporación de las nuevas habilidades, competencias y capacidades para desempeñarnos laboralmente. Un impulsor clave en esta dirección es la tecnología y la digitalización. Muchas personas, inmigrantes digitales, la ven como una amenaza más que una aliada y un facilitadora. El poder conectarse generativamente con lo digital y a partir de ello catalizar el proceso de aprendizaje es un factor crítico de éxito. Es un proceso de descubrimiento y crecimiento acelerado, que nos puede llevar a lugares jamás imaginados previamente.
Outskilling (capacitarse para ponerlo en práctica fuera de la organización):
Si bien tanto en el upskilling como en el reskilling la propuesta es realizarlo para potenciar al talento y que pueda deplegar su potencial dentro de la propia organización, el outskilling se caracteriza por brindar capacitación en las habilidades requeridas en los trabajos del futuro a aquellos colaboradores que tienen muy altas probabilidades de ser desvinculados de la compañía, dado que la actividad que realizan será automatizada y ellos no tienen posibilidades de reinserción interna. Beneficia a los propios colaboradores, a la empresa para posicionarla como marca empleadora responsable como y también a la sociedad en general. El caso de Amazon y su foco en este aspecto es resaltado en diferentes publicaciones especializadas.

En los tres casos, en un contexto en que inicialmente la mirada podría ser perder-perder-perder (persona, empresa, sociedad) estamos visualizando un escenario en el que la ecuación termina siendo ganar-ganar-ganar. Desde ya, el primer paso es que cada uno -desde el lugar que le toca- se haga responsable de su propio futuro y se comprometa con el proceso de aprendizaje y cambio. El futuro del trabajo ya llegó y depende de la actitud que adoptemos para poder seguir siendo empleables y desplegar nuestra mejor versión. Porque, tal como lo afirma el propio Foro Económico Mundial, el upskilling y reskillig no es algo nuevo, pero en este momento -tanto así como el outskilling- es más crucial que nunca.

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UPSKILLING, RESKILLING Y OUTSKILLING, LAS CLAVES PARA PREPARARNOS PARA EL FUTURO DEL TRABAJO

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En línea con la mayor automatización de procesos en las compañías, la mitad de los trabajadores a nivel global deberá reciclarse y aprender nuevas habilidades de ahora a 2025. Por qué el Foro Económico Mundial habla de doble disrupción en el mundo laboral.

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Peer Learning o sobre cómo aprender con otros

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Peer Learning o sobre cómo aprender con otros

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Si sos un profesional del aprendizaje y desarrollo es probable que siempre estés buscando hacia donde van las tendencias de aprendizaje organizacional y nuevas formas de crear valor. La mayoría de los gerentes comprenden el poder del aprendizaje. Sin embargo, la herramienta más poderosa en el lugar de trabajo es el aprendizaje entre pares . De hecho, la mayor parte del aprendizaje es informal y uno sólo necesita mirar alrededor del lugar de trabajo para ver que esto sucede.

El conocimiento compartido es poder multiplicado

El aprendizaje entre pares ahorra tiempo y recursos. También permite mantener el conocimiento de los procesos simplificados que podrían desaparecer cuando un empleado de alto rendimiento cambia de puesto o deja la organización. El aprendizaje entre pares también permite a los gerentes identificar dónde existen las lagunas de conocimiento y asignar a las personas adecuadas la tarea de cerrarlas.

¿De quién aprovechas el poder?

Peer to peer hace referencia a una red de pares, una especie de red de nodos que se comportan cómo iguales entre sí. Peer to peer llevado a la educación es poder crear redes de personas que comparten sus saberes y potencian la sabiduría colectiva.

En la corrida por cubrir gaps de habilidades para fortalecer la empleabilidad de las personas, el aprendizaje entre pares se presenta cómo una alternativa para aprovechar y capitalizar los saberes qué circulan en la organización.

Las organizaciones van a buscar afuera el expertise qué muchas veces está adentro, quizás invisible. Recuperar el aprendizaje es empoderar a las personas y darle voz a todo ese saber que está esperando ser compartido.

El aprendizaje peer to peer permite que las personas aprendan unas de otras. La diferencia con el aprendizaje colaborativo es qué las personas aprenden juntas, en peer to peer aprenden recíprocamente y horizontalmente una de la otra.

Peer to peer es el driver para hacer que el aprendizaje circule por la organización y no se pierda.
¿Es seguro el aprendizaje entre pares?
Es la pregunta que se hacen los y las líderes de Recursos Humanos, Cultura y Aprendizaje. Temen que el aprendizaje peer to peer se desmadre generado un caos generalizado en donde lo aprendido o los intercambios sean de calidad inferior.

Poner en práctica esta filosofía de aprendizaje requiere en primer lugar, soltar el control. Dejame decirte que no existen controles para garantizar que los empleados compartan sólo contenido relevante, aprobado y de alta calidad en un correo electrónico, un mensaje por slack, una llamada telefónica o una conversación cara a cara.

El aprendizaje peer to peer es muy probable que esté sucediendo naturalmente, cuando un empleado le da un consejo a otro, cuando se comparten experiencias, el aprendizaje está sucediendo y circulando.

Podemos establecer estándares para cuidar y resguardar la calidad del contenido, también podemos medir el impacto de este tipo de aprendizaje, pero eso me lo reservaré para otro post.
Dispositivos para hacer que el aprendizaje peer to peer suceda
El aprendizaje peer to peer puede adoptar muchas formas. Lo interesante de este modelo es que los saberes no los imparte un consultor externo, son las mismas personas que horizontalmente se enseñen unas a otras lo que saben.

El aprendizaje peer to peer puede darse de manera informal, cuando naturalmente los saberes se diseminan y también puede darse de manera formal, cuando existen programas institucionalizados para hacer que el saber circule. Se trata de un método rentable de formación y desarrollo. En 2010, la revista Learning Solutions informó que British Telecom estaba ahorrando $ 12,000,000 por año utilizando una solución de aprendizaje de código abierto y fomentando la enseñanza entre pares.
Veamos algunos dispositivos:

Mentorías: Las mentorías 1-1 o en grupos permiten que aprendices y mentores aprendan a la par compartiendo saberes, experiencias y conocimientos. De esta forma, una persona (un/a mentor/a) que tiene un gran conocimiento y experiencia en un determinado tema o actividad comparte estos atributos para ayudar a otro (una/a aprendiz) a avanzar en su carrera. Una relación de mentoría muy útil incluiría un enfoque intencional en nuevas acciones y aprendizaje.

Grupos de Aprendizaje Activo: Estos son grupos pequeños, que trabajan en prioridades actuales e importantes del mundo real, comparten preguntas, toman acciones y aprenden juntos/as. Este tipo de aprendizaje puede ser muy eficaz para resolver problemas complejos y lograr metas comunes importantes.

Grupos de discusión: En los grupos de discusión, las personas comparten comentarios y opiniones a veces en un orden aleatorio para tomar una decisión o mejorar la comprensión sobre un tema o actividad. Por lo general, no hay un enfoque en generar intencionalmente nuevas acciones y aprendizaje, aunque el aprendizaje implícito puede ocurrir para los miembros reflexivos de los grupos.

Comités: Son grupos de personas organizados formalmente en torno a un proyecto o programa común con el fin de tomar decisiones y / o generar recomendaciones (estos son tipos de acciones intencionales) para compartir con otros fuera del comité. No siempre hay un enfoque en la generación intencional de nuevos aprendizajes.

Onboarding: Los procesos de onboarding pueden ser facilitador por los mismos empleados que van guiando a los nuevos empleados en la llegada a la organización. Esta especie de tutoría resulta muy interesante ya qué el aprendizaje sucede con un par a la par.

Aprender no es un trabajo en solitario. Se enriquece cuando abrimos el espacio a otras perspectivas. La experiencia de aprender con otros abre un universo de nuevas posibilidades. Te animás a probar estos dispositivos en tu organización?

_________

Estas líneas son producto de años de investigación, lecturas profundas y conversaciones sentidas. Sin querer plantear respuestas, estas líneas son una puerta para dar vida a nuevas posibilidades. Espero que este ejercicio de escritura te nutra y te genere también, preguntas nuevas. Mi trabajo crece con tu feedback, siéntete bienvenido/a a dejar tus comentarios.

Para seguir leyendo:
Aprendizaje cómo sistema Cómo convertir tu organización en un hub de aprendizaje Organizaciones que aprenden, diseñando capacidades para el próximo contexto

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Peer Learning o sobre cómo aprender con otros

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Si sos un profesional del aprendizaje y desarrollo es probable que siempre estés buscando hacia donde van las tendencias de aprendizaje organizacional y nuevas formas de crear valor. La mayoría de los gerentes comprenden el poder del aprendizaje.

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Maria Angélica Gonzalez on LinkedIn: El poder del desaprendizaje | 19 comments

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El proceso de #desaprender es tan incómodo como poderoso Hablé con Juli en 2020, estudiaba una lengua extranjera, desde hacía varios meses pero sin... 19 comments on LinkedIn

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10 Content Curation Strategies for Corporate Training

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10 Content Curation Strategies for Corporate Training

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10 Content Curation Strategies for Corporate Training

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Content Curation enables L&D teams to offer highly relevant content to support their primary training. In this article, I show you 10 Content Curation strategies for eLearning that you can use to enhance the impact of your corporate trainings.

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Building a data-driven learning strategy: What training KPIs you should track

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Building a data-driven learning strategy: What training KPIs you should track

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When it comes to your learning strategy, you need to put your money where your data is.

You already know that employee training matters - but very often you need to prove exactly where you should invest, in what way, and how much. You need tangible training KPIs that will help you go from building a training program to developing your employees to reaching your business objectives.

And you need to do that in a way that doesn't involve drowning yourself in superfluous data.

If you're unsure how to measure training effectiveness, the solution is setting up specific, focused metrics. Metrics that will help you track learner progress, employee behavior, and performance in a seamless way.

In short, you need to find the right training KPIs to track through your LMS.

In this post, we'll talk about the importance of applying a data-driven approach in learning, which training KPIs matter, and how to use them.

Why you should apply a data-driven approach in learning

Collecting data to measure training effectiveness is a money saver.

Consider this: according to a Gallup survey, a large company could save $60.3 million annually if its managers move their teams to the top quartile of engagement. And while the way to do that is through training, and the average large American business spent $17.7 million on training in 2019, most companies are not yielding anywhere near that ROI from their investment in training.

Why? Because in most cases, their training strategy is not data-driven.

Having a data-driven learning strategy means that your training system aligns with the changes you want to see in your bottom line - and vice versa. If, for instance, your goal is to increase the number of sales or customer satisfaction, then there are certain competencies and soft skills you need to feature in your training.

And you need to make sure to set training KPIs to measure these skills.

But while KPIs for training can (and should) differ from company to company based on your goals, there are still some training metrics that you need to know how to leverage.

We'll explore these important training KPIs in this next section.

What training KPIs to track

When designing your data-driven learning strategy, you need to make sure you have an effective way to analyze learning objectives. Thankfully, if your LMS is worth its salt, it will be able to produce custom reports on any user, course, or activity without any extra work from you.

But you need a way to sort through and prioritize all this information.

A good idea would be to use Kirkpatrick's training evaluation model which consists of four levels: reaction, learning, behavior, and results. Set up training KPIs for each one of these four levels. It will give you a good overview of whether your training succeeds in teaching employees the knowledge and skills it's supposed to teach them.

And whether overall performance is improving because of training.

Level 1: Reaction KPIs

At this level, you want your training KPIs to measure how engaged learners are and how they interact with their training courses. For example, you want to learn whether they react better to specific types of content (e.g. gamified content). You also want to see how they respond to specific content delivery methods (e.g. pre-recorded videos vs live zoom seminars). This will give you some insights on how effective and engaging your current training setup is.

Some specific training KPIs to track at this level are:

Attendance rate: This is particularly useful if parts of your training are optional or self-paced.

Mobile app vs desktop use: Most good LMSs also have a mobile app your employees can download. At this point, you want to see if your employees prefer to learn from their phones or from their computers, as this will help you optimize the content accordingly.

Employee feedback: Did they find the training engaging or boring? Helpful or confusing? Which parts would they change? The best way to get this data is through pulse surveys embedded in the training: that way employees can evaluate the course while it's still fresh in their minds.

Level 2: Learning KPIs

At this level, you want to assess how much of the learning your employees have been able to digest. You can also see how much of this new knowledge employees can successfully apply in the workplace.

Some specific training KPIs to track at this level are:

Training completion rate: This will allow you to see how many employees actually completed all the training. As this Training Industry article points out, it's one of the most important training KPIs to track as it can also support compliance. For example, when it comes to the mandatory parts of your training, you should have a completion rate of one hundred percent.

Average training completion time: Not only will this metric show you how much time it really takes employees to finish a course (versus how much time you think it takes), it's also one of the training metrics that can help determine your ROI. For example, if you calculate the average completion time of a course and an employee's average salary, you can get a sense of what your training really costs you.

Pass/fail rates of course assessments: This will help you gauge employees' learner progress and see whether you need to modify or simplify parts of the training.

Average test scores: You can compare these scores against some standards or benchmarks to see how well your employees are performing and whether you have any knowledge gaps in your team.

Information retention: You want to see how much of the knowledge your employees received has stayed with them long term. You can do that by making follow-up assessments part of your training. You can also get input from managers and team supervisors on how employees perform post-training and whether they're making good use of the skills they learned.

Level 3: Behavior KPIs

At this level, you will be observing employee behavior pre- and post-training. You will also determine how confident they are in their new abilities while performing in the workplace.

Some specific training KPIs to track at this level are:

Collaboration rate: People learn better when they learn together. Did your employees take advantage of all the collaboration opportunities you're offering them throughout training? Did they work together to complete tasks and have conversations about learning? You can check this either by asking them directly through a pulse survey or by collecting data such as participation in discussion forums and comments.

Learner confidence: How confident are your employees in their newfound knowledge and abilities? A pulse survey is one way to ascertain this but you should work in tandem with managers and supervisors on this one. The goal is to see whether there is a change in learner behavior and a confidence boost that could be attributed to training.

Level 4: Results KPIs

At this level, you need to look at your company holistically to determine whether and how much your data-driven learning strategy has increased the ROI. These are not KPIs you can track via your LMS (for the most part) but you should compare these findings with your findings in the other three levels to get the full picture.

Some things you need to measure at this level:

Sales quota pre- and post-training: This should be measured in comparison to your overall goals and company strategy.

Safety and compliance incidents: Ideally, you want to see the number of safety incidents reach zero or significantly decrease after training.

Individual efficiency increase: Working in tandem with managers and supervisors, you need to ascertain how productive each employee is now, versus how productive they were before their training. This will allow you to identify people who do not incorporate the things they learned into their day-to-day work.

Average efficiency increase: Once you have the individual scores, you can find how much more productive, on average, your employees have become after training.

Overall growth rate: Of course, growth can come from other factors as well. But once you have all the other numbers (for example, the average efficiency increase) you'll be able to see how much the training you offer has affected your growth rate.

How to use training KPIs to improve your learning strategy

Now that you know how to measure training effectiveness, you need to turn this exercise around. How can you use these training metrics to improve your learning strategy - and in return, your result KPIs?

Here are some actionable ways to use the training KPIs mentioned above:

Improve learner engagement

With the survey data from your "employee reaction" KPIs, you can discover which courses or training elements consistently score as boring, difficult, or confusing. Then, you can adjust and simplify those courses or add more gamification elements to make them more interactive.

Help personalize the learning experience

Use the data that shows you whether people prefer to learn from their phones or desktop. For instance, if a vast majority of the learners log in only from their phones, you should invest in more microlearning content and videos as it would be difficult to read large chunks of text on mobile. Likewise, if you find out that people enjoy quizzes or tests during a course, consider adding some of these elements to grab their attention.

Identify and address reasons for fail rates

If a training program has a higher fail rate than others, it could indicate that you need to provide additional resources and chances for catching up. Compare this data to the average completion time data. Do people score better when they take more time studying? Then perhaps you need to focus more on offering self-paced training.

Identify and rectify knowledge gaps

For example, if everyone is scoring higher in practical courses but lower in soft skills courses, it can be a sign you need to invest more in soft skills training.

All these fixes will make sure your data-driven learning strategy actually hits the spot and delivers the results you want to see.

Conclusion

Tracking the right training KPIs can be a game-changer when it comes to both identifying and increasing training effectiveness. But collecting and analyzing data manually is full-time work on its own, especially if you're training large teams.

By using an LMS, you'll get access to both automated and customized reports which will let you focus on what matters the most: improve training. That way, your employees will keep developing their skills and your company will keep hitting its objectives.

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Training KPIs: How to build a successful data-driven learning strategy

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When it comes to your learning strategy, you need to put your money where your data is. You already know that employee training matters - but very often you need to prove exactly where you should invest, in what way, and how much.

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eLearning tips, news and resources - eFront Blog

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Discover the best online training tips and resources on eFront's blog. Read articles on the latest eLearning trends, news and concepts, discover employee training best practices and level up your training.

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Subject Matter Experts in L&D: Who they are and why you need them

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Subject Matter Experts in L&D: Who they are and why you need them

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An instructional designer, a learning technologist, and a training facilitator walk into a meeting room. What happens next? Nothing! Because they're missing an important member of the team. Someone who'll lay the foundations for training to come.

