Race Philip - 500 Tips for Trainers

In this chapter we take a look at things to do with planning and preparing your training sessions, and also include suggestions for putting into practice your planning when running training sessions. Several of the ideas we introduce in this chapter are expanded on in suggestions in the remainder of this book. We have discovered how dangerous it can be to imagine that we've run a particular session so often that we can afford to skip some of the detail of preparing the ground in advance.

For a start, we think that it's worth thinking about exactly what we mean by a training session. If everyone expects a training session to be interactive, participant-centered, and not just a lecture or presentation, we think that such training sessions are more likely to be effective than when no one knows quite what to expect.

We move on next to consider the intended outcomes of training sessions. Participants want to knowand need to knowwhat is likely to be expected of them in our sessions. One of the best ways to let participants know exactly what is expected is to formulate the training session outcomes in the form of objectives.

Obviously, the content of your training sessions is important. However, perhaps even more important are the processes and methods by which you deliver your training sessions. Our advice boils down to suggesting that you consider how best you can turn the theoretical or practical content of your training sessions into learning resources that participants use during your sessions and activities that they engage in during the sessions.

We cannot overestimate the importance of keeping on schedule. When a training session falls behind schedule, everyone feels uncomfortable. Perhaps the secret is to have schedules that are in practice sufficiently flexible to allow us as facilitators to make gentle adjustments to the program without anyone feeling that they are being rushed or that things are being omitted.

Sometimes, the success of your training session will depend on how well you advertise it. One of the key points is to make your sessions appear really attractive and relevant to the people you regard as your ideal target audience.

Sometimes you'll be using visiting trainers to run training sessions for your own people. We've learned that it's worth paying attention to how we make best use of such colleagues, and have wrapped up what we have learned in the form of some suggestions you can adapt to your own situation.

One way of getting a training session off to a good start is to make sure that everyone has done some preparatory work. We give some suggestions for pre-session tasks, which can help to focus your training sessions on the important issues rather than filling in background detail.

Many of the little preparations that ensure the smooth running of training sessions could be said to take place behind the scenes. We provide some general tips based on our own experiences (unsuccessful as well as successful) at setting up a good training session environment.

Human beings require feeding and watering! We regard refreshments as just as important a part of our training sessions as anything we try to do ourselves. When refreshments are punctual, appropriate and good, the whole atmosphere of a training session is improved considerably, and leaves partici pants with the memory of a very pleasant taste!