“Why didn’t our online discussion work?”

This is a depressingly common question in schools/universities and workplaces, when attempts are made to get people using online systems for collaboration and conversation. The idea is a good one: online environments offer great opportunities for people to get connected almost anywhere and any time to get ideas talked through and work accomplished. We’ve been hearing for years about the wonderful future that allows us to sit comfortably in our homes or cafes, engaging online instead of having to commute every day to an office or classroom and deal with other people face-to-face (often to have meetings cancelled because someone can’t be there). Moreover, hundreds of millions of us worldwide are already doing this every day through email, Twitter, Facebook and more. What could be more natural than tapping into our current social practice and harnessing some of it to new work practices?

Should be a doddle … so why is it so hard?

There’s no one reason for the difficulty in getting people who happily use social networking on a daily basis to use the same practices for business or education just as happily. It’s more likely that a range of factors all add together to provide big blockers and either bring online discussions grinding to a halt or never getting going in the first place.

What do we mean by “online discussion”?

An online discussion historically refers to a forum where there’s an initial comment or question followed by responses, which either pile up in a long chronological block or are “threaded” to create more targeted replies to earlier responses. This form of online engagement has been around for two decades and provides a useful system for particular needs. It’s very well suited for specific questions, such as as “How can I filter spam from my website contact form?” A question like that in the right website (e.g., one that appeals to people who care about this issue and have probably experienced it themselves) will lead to a number of suggestions, including a few disagreements, and will probably peter out when the person who asked finds a solution.

In addition, there are the more snippet-based communications that make up most of the traffic in Twitter and Facebook, based on comments thrown out by people, which may or may not get a direct response by other people throwing out their own comments. This browsing, grazing and flitting around provides a completely different and more chaotic engagement. This needs to be saved for another post.

Then there’s email, which takes on some elements of both, but is designed primarily as an updated form of the letter: one-to-one communication which goes out into the world and lands in your space, ostensibly addressed to you personally. Again, not for this post.

Who’s at fault when it just doesn’t work? We are.

There are of course occasions when a participant goes off the deep end and flames out in offensiveness, anger and aggression in a discussion without warning. There is also always a percentage of people who just won’t engage. You can even imagine a scenario when all the participants are suddenly and without any foreseeable reason unable to get online. These aside, it’s invariably our own fault when an online discussion fails, and we have to take it on the chin.

Plan, design and prepare

Here are some things to consider before initiating an online discussion for business or education:

1. The purpose

First it’s vitally important to know and to articulate to your prospective participants why you want to have this discussion, and why it should be conducted online. If this purpose is not personally shared by the participants, it must at least make sense to them. Only the most obliging person will go along with you if they don’t understand why they should. This also includes making sure the participants know what is expected of them, for how long, and what the outcomes will be. Be realistic, don’t expect miracles, and don’t run discussions indefinitely.

2. Access

Once you have everyone on board with the purpose for the discussion, you need to make every possible arrangement for them to have online access and the ability to engage often enough to fulfill their requirement. To some extent you can require the participant to have a certain type of connection, level of access and/or equipment (depending on circumstances), but you need be aware of this issue and do everything you can to minimise problems. You also need an environment that is easy to use and technically reliable.

3. Training & support

Training and technical support are often ignored and consequently deeply regretted.  It should go without saying that you won’t have a good chance of a successful discusson without making sure your participants know how to use the environment and have somewhere to turn if they need help. This doesn’t always require a lot of time or effort, but don’t take it for granted that everyone will just figure it out on their own.

4. Rules of engagement

It’s always a good idea to articulate a list of dos and don’ts of participation, especially for anyone new to group or to the idea of online discussion. It can be useful to have the group create these themselves collaboratively (with facilitation — see no 6 below) as an initial icebreaker and warm-up exercise that is of real value.  If participants feel responsible for creating the rules and have a stake in the success of the discussion, they will be far less likely to break them.

5. The prompt

Online discussions fail most often when the “prompt” (the question or initial comment to get the discussion going) is ill-suited for the task, such as being too:

• closed-ended (“yes or no” questions or those which have one obvious correct answer)
• fuzzy and ill-defined (not understood or much too broad to find common ground)
• boring and purposeless (lacking vitality or without an obvious reason — see no 1 above)
• opinion-based (leading to seperate opinions based on personal experience without the ability to extrapolate lessons or general connections between them)
• biased (fishing for agreement or argument without a clear educational goal)

In general, an online discussion works best when the initial question is targeted and designed to elicit a range of fairly specific, discursive answers, some of which will themselves spin off into mini-discussions and enrich the overall range of knowledge, finally ending when the discussion has exhausted itself and conclusions can be drawn.