That person, of course, is the SME. But what does SME stand for? It stands for Subject Matter Expert. And what exactly is a subject matter expert? Let's find out.

What is a Subject Matter Expert?

It's Saturday morning, and you have dinner guests arriving at 7 pm. You promised them Duck a l'Orange, but you don't have the first clue how to make it. So you open your trusty recipe book, follow the instructions, and voila! Dinner is served.

Who wrote that recipe book? Probably a copywriter. But they only knew what to write because they had the help of an expert in cooking, most likely a chef. Just the same with training, you'll need an expert in the course subject matter if you want your course to be anything more than a collage of Google search results.

So, if you're ever asked what a subject matter expert is, you can say that it's the person who knows the information that everyone else in the company needs to know. Someone with a deep understanding of, and wealth of experience in, a particular job, process or technology.

And what does a subject matter expert do? What are their responsibilities in the course development process? You're about to find out.

What is the SME's role in training, anyway?

Let's break down what a subject matter expert means in the context of training, starting with their key responsibilities.

Mapping the path to competency development

The first step in designing a new course doesn't start with the SME. It starts with a training needs analysis to uncover skills, behavior and knowledge gaps in the company. This helps L&D to identify which training courses need to be developed, and what each of their learning objectives will be.

The very next step, though, is where the subject matter expert comes in. The SME (or a group of them) is responsible for mapping a path backward from the training goal to the training content. They'll work with the instructional designer and decide on the best ways to achieve the required learning, like which activities are best suited to each objective.

For example, to develop skills in paid media marketing, the SME could suggest a simulated learning experience where learners can analyze real results. Because of his or her experience with paid marketing, the SME might feel that this kind of realistic application is more effective than notes or infographics.

Collaborating with training team members

Subject matter experts may be important, but they still need the help of other training roles in order to create high-quality courses.

In many cases, they'll need to work with instructional designers, learning technologists, facilitators, videographers, graphic designers, branding managers, and even other SMEs. But their effective collaboration with the rest of the team isn't just an added benefit. It's an essential part of the role and responsibilities of subject matter experts.

Because without clear and frequent communication and open-mindedness to the opinions of others in the team, the course will never reach its full potential.

Creating training content

Subject matter experts aren't expected to have the writing skills of J.K. Rowling or the branding know-how of David Ogilvy. They are, however, required to provide rough content for more specialized team members to transform into high-quality training materials.

For example, SMEs are often tasked with sharing rough notes, content outlines, presentations and video scripts based on their subject expertise. Then, copywriters, videographers and designers will create engaging infographics, notes and videos based on this information.

Essential Skills for SMEs

Unfortunately, not every SME is as good as the next. So, be sure to hire and develop the skills required for subject matter experts to excel in their duties. Skills like these:

Teamwork

You already know that collaboration is important in the role of any SME. And to collaborate, SMEs need teamwork skills. This includes guiding other team members in their planning and creation of content, sharing knowledge and experience openly and willingly, being an active participant in course development, and showing commitment to the team effort.

Communication

What is a subject matter expert if not a communicator of knowledge and insights? Because finding the most knowledgeable SME in the world won't matter if they aren't able to share that knowledge with the rest of the team. That's why they need the ability to communicate information clearly and concisely, even to someone with no background on the subject.

Time management

Most SMEs practice their expertise in full-time jobs, which makes their training role just one of many they're juggling in a week. What's more, some SMEs work remotely. This means they need to be great time managers, or they'll fall behind and create delays in training development projects.

Problem-solving

SMEs are expected to sift through the libraries of knowledge in their minds, extract what is relevant for the training program, and then decide on the best way for those concepts or skills to be taught. This requires problem-solving skills, so that the most suitable learning activities are assigned to each learning outcome.

Conclusion

Now that you know what a subject matter expert is, you'll also know that you're not working with a complete training team unless you're working with subject matter experts. They set the foundations for a meaningful learning experience. So, perhaps it's time to give them a seat at your training table.

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What is a subject matter expert and why do you need them in L&D?

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An instructional designer, a learning technologist, and a training facilitator walk into a meeting room. What happens next? Nothing! Because they're missing an important member of the team. Someone who'll lay the foundations for training to come. That person, of course, is the SME. But what does SME stand for?

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Free learning and development resources to take your corporate training strategy to the next level. Choose from ebooks, webinars, courses, and more!

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Webinar Recording – Stop Struggling with SMEs: Essential Tactics for Efficient Knowledge Capture

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Webinar Recording – Stop Struggling with SMEs: Essential Tactics for Efficient Knowledge Capture

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: Peggy Salvatore, author of " Speaker Working with SMEs: A Guide to Gathering and Organizing Content from Subject Matter Experts "

In a perfect world, you wouldn't need to rely on anyone except your own training team to create and deliver learning experiences.

But subject matter experts hold all the expert knowledge you need to create training that truly resonates with learners and impacts organizational performance.

However, working with SMEs is not always smooth sailing. There are scheduling conflicts and collaboration difficulties, not to mention their lack of instructional design knowledge. And that's assuming you manage to identify and recruit the right SMEs to your training project in the first place.

Sometimes, it can feel like you're both speaking different languages and getting everyone on the same page can be a struggle. Luckily, we have someone who can help you with the translations.

View the recording to see Peggy Salvatore, the expert who literally wrote the book on working with SMEs, share her tips and guidelines for creating lasting and productive relationships with subject matter experts.

You'll learn how to:

Identify and recruit valuable SMEs in your organization

Collaborate with SMEs in the most effective way throughout your project

Overcome a lack of instructional design knowledge amongst your SMEs

Ensure working relationships stay productive and don't break down

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Webinar Recording - Stop Struggling with SMEs: Essential Tactics for Efficient Knowledge Capture - Synapse

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Peggy Salvatore, author of " Speaker Working with SMEs: A Guide to Gathering and Organizing Content from Subject Matter Experts " In a perfect world, you wouldn't need to rely on anyone except your own training team to create and deliver learning experiences.

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Importance of Subject Matter Experts: The Pros and Cons of Working with SMEs

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Importance of Subject Matter Experts: The Pros and Cons of Working with SMEs

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It's often seen as a burden on training professionals and instructional designers, but the importance of subject matter experts and working with them cannot be understated.

But take heart - it's not all bad! There are plenty of pros to working with subject matter experts, both for the SMEs themselves and for the training team.

So here are some pros and cons of working with SMEs :

The Pros of Working with SMEs

Provision of valuable content

This is pretty obvious: L&D team members must rely on the content provided by SMEs in order to build courses.

Content provided directly by an SME ensures timeliness and relevance. Learners certainly benefit from this fresh material. In fact, they might even become more engaged when they learn that the course was developed in-house by experts specifically sourced to develop the learning experience.

Divide and conquer

Though SMEs are only tasked with providing content, they are still doing much of the heavy lifting when it comes to course development.

If this is an SME with whom the department has worked previously, then the SME most likely "knows the drill," doesn't require additional training, and can get right to work. This is the importance of subject matter experts - they can be a huge time saver for the L&D team struggling to accomplish more with less.

As we've written before, even for SMEs with whom you haven't worked previously, everyone can benefit if you create a mini-course explaining how L&D works with SMEs. It can be a simple walk-through for SMEs on how to convert what they already know into courses. For example, you can show them how to take a typical PowerPoint that they deliver at conferences or to clients, and easily convert it to a format that makes sense for learners.

Exposure to new ways of doing things

You never know when you might learn something you hadn't known. The SME might very well be a sought-after industry expert outside of your company, with deep experience in building courses for multiple audiences and purposes.

As such, not only will this prior experience in building courses and sharing knowledge make your job much easier, but you can lean on their insights to even improve the current project.

Their career development

Though contributing to courses is not their main job responsibility-and you are not their boss-many SMEs do in fact believe that their involvement will actually boost their professional profile and ultimately help their career.

Many SMEs are aware that their work provides value to organizations, clients, and the industry at large. As such, they see their participation as extremely valuable.

For those who do not, you can explain the value that they will be bringing to the learning project. Demonstrate the ROI that other SMEs have delivered to the company with relevant data, such as the number of learners involved and the bottom-line impact to the organization. They won't need much convincing to understand the impact of their contributions.

Your career development

Of course, as you receive exposure to SMEs from a variety of fields, building a wide range of courses, your career gets a boost in the process.

Your own professional learning advances as you address the different nuances that result from working with an ever-increasing diversity of experts.

Issues that caused headaches two years ago might now be something you look forward to addressing. Not only can your experience take over to manage such issues, but you may have developed processes and systems in place to make things manageable for yourself and your team.

Pros and cons aside, you need the right tools and resources when working with SMEs - like this handy toolkit!

The Cons of Working with SMEs

Surprises

The SME might not be able to contribute to the project to the level that you thought she could.

For example, you might discover rather quickly, that the SME isn't an expert in 100 percent of the subject. While no single professional knows everything there is to know about a topic, you want to be frank with the SME-and vice versa-early on in the process. If there are components to the course that the SME cannot fulfill, then you need to find another SME to help fill in the gaps. This can result in project delays.

It's better to cover this ground early in the process rather than later, once learners complete the course and wonder why some topics were omitted-especially if those topics were explicitly mentioned in the training intake request form.

Highlight the importance of subject matter experts' contribution to the SMEs themselves to encourage their committment.

Steep learning curve

Though we mentioned above that SMEs might have experience building courses and won't need much training or explanation, the opposite can very much hold true.

Though many SMEs have years of experience in their respective industries, they may not necessarily be expert course writers. They may have only written courses for their peers and not for a broader audience, such as your employees, or they may be used to someone else doing it for them.

How to combat this early on? Create a short intake form for the SME to fill out shortly after she has been identified as the expert contributor for a course. Then, have the SME undergo a short training during which you explain how L&D works with SMEs, what is expected of them in the course building process, and a light review of the authoring tool.

This will remove a lot of doubts on both sides and will ensure a stronger outcome for the project.

Reproducibility

Will you work with this SME again? This might seem like a peculiar question to ask, but if you plan on working with this SME again-and if this SME wields influence within your organization-then it makes sense to invest the time working with her to "show her the ropes" of course development.

However, if this is a one-off project, with little likelihood of working with that particular SME again, then you might want to do the opposite. Investing significant time and resources training a newbie SME when that SME has a low likelihood of returning doesn't make sense. The importance of subject matter experts lies in their ability to save you time in seeking out information - not costing you time by requiring you to repeatedly provide "training on training."

As such, your team might simply wish to take the SME's content and convert it into a course without relying on the SME to do it. This could be a time-saver, removing frustration for both sides.

Can you name the 10 types of SMEs? Each presents their own unique challenge. Learn the types and how to best work with them in this on-demand webinar recording:
Stop Struggling with SMEs: Essential Tactics for Efficient Knowledge Capture

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Importance of Subject Matter Experts: The Pros and Cons of Working with SMEs - Synapse

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It's often seen as a burden on training professionals and instructional designers, but the importance of subject matter experts and working with them cannot be understated. But take heart - it's not all bad! There are plenty of pros to working with subject matter experts, both for the SMEs themselves and for the training team.

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Blobs - Generate beautiful blob shapes for web and flutter apps

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Customizable blobs as SVG and Flutter Widget. Create random or fixed blobs, loop, animate, clip them with ease

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Emerging Trends In Education And Technology

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Emerging Trends In Education And Technology

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The Future Of Education And Technology

There is no doubt that the future of education will be greatly driven by technology. The new teaching tools are much more effective for the new generation of learners and educators as they appreciate the modern educational settings. Instead of spending time reading books in the traditional libraries, the millennials find it easier to learn on the go by staying tuned to the videos and tutorials online. Students that pursue this path are likely to gain knowledge and skills without staying restricted to the classroom environment. Moreover, even if we talk about the traditional classroom education system, that can also be improved with the addition of the latest technologies.

What Will Learning Look Like In The Future?

Recent surveys reveal that almost 75% of educators in the world believe that digital trends will replace textbooks by the end of the year 2026. As there are several remarkable teaching-learning technologies on the way, the educational settings are likely to get updated with time. However, selecting the right set of technologies is a big challenge for educators around the world.

Studies reveal that Virtual Reality is the most extraordinary technology that can be deployed in classrooms. The new generation of students is even influenced by mobile learning practices. A wide range of educators is now experimenting with gamification, which is recognized as an interactive resource to turn lectures into engaging video games. This tool encourages learners to complete tasks to reach a new level, and they find it a more interactive solution to boost skills and abilities.

Many software developers have already created some interactive tools to present reading materials to students with ease. Moreover, in the present day, students from any corner of the world can also access online and part-time certification courses.

Growth In Online Education Trends

The trends for online education are growing with the increasing number of technology-inspired learning resources. It is possible to find several new-age online teaching-learning solutions that are convenient to access. Students are now allowed to take lessons 24 hours a day. Moreover, they are not required to be physically present in the classroom, instead, they can join lectures from anywhere, on the go.

The development of simulators and Artificial Intelligence-based learning solutions has made it much easier to proceed with practical exposure. Crowdsourcing is another relevant concept that is getting popular in the field of education. The current generation is attracted to micro-tutoring practices. Furthermore, behavioral education and mindfulness practices can increase the success rates of students.

There is no doubt that technology is continuously changing the world. Many new advancements in the world have even started replacing human intelligence. Surveys reveal that many educators believe that the traditional teaching practices will be completely over within the coming years as technologies will take over the abilities to handle all such tasks. Although teaching/learning cannot disappear from this world, it will take up new forms that will shape the future of education.

Below we have highlighted a few points describing what learning will look like in the next 20 years.

Diverse Place And Time

In the future, students will get more opportunities to learn irrespective of time and place-related restrictions. eLearning technologies are going to facilitate remote learning and self-paced learning opportunities. Other than this, classrooms will be flipped, which means even theoretical concepts can be also learned outside the classroom.

Personalized Learning

Students in the future will learn with modern study tools that can easily adapt to the student's learning abilities. It clearly means that even a weaker student will be able to receive challenges based on their skill level and they will be encouraged to achieve higher levels as well. The personalized learning approach will help students gain confidence while improving their academic abilities at all levels.

Variety Of Options

Although the subjects taught at the school and college levels aim to increase students' abilities, the road to achieving success can vary from student to student. Modern educational practices do not just offer a personalized learning experience, rather these tools make it easier to modify the learning process as per individual needs. Students can choose to learn using different devices, techniques, and programs. Some of the best examples are Massive Open Online Classrooms, flipped classrooms, blended learning, and the bring your own device method.

Project-Based Learning

The careers in the technology-inspired world are adapting to the freelance economy; therefore, students are also going to adopt project-based learning. It clearly means that they need to learn techniques to apply their skills to different kinds of situations. Experts advise that students must be involved in project-based learning right from high school. It will help them learn a collaborative approach, time management, and organizational skills that can further help them excel in their academic career.

Other than this, future technologies are going to make it much easier to monitor student activities, even when they are taking classes in the distance mode.

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Emerging Trends In Education And Technology - eLearning Industry

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There is no doubt that the future of education will be greatly driven by technology. The new teaching tools are much more effective for the new generation of learners and educators as they appreciate the modern educational settings.

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7 Concepts to Support a Data-Informed Learning Strategy

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7 Concepts to Support a Data-Informed Learning Strategy

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Data-informed decision-making can take your organization's learning & development strategy to the next level. As a learning leader, you do not need to become a data scientist to design and implement a data-informed learning strategy, but you will need an appreciation for the central concepts so that you can implement the right strategy for your organization-and guide learners to their optimal learning path.

This article will introduce seven concepts that learning leaders need to understand to begin crafting their data-informed learning strategy.

When deciding which data skills you need in your skill set, focus less on specific tools, such as statistics software or programming languages. Instead, focus on how you will obtain the data you need and what you do with that data. That entails understanding the need for-and having the skills or resources to do-the following:

Figure out what data you need to answer your business- and performance-related questions

Identify or create a "supply chain" for your data

"Clean" the raw data you gather to make it usable

Create data profiles or governance protocols

Examine or "interview" the data to spot trends, identify outliers, and begin to reveal the stories the data tell

Understand the "levels" of data analysis and operate at levels beyond evaluation

Communicate the data in visualizations, dashboards, and other communications to your team, to executives and managers, and to others who will use it in data-driven decisions

The next sections provide an overview of these foundational skills.

Before the L&D team can gather learning data, they need to know what their goals are and identify the data that can help them achieve those goals. As a learning leader, you will likely have goals at the organizational level; you will also need to consider individual learners' goals as well as the goals of the L&D team.

Instructional designers, performance consultants, and L&D professionals have a unique lens on how to reach those goals and what data might be useful. This is an area to collaborate with your colleagues on the business side, too, as their goals are generally measured in business metrics, not training metrics.

Learning what questions to ask and what data might answer them is the first skill needed to develop a data-informed learning strategy.

A supply chain is a series of processes: Raw material enters the system; one or more processes transform that material; and the end product is something that is useful (to you or to others). In a data supply chain, the data are the raw material; analytics performed on the data transform it; and the end result is information and insights that your company can use to improve performance.

Your data supply chain includes your data sources, how and where you store data, and where you are using it. The supply chain includes stakeholders and challenges as well. One example: If your organization has relied heavily on classroom-based training or informal learning, you may have very little data beyond course completions and dates. One of your first challenges in building up your supply chain may be to figure out how to capture the data you need from these learning events.

