DIY Training Toolkit

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DIY Training Toolkit

Need training, but not sure where to start? This interactive guide comes with all the tips and tools to come up with a lesson plan from scratch.

SiNing Chan

As a former Senior Learning Designer at Evernote and Uber who’s encountered the challenges that come with launching large-scale, global learning programs, I’ve learned that developing the right tools can help me work more efficiently.

This doc is mini-version of a learning design playbook I originally developed when I was tasked with developing an entire training program for an organization with more than 550 people spread out across several continents. There was a desperate need to standardize training, and my Coda playbook was a lifesaver—especially when we all started working from home during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

I also used my Coda playbook to coach other

@Lead Learners⁠

(essentially, anyone on a team who is passionate about learning) on learning design and help them ramp them up quickly.

This guide provides you with everything you need to develop a training session from scratch. If you follow all the steps provided, you’ll end up with a lesson plan—a design blueprint to keep all your learning content and activities organized in a cohesive way. Tools, such as the Questionnaire and the Activity Ideas Organizer help keep the training relevant, engaging, and aligned to higher-level business goals.

What’s included

In addition to step-by-step instructions on how to create a lesson plan, this guide comes with valuable tools, such as:

The Performance Issues and Goals Worksheet

A Learning Outcomes Builder

A Topics Organizer

An Activities Organizer

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Use this ‘DIY Training Toolkit’

to design your own learning experiences or training programs.

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Make a copy of this doc

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How to get the most out of this guide

This toolkit is designed with

@Lead Learners⁠

in mind—so no learning specialists are required. It can also be used by senior leadership to promote consistency and alignment across the organization on learning design principles & processes.

Follow each of the steps in order because what you do on one page builds on another.

👉

OK. I'm ready to get started »⁠

The Backstory

Training—a growing need

If you ran a quick search for the word ‘training,’ on LinkedIn it wouldn’t be surprising to find over a million results, in just the U.S. alone. These days, it seems like every business or organization is looking for some kind of training program to up-skill and develop their employees and leaders.

The reality, however, is that only a few of these businesses and organizations have the resources and funding needed to hire external consultants or to purchase the latest and greatest enterprise learning platform.

3 common approaches

All too often, in-house training developed comes in three flavors:

A 1-2 hour in-person or online video class led by a content expert who’s reading from bulleted lists on a Powerpoint or Google Slide deck with about 50-100 slides (and a few animated GIFs thrown for comic relief).

An ‘e-learning version’ of that 1-2 hour’s worth of Powerpoint or Google Slides, this time with a voiceover and (if it’s real fancy) a ‘talking head’ video recording of a content expert’s presentation.

A text-heavy PDF ‘training manual’ emailed out as required reading—often with a long list of links to recommended articles, podcasts, books, and YouTube videos.

The similarity between all of the common approaches to training is clear—they are, for the most part, passive forms of learning.

Don’t get me wrong—people will still learn and performance may still improve, especially when the speakers have a wealth of knowledge to share and are dynamic, engaging presenters. But, in order to make learning stick,

studies have shown⁠

that our brains need to engage more deeply with new information.

An opportunity for improvement

Consider moving beyond slides & ‘talking heads’ in your training sessions. Studies have shown that presentations and online manuals are ineffective when delivered as standalone performance improvement solutions—not combined with other more ‘active’ types of learning that require more ‘active’ brain activity (even if comes with some really hilarious animated GIFs).

What this guide offers

Think of this guide as an interactive ‘workbook’ that walks you through how to:

Leverage existing content, resources, and expertise

Engage people in active learning through conversation and collaboration

Enforce deeper learning through reflection and mentorship

Promote application of new learnings to real-world issues and challenges

The steps are built on time-tested learning approaches, like Bloom’s taxonomy and the

70-20-10 model⁠

, that promote higher-level thinking and active learning. For more experienced learning design specialists, it’s works as a ‘consulting’ guide when you’re helping others create training.

Learn more

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For a clear overview of some of the theories and principles this guide was based, on check out this writeup published by The eLearning Guild »⁠

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About the author

SiNing Chan is a Solutions Architect at Coda with extensive experience in digital learning design and product marketing. Most recently, she’s had the opportunity to lead large-scale, global L&D initiatives and product education programs at Evernote and Uber Technologies.

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What’s included

How to get the most out of this guide

The Backstory

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