6. Facilitation (moderation)

Last but at the top in terms of importance, a good online discussion requires the facilitation (sometimes called moderation) of either the person who designed it or someone experienced in facilitating online activities.  Ideally, he or she will also have expertise in the subject of the discussion, but (maybe surprisingly) this is less important than general facilitation skills. Facilitation involves being aware when the discussion loses steam prematurely or goes off-course and when questions or substantial comments are left dangling. Skillful facilitation will get things back on track, smooth rough edges, elicit quality contributions from shy members and draw out conclusions and shared knowledge.  Even in successful adhoc forums not designed for a specific educational or business purpose (such as the website contact form example above), you’ll find that a forum owner or experienced super-user is active and engaged.

This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to effective online learning or collaboration, but I’ve offered a few key areas that will help you avoid common pitfalls.

For more on related online learning practice: What research has to say for practice, a series of short articles based on research.

As promised, this post offers my perspective on what went wrong with the training scheme scenario I described a couple of weeks ago: (Original post: An elearning cautionary tale I: Our online training scheme).

What went wrong

Fundamentals

The problems started immediately with the MD’s own attitude. On one hand, it’s great that he takes a real interest in the CPD that goes on in his organisation and wants to bring it up to date, but his lack of knowledge about elearning and tendency to be waylaid by shiny toys are obstructive. In addition, both the HR Manager and (especially) Head of Staff Development are themselves in need of CPD about organisational elearning.  Better backgrounds and knowledge would have stopped this situation from happening in the first place. If the MD had asked his HR people to upskill themselves instead of pushing software at them, the foundation could have been put in place to allow updated learning to be implemented properly.

If they felt things needed to change quickly, this would have been the time to bring in an eLearning Specialist or Consultant to provide some immediate support with the whole process of updating their training.

eLearning is not IT

Another fundamental and extremely common error was going to the IT Manager for an opinion about elearning. Some orgs even go so far astray as to class elearning as an IT project, giving more emphasis to the “e” than to the “learning”. From his answers, it’s clear to see that the IT Manager (rightly) concentrates on his area of expertise — the technical aspects of the software and its ability to integrate with the org’s own systems and network. This is important, but it tells nothing about how effective the software will be to deliver the particular training envisioned.

eLearning is not IT, in the same way that dentistry is not drilling equipment and cooking is not pots and pans. These are all tools used for a more varied discipline or activity. IT is a complex and technical subject that infiltrates just about every part of our lives; “elearning” merely calls attention to that fact in relation to traditional ways of learning.

Reactions

These fundamental errors and warning signs put in motion a whole chain of reactions that developed as a somewhat panicky response to the MD’s original whim. The organisation does not seem to have a culture in place allowing managers to disagree with the MD, or else the Head of Staff Development may have been able to talk about the virtues and benefits of their current practice. I’m a firm believer in the “horses for courses” tenet, which advocates finding the best solution for a problem — don’t change just for change’s sake. There was clearly no driving need to force a change, and experiments with using elearning could have developed with deliberation and small-scale piloting.

Lack of skill

The project staff knew they didn’t have the expertise to use the software to full advantage in terms of both creative multimedia skills and dynamic instructional design, and thus could only produce boring text-heavy tutorials.  Where affordable, external contractors with a track record of producing vibrant elearning may have led to the best results, and/or intensive CPD for the project staff, which has the added benefit of giving them valuable skills.

Chaotic rollout

With any major change to working practice, especially anything viewed as mandatory, more consideration needs to be taken for preparing the staff and then for the actual rollout. Instrumental to this is training, even if the software seems “intuitive”. HR should have thought ahead of time about issues of access for travelling or remote staff, and this is where IT should have been consulted to make sure everyone could get onto the system one way or another. Finally, anyone else required to complete the training who is not set up with computing (e.g., cleaners) should have an alternative version to make sure they’re included.

The knee-jerk draconian reaction to employee disatisfaction simply made matters worse, and a betting man would have put money on someone finding a way to circumvent the system.

What started as a simple attempt to bring in some new training ideas turned into a major war between management and staff.

Solutions

Ideally, an eLearning Specialist would have been called in at the first glimmer of an idea to avoid problems from happening, or at least somewhere earlier in the process to do damage limitation.  Even at this late stage, he or she can help with finding ways to get back on track.

The first thing to do is to make sure everyone is able (one way or another) to complete the first of the tutorials which have already gone out and been mandated.  Be gentle and don’t worry about a few cheats. Let this episode fade from memory. Run a traditional workshop with an especially good lunch, end the day a bit early and let people go home, creating goodwill.  Use your best HR techniques to restore a good relationship with the staff. Stop production on the further tutorials and call in the eLearning Specialist, who will help you decide how to rethink the use of elearning in a more organic and successful way. If you’ve already bought software, he or she can make sure you find ways to use it well. If you haven’t he or she will have an opportunity to present a range of options that might suit your needs better.