Raw data is usually filled with "junk": duplications, inconsistencies, similar data gathered by systems that label each data point differently. The most basic example is the vast range of sources of learning data. Each source, whether a SCORM eLearning module, a quiz, a record from the HRIS, a learner's login credentials, a mobile microlearning platform that sends data to the LMS, or something else, might identify the learner differently and record data in fields with different names.

"Cleaning" your data means:

Standardizing this information and eliminating duplicate data

Fixing any structural errors, such as inconsistent labeling or classifications

Identifying errors and missing data

Validating whether your "cleaned" data set makes sense and enables you to prove or disprove your working theories and gain insights

Data governance encompasses the processes and stakeholders that determine how you handle and use data in a consistent way throughout your organization.

In a limited data environment, such as SCORM-based eLearning courses or a classroom-intensive delivery approach, there isn't that much data or very many systems to worry about, and data governance may not have even crossed your mind.

However, as your learning strategy matures and you engage more systems as data sources and encounter richer data, you will need to pay attention to governance. Following a consistent data governance protocol can also improve data security and make it easier for your organization to comply with standards and use your data effectively and efficiently.

Understanding enough about data and statistics to identify trends, determine whether a correlation is meaningful, and know whether an outlier is likely due to a data entry error or represents legitimate data enables you to begin exploring your data set.

This is where partnering with the analytics team in your organization may be key. Look around your organization for the people analyzing business intelligence (BI) data or the marketing team that handles a lot of similar data about your customers. These colleagues use and explore data in their job roles and can likely help you figure out how to start exploring your learning data.

Data use and analysis within L&D often starts with evaluation - looking at what is happening - as this is a familiar space for us. Evaluation can occur at the individual learner level, looking at progress and results in training modules. It can also be at a bigger-picture level: Is the organization meeting compliance training requirements or business targets? What is the experience within the learning like? Either way, this type of descriptive analysis is the most basic level of data use and analysis.

Stepping up a notch, L&D might move to diagnostic analysis, asking why things happened the way they did and you got the results you did. For example, if one team's performance suddenly improves, you can dive deep into the data to determine what sets this team apart from the others: What are they learning? Did team leaders or members take a course, attend a conference, complete a mentorship? What outside sources are they relying on?

The next level is asking "what will happen if we do ...?" This predictive analysis happens all the time in marketing and consumer apps: Companies, whether Amazon, Netflix, or your local burger joint, look at patterns and then proactively offer those combinations of products. People who liked show also watched show. People who bought product in your cart also bought other product .

Finally, pulling all of this data together, L&D can move into prescriptive analytics. If you want to drive performance in a specific way, what do you need to put in place for that to happen? Knowing whether learners engaged with and succeeded with specific training, and whether those learners had better performance, can help you develop training and performance support that could drive the results you seek.

For a deeper dive into this, check out Ben Betts' Learning Analytics Maturity Model -you can benchmark your organization against others.

The last concept and basic data skill brings L&D professionals back into our "wheelhouse": communicating data requires choosing the best format to tell the story the data reveals. This means choosing a visualization format and using a tool-Excel, an analytics platform, a learning record store, or other-to put the data into a format that non-data-experts, such as business leaders, individual learners, or their managers, can understand.

L&D leaders with a mature data analysis strategy can then use data in other ways as well, such as personalizing training recommendations and delivery or optimizing workflow with the right performance support and tools offered to individual employees based on their performance and results.

Join the Learning Leaders Alliance & build your skills

Are you seeking the strategies and skills required to navigate the needs of today's ever-changing workplace? Are you an experienced or aspiring leader looking for a community to connect with to explore today's biggest learning leadership challenges?

The Learning Leaders Alliance is a vendor-neutral global community for learning leaders who want to stay ahead of the curve, and for aspiring leaders wanting to build their skillsets. The Learning Guild's Alliance Membership package includes access to exclusive digital events and content curated for today's modern learning leader, as well as opportunities to attend in-person learning leadership events held around the globe. See the details .

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7 Concepts to Support a Data-Informed Learning Strategy

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Data-informed decision-making can take your organization's learning & development strategy to the next level. As a learning leader, you do not need to become a data scientist to design and implement a data-informed learning strategy, but you will need an appreciation for the central concepts so that you can implement the right strategy for your organization-and guide learners to their optimal learning path.

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Empezamos con este post una serie de minipublicaciones con el denominador común de Guía básica de content curation: respuestas curadas a preguntas e inquietudes comunes sobre curación.

El primer post está dedicado a: Qué es curación de contenidos.

Una respuesta completa a la pregunta de qué se entiende por curación de contenidos, o qué significa curación de contenidos puede ser esta:

" Sistema llevado a cabo por un especialista (el content curator) para una organización o a título individual, consistente en la búsqueda, selección, caracterización y difusión continua del contenido más relevante de diversas fuentes de información en la web sobre un tema (o temas) y ámbito (o ámbitos) específicos, para una audiencia determinada, en la web (tendencia mayoritaria) o en otros contextos (p.e., en una organización), o freciendo un valor añadido y estableciendo con ello una vinculación con la audiencia/usuarios de la misma"

Esta definición de content curation está extraída del libro El content curator, que publicamos Javier Guallar y Javier Leiva en 2013. Una síntesis de la definición anterior, en muy pocas palabras, puede ser la siguiente (esta es nueva):
"Actividad regular de filtrado de información digital a la que se aporta valor en una nueva publicación"
Podríamos extendernos mucho más, pero esto es lo más básico. Fuentes:

Guallar, Javier; Leiva-Aguilera, Javier. El content curator. Guía básica para el nuevo profesional de internet. Barcelona: Ed. UOC, 2013, Colección El profesional de la información, n. 24, 168 p. ISBN:978-84-9064-018-0

Muy pronto un nuevo post de Guía básica de content curation: respuestas curadas a preguntas e inquietudes comunes sobre curación. Si te ha parecido útil, compártelo en tus redes sociales y ¡buena curation!

About Javier Guallar

Profesor de Documentación y Comunicación, Editor, y Content Curator. En UB, revista Profesional de la información (EPI), libros Profesional de la información y EPI Scholar (Ed.UOC), Los content curators. Coautor libros "El content curator", "Las 4S's de la content curation", "Calidad en sitios web", "Prensa digital y bibliotecas". Mi newsletter: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/jguallar

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Empezamos con este post una serie de minipublicaciones con el denominador común de Guía básica de content curation: respuestas curadas a preguntas e inquietudes comunes sobre curación . El primer post está dedicado a: Qué es curación de contenidos.

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Las habilidades de los trabajadores del futuro

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Las habilidades de los trabajadores del futuro

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Trabajadores del futuro: las habilidades más demandadas

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Probablemente hayáis oído el medio chiste de que ahora los libros de viaje están en la sección de fantasía, política en ciencia ficción y epidemiología en autoayuda. Lo cierto es que la pandemia lo ha alterado todo y eso nos obliga a desaprender y aprender de nuevo.

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Degreed connects learning, talent development, and internal mobility opportunities in one place - so you can reinvent yourself one skill at a time.

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Organizational Learning Archives - The Systems Thinker

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Total Quality Control and systems thinking have complementary strengths that can greatly enhance an organization's ability to improve its performance. How? Through a more balanced...

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FROM FRAGMENTATION TO INTEGRATION: BUILDING LEARNING COMMUNITIES

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FROM FRAGMENTATION TO INTEGRATION: BUILDING LEARNING COMMUNITIES

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We live in an era of massive institutional failure," says Dee Hock, founder and CEO emeritus of Visa International. We need only look around us to see evidence to support Dee's statement. Corporations, for example, are spending millions of dollars to teach high-school graduates in their workforces to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic. Our health-care system is in a state of acute crisis. The U.S. spends more on healthcare than any other industrialized country, and yet the health of our citizens is the worst among those same nations. Our educational system is increasingly coming under fire for not preparing our children adequately to meet the demands of the future. Our universities are losing credibility. Our religious institutions are struggling to maintain relevance in people's lives. Our government is increasingly dysfunctional, caught in a vicious cycle of growing special interest groups, distrust, and corruption. The corporation may be the healthiest institution in the U.S. today, which isn't saying much.

One of the reasons for this wide-spread institutional failure is that the knowledge-creating system, the method by which human beings collectively learn and by which society's institutions improve and revitalize themselves, is deeply fragmented. This fragmentation has developed so gradually that few of us have noticed it; we take the disconnections between the branches of knowledge and between knowledge and practice as a given

A Knowledge-Creating System

Before we can address the issue of fragmentation, we need to establish what has been fragmented. In other words, what do we mean by a knowledge-creating system, and what does it mean to say it is fragmented?

We believe that human communities have always attempted to organize themselves to maximize the production, transmittal, and application of knowledge. In these activities, different individuals fulfill different roles, with varying degrees of success. For example, in indigenous cultures, elders articulate timeless principles grounded in their experience to guide their tribes' future actions. "Doers, "whether warriors, growers, hunters, or nannies, try to learn how to do things better than before and continually improve their craft. And coaches and teachers help people develop their capacities to both perform their roles and grow as human beings. These three activities-which we can term theory-building, practice, and capacity-building-are intertwined and woven into the fabric of the community in a seamless process that restores and advances the knowledge of the tribe. One could argue that this interdependent knowledge-creating system is the only way that human beings collectively learn, generate new knowledge, and change their world.

We can view this system for producing knowledge as a cycle. People apply available knowledge to accomplish their goals. This practical application in turn provides experiential data from which new theories can be formulated to guide future action. New theories and principles then lead to new methods and tools that translate theory into practical know-how, the pursuit of new goals, and new experience-and the cycle continues.

Imagine that this cycle of knowledge-creation is a tree (see "The Cycle of Knowledge-Creation" on p.1). The tree's roots are the theories. Like theories, the roots are invisible to most of the world, and yet the health of the root system to a large extent determines the health of the tree. The branches are the methods and tools, which enable translation of theories into new capabilities and practical results. The fruit is that practical knowledge. In a way, the whole system seems designed to produce the fruit. But, if you harvest and eat all the fruit from the tree, eventually there will be no more trees. So, some of the fruit must be used to provide the seeds for more trees. The tree as a whole is a system.

The tree is a wonderful metaphor, because it functions through a profound, amazing transformational process called photosynthesis. The roots absorb nutrients from the soil. Eventually, the nutrients flow through the trunk and into the branches and leaves. In the leaves, the nutrients interact with sunlight to create complex carbohydrates, which serve as the basis for development of the fruit.

So, what are the metaphorical equivalents that allow us to create fruits of practical knowledge in our organizations? We can view research activities as expanding the root system to build better and richer theories. Capacity-building activities extend the branches by translating the theories into usable methods and tools. The use of these methods and tools enhances people's capabilities. The art of practice in a particular line of work transforms the theories, methods, and tools into usable knowledge as people apply their capabilities to practical tasks, much as the process of photosynthesis converts the nutrients into leaves, flowers, and fruit. In our society,

Research represents any disciplined approach to discovery and understanding with a commitment to share what's being learned. We're not referring to white-coated scientists performing laboratory experiments; we mean research in the same way that a child asks, "What's going on here?" By pursuing such questions, research-whether performed by academics or thoughtful managers or consultants reflecting on their experiences-continually generates new theories about how our world works.

Practice is anything that a group of people does to produce a result. It's the application of energy, tools, and effort to achieve something practical. An example is a product development team that wants to build a better product more quickly at a lower cost. By directly applying the available theory, tools, and methods in our work, we generate practical knowledge

Capacity-building links research and practice. It is equally committed to discovery and understanding and to practical know-how and results. Every learning community includes coaches, mentors, and teachers - people who help others build skills and capabilities through developing new methods and tools that help make theories practical.

"The Stocks and Flows of Knowledge-Creation" shows how the various elements are linked together in a knowledge-creating system.

Institutionalized Fragmentation

If knowledge is best created by this type of integrated system, how did our current systems and institutions become so fragmented? To answer that question, we need to look at how research, practice, and capacity-building are institutionalized in our culture (see "The Fragmentation of Institutions").

For example, what institution do we most associate with research Universities? What does the world of practice encompass? Corporations, schools, hospitals, and nonprofits. And what institution do we most associate with capacity-building-people helping people in the practical world? Consulting, or the HR function within an organization. Each of these institutions has made that particular activity its defining core. And, because research, practice, and capacity-building each operate within the walls of separate institutions, it is easy for the people within these institutions to feel cut off from each other, leading to suspicion, stereo typing, and an "us" versus "them" mindset.

This isolation leads to severe communication breakdown. For example, many people have argued that the academic community has evolved into a private club. Nobody understands what's going on but the club members. They talk in ways that only members can understand. And the members only let in others like themselves.

Consulting institutions have also undermined the knowledge-creating process, by making knowledge proprietary, and by not sharing what they've learned. Many senior consultants have an incredible amount of knowledge about organizational change, yet they have almost no incentive to share it, except at market prices.

Finally, corporations have contributed to the fragmentation by their bottom-line orientation, which places the greatest value on those things that produce immediate, practical results. They have little patience for investing in research that may have payoffs over the long term or where payoffs cannot be specifically quantified.

Technical Rationality: One Root of Fragmentation

How did we reach this state of fragmentation? Over hundreds of years, we have developed a notion that knowledge is the province of the expert, the researcher, the academic. Often, the very term science is used to connote this kind of knowledge, as if the words that come out of the mouths of scientists are somehow inherently more truthful than everyone else's words.

Donald Schon has called this concept of knowledge "technical rationality." First you develop the theory, then you apply it. Or, first the experts come in and figure out what's wrong, and then you use their advice to fix the problem. Of course, although the advice may be brilliant, sometimes we just can't figure out how to implement it.

But maybe the problem isn't in the advice. Maybe it's in the basic assumption that this method is how learning or knowledge-creation actually works. Maybe the problem is really in this very way of thinking: that first you must get "the answer," then you must apply it.

The implicit notion of technical rationality often leads to conflict between executives and the front-line people in organizations. Executives often operate by the notion of technical rationality: In Western culture, being a boss means having all the answers. However, front-line people know much more than they can ever say about their jobs and about the organization. They actually have the capability to do something, not just talk about something. Technical rationality is great if all you ever have to do is talk.

Organizing for Learning

If we let go of this notion of technical rationality, we can then start asking more valuable questions, such as:

How does real learning occur?

How do new capabilities develop?

How do learning communities that interconnect theory and practice, concept and capability come into being?

How do they sustain themselves and grow?

What forces can destroy them, undermine them, or cause them to wither?

Clearly, we need a theory, method, and set of tools for organizing the learning efforts of groups of people.

Real learning is often far more complex and more interesting than the theory of technical rationality suggests. We often develop significant new capabilities with only an incomplete idea of how we do what we do. As in skiing or learning to ride a bicycle, we "do it" before we really understand the actual concept. Similarly, practical know how often precedes new principles and general methods in organizational learning. Yet, this pattern of learning can also be problematic.

For example, teams within a large institution can produce significant innovations, but this new knowledge often fails to spread. Modest improvements may spread quickly, but real breakthroughs are difficult to diffuse. Brilliant innovations won't spread if there is no way for them to spread; in other words, if there is no way for an organization to extract the general lessons from such innovations and develop new methods and tools for sharing those lessons. The problem is that wide diffusion of learning requires the same commitment to research and capacity-building as it does to practical results. Yet few businesses foster such commitment. Put differently, organizational learning requires a community that enhances research, capacity-building, and practice (see "Society for Organizational Learning" on p. 4)

Learning Communities

We believe that the absence of effective learning communities limits our ability to learn from each other, from what goes on within the organization, and from our most clearly demonstrated breakthroughs. Imagine a learning community as a group of people that bridges the worlds of research, practice, and capacity-building to produce the kind of knowledge that has the power to transform the way we operate, not merely make incremental improvements. If we are interested in innovation and in the vitality of large institutions, then we are interested in creating learning communities that integrate knowledge instead of fragment it.

In a learning community, people view each of the three functions-research, capacity-building, practice-as vital to the whole (see "A Learning Community"). Practice is crucial because it produces tangible results that show that the community has learned something. Capacity-building is important because it makes improvement possible. Research is also key because it provides a way to share learning with people in other parts of the organization and with future generations within the organization. In a learning community, people assume responsibility for the knowledge creating process.

SOCIETY FOR ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING

Learning Communities in Action

To commit to this knowledge-creating process, we must first understand what a learning community looks like in action in our organizations. Imagine a typical change initiative in an organization; for example, a product development team trying a new approach to the way they handle engineering changes. Traditionally, such a team would be primarily interested in improving the results on their own projects. Team members probably wouldn't pay as much attention to deepening their understanding of why a new approach works better, or to creating new methods and tools for others to use. Nor would they necessarily attempt to share their learnings as widely as possible - they might well see disseminating the information as someone else's responsibility.

In a learning community, however, from the outset, the team conceives of the initiative as a way to maximize learning for itself as well as for other teams in the organization. Those involved in the research process are integral members of the team, not outsiders who poke at the system from a disconnected and fragmented perspective. The knowledge creating process functions in real time within the organization, in a seamless cycle of practice, research, and capacity-building.

Imagine if this were the way in which we approached learning and change in all of our major institutions. What impact might this approach have on the health of any of our institutions, and on society as a whole? Given the problems we face within our organizations and within the larger culture, do we have any choice but to seek new ways to work together to face the challenges of the future? We believe the time has come or us to begin the journey back from fragmentation to wholeness and integration. The time has come for true learning communities to emerge.
Peter M. Senge, Daniel H. Kim is a co-founder of Pegasus Communications, Inc., and publisher of The Systems Thinker. He is a prolific author as well as an international public speaker, facilitator, and teacher of systems thinking and organizational learning best-selling author of The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, is an international leader in the area of creating learning organizations. He is a senior lecturer in the Organizational Learning and Change Group at MIT. Peter has lectured throughout the world and written extensively on systems thinking, institutional learning, and leadership.
Editorial support for this article was provided by Janice Molloy and Lauren Johnson

Next Steps

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From Fragmentation to Integration: Building Learning Communities - The Systems Thinker

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e live in an era of massive institutional failure," says Dee Hock, founder and CEO emeritus of Visa International. We need only look around us to see evidence to support Dee's statement. Corporations, for example, are spending millions of dollars to teach high-school graduates in their workforces to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic.

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COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE: LEARNING AS A SOCIAL SYSTEM

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COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE: LEARNING AS A SOCIAL SYSTEM

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You are a claims processor working for a large insurance company. You are good at what you do, but although you know where your paycheck comes from, the corporation remains mostly an abstraction for you. The group you actually work for is a small community of people who share your working conditions. It is with this group that you learn the intricacies of your job, explore the meaning of your work, construct an image of the company, and develop a sense of yourself as a worker.

You are an engineer working on two projects within your business unit. These are demanding projects, and you give them your best. You respect your teammates and are accountable to your project managers. But when you face a problem that stretches your knowledge, you turn to people like Jake, Sylvia, and Robert. Even though they work on their own projects in other business units, they are your real colleagues. You all go back many years. They understand the issues you face and will explore new ideas with you. And even Julie, who now works for one of your suppliers, is only a phone call away. These are the people with whom you can discuss the latest developments in the field and troubleshoot each other's most difficult design challenges. If only you had more time for these kinds of interactions.

You are a CEO and, of course, you are responsible for the company as a whole. You take care of the "big picture." But you have to admit that for you, too, the company is mostly an abstraction: names, numbers, processes, strategies, markets, spread-sheets. Sure, you occasionally take tours of the facilities, but on a day-to-day basis, you live among your peers - your direct reports with whom you interact in running the company, some board members, and other executives with whom you play golf and discuss a variety of issues.

We frequently say that people are an organization's most important resource. Yet we seldom understand this truism in terms of the communities through which individuals develop and share the capacity to create and use knowledge. Even when people work for large organizations, they learn through their participation in more specific communities made up of people with whom they interact on a regular basis. These "communities of practice" are mostly informal and distinct from organizational units (see "Communities of Practice" on p. 1).

Although we recognize knowledge as a key source of competitive advantage in the business world, we still have little understanding of how to create and leverage it in practice. Traditional knowledge management approaches attempt to capture existing knowledge within formal systems, such as databases. Yet systematically addressing the kind of dynamic "knowing" that makes a difference in practice requires the participation of people who are fully engaged in the process of creating, refining, communicating, and using knowledge. Thus, communities of practice are a company's most versatile and dynamic knowledge resource and form the basis of an organization's ability to know and learn.

Defining Communities of Practice

Communities of practice are everywhere. We all belong to a number of them - at work, at school, at home, in our hobbies. Some have a name; some don't. We are core members of some, and belong to others more peripherally. You may be a member of a band, or you may just come to rehearsals to hang around with the group. You may lead a group of consultants who specialize in telecommunication strategies, or you may only stay in touch to keep informed about developments in the field. Or you may have just joined a community and are still trying to find your place in it. Whatever form our participation takes, most of us are familiar with the experience of belonging to a community of practice.

Members of a community are informally bound by what they do together - from participating in lunch-time discussions to solving difficult problems-and by what they have learned through their mutual engagement in these activities. A community of practice is thus different from a community of interest or a geographical community, neither of which implies a shared practice. A community of practice defines itself along three dimensions:

What it is about: its joint enterprise as understood and continually renegotiated by its members

How it functions: the relationships of mutual engagement that bind members together into a social entity

What capability it has produced: the shared repertoire of communal resources (routines, sensibilities, artifacts, vocabulary, styles, etc.) that members have developed over time.

Communities of practice also move through various stages of development characterized by different levels of interaction among the members and different kinds of activities (see "Stages of Development" on p. 3).

Communities of practice develop around things that matter to people. As a result, their practices reflect the members' own understanding of what is important. Even when a community's actions conform to an external mandate, it is the community - not the mandate - that produces the practice. In this sense, communities of practice are self-organizing systems.

Communities of Practice in Organizations

Communities of practice exist in any organization. They can be found:

Within businesses: Communities of practice arise as people address recurring sets of problems together. So, claims processors within an office form communities of practice to deal with the constant flow of information they need to process. By participating in such a communal memory, they can do the job without having to remember everything themselves.

Across business units: Important knowledge is often distributed in different business units. People who work in cross-functional teams thus form communities of practice to keep in touch with their peers in various parts of the company and maintain their expertise. When communities of practice cut across business units, they can develop strategic perspectives that transcend individual product lines. For instance, a community of practice may propose a plan for equipment purchases that no one business unit could have come up with on its own

Across company boundaries: In some cases, communities of practice become useful by crossing organizational boundaries. For instance, in fast-moving industries, engineers who work for suppliers and buyers alike may form a community of practice to keep up with constant technological changes.Communities of practice are not a new kind of organizational unit; rather, they are a different cut on the organization's structure - one that emphasizes the learning that people have done together rather than the unit they report to, the project they are working on, or the people they know. Communities of practice differ from other kinds of groups found in organizations in the way they define their enterprise, exist over time, and set their boundaries:

A community of practice is different from a business or functional unit in that it defines itself in the doing, as members develop among themselves their own understanding of what their practice is about. This living process results in a much richer definition than a mere institutional charter. As a consequence, the boundaries of a community of practice are more flexible than those of an organizational unit. The membership involves whoever participates in and contributes to the practice. People can participate in different ways and to different degrees. This permeable periphery creates many opportunities for learning, as outsiders and newcomers learn the practice in concrete terms, and as core members gain new insights from contacts with less-engaged participants.

A community of practice is different from a team in that the shared learning and interest of its members are what keep it together. It is defined by knowledge rather than by task, and it exists because participation has value to its members. It does not appear the minute a project is started and does not disappear with the end of a task. It takes a while to come into being and may live long after a project is completed or an official team has disbanded.

A community of practice is different from a network in the sense that it is "about" something; it is not just a set of relationships. It has an identity as a community, and thus shapes the identities of its members. A community of practice exists because it produces a shared practice as members engage in a collective process of learning.People belong to communities of practice at the same time as they belong to other organizational structures. In their business units, they shape the organization. In their teams, they take care of projects. In their networks, they form relationships. And in their communities of practice, they develop the knowledge that lets them do these other tasks. This informal fabric of communities and shared practices makes the official organization effective and, indeed, possible.
Communities of practice have different relationships with the official organization. The table "Community's Relationship to Official Organization" on p. 4 shows different degrees of institutional involvement, but it does not imply that some relationships are better or more advanced than others. Rather, these distinctions are useful because they draw attention to the issues that can arise in the interaction between the community of practice and the organization as a whole.

The Importance to Organizations

Communities of practice are important to the functioning of any organization, but they become crucial to those that recognize knowledge as a key asset. From this perspective, an effective organization comprises a constellation of interconnected communities of practice, each dealing with specific aspects of the company's competencies - from the peculiarities of a long-standing client, to manufacturing safety, to technical inventions. Knowledge is created, shared, organized, revised, and passed on within and among these communities. In a deep sense, it is by these communities that knowledge is "owned" in practice.

Communities of practice fulfill a number of functions with respect to the creation, accumulation, and diffusion of knowledge in an organization:

They are nodes for the exchange and interpretation of information. Because members have a shared understanding, they know what is relevant to communicate and how to present information in useful ways. As a consequence, a community of practice that spreads throughout an organization is an ideal channel for moving information - such as best practices, tips, or feedback across organizational boundaries.

They can retain knowledge in "living" ways, unlike a database or a manual. Even when they routinize certain tasks and processes, they can do so in a manner that responds to local circumstances and thus is useful to practitioners. Communities of practice preserve the tacit aspects of knowledge that formal systems cannot capture. For this reason, they are ideal for initiating newcomers into a practice.

They can steward competencies to keep the organization at the cutting edge. Members of these groups discuss novel ideas, work together on problems, and keep up with developments inside and outside a firm. When a community commits to being on the forefront of a field, members distribute responsibility for keeping up with or pushing new developments. This collaborative inquiry makes membership valuable, because people invest their professional identities in being part of a dynamic, forward-looking community

They provide homes for identities. They are not as temporary as teams, and unlike business units, they are organized around what matters to their members. Identity is important because, in a sea of information, it helps us sort out what we pay attention to, what we participate in, and what we stay away from. Having a sense of identity is a crucial aspect of learning in organizations. Consider the annual "computer drop" at a semiconductor company that designs both analog and digital circuits. The computer drop became a ritual by which the analog community asserted its identity. Once a year, their hero would climb the highest building on the company's campus and drop a computer, to the great satisfaction of his peers in the analog gang. The corporate world is full of these displays of identity, which manifest themselves in the jargon people use, the clothes they wear, and the remarks they make. If companies want to benefit from people's creativity, they must support communities as a way to help them develop their identities.Communities of practice structure an organization's learning potential in two ways: through the knowledge they develop at their core and through interactions at their boundaries. Like any asset, these communities can become liabilities if their own expertise becomes insular. It is therefore important to make sure that there is enough activity at their boundaries to renew learning. For while the core is the center of expertise, radically new insights often arise at the boundary. Communities of practice truly become organizational assets when their core and their boundaries are active in complementary ways. To develop the capacity to create and retain knowledge, organizations need to build institutional and technological infrastructures that do not dismiss or impede these communities, but rather recognize, support, and leverage them.

Developing and Nurturing Communities of Practice

Just because communities of practice arise naturally does not mean that organizations can't do anything to influence their development. Most communities of practice exist whether or not the organization recognizes them. Many are best left alone - some might actually wither under the institutional spotlight. And some may need to be carefully seeded and nurtured. But a good number will benefit from some attention, as long as this attention does not smother their self-organizing drive.

Whether these communities arise spontaneously or come together through seeding and nurturing, their development ultimately depends on internal leadership. Certainly, in order to legitimize the community as a place for sharing and creating knowledge, recognized experts need to be involved in some way, even if they don't do much of the work. But internal leadership can take many forms:

The inspirational leadership provided by thought leaders and recognized experts

The day-to-day leadership provided by those who organize activities

The classificatory leadership provided by those who collect and organize information in order to document practices

The interpersonal leadership provided by those who weave the social fabric

The boundary leadership provided by those who connect the community to other communities

The institutional leadership provided by those who maintain links with other organizational constituencies, in particular the official hierarchy

The cutting-edge leadership provided by those who lead "out-of-the-box" initiatives

These roles may be formal or informal, and may be concentrated in a core group or more widely distributed. But in all cases, leadership must have intrinsic legitimacy in the community. To be effective, therefore, managers and others must work with communities of practice from the inside rather than merely attempt to design them or manipulate them from the outside. Nurturing communities of practice in organizations includes:

Legitimizing Participation. Organizations can support communities of practice by recognizing the work of sustaining them; by giving members the time to participate in activities; and by creating an environment in which the value they bring is acknowledged. To this end, it is important to have an institutional discourse that includes this dimension of organizational life. Merely introducing the term "communities of practice" into an organization's vocabulary can have a positive effect by giving people an opportunity to talk about how their participation in these groups contributes to the organization as a whole.

Negotiating Their Strategic Context. In what Richard McDermott calls "double-knit organizations," people work in teams for projects but belong to longer-lived communities of practice for maintaining their expertise. The value of team-based projects that deliver tangible products is easily recognized, but it is also easy to overlook the potential cost of their short-term focus. The learning that communities of practice share is just as critical, but its longer-term value is more subtle to appreciate. Organizations must therefore develop a clear sense of how knowledge is linked to business strategies and use this understanding to help communities of practice articulate their strategic value. This involves a process of negotiation that goes both ways. It includes understanding what knowledge - and therefore what practices - a given strategy requires. Conversely, it also includes paying attention to what emergent communities of practice indicate with regard to potential strategic directions.

Being Attuned to Real Practices. To be successful, organizations must leverage existing practices. For instance, when the customer service function of a large corporation decided to combine service, sales, and repairs under the same 800 number, researchers from the Institute for Research on Learning discovered that people were already learning from each other on the job while answering phone calls. IRL then instituted a learning strategy for combining the three functions that took advantage of this existing practice. By leveraging what they were already doing, workers achieved competency in the three areas much faster than they would have through traditional training. More generally, the knowledge that companies need is usually already present in some form, and the best place to start is to foster the formation of communities of practice that leverage the potential that already exists.

Fine-tuning the Organization. Many elements in an organizational environment can foster or inhibit communities of practice, including management interest, reward systems, work processes, corporate culture, and company policies. These factors rarely determine whether people form communities of practice, but they can facilitate or hinder participation. For example, issues of compensation and recognition often come up. Because communities of practice must be self-organizing to learn effectively and because participation must be intrinsically self-sustaining, it is tricky to use reward systems as a way to manipulate behavior in or micro-manage the community. But organizations shouldn't ignore the issue of reward and recognition altogether. Rather, they need to adapt reward systems to support participation in learning communities; for instance, by including community activities and leadership in performance review discussions. Managers also need to make sure that existing compensation systems do not inadvertently penalize the work involved in building communities.

Providing Support. resources, such as outside experts, travel, meeting facilities, and communications technology. A company-wide team assigned to nurture community development can help address these needs. This team typically Communities of practice are mostly self-sufficient, but they can benefit from some

provides guidance and resources

helps communities connect their agenda to business strategies

encourages them to move forward and remain focused on the cutting edge

ensures they include all the right people

helps them link to other communities

Such a team can also help identify and eliminate barriers to participation in the structure or culture of the overall organization; for instance, conflicts between short-term demands on people's time and the need to participate in learning communities. In addition, just the existence of such a team sends the message that the organization values the work and initiative of communities of practice.

The Art of Balancing Design and Emergence

Communities of practice do not usually require heavy institutional infrastructures, but their members do need time and space to collaborate. These communities do not require much management, but they can use leadership. They self-organize, but they flourish when their learning fits with their organizational environment. The art is to help such communities find resources and connections without overwhelming them with organizational meddling. This need for balance reflects the following paradox: No community can fully design the learning of another; but conversely, no community can fully design its own learning.

Acknowledgments: This article reflects ideas and text co-created for presentations with my colleagues Richard McDermott of McDermott & Co., George Por of the Community Intelligence Labs, Bill Snyder of the Social Capital Group, and Susan Stucky of the Institute for Research on Learning. Thanks to all of them for their personal and intellectual companionship.
Etienne Wenger, PhD, is a globally recognized thought leader in the field of learning theory and its application to business. A pioneer of the "community of practice" research and author of Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity (Cambridge University Press, 1998), he helps organizations apply these ideas through consulting, workshops, and public speaking.

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Communities of Practice: Learning as a Social System - The Systems Thinker

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ou are a claims processor working for a large insurance company. You are good at what you do, but although you know where your paycheck comes from, the corporation remains mostly an abstraction for you. The group you actually work for is a small community of people who share your working conditions.

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The Organisational Mastery Blog contains several great posts to help you to build a fantastic Product Development organisation.

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CoP is a social learning theory that has been around driving innovation within various companies. Read more about Community of Practice and innovation here

Community of Practice and Innovation

Communities of practice have paved the way for the development of a more structured way of learning for many multinational corporations.

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE GUIDE

A guide to help executives to understand how Communities Of Practices can generate new lines of products or services, spread best practices among employees and help companies to find and retain talent!

But how would it really drive innovation in your company?

While knowledge is an intangible resource, it fuels our economy in this era which we're sure you're very much aware of.

Instead of solely relying on educational background, the knowledge-driven economy depends on the skills, techniques, and practices that your employees learn by performing and completing tasks and evaluating results and reports together with the rest of your team.

How CoPs Operate in This Knowledge-Based Era

A community of Practice (CoP) is among the best ways to collect, manage, and disseminate knowledge (especially tacit knowledge) within members of your company.

Support

With CoP, groups of professionals with the same interests and practices can set up group interactions and collaborations. A great display of this function can be seen from the CoP of Oracle, a software company in the US.
Oracle uses CoP to identify shortcuts for processing data and performing other technical tasks.
Their CoP leader assumes the role of coordinating discussions between the members to ensure that the community's goals are met at the end of the day.

Educate

During group discussions, members of a CoP can share their experiences. In turn, the rest of the members can pinpoint the mistakes and suggest improvements .

A state hospital in Switzerland utilises CoP to help their patients .

Their CoP is comprised of heart surgeons and cardiologists. Collaboratively, they determine and address common problems encountered during an operation.

They collect and collate information by holding informal meetings with the members plus external resource authorities.

Encourage

Members feel more at ease discussing and sharing their best practices in solving a certain problem when they are encouraged by the rest of the community.

It is also crucial to recognise the effort of those who succeed in using the practices and skills they learned from fellow members.

Cultivate

Thought leaders help the group sustain learning progress during the different developmental stages of the CoP. They do it by hosting cyclic events or allowing members to host their own event.