Did you see other issues or solutions?

Picture this scenario:

The MD of a mid-sized service sector organisation attends a business networking lunch where someone from a learning software company gives a presentation showing an exciting-looking product designed to be up and running quickly and easily. All you need to do is set it up on your server, add some text and pictures and your staff is on the road to better training. The MD takes a brochure back to his HR manager and suggests she have the Staff Development Team look at ways this software might help them expand and improve their training across the organisation.

The Staff Development Team runs mostly face-to-face workshops and doesn’t have much experience with elearning software. Most of the sessions involve flipcharts, presentations, breakout groups, discussion and a catered lunch, which is a fairly pleasant alternative to the usual workday, and the head of Staff Development nas never felt the need to look for new technical solutions. So the IT manager is brought in to provide technical expertise. He explores the software, which has a lot of functionality, seems robust and should be relatively straight-forward to implement. The HR manager OKs the substantial purchase and the Staff Development Team sets about looking for ways to use it.

The software is expensive and impressive, but the Staff Development Team feels a bit out of its depth. The newest member of the team used to work for a big company that had elearning specialists on staff. He’s worried they won’t get the kind of results the MD expects without the help of external contractors, such as elearning specialists, instructional designers, content writers, graphic designers, and so on.

The head of Staff Development thinks this sounds a bit OTT, but she starts to worry that what first looked like a bit of updating and enhancement to their old-fashioned but workable methods may require additional investment. She goes back to the HR manager, who knows the MD won’t cough up any more money and consults with the IT manager about whether his team can fill any gaps. The IT manager assures her that as long as the Staff Development Team can write up and upload the content, his team will make sure the software works. The HR manager is satisfied.

The head of Staff Development takes the brief back to her team and assigns two project officers to work on the project for two months. IT sets up and configures the software and the project officers get to work cutting and pasting the content from workshop notes into the software.

At the end of the two months, the project officers are pleased to have made the deadline. They’ve prepared three tutorials to replace three half-day workshops on Health & Safety, Diversity in the Workplace and Using the Outlook Calendar. All three tutorials consist of blocks of text with the occasional clip art image and a quiz at the end.

They present the tutorials to the Head of Staff Development, who acknowledges the work but secretly feels them to be dull and inferior to the original workshops, which were lively, active and social. However, she also knows that this is the wave of the future – it’s what the MD wants – and she has to move with the times. She also sees that the tutorials will take less time out of the day than the workshops and that the staff may appreciate this.

As it was originally his idea, the MD asks to be shown the tutorials. The IT manager sits in. At first, the MD seems pleased, but as page after page of text blocks go by, he gets bored and asks we they haven’t used some of the whizbang features he saw in the sales presentation: animation, movies, music, etc. They admit they didn’t feel they had the time or expertise to make use of these. The MD asks why someone from the IT team didn’t show them how to use the other features. The IT Manager gets annoyed and says they did, and the project officers admit they know how they work, but just not how to use them. This makes no sense to the MD who sends them away to add some “good stuff”.

The project officers go away wondering whether they should be looking for a new job, but one of them suggests they film the HR manager talking about Diversity and upload that. They also throw in a few more quizzes and pictures.

The MD asks the IT manager what he thinks, and the IT manager says it’s a nice piece of software, so the Staff Development team gets the go-ahead to launch. A memo goes round with instructions how to access the tutorials through the intranet.

At first, the staff are generally curious about the software tutorials and seem pleased not to have so many workshops to attend, but it quickly becomes clear that some of the less computer-literate are having trouble getting started. An emergency meeting is called, and the Staff Development team quickly cobbles together some training sessions for those who need it.

Meanwhile, the project officers get the green light to replace more workshops with tutorials. Another three are prepared in short order.

Those who don’t need the training sessions are first amused about the whole thing, then bored with endless reading on screen, and by the third one, fed up. They also begin to realise that they miss the workshops, with their social component and catered lunches.

When HR notices a groundswell of staff members ignoring the tutorials, they send out a punitive memo stating that they are mandatory: HR is collecting date about who completes them, and anyone who doesn’t may face disciplinary action. The outcome is that someone discovers it’s possible to “fast forward” directly to the quizzes and circulates a cheatsheet with all the answers.

Some of the computer-illiterate staff miss training sessions for legitimate reasons and others still have trouble despite the sessions. Some staff members who travel or work remotely are unable to access the software at all. They become angry that the tutorials may affect their employability even though they continue to perform their own jobs well.

Morale dips and previously content employees grow negative. Things are a mess.

Two questions for you to answer in the comments (my own answers in a later blog post):

1. How can the organisation fix the problem from this point on?
2. What should the organisation have done in the first place to avoid it happening?