Integrate

The main goal of CoP is to help a group of professionals with common interest and goals to learn practices and skills by means of regular interaction with fellow experts.

CoP challenges members of the organisation to apply the practices they learned to solve real-world problems.

, CoP was used to improve interprofessional practice and communication. This type of social learning method helped improve patient safety.

A Community of Practice is More than Acquiring Information

It's important to emphasise that CoP isn't limited to acquiring knowledge. It is, after all, a collaborative form of learning.

It's crucial for each member to actively engage and contribute their knowledge and practices with the rest of the community.

Here are other reasons why corporate learners and trainers find CoP useful and why we think it's about time for you to ramp up your own company CoPs:

Solving complex problems and creating new opportunities

With collaborative learning, your team can gather, verify, test, and collate knowledge resource with fellow professionals on the spot.

You can use the newly acquired information to solve problems, open new discussions, improve outdated practices, and come up with new business opportunities.

Building stronger connections and improving communication

Community of practice encourages communication and sincere bonding between the leaders and the members.

As a social learning theory, CoP focuses on the relationships between members instead of the structure of the organisation.

How Creating CoP Drives Innovation - Case Studies

Communities of practice have been recognised officially for more than 25 years already and it has helped create groundbreaking development to various corporations and industries.

Below are a few concrete examples of how a community of practice can drive innovation in various industries

Enhancing the skills of newly hired employees

Majority of new hires decide to leave or stay in a company within six months based on how well the HR handles the onboarding process.

In the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), they established an onboarding CoP to help agencies improve their onboarding of newly hired employees.

Improving health care services for patients suffering from multiple chronic diseases

CoP is not limited to the knowledge transfers in the business sector. It is also used in healthcare to improve the skills of medical professionals and address common patient concerns.

It discussed how caring for patients suffering from two or more chronic diseases requires a lot of finesse and flexibility and how nurses can learn how to tailor their approach according to the specific needs of the patient through CoP.

The researchers focused on the efficacy of COP, the proposed design of the CoP, tools required, and roles of leaders and coordinators.

CoP for Small and Medium Enterprises
Most of the time, only large companies that have thousands of employers and hundreds of business units use CoP. If CoP is created to improve knowledge management, open new doors of opportunities and solve complex problems through group discussions, then why won't SMEs use it to their advantage?
Pattinson's team interviews with business owners revealed that it's unlikely for SMEs to establish a community with their fellow SMEs owners because of the steep competition and the cultural and organisational differences.

The research showed that the use of CoP is often neglected by SMEs. In theory, CoP can contribute to the knowledge innovation and acquisition.

For example, members of a CoP of SMEs can learn techniques in dealing with suppliers, hiring employees, dealing with taxes, and optimising their social capital.

These are just a few case studies of how impactful CoPs are to businesses regardless of how small or big it is.

The truth is if your company want to optimally utilise your workforce; continuously grow your knowledge capital by harnessing the tacit knowledge of your team; and see tangible results of innovation, building your own CoPs is not a matter of choice anymore.

We provide Team Coaching, Agile Training, and Agile Consulting, OKR Training, OKR Consulting, Innovation Training and Innovation Consulting.

With my team, I built 5 main products: High Performing Teams, Scrum Team Coach, Scrum Master Mentoring, Organisational Mastery and the External Business Accelerator.

To check all our products and services please visit our pages: Products and Services.

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE GUIDE

A guide to help executives to understand how Communities Of Practices can generate new lines of products or services, spread best practices among employees and help companies to find and retain talent!

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CoP is a social learning theory that has been around driving innovation within various companies. Read more about Community of Practice and innovation here Communities of practice have paved the way for the development of a more structured way of learning for many multinational corporations.

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Why You Should Have Communities of Practice in Business

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Why You Should Have Communities of Practice in Business

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Communities of practice in business play a very important role in helping companies achieve their goals. It's a great framework to grow the tacit knowledge.

Communities of Practice in Business

Picture this, Employee 1 is having a problem operating a machine. During a break, he joined his teammates. While drinking coffee, Employee 1 casually brought up about the issue he's been having about the machine he uses.

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE GUIDE

A guide to help executives to understand how Communities Of Practices can generate new lines of products or services, spread best practices among employees and help companies to find and retain talent!

Everybody seems to experience the same problem and they're all frustrated because they're spending way too much time fixing the machine rather than doing the real work they ought to do.

Luckily Employee 2 joined the conversation because he knows a work around it. He enthusiastically shared his methods to keep the machine from breaking down.

After that day, no one's having any problem about the machine anymore! And everyone's happy because they're being more productive and hitting their performance scores by a mile from their previous numbers.

What you see here is a successful knowledge transfer in a Community of Practice! Now, imagine the possibilities.

Communities of practice have existed in organisations and businesses for decades. They are considered a major tool for knowledge sharing, which is crucial to the success of any company.

These days, it is not enough that a company nourishes what it knows.

Every day, new products are being launched in the market, as well as new business concepts, strategies, marketing approaches, and technology.

It has become even more important to constantly update business knowledge to keep abreast of the competition.

CoP in Business - The Past and Present

The theory behind community of practice was developed by Etienne Wenger and Jean Lave in the early 1990s.

In a nutshell, it is defined as a network of people who try to achieve common goals or solve common problems by harnessing knowledge and expertise.

During that time, it was difficult to see how communities of practice (CoPs) benefit businesses due to several reasons.

The first is that CoPs tend to have a more relaxed, free-flowing structure which is the strict opposite of a typical company structure which is hierarchical.

Second, CoPs are based on voluntary participation which is difficult to manage in a corporate environment where staff and employees all comply to predefined rules and expectations.

All these reasons lead to the third one - it has become a challenge for businesses to measure the impact communities of practice have on their organisations.

Upon the arrival of social media however, more companies have started to notice and appreciate the benefits of CoPs.

That's because through this technology, it has become easier for them to monitor communities, encourage participation, and monitor progress.

The introduction of online forums, wikis, newsgroups and other community tools have all been used to drive performance and facilitate knowledge sharing, which all transformed communities of practice into powerful tools for change management.

How CoPs Benefit a Business

In what ways do communities of practice help businesses achieve their goals?

There have been various studies which assessed the importance of CoPs in the business world. Here are some of them:

While onboarding processes are on place, communities of practice have become a great venue for newcomers to easily learn the skills they need to perform their job.

As explained by Wenger and Lave, communities of practice involve legitimate peripheral participation wherein learning starts with the most basic, gradually evolving into a more complex level, producing members who have developed mastery or expertise of the subject (in most cases, their roles and functions).

In the of ethnography of Xerox photocopier field technicians conducted by Julian E. Orr.

He found that in one company, the management believed that each technician had an individual job which can be accomplished by simply following the procedures stated on their official service manual.

However, Orr discovered a strong informal community of techs who met daily at breakfast to exchange problem-solving tips. Specifically, the repairment talked about the experienced they had, such as stories on the machines they fixed.

This led to the creation of contextualised actionable knowledge about various aspects that are central to the better performance of their job. And that is exactly the illustration we have above.

The study by Brown and Duguid (1991) was the first to argue that despite being less known, CoPs were the key to effective workplace learning and innovation which is a critical factor for issue management.

They based their theory on Orr, which suggested that CoPs have a positive contribution to business organisations.

CoPs for Business: Factors for Success

Unlike project teams, special interest groups, or working committees, communities of practice have a very unique structure and processes.

In order to maximise the utilisation of CoPs, there are some factors that are critical for their success:

Encouraging communities by allowing them to continue their free-flowing nature, with supervision and encouragement from the management, is important.

Businesses should remember that the non-linear and informal nature of communities are central to the production and advancement of knowledge.

Communities have to interact regularly and continuously in order for knowledge sharing to be effective.

Since they operate within the domain of tacit knowledge, they have to be given a venue that is co-located and shared, more like a workspace.

In companies that have locations worldwide, using online tools and communications platforms is essential to enable communities of practice to work together and collaborate.

Broad participation

Since the main purpose of establishing communities of practice is to acquire and share knowledge, encouraging broad participation is the key.

Thus, CoPs must be promoted across your organisation, especially among your employees as a great tool to enhance and develop their skills.

Without the support from you, the executives, it is almost impossible for communities to thrive and make a significant impact on the organisation.

The support from the leadership team should not be restrictive nor coercive. They should allow the informal and spontaneous flow of the community and be less controlling.

Conclusion

Communities of practice are an important addition to your organisational toolkit simply because it promotes one of the most important aspects critical to your business success: knowledge management.

CoPs are a proven framework for acquiring, producing and sharing tacit knowledge , which are all critical to improving employee performance, creating business strategy, and helping an organisation reach its goals.

The impact of CoPs in businesses have long been a subject of research.

As mentioned in the studies like that of Orr, Wenger and Lave, and Brown and Duguid, communities help businesses by enhancing employees' skills and performance, allowing members to solve problems through regular interaction, and by serving as a tool for effective learning and innovation in the workplace.

Despite their unique nature and structure, communities of practice will not thrive without the intervention of the management.

They have to be given support, encouragement, a place to meet and work together, and an opportunity to grow and thrive. By supporting these communities, companies are likely to achieve their goals.

We provide Team Coaching, Agile Training, and Agile Consulting, OKR Training, OKR Consulting, Innovation Training and Innovation Consulting.

With my team, I built 5 main products: High Performing Teams, Scrum Team Coach, Scrum Master Mentoring, Organisational Mastery and the External Business Accelerator.

To check all our products and services please visit our pages: Products and Services.

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE GUIDE

A guide to help executives to understand how Communities Of Practices can generate new lines of products or services, spread best practices among employees and help companies to find and retain talent!

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Why You Should Have Communities of Practice in Business

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Communities of practice in business play a very important role in helping companies achieve their goals. It's a great framework to grow the tacit knowledge. Picture this, Employee 1 is having a problem operating a machine. During a break, he joined his teammates.

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Communities of Practice Guidelines For Your Business

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Communities of Practice Guidelines For Your Business

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Learn how to align CoPs to your organisational goals and business strategy with the help of these communities of practice guidelines.

Communities of Practice Guidelines

Communities of practice are a well-established organisational framework designed for cultivating and sharing knowledge capital among the corporate workforce.

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE GUIDE

A guide to help executives to understand how Communities Of Practices can generate new lines of products or services, spread best practices among employees and help companies to find and retain talent!

But how do you set it up according to the needs and structure of your company? How do you ensure that it will benefit your organisation and help you achieve your goals? How do you utilise CoPs to drive employee performance and improve business strategy?

Communities of practice are best characterised as networks of people who have the common goals and interests.

Participation to the community is not intentional (or should be "organic" or unstructured) and the relationship among members is informal and spontaneous.

These unique qualities of CoPs make them different from other learning frameworks and make them naturally effective in cultivating knowledge and empowering people to do better in their work.

The Value of Communities of Practice

CoPs offer short-term and long-term value to the organisation.

Short-term benefits to members include:

Help with their everyday challenges at work

Encouragement from peers

Access to expert knowledge

Confidence (as they gain more knowledge and skills)

Meanwhile, the long-term value to members are:

Personal development - there's no doubt that CoPs promote employees' personal development through knowledge transfer and sharing.

Being able to build a professional identity - CoPs are formed through peripheral participation which means as newcomers get along with the rest of the community, they improve their skills, learn new things, and later on become 'subject matter experts'.

Having a collaborative advantage - collaboration (which is innate to any CoP) is an essential factor to employee development.

Marketability - having learned tacit knowledge and improved their skills, employees who are part of CoPs are at a competitive advantage.

CoPs have short-term value to the organisation too:

While the long-term value covers:

Innovation - continuous collaboration of CoP members leads to discovery of knowledge and ideas that could transform any organisation.

Strategic capabilities - CoPs increase your company's strategic capabilities through spontaneous brainstorming and knowledge sharing.

Retention of talent - with the benefits of CoPs to employees mentioned above, retaining top talent is easy.

Keeping ahead - all these empower an organisation and keep them abreast of the competition.

However, one of the challenges of communities of practice is that there is no precise way to access and share tacit knowledge. Since interactions are informal, knowledge sharing is often too dependent on active participation of the community members.

While CoPs have the ability to gather knowledge across an organisation, it lacks executive power to address organisational objectives. These limitations are due to the independent nature and voluntary participation of CoPs.

Thus, there has to be certain methods or guidelines for tacit knowledge to be transmitted.

Aligning CoP with Your Organisational Objective: Guidelines

While CoPs are formed naturally, they should be sustained, nurtured and promoted by the organisation and through encouragement and empowerment from the executive like you.

This can be done by giving them a more formal structure without limiting their informal nature. For instance, assigning a facilitator can be the first step.

The facilitator will be in charge of creating a set of rules for the community, including scheduling of meetings, posting of activities, and establishing communications platforms.

In this of over 50 CoPs, it was found that social media has been an integral part of modern CoPs.

Companies utilise social media (such as community groups) to drive interaction and promote knowledge sharing. Social media tools that make them great candidates for knowledge management strategy.

Creating a strategic context lets communities find their legitimate place within the organisation.

How do you set a strategic context? First, discuss the value of CoPs in your company. Next, identify critical business problems that you want to address.

And lastly, learn how to leverage knowledge (discuss tools and methods that will help CoPs obtain, share and transfer knowledge.

Communities of practice are a popular management framework. However, people need to understand how CoPs could fit in their work.

To educate your staff, consider conducting workshops designed to inform the management as well as the potential members of these communities about this learning tool.

All these, in turn, will help people employees appreciate how CoPs work and how they can benefit both members and the organisation.

Communities of practice can greatly benefit from some guidance and resources to be provided by the management.

These include technological infrastructure (management tools, social media platforms, and the like). Provide coaching, logistic assistance, and other forms of support.

Furthermore, identify their needs to provide adequate support.

Members of the community often see the value of their participation in the community as a great avenue to harness their skills and expand their knowledge.

However, they might feel that the organisation is not aligned to their understanding. Thus, it is an important step for the management to encourage more participation by highlighting the value of communities and publicising their success.

Initiate processes and structure that will integrate communities in the way your organisation works. Be able to identify and remove barriers and align their structure to yours.

This can be a little tricky though because the top down structure of traditional organisations is opposite from that of the informal structure of CoPs.

In addition to the structure, the community culture should also align to that of the organisation.

Start with a few pilot communities to have a first-hand knowledge about how they work and how they can be aligned to your business strategy.

Identify areas where there is potential and readiness for a community of practice to thrive. Talk to prospective members to learn about their concerns, their thoughts about the community, identify their needs, etc.

Setting up communities of practice in your organisation can be a powerful way to materialise your business goals and boost company performance.

However, the informal and voluntary nature of CoPs pose challenges for aligning them to your organisational objectives.

These guidelines should help leaders and executives like you in ensuring the value of CoPs to your team members and the organisation.

Ready to step up your organisational mastery? Take this 5-minute scorecard to uncover the facets you need to work on as a leader in your company.

We provide Team Coaching, Agile Training, and Agile Consulting, OKR Training, OKR Consulting, Innovation Training and Innovation Consulting.

With my team, I built 5 main products: High Performing Teams, Scrum Team Coach, Scrum Master Mentoring, Organisational Mastery and the External Business Accelerator.

To check all our products and services please visit our pages: Products and Services.

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE GUIDE

A guide to help executives to understand how Communities Of Practices can generate new lines of products or services, spread best practices among employees and help companies to find and retain talent!

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Communities of Practice Guidelines For Your Business

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Learn how to align CoPs to your organisational goals and business strategy with the help of these communities of practice guidelines. Communities of practice are a well-established organisational framework designed for cultivating and sharing knowledge capital among the corporate workforce.

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How Communities of Practice Develop Your Workers Skills?

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How Communities of Practice Develop Your Workers Skills?

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How do communities of practice develop workers' skills and how do we cultivate these communities as a knowledge management tool? Read more in our article.

How Communities of Practice Develop Your Workers Skills?

You've probably envisioned of it a couple of times; seeing your employees initiating to be better in the job they do.

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE GUIDE

A guide to help executives to understand how Communities Of Practices can generate new lines of products or services, spread best practices among employees and help companies to find and retain talent!

With the current setting and company culture that you have now, you're probably thinking that it's elusive to provide continuing skill training to your employees without them seeing it as another "tasks".

This is where communities of practice step in. Communities of practice have become even more popular these days especially in the business world as a major tool for knowledge sharing and transfer.

In this post, we explore knowledge management as the main benefit of communities of practice and how this framework can be used to drive workers' skills and boost their performance.

Communities of Practice as Knowledge Management Tool

Communities of practice, in the very essence, are the most natural way in which knowledge is managed within an organisation.

That is simply because they form naturally, starting as informal groups of practitioners or professionals who share common concerns, problems, goals and interests.

Within your company, they might begin as a group of your IT employees who interact regularly to tackle daily problems they encounter at work, or a group of data analysts who are looking for better ways gather insights.

During such interactions, these communities gain knowledge as they exchange best practices, listen to each other's stories, collaborate and brainstorm, and carry out projects.

Even with less supervision and encouragement from their superiors, communities of practice can freely exchange knowledge that enhances their skills.

Their interactions can happen in any form, from face-to-face conversations or virtual communication (chat, video conferences, or emails).

And that solves your problem about helping your employees grow skill-wise. Communities of practice leverage our natural instinct to socialise and with these interactions we exchange information to accomplish our specific goals.

This can be the generalisation but let's dive deeper on how CoPs can actually make a difference in your company.

How CoPs Can Benefit Your Staff

Sure - communities of practice have many advantages to your organisation. And one of them is developing your workers' skills . In what ways? Here are the details:

Sharing Best Practices

One of the greatest features of communities of practice is that it drives organisational performance through sharing of best practices.

With CoPs, the exchange of best practices come so naturally as members interact and discuss matters relating to their work.

In the marketing department of a company, for example, team members may regularly hold informal huddles wherein everyone shares about their past experience, how they were able to overcome similar hurdles, what strategies worked and didn't work in various situations, and so on.

It is a great way for people working in the same team, company or industry focus on various professional competencies that drive their performance, such as communication, leadership, teamwork, cultural sensitivity and problem-solving.

Driving Employee Engagement

A highly engaged employee will always do the extra mile to contribute to the company.

Even if that means working overtime for a few days or weeks or taking on extra tasks. He does it all not only because he is being paid, but more importantly because he finds value in his role and he for the company he works for.

Healthy CoPs are built from the foundations of personal relationships, networking, shared knowledge, and common interests.

Not only do members gain knowledge and learn best practices from their peers, they also develop a strong bond with them, which makes their life in the workplace more desirable.

It makes work easier too, considering the fact that they have access to expertise in times of technical problems, as well as social support.

Promoting a Positive Company Culture

What aced in the survey is working for a company that has the culture they want to be part of. Companies these days constantly offer various perks and benefits to retain their employees, from free meals to extra vacation time and wellness programs.

But at the end of the day, it's how they feel personally valued in the workplace that makes employees happy.

CoPs create a learning culture wherein the organisation values, enables, rewards, and uses the learning of its members, both individually and collectively.

How to Make the Most of CoPs

But in order for your communities to be even more effective, they require nurturing from your company.

They need support, guidance and encouragement particularly from the management end (You) in order for them to collaborate effectively and promote knowledge sharing and transfer.

Define a clear purpose. While CoPs begin as informal networks of people in the same practice, helping them create some sort of a structure is definitely helpful, especially when an organisation seeks to cultivate CoPs for certain purposes.

Assign a facilitator or community leader. This person will be the go-to resource for members. He or she will foster the growing participation of the community members. Appoint someone who is known as a subject matter expert and who is widely recognised for his work and contributions to the practice.

Acknowledge varying levels of participation. A community of practice works best when there is a good mix of participants - active listeners, subject matter experts, and learners.

Provide support. Give them the tools and resources they need, such as an online platform that makes communication easy, and a place or venue where they can meet and collaborate face to face.

Promote the CoPs. Let everyone in the organisation know about the existence of CoPs and its key stakeholders so they will know who to contact in case they wish to join the community.

Enable CoPs to grow and mature over time.

Communities of practice are no doubt one of the best organisational tools that can help drive employee performance.

It does it in many different ways, such as sharing of best practices, driving employee engagement, and promoting a positive company culture.

But in order for them to be effective, they have to be nurtured and sustained. And that falls straight on your plate.

We provide Team Coaching, Agile Training, and Agile Consulting, OKR Training, OKR Consulting, Innovation Training and Innovation Consulting.

With my team, I built 5 main products: High Performing Teams, Scrum Team Coach, Scrum Master Mentoring, Organisational Mastery and the External Business Accelerator.

To check all our products and services please visit our pages: Products and Services.

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE GUIDE

A guide to help executives to understand how Communities Of Practices can generate new lines of products or services, spread best practices among employees and help companies to find and retain talent!

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How Communities of Practice Develop Your Workers Skills?

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How do communities of practice develop workers' skills and how do we cultivate these communities as a knowledge management tool? Read more in our article. You've probably envisioned of it a couple of times; seeing your employees initiating to be better in the job they do.

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10 Communities Of Practice Best Practices

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10 Communities Of Practice Best Practices

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CoP is a framework for companies that want to invest in their knowledge capital. Read these Communities of practice best practices to help you start a CoP.

Communities Of Practice Best Practices

Communities of Practice should be able to provide an opportunity for your team to build their expertise and deepen their knowledge in your industry.

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE GUIDE

A guide to help executives to understand how Communities Of Practices can generate new lines of products or services, spread best practices among employees and help companies to find and retain talent!

Ideally, this is achieved through regular collaboration within an environment where everyone is eager to share his or her knowledge with one another.

However, in its early stage, initiating and encouraging your team to make CoPs work can be a bit challenging. This can frustrate you but using the ten best practices below can address this slump head-on.

This will allow everyone to have an idea of how the Communities of Practice will function and the various expectations of each member.

You can do this by creating a "charter" or a sort of rules of engagement where you identify the group's strategy, communication techniques, and scheduling and holding meetings. However, remember, this "structure" should not alienate "informal" nature of CoPs.

CoPs foundation is deeply rooted in its "social" nature. Don't suffocate your people with rules in CoPs.

Whether the meeting is online or offline, members should be able to meet one another and start discussing their goals and objectives.

This activity will also them the chance to gain more confidence in sharing ideas and knowledge with the other members. This will help in enhancing the effectiveness of the Communities of Practice in the long run. It's a social learning community.

Holding meetings on a regular basis is undoubtedly another key for Communities of Practice to achieve success. These meetings are perfect opportunities for members' collaboration and sharing.

Members can also enjoy the following: opportunity to share knowledge, ability to strengthen communication, a more effective way to interact, the chance to speak directly with other practitioners, and the ability to receive immediate input and feedback.

What you can do from the management side is to make it sure that you give your team the time for these regular meeting. Also, make it sure that there would be as less friction and stress in providing this schedule to protect the momentum of your CoPs.

By using these platforms, members can share documents, delegate tasks, keep track of the projects' deadline, keep themselves updated with a community calendar, and most importantly extend the conversation.

As a result, the community is well organised and can stay on-task which remains true even when some members are participating remotely.

This company-wide survey of employees allows the organisation to learn about the issues or weaknesses which should be focused on by the Communities of Practice.

Members can focus on the organisation's most pressing issues and allocate time and resources to tackle these concerns during their regular meetings. The survey spells out the problem for the CoPs.

It is an indirect way to spark a conversation around it without pushing the interest of your company blatantly. Again, we don't want to alienate the social learning nature of CoPs.

Get a clear idea on the following: the purpose of creating the community; how to fine tune the community's training strategy; and ways to improve the CoPs.

As a result, members will have a good understanding of how to do their part to reach the desired results in relation to the established objective and purpose of their CoPs.

Be able to determine what each member of the community brings to the table and what core experience or knowledge they can share with the others.

Ideally, the community must be made up of a diverse group of members wherein each one offers something invaluable and unique to the group. You would want to have a group that represents a wide range of employees, expertise, and interest.

This can be particularly useful if you're building a company-wide learning community. You can identify at least one member to represent a specific department. You can also find those who excel in certain areas or skill sets.

Having a moderator is vital to the success of the community. Find and appoint someone who is not only knowledgeable on various topics but is also widely appreciated.

Some of the tasks of a moderator include: keeping the group on-task; providing guidance during meetings; and being a liaison between the community and the organisation.

The appointment can either be made directly or by conducting a group vote wherein each member would vote for the person who they believe is the community's best representative.

Communities meet both in-person and online. It is essential that members have various means to share ideas and work together. Using these online platforms can be a convenient and fast way for members to arrive at new and innovative solutions.

These include social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Through these platforms, members can easily share files, videos, and images.

The thing is, they should opt for this medium of communication and should not see it as an invasion of their social media use.

Communities thrive on the support and resources that are offered by their leaders (You). These can include the tools, apps and sometimes monetary funds.

This kind of support is particularly useful in the beginning stages of the group. CoPs need to develop training, strategies, and development solutions which can benefit your company as a whole.

In conclusion

To achieve these best practices, it requires bringing together these four main components: the people, the technology, the structure or process, and your mindset.

CoPs core goal is for its member to develop their knowledge through social learning - benefiting your company in terms of innovation, teamwork, and other by-products of CoPs are something that you can indirectly steer using different approaches.

The key to reaping all the rewards of CoPs is to be strategic about interacting with it, have a long-term mindset, and support it so providing valuable to improve your company will become almost second nature to CoPs.

Get started by taking our Organisational Mastery Scorecard and find out how you will integrate CoPs in the big picture.

We provide Team Coaching, Agile Training, and Agile Consulting, OKR Training, OKR Consulting, Innovation Training and Innovation Consulting.

With my team, I built 5 main products: High Performing Teams, Scrum Team Coach, Scrum Master Mentoring, Organisational Mastery and the External Business Accelerator.

To check all our products and services please visit our pages: Products and Services.

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE GUIDE

A guide to help executives to understand how Communities Of Practices can generate new lines of products or services, spread best practices among employees and help companies to find and retain talent!

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10 Communities Of Practice Best Practices

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CoP is a framework for companies that want to invest in their knowledge capital. Read these Communities of practice best practices to help you start a CoP. Communities of Practice should be able to provide an opportunity for your team to build their expertise and deepen their knowledge in your industry.

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Communities of Practice Tools that Your Team Will Love

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Communities of Practice Tools that Your Team Will Love

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Communities of Practice is impossible to maintain without its tools. Learn the different Communities of Practice tools here.

Communities of Practice Tools

If you want to exponentially grow the CoPs in your company, you have to make it sure that you have systems and structures in place that would naturally assimilate to the operation of CoPs.

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE GUIDE

A guide to help executives to understand how Communities Of Practices can generate new lines of products or services, spread best practices among employees and help companies to find and retain talent!

Building and maintaining a community of practice and keeping the members actively engaged in conversations and projects is not an easy task, even for the most highly trained thought leaders.

Wenger et al . (2002) enumerated seven processes that can sustain and cultivate a CoP. These are as follows:

Designing for evolution

Facilitating dialogues between members and outside the CoP

Inviting various levels of member participation

Developing community spaces

Concentrating on value

Combining excitement and familiarity

Creating a unique rhythm for the CoP

It is difficult to keep track of each process plus the knowledge transfers between members.

Thankfully, there are various tools that leaders and members can use for communication, collaboration, knowledge repository and distribution, and task management to help monitor the progress of the community in attaining the goals and maintaining momentum.

Communities of Practice Tools for Communication

Communication is at the core of a community of practice. points out that it's best for members to communicate regularly.

CoP Members must constantly engage with each other to share information, firsthand experiences, opinions and practices.

Finding an effective communication and collaboration tool that fits the needs of the community and connects members, especially those who work remotely is essential if you want to succeed in maintaining a healthy CoP.

Here are some of your options:

It is a collaboration tool used by SMEs and large enterprises. It is best distinguished by its workspace and channels.

A workspace can be created by the assigned CoP leader and send email invites to the rest of the community members. As for the channel, you can assign a specific topic and add in contributors.

For example, a CoP of the HR department wants to specifically discuss onboarding procedure. To organise conversations on onboarding, the account administrators can create a channel labelled #onboarding.

Price: Roughly £6 to £10- the pricing depends on the features and add-ons you need. For small communities, you can try the free account.

Connecting with members of an organisation is never better with Yammer. It's an app created by Microsoft that looks and feel like a typical social media network.

However, it is specifically designed for business organisations with its large file upload feature, video conferencing option, company directory, microblog, profile pages and easy to use interface.

Pricing: The basic package starts at around £2.50 per user account.

When it comes to conducting video calls, Google Hangouts is among the top choice of organisations. It can be accessed both through the PC and mobile devices.

Some of the key features of this app are HD video call capability, group conferencing option, auto screen focus, and personalised control options for admins.

You also have the option to integrate the app with various Google Apps such as the Hangouts on Air, an app that allows you to live broadcast videos.

Price: You can access the app for free. Simply create an account on Google and you can organise team conferences already.

Another tool worthy of a mention is Facebook's Workplace . It's relatively new to the market but one with promising future because of its advantageous familiarity to users.

Aside from communication tools mentioned above, your organisation must consider using email lists to send updates and messages to every member. You can use tools such as Apple Mail, Mailchimp, and Outlook.

Project Management Tools for Organising Knowledge Resource and Community Tasks

While joining a CoP is voluntary, leaders may designate specific roles to some members to ensure that the community reaches its goal.

iCohere points out that members with designated roles are more likely to engage and participate than those who aren't assigned any responsibility.

Below are among the most popular project management tools used in various industries today.

It's a project management app that allows leaders to assign specific tasks to the members.

For example, the leader of the community may assign a few members to become the discussion facilitator, secretary, photo editors, social secretary, or link mavens.

By designating tasks, it's easier for leaders to focus on building the community and improving its strategies. Leaders can monitor the progress of members through the app's highly interactive interface.

Price: You can use it for free or avail their premium (around £8 per member) or enterprise package if you wish to access more advanced customisation features.

Trello is a Kanban project management tool that communities of practices can potentially use.

Leaders can assign tasks, set deadlines, provide details of the tasks, attach supporting documents and more using a card. Members can drag and drop each card into the appropriate lists.

Price: Creating a basic account is free, but if you want to access more features, you can either pay £35 a year or £4 per month.

Cloud Storage Apps for Communities of Practices

A cloud storage app is essential to any organisation. It provides quick, secured and safe access to databases, files and other important documents that the member may need.

Some of the best cloud storage apps you can use are OneDrive, Google Drive, Box, Dropbox and Amazon Drive.

Most of these cloud storage companies provide at limited storage space for free. If you want to avail more storage for the CoP files and documents, you can purchase storage space add-on packages.

How A Community Blog and Wiki Can Help a Community of Practice

Blogs and wikis are considered as effective vessels of learning.

Blogs mostly focused on personal or collective reflections and opinions, while wikis are an open source and searchable knowledge base about various niches and topics.

Despite their differences, both types of web-based collaboration software serve the purpose of collecting and collating information that may offer value to a community.

also explain that aside from providing information, as examples of a social software, blogs and wikis allow the audience to interact and contribute to the knowledge base.

Furthermore, Boulos et al. (2006) explain that if properly constructed and deployed, blogs and wikis can significantly improve knowledge absorption and boost engagement and collaboration among members of a community of practice.

There are thousands of available tools and techniques that CoPs can use to sustain engagement, improve knowledge transfer and open communication lines among members.

Pick one that will best suit the needs of the community. Among the community of practice tools mentioned above, what are your favourite(s)? How do you use them for your community's advantage? What apps do you use for your CoP?

We provide Team Coaching, Agile Training, and Agile Consulting, OKR Training, OKR Consulting, Innovation Training and Innovation Consulting.

With my team, I built 5 main products: High Performing Teams, Scrum Team Coach, Scrum Master Mentoring, Organisational Mastery and the External Business Accelerator.

To check all our products and services please visit our pages: Products and Services.

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE GUIDE

A guide to help executives to understand how Communities Of Practices can generate new lines of products or services, spread best practices among employees and help companies to find and retain talent!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Communities of Practice Tools that Your Team Will Love

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Communities of Practice is impossible to maintain without its tools. Learn the different Communities of Practice tools here. If you want to exponentially grow the CoPs in your company, you have to make it sure that you have systems and structures in place that would naturally assimilate to the operation of CoPs.

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Are your teams truly focused and productive?

Enable a more effective organization with a powerful enterprise collaboration platform that keeps your teams connected, engaged, and productive.

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Are your teams truly focused and productive? Enable a more effective organization with a powerful enterprise collaboration platform that keeps your teams connected, engaged, and productive.

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Intranets modernas - Soluciones Liferay DXP

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Integrate Workplace with the tools you already use

Deploy Workplace with Azure AD and Google Workspace. Connect to SharePoint, ADP, Office365 and more when it's time to get the job done. Workplace isn't another tool, it's a toolbox.

Integrate Workplace with the tools you already use

Deploy Workplace with Azure AD and Google Workspace. Connect to SharePoint, ADP, Office365 and more when it's time to get the job done. Workplace isn't another tool, it's a toolbox.

Get your messages across

When it comes to talking to your employees, posters, intranet and email just don't cut it, especially when people are on mobile. With Live broadcasts and Groups you can talk to everybody. And Knowledge Library makes your static and dynamic content accessible and discoverable from anywhere.

Hear what people have to say

When was the last time you had a conversation with everyone in your company over email? Workplace creates a culture where everybody has a voice, whether it's through quick-fire comments and reactions or more structured polls and surveys.

Protecting your data and respecting your privacy

Workplace and Facebook accounts are separate. That means you don't use (or even need) a Facebook profile to join Workplace. We don't use your Workplace data to target ads on Facebook, and you won't see ads in Workplace. Workplace undergoes stringent security verification audits every year and has achieved certification against ISO27001, ISO27018, SOC2, and SOC3 global standards. We are also GDPR compliant

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Deploy Workplace with Azure AD and Google Workspace. Connect to SharePoint, ADP, Office365 and more when it's time to get the job done. Workplace isn't another tool, it's a toolbox. Deploy Workplace with Azure AD and Google Workspace. Connect to SharePoint, ADP, Office365 and more when it's time to get the job done.

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Comunicación abierta y dinámica en toda tu organización

Mejora la participación y la comunicación en tu empresa. Crea comunidades de interés, reúne ideas y comentarios, y mantén a todos informados, alineados y avanzando con ayuda de Yammer.

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Red social empresarial de Yammer | Microsoft 365

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Mejora la participación y la comunicación en tu empresa. Crea comunidades de interés, reúne ideas y comentarios, y mantén a todos informados, alineados y avanzando con ayuda de Yammer.

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SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone l UX del empleado y lugar de trabajo digital

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Mejore el compromiso del colaborador con una experiencia de lugar de trabajo digital intuitiva y personalizada usando SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone.

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What can Guru do for you? We're a knowledge management tool first and foremost, but there's a lot you can do when you have the power of knowledge at your fingertips. Are we your ultimate time-saver that helps you work more efficiently? Could we be your staunchest ally during your first few weeks at...

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Guru's Knowledge Management & Sales Enablement Blog

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What can Guru do for you? We're a knowledge management tool first and foremost, but there's a lot you can do when you have the power of knowledge at your fingertips. Are we your ultimate time-saver that helps you work more efficiently? Could we be your staunchest ally during your first few weeks at...

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Knowledge Base Software with KBPublisher

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KBPublisher is a knowledge management software, it helps to collect and share information with employees, customers and partners.

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Improve your business processes during your digital transformation with help of ComArounds Knowledge Management and KCS ( Knowledge-Centered Service®) certified experts. ComAround provides training and certification, as well as consulting services on how to attain your business goals, such as reducing costs, improve customer satisfaction, workforce productivity, and adapting to cultural changes.

Read more about training and consulting services.

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Knowledge Management Software, Self Service & KCS - ComAround

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Improve your business processes during your digital transformation with help of ComArounds Knowledge Management and KCS ( Knowledge-Centered Service®) certified experts. ComAround provides training and certification, as well as consulting services on how to attain your business goals, such as reducing costs, improve customer satisfaction, workforce productivity, and adapting to cultural changes.

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Haz el trabajo y hazlo mejor, independientemente de las circunstancias. Así, los empleados pueden ser productivos estén donde estén. Además, los clientes pueden obtener lo que necesitan en el momento que les haga falta.

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ServiceNow - The smarter way to workflow™

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Haz el trabajo y hazlo mejor, independientemente de las circunstancias. Así, los empleados pueden ser productivos estén donde estén. Además, los clientes pueden obtener lo que necesitan en el momento que les haga falta.

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Empowering Support Teams and Promoting Self-service

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Best knowledge management system software for interactive customer support, service & tools for enterprise contact center support.

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Empowering Support Teams and Promoting Self-service

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Bitrix24 internal knowledgebase software is completely free, easy to use, and will help organize your company's information.

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Top 10 Best Knowledge Management Systems In 2021

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Top 10 Best Knowledge Management Systems In 2021

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Best Knowledge Management Systems For Building All Types Of KMS

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Best Knowledge Management Systems For Building All Types Of KMS

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A knowledge management system (KMS) is an essential part of almost every successful business. Yet why do many new businesses and startups disregard it as an optional component?

The expensive costs of managing a knowledge base and maintaining it regularly are the main reasons. The struggle of updating knowledge articles using complicated tools is another reason why businesses avoid building knowledge bases.

However, with the right KMS, you can avoid all these issues. And build an easily manageable knowledge base on a tiny budget.

We found several knowledge management systems that are made for businesses just like yours and many more. In this guide, we take a closer look at the systems to find the right KMS for your project.

Let's get started.

What Is A Knowledge Management System (KMS)?

A knowledge management system can be defined in many ways. For some, it's a teaching and learning platform. For many others, it's a platform for solving problems efficiently.

Simply put, a knowledge management system is the platform or the tool you use for sharing knowledge.

For example, with a knowledge management system, you can create articles, documents, and guides. You can then make them available to your customers or employees to let them find solutions to common issues related to your product.

Whether it's to educate your customers on how to use a product. Or teach your employees how to handle different situations. We can all agree that a knowledge base can be beneficial for all types of businesses in many ways.

Benefits Of Knowledge Management & Sharing

If you need further convincing, here are just a few of the many benefits of knowledge management.

Reduce the Costs of Customer Support

With a knowledge base, you empower your customers and employees to find solutions by themselves.

If a customer is having a problem, they can search for an answer in the knowledge base. Employees can use the knowledge base to find guides on how to handle certain situations like responding to customer inquiries.

Either way, it can help cut down the time and costs that go into answering emails and phone calls.

Train Employees and Teams

Private knowledge bases are commonly used by companies to train and educate their employees and teams. You can create multiple knowledge bases for each department. Fill it with courses, solutions, and guides. So that they can find tutorials guides to common problems all on their own.

Faster Problem Solving

Knowledge bases also help you save time by providing on-demand solutions. Customers no longer have to call and wait on hold for hours to fix a problem. Employees don't need to go through months of training to answer simple questions. It's all in the knowledge base. It's just a single search away.

Consult an expert is now a thing of the past. With a knowledge base, you become an expert. Knowledge bases are filled with guides and documents made by experts. There's no need to seek help elsewhere.

Better Search Engine Ranking

Public knowledge bases can also be used as a great source for SEO. You can optimize knowledge articles and content to rank higher on search engines for specific keywords.

Different Types Of Knowledge Management Systems

The first step in developing a knowledge management system is to set clear goals. What's the main purpose of your knowledge base? Is it to serve customers or manage your own departments?

Once you have a clear goal, you can find the right KMS based on different types of knowledge bases.

Customer Support Systems

These are public knowledge base systems you make to serve customers. Customer support knowledge bases include tutorials and guides. Especially answers to common issues related to products or services. This allows customers to find solutions without needing to contact customer support.

Expert Knowledge Systems

Expert knowledge systems are often made private to serve a company's team or a department. For example, the customer support department can use an expert knowledge system to quickly find answers to common customer problems. This type of knowledge bases includes expert guides made on specific topics.

Document Management Systems

Just as the name suggests, document management systems are knowledge bases for managing documents. It's especially useful for businesses that offer multiple products or services. Document management systems help you create one large manual for all your products in one place.

Database Management Systems

Database management systems are used to store and share different types of data related to a product or business. Whether it's data related to customers or product history, database management helps keep everything well organized.

Best Knowledge Management Systems & Solutions

We wanted to find the best knowledge management systems and solutions you can use to build different types of knowledge bases. Below you'll find our top picks.

KnowAll is a complete solution for building all kinds of knowledge management systems for businesses and education.

The main benefit of using KnowAll is it's easy to start with. It's basically a plug and play theme for WordPress. Everything is made to help you build your knowledge base in no time and to customize it to align it to your brand.

With KnowAll, building your knowledge base is as easy as starting a blog. You can create new articles in a few clicks, order them and organize them in categories and subcategories. The theme offers multiple design options to cater to your needs in terms of user interface.

But that's not all, the value added on top of the knowledge base is the statistics. With KnowAll you'll be able to see what are your most viewed articles and ask your readers for some feedback so you get to see which articles were useful and which ones need improving.

Best Features Of KnowAll

Document360 is a self-serve knowledge base software that falls under the discipline of the knowledge management system. It is a complete solution for collecting, organizing, retrieving, and sharing knowledge for your customers and internal users which you can define.

Best Features Of Documents360

Multiple Dashboards: It supports numerous projects or documentation websites so that you do not have to look anywhere else when your product list expands.

Powerful Editor: Support Markdown editor and WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) editor for efficient and structure writing.

Google-like-Drive: Store and manage files, images, videos and insert them to your knowledge base at any time.

Versioning & Rollback: The ability to rollback to previous version of the article with ease.

Third-Party Integrations: It can be integrated with Intercom, Freshdesk, Microsoft and Zendesk, and many more.

Security at Category Level: Document360 comes with advanced security access at multiple levels to cover all your scenarios. You can provide access to your Readers at different levels.

Analytics & Reports: Powerful insights giving detailed reports on customer geography, performance, and search overview.

Zendesk is known as one of the best software for customer support management. But, it can handle much more than support tickets and live chat.

Zendesk also features a smooth knowledge management system called Zendesk Guide. Which you can use to setup both private and public knowledge bases to serve customers and employees.

Zendesk Guide is a part of the Zendesk software suite. When you subscribe to Zendesk you get access to several other tools. This makes it a more suitable option for larger businesses and enterprises.

Best Features Of Zendesk

HelpJuice is a modern and easy to use knowledge base software that's ideal for startups and small businesses. The software is being used by many reputable big brands such as Walmart to startups like Monday.

Unlike most other KB software, HelpJuice is easier to setup and manage. It also has an innovative editor that allows you to create well-structured content while keeping change history.

Best Features Of HelpJuice

HubSpot's Service Hub is a full suite of customer service software that provides you with everything from live chat and help desk to knowledge base and customer feedback surveys. All of these tools are built on HubSpot's CRM, giving your business one unified view of customer interactions.

Service Hub's Knowledge Base makes it easy to create articles to help customers help themselves. Convert frequently asked questions into a searchable library of help articles, videos, and documentation.

Best Features Of HubSpot

Easy-to-use & intuitive: Getting started with HubSpot is a breeze. Create templates to make article creation easier & automatically import existing knowledge base articles.

Customizable: Adjust the design, footer, header, categorization, and more on your knowledge base pages.

Multi-language support: Create and manage a knowledge base to answer your customers' in their preferred language.

Powerful analytics: See what terms customers are searching for, monitor performance of articles, and see video engagement - to analyze your efforts and see where you need to create new articles.

All-in-one platform: Service Hub includes tools like live chat and help desk in addition to knowledge base. And since everything is built to integrate with HubSpot's other tools, you can get a unified view of customer activity from marketing to sales to service.

Zoho is a platform popular for its suite of affordable business tools. Zoho is cheap but their tools are also very basic.

Similar to most of their software, Zoho Wiki is a knowledge management software with basic features. It has everything you need to setup a wiki-style knowledge base. Nothing more.

Due to its limited features and functionality, it's most suitable for creating private knowledge bases for small teams and businesses.

Best Features Of Zoho Wiki

Lessonly is a knowledge management software made specifically for creating employee training and private knowledge bases.

It comes with a set of tools to make things easier for you to train teams. Like allowing users to practice handling support tickets, live chat practice, and much more.

Lessonly is available in 2 pricing plans. However, the company hasn't specified the prices on the website. The pricing will be calculated based on the number of users and the tools you need for your knowledge base.

Best Features Of Lessonly

Which Knowledge Management System Should You Use?

Finding the right knowledge management system that includes all the necessary tools for your business is not that difficult. Here's our suggestion.

WordPress is the ideal choice for building knowledge bases for small to medium-sized businesses and startups. You can use it to build all kinds of public and private knowledge bases. It supports thousands of plugins for extending functionality. And it's extremely affordable.

For large enterprises and corporations, we recommend going with an all-in-one solution like Zendesk. Managing your customer service and knowledge base from one place will be worth the price. Especially when you have to oversee many departments and teams.

Of course, you shouldn't just take our word for it. Do more research and explore more options to find the right KMS for your business. You can also check out our own knowledge management products. We have a lineup of tools made just for building all types of knowledge bases.

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5 Best Knowledge Management Systems For Building All Types Of KMS

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A knowledge management system (KMS) is an essential part of almost every successful business. Yet why do many new businesses and startups disregard it as an optional component? The expensive costs of managing a knowledge base and maintaining it regularly are the main reasons.

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Knowledge Management System — Tour Lessonly

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Help your team connect with the right resources when they need them with Lessonly’s knowledge management system. Take a tour today.

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Knowledge Management System

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Software de gestión de conocimientos y herramienta de intercambio - Zoho Wiki

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Zoho Wiki se diseñó para ofrecer la mejor experiencia de colaboración y gestión de conocimientos a las empresas. Empiece de forma GRATUITA.

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Customer Service Software for Small to Enterprise Businesses

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HubSpot's customer service software makes supporting customers easy. Help your customers on the channels they prefer, while driving efficiency for your team.

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Use your know‑how

A smart knowledge base for better self‑service and empowered agents

Known as Zendesk Guide

Do it yourself service

Self-service is good because it's quick and convenient for customers-and they tend to like that. That's why a smart knowledge base plays a big part in your customer experience strategy. Our help center software organizes knowledge and empowers customers and agents with that information.

Practical for customers

Give customers the freedom to help themselves on their own terms.

Handy for agents

Empowers agents to keep knowledge fresh, updated, and useful for everyone.

Good for business

Reduce support costs and ticket volume, so agents can focus on bigger issues and offer more meaningful support.

Instant and easy

Support on their terms

Some customers prefer to help themselves. All you have to do is put the answers they seek within reach. That's where a smart knowledge base and help center come in handy. Make it easy for customers to solve their own issue without having to send an email or make a call. Take it further with in-context self-service inside your product or on your website with the Web Widget and Mobile SDK.

Knowledge at every turn

Keep it fresh

Support teams know the most about customer issues and how to solve them. Collect their expertise and make it accessible to customers with . Think articles for common things like frequently asked questions, product details, policies, and more. As you grow, keep your self-service offering healthy by letting agents update content so it always caters to your customers.

Customize and personalize

Make it yours

Embrace full control and flexibility over the way your help center looks with customizable themes. You have complete freedom to organize content the way you see fit so it's easier for customers to find the right stuff. You can even create more than one help center that caters to different audiences, regions, or brands, and localize content in over 40 languages.

"We love the help center in Zendesk because it's easy to use. We get some great analytics out of it in terms of which articles are being used the most. It helps us to make adjustments and to see what's helping our users."

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Best help center software & knowledge base 2021 | Zendesk

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A smart knowledge base for better self‑service and empowered agents Self-service is good because it's quick and convenient for customers-and they tend to like that. That's why a smart knowledge base plays a big part in your customer experience strategy. Our help center software organizes knowledge and empowers customers and agents with that information.

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In 1597, Sir Francis Bacon famously said, " Knowledge is power ."

Whether he knew it or not, this maxim has become more and more relevant for businesses that are looking to retain and grow their customer base over the years.

However, identifying this knowledge is only half the battle. Once information is collected, you need a way to distill it into a consumable format as well as organize, share, and analyze it. Without these steps, your newfound knowledge won't have much power at all. The good news is that they are a number of knowledge management systems available today to help you with these steps.

In this blog post, here's what we'll review:
Let's get started.

What is knowledge management software?

Knowledge management software organizes information so that employees and customers can quickly access and distribute it. This technology pools data into one collective resource, preventing data silos and making it easier to find information. By having all knowledge in one location, stakeholders know exactly where to go when they have questions about your business.

Knowledge management software also includes options for content creation such as a knowledge base which can be used by both your customers and your employees. These customer self-service options improve the customer experience because users can find quick and simple solutions without calling into support.

Benefits of Knowledge Management Software

Since knowledge management software provides a range of benefits, here are a few major points to note.

1. Personalized Customer Service Interactions

When customer data is readily available, service agents can use this information to personalize the customer experience.

For example, if your team uses a CRM, you can store data about past interactions with your customers. Then, you can recall that information the next time the customer reaches out to your business. This builds a long-term relationship with your customers which improves service experiences and prevents churn.

2. Faster Support Solutions

The purpose of knowledge management software is to centralize information. When that happens, both employees and customers can solve problems faster.

Employees know where to find important resources, and customers can use self-service solutions to overcome common roadblocks. And, when your team provides faster solutions, you can expect an increase in customer satisfaction.

3. Reduced Service Volume

Adding a knowledge base to your website is a major advantage for your customer service team. Common and simple customer problems no longer require an agent to solve them.

Instead, customers can seek out their own solutions without picking up the phone or writing an email. When you remove these simple cases from your support queue, your service team can spend more time focusing on complex and urgent issues.

Next, let's talk about what an open source knowledge base is, what makes this type of knowledge base unique, and why you'd want to use one.

Open Source Knowledge Base

An open source knowledge base is built on open source software - meaning, its source code is original, freely available, and modifiable . An open source knowledge base is highly-customizable as you'll have to build it in-house.

If you're not interested an open source knowledge base, your other option is SaaS knowledge base.

A SaaS knowledge base is entirely ready for you to use the moment you get it - but you may not be able to customize it to your liking as you would with open source.

Let's talk about some more reasons why you might want an open source knowledge base next.

Why You Might Want an Open Source Knowledge Base

There are a number of reasons why you might want an open source knowledge base. To show you what I mean by this, let's review some benefits and common use cases you'll get from going this route.

Benefits and Common Use Cases for an Open Source Knowledge Base

Here are some benefits and common use cases for when and why you'd want your knowledge base to be open source.

Customize it to your liking because it's built in-house (or built by a developer you hire).

Save money because the original, modifiable code for open source knowledge bases is free.

Rely on internal experts and developers for support when using and growing your knowledge base (versus paying for access to a SaaS knowledge base's support team).

Integrate your knowledge base with other software you already use (this is typically simple since a developer will be building it).

Self-host your knowledge base on your own server versus another product's server.

Don't limit scalability or potential for growth with a pre-built SaaS knowledge base.

Lastly, if you're looking for some examples of open source knowledge base software, check out Bitrix24 and OpenKM in the list below.
Source
HubSpot's Knowledge Base Software is a powerful tool - here are some of its most-notable capabilities:
1. Saves your team valuable time when building your knowledge base.
You can get your knowledge base up and running in just minutes with HubSpot. You won't have to work with templates and you don't need a domain either. By analyzing your ticket and conversation data, this tool actually guides you to create knowledge base content for your highest-impact topics and themes that customers need support on.
2. Makes sure your knowledge base is findable.
HubSpot's Knowledge Base comes with SEO capabilities to ensure your library is discoverable. Additionally, it integrates with other channels that are used for rep-to-customer interaction such as email and chat - this helps users find your knowledge base and the most relevant content to them within it.
3. Offers an engaging user experience for your customers.
When it comes to a knowledge base, you want to make sure yours has a great user experience (UX) and is easily navigable. HubSpot guides you as you work on and write knowledge base articles to ensure your content and information are easy to find, browse, read or watch, and refer to again in the future.
4. Helps you measure the performance of your knowledge base.
HubSpot provides a look at the success of your knowledge base with powerful insights including: engagement, sentiment, search, tickets and conversations, ticket deflection, and maintenance suggestions.
Source
Guru is a software designed to connect all of your company's data together. It uses AI to suggest information to your reps in real-time, so your team doesn't have to search for data during a service interaction.

Also, the more you use Guru, the better the software gets. Since it's machine-learning, Guru will improve its performance over time and adjust to your team's day-to-day workflow.

Helpjuice has unique customization tools that let you design every aspect of your knowledge base. This includes styling options that make layouts more user-friendly to your readers.
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Authors can also work together on new posts and share page previews prior to publishing. If they make a mistake, every revision is recorded so you can revert to previous versions of your post when needed.

ProProfs Knowledge Base is a simple, yet powerful tool that helps you provide instant self-help support to your customers as well as employees. Suitable for small businesses and enterprises, this tool can be used to write knowledge base articles from scratch, import existing word docs or PDF files, and publish in a single click. The tool provides a variety of professionally-designed templates to get started quickly. Moreover, its built-in reporting system gives insights into what questions people are looking for and what they are not finding answers to. You can use this data to improve and update your knowledge base regularly.

Bitrix 24 is a free, open source knowledge base that simplifies the processes of organizing and sharing information. The software is suitable for all businesses including SMBS and enterprises.

The Bitrix24 code is entirely modifiable so you can completely customize your knowledge base. You can also integrate various apps with your knowledge base to enhance its capabilities.
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Sabio positions itself as a "serviceware solution" that's designed to get you the best return from your company's data. It's a constantly updating system that frequently rolls out new perks and features.

One of its most notable features is the "Tree" tool that lets users quickly browse through related articles in your knowledge base. This improves UX because it proactively suggests content that's relevant to a user's goals.
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Quip has a powerful documents tool that lets you create or upload new knowledge base articles. You can upload spreadsheets, slideshows, customer conversations, and an array of file types to ensure all of your company data is stored in one place.

Quip also comes with an internal chat function so your team can work together when creating content. By collaborating in real-time, your team will avoid miscommunication that typically leads to inaccurate or confusing content.
Source
ServiceNow offers knowledge management solutions that are both internal and customer-facing. The internal options help IT teams manage and record incoming service requests by saving service interactions to a central database. This helps IT teams create knowledge base articles that are based on common employee problems.

Bloomfire is a cloud-based knowledge management software that encourages both employees and customers to be self-sufficient. It uses AI-generated tags to categorize information, making your most-used data easier to access.

It also supports a wide range of integrations so you can connect tools like Slack, Dropbox, and Google Drive to your central database. This way, you can upload existing documents into Bloomfire and then transform them into self-service knowledge base articles.
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Tettra is a knowledge management solution designed for internal teams. It's intuitive, and has an interface that's easy to use and navigate. Its most notable feature is its Slack option that lets users ask questions through their Slack app. This way, employees can search and share answers from your knowledge base without leaving their internal messaging tool.
Source
IntelligenceBank is an all-in-one tool that helps your service team align with your sales and marketing efforts. For example, in addition to its service features, it also has sales enablement features that ensure your sales team has the most current customer data. These options let sales reps customize proposals and send alerts to managers whenever new items are available.

OpenKM is an open source knowledge base and content management system. It helps organize, share, and evaluate the information you want in your knowledge base.
Source
With OpenKM you have the ability to create more than one content library as well as provide access to your website visitors and entire org (e.g. say you were building an internal directory).

Now that your team has a knowledge management software to work on, read how you can integrate it with knowledge-centered support.
Source Source

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In 1597, Sir Francis Bacon famously said, " Knowledge is power ." Whether he knew it or not, this maxim has become more and more relevant for businesses that are looking to retain and grow their customer base over the years. However, identifying this knowledge is only half the battle.

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Helpjuice's easy-to-use and most powerful knowledge base software is designed from the ground up to help you scale your customer support, and, collaborate better with your team.

#1 Rated Knowledge Base Software (since 2011)

75% Of People Searching For Knowledge Base Software End Up Concluding With Helpjuice. Here's what our customers say why:

What is the purpose of a knowledge base?

If you reading this, you are probably a Training, Customer Support, Product or Sales/Marketing Manager at a growing company, and probably consider yourself ahead of the 'curve'. With a Helpjuice knowledge base, we have helped companies like yours do 2 things very well:

Helpjuice Knowledge Base Software Features

What Do Helpjuice Knowledge Bases Look Like?

We have a fully dedicated page of knowledge base examples, but here are a few of our knowledge bases. You'll notice that they rarely resemble each other.

"Its ease of use and the ability to customize everything really sets it apart from the "competitors". They are really not competing; it's a totally different thing."- Leticia P

Ready to try our knowledge base software?

Start scaling your customer support, and, collaborate better with your team.

What is knowledge management?

Knowledge management is the process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. The purpose of knowledge base software is to allow you to host your knowledge base/corporate wiki in one centralized 'hub'. Both your customers, and employees can now access information within seconds!

Why is a knowledge base important?

Trusted by Thousands of Companies

From the largest organizations in the world to some of the most innovative companies rely on Helpjuice

Ready to try our knowledge base software?

Start scaling your customer support, and, collaborate better with your team.

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Helpjuice's easy-to-use and most powerful knowledge base software is designed from the ground up to help you scale your customer support, and, collaborate better with your team. 75% Of People Searching For Knowledge Base Software End Up Concluding With Helpjuice.

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Connect, Collaborate and Communicate with your employees and customers like never before. Panviva provides complete and innovative knowledge management solutions focused on streamlining and making information more accessible.

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Boost Productivity & Break Down Silos | Starmind

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A single AI powered platform that connects every employee to the expert knowledge they need, in real time.

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Get the most out of your knowledge.

Is your knowledge spread out across multiple sources? Do you spend too much time looking for the right information? And when you do find that information, are you uncertain if it is current and accurate?

With SABIO, you manage all your knowledge from a single, central knowledge base. High-performance role-based user access control ensures each user gets precisely the knowledge they need. Nothing more, nothing less.

Enjoy the benefits across every channel

A knowledge base can only achieve its true potential when you propagate knowledge to all the relevant channels. This way, you can ensure that both internal users and customers always have the right information at hand. It's powerful integration - the easy way.

You take care of wowing customers - we'll handle the rest

As your software as a service vendor, we manage all aspects of administering the system. We ensure seamless operation by delivering outstanding performance, airtight data protection, and a constant stream of new features.

SIGN UP FOR YOUR FREE TRIAL TODAY

30 days. Instantly delivered. No credit card required.

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Is your knowledge spread out across multiple sources? Do you spend too much time looking for the right information? And when you do find that information, are you uncertain if it is current and accurate? With SABIO, you manage all your knowledge from a single, central knowledge base.

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Your new intranet should do everything you expect. But more importantly, it should drive real value for the people who use it.

For End Users

Consume and engage with content

Find information quickly

Interact with fellow colleagues

Manage your daily work

For Content Managers

Communicate with users via multiple content types

Improve workflows with advanced publishing features

Target content to specified user groups

Streamline content management

For Administrators

Configure the site structure to best suit your needs

Manage settings and permissions

Improve findability of information

Evaluate performance and add enhancements

Check all the must-have features off your list

The Igloo platform is packed with features to help you build and sustain a thriving digital workplace. Make it your own by enabling these popular features and more.

Solve key business challenges with pre-built solution templates

Igloo features are the foundation of our customer-tested, pre-built solutions, designed to help you solve your key business challenges faster.

Ready to talk to an expert?

Talk to one of our product experts to get a demo of the Igloo platform and discuss the needs of your organization or teams digital transformation.
Schedule a call with a product expert

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Intranet Features & Built-In Apps | Igloo Software

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Your new intranet should do everything you expect. But more importantly, it should drive real value for the people who use it.

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Celebrated customer support at hand

Enjoy the assistance of our support heroes and let us help you with new and existing features alike.

Flexible features to serve your business

Tailor the structure, look and functionalities of your knowledge base to your needs and the needs of your users.

Integrations with popular software

Integrate KO with the most popular services and software and fit your knowledge base into your infrastructure with ease.

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KnowledgeOwl is feature-rich knowledge base software

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Enjoy the assistance of our support heroes and let us help you with new and existing features alike. Tailor the structure, look and functionalities of your knowledge base to your needs and the needs of your users. Integrate KO with the most popular services and software and fit your knowledge base into your infrastructure with ease.

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Being a market leader requires staying ahead of important developments and emerging trends - A task that often leaves your team overwhelmed with too many noisy channels to monitor and results to filter through.

We understand that your business cannot afford to miss out on crucial market intelligence. Cronycle helps you stay ahead of the market and empowers your team to deliver valuable insights that support the success of your brands and products.

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Cronycle | Market Intelligence & Insights Platform for Teams

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Being a market leader requires staying ahead of important developments and emerging trends - A task that often leaves your team overwhelmed with too many noisy channels to monitor and results to filter through. We understand that your business cannot afford to miss out on crucial market intelligence.

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Introducing Lessonly Knowledge, formerly Obie. Give your team fast, accurate answers to common questions, right in their moment of need.

Learn More

Make order out of chaos

Information lives in a zillion places at work. Help your team surface answers they need from docs, lessons, and 16+ other work apps.

Slack Integration Encourage less context switching and give teammates answers where they're already working.

Silo Search Enable one source of truth and centralize where teammates find information.

FAQs Capture correct answers faster with better accuracy and less friction.

AI Suggestions Detect common questions asked and provide automated answers right in Slack.

Browser Extension Provide client-facing teams with 24/7 access to accurate answers, lessons, and documentation.

Customer Success Manager | Podium

Sales Trainer | Lendio

Onboard Smarter

Whether your team works in‑person or remotely, streamlining where knowledge lives is critical.

Integrate Simply

Does your info live in Lessonly, Google Drive, Confluence, Zendesk Help Guide, Jira, Box, Dropbox, Trello, and more? We can help.

Save Time

Automatically reduce repeat questions, clarify best practices, and surface knowledge from sources like lessons and documents.

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Introducing Lessonly Knowledge, formerly Obie. Give your team fast, accurate answers to common questions, right in their moment of need. Learn More Information lives in a zillion places at work. Help your team surface answers they need from docs, lessons, and 16+ other work apps.

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Enable Teams and Embed Training Content with Enablement Tools - Spekit

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Enable teams and embed training content at Spekit with our leading digital enablement tools. We have everything you need to onboard and communicate change!

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GitBook started as a simple open source tool designed to let developers quickly publish content from a git repo. We've changed a bunch since then, but fundamentally we've stayed true to the vision of empowering software teams to document and distribute their knowledge.

Where we started

The first iteration of GitBook was a bootstrapped, developer-focused product built by co-founders Samy and Aaron, allowing folks to publish documentation (or 'books'!) straight from their git repos.

Where we're at

Now, we are a fully distributed team building the future of knowledge management, starting with technical teams. Our product has become more accessible, our team has grown, and we're powering knowledge sharing at some pretty awesome places.

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About | GitBook - Where software teams break knowledge silos.

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GitBook started as a simple open source tool designed to let developers quickly publish content from a git repo. We've changed a bunch since then, but fundamentally we've stayed true to the vision of empowering software teams to document and distribute their knowledge.

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Trusted by thousands of companies around the world

How Tettra is different

Answer questions where they're being asked

When questions get asked in Slack, use the Slack integration to send a new or existing answer. Send notifications for new and updated pages so your team reads what you write.

More about our Slack Wiki

Content your team can trust

Subject matter experts can confirm that important pages are accurate with regular verification. Your team can also request updates if something doesn't look right.

More about content verification

Start building your internal knowledge base today

Fewer repetitive questions for you and faster answers for your team.

We guarantee you'll be hooked.

Create your knowledge base

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Upgrade Your Company Wiki - Internal Knowledge Base Software | Tettra

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Trusted by thousands of companies around the world How Tettra is different When questions get asked in Slack, use the Slack integration to send a new or existing answer. Send notifications for new and updated pages so your team reads what you write.

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Discover why our easy creation, organization, and numerous integrations, make us so popular with non-technical and tech-savvy teams alike.

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Archbee - Docs Tool for your Team and Product

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Archbee is a lightweight, flexible docs tool for product docs on your domain, internal wikis, knowledge bases, API references, developer guides, changelogs, diagrams.

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Knowledge Management Software for contact centers. livepro is the top rated Knowledge Base Solution in the USA, Australia & the UK.

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Learn more about Shelf's pricing plans and find out which one is the right fit for your business.

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Minus the learning curve.

Get started

Meet our editor.
Fast and flexible for all your ideas.

Our editor never gets in your way. It's fast and flexible, whether you're jotting down notes, sketching out an idea, or documenting a process with a codeblock.

We've taken care of all the formatting so you don't have to.

You won't be starting from scratch

Templates get
you going

Best practices set you up for success from the beginning.

Browse templates

Your docs come
with you

Easily import your most useful docs from elsewhere.

Learn more

Get a clear view with channels

No more hunting around for documents in your Inbox or Susan's shared folders.

We've sped up the search

Searching for docs shouldn't slow you down. We've built our search to be fast and reliable, so you're always one keyword away from what you need.

Work with external people too

Collaboration sometimes spans outside your team. Edit specific docs with your clients or contractors, or invite them as guests to a channel for longer-term projects.

All together,
not all-in-one

Slite fits simply with your other tools. There's no need to replace what's working for you - just integrate the tools you love into Slite to make work a little more seamless.

Browse integrations

Work together with less friction

Packed with collaborative features that promote undistracted, focused teamwork. Now you can complete your projects without the interruptions of meetings and shoulder tapping.

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Ready for enterprise security

Compliant with Google/Slack SSO, OAuth, OKTA and OpenID. That way, new joiners get instant access to Slite. When they leave, they'll be automatically removed, too.

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Minus the learning curve. Get started Our editor never gets in your way. It's fast and flexible, whether you're jotting down notes, sketching out an idea, or documenting a process with a codeblock. We've taken care of all the formatting so you don't have to.

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Process Street | Checklist, Workflow and SOP Software

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Checklist and workflow software for businesses. Create recurring processes and standard operating procedures in seconds. Get started free.

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Knowledge Base Software That Scales With Your Product-Document360

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Instantly create a self-service knowledge base for your customers. Build FAQ, User guides, Product Documentation, Standard Operating Procedures and many more

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Home Page

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World-Class Knowledge Sharing Platform | Bloomfire

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Enable every team member to access all the answers, whether they're in the office, in the field, or working from home. Bloomfire makes your organization's information accessible from anywhere so your teams can stay aligned, informed, and engaged. Find what you need, when you need it.

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The easiest way to train and grow your team

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Stack Overflow for Teams is a knowledge management & collaboration solution that technologists already trust.

Thousands of organizations around the globe use Stack Overflow for Teams

Up to 250 teammates

Unlimited teammates

Unlimited teammates

From engineering to business partners

Departments of all types rely on Stack Overflow for Teams to meet deadlines and drive innovation

Product Management

Enable cross-team collaboration to help with product innovation.

Learn more

Minimize distractions and save time onboarding new employees

Calculate time savings

Improves other tools

Streamline workflows across the entire organization

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Get the most out of knowledge sharing by integrating Stack Overflow for Teams with popular tools. Our search capabilities make finding answers fast without interrupting the workflow.

Robust security controls

Trusted by thousands of customers to keep their proprietary data safe

More about security

See what our customers are saying

Industry leading companies trust Stack Overflow for Teams

Instead of trying to figure out how to reach people and bother them while they are working, I'm able to go to Stack Overflow for Teams and get the answers to my questions.

Mosh Feu
Front End Developer, Wix

We're building a valuable, well-curated knowledge base.

Jeremy Williams
Engineering, Factset

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Knowledge Management Software & Solutions for Collaboration

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Stack Overflow for Teams is a knowledge management & collaboration solution that technologists already trust. Thousands of organizations around the globe use Stack Overflow for Teams Up to 250 teammates Unlimited teammates Unlimited teammates Departments of all types rely on Stack Overflow for Teams to meet deadlines and drive innovation Enable cross-team collaboration to help with product innovation.

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Confluence | Your Remote-Friendly Team Workspace | Atlassian

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Confluence is a team workspace where knowledge and collaboration meet. Trusted for documentation, decisions, project collaboration & Jira integrations.

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Key Features Of Guru’s Knowledge Management Software

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Guru’s features are designed to help your team, without interrupting their workflow. Read on to learn why Guru is the industry’s most advanced knowledge management solution.

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5 Ways To Share Your Professional Expertise And 4 Reasons You Should

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5 Ways To Share Your Professional Expertise And 4 Reasons You Should

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5 Ways To Share Your Professional Expertise And 4 Reasons You Should

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Your expertise is a powerful gift that deserves to be shared. Why not send it out into the world to be free and lift others to new heights as well? Here’s how to do it and why it matters for your career.

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What is Knowledge Management? (in 3 minutes)

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What is Knowledge Management? (in 3 minutes)

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Dr. David Eagleman Talks About Tacit Knowledge & How We Learn