What Makes Good Training Material?

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Good training material should help you deliver the outcomes you need in your training sessions.

What makes good training material?

Good design - built to achieve the course objectives

Planning and designing a training course is part of a trainers' art. The key is to begin with your outcome in mind.

What do you want people to know or do differently as a result of the training session?

When you have that outcome clear, you will be able to choose exercises and activities that are appropriate to achieve those outcomes.

One of the pitfalls we face as trainers is that we can get caught up in the layout and design of the materials we use to support our sessions, from the hand outs, course notes or PowerPoint presentations.

Less is MORE!

Effective Training

The more we have to remember the more our energy ( and sometimes our anxiety ) focuses on the material rather than the participants in the training.

There's a really useful white paper written by Hank Williams  called -  'Effective Training - Keeping it Simple', which explores this in detail.

Be aware though this is aimed at the experienced trainer or facilitator.

What makes good training material?

For those of you who don't deliver customer service training very often, or for managers who want to include a focus on customer service during a team meeting what can you do to achieve your outcomes?

Here's our step by step guide to help you.

1. What do you want to achieve from your session?
2. Who will be in the session? Experienced people or new starters? What will be most useful to them? How much training have they had in the past? How do they learn?
3. What content should be included in your session to help achieve your outcomes with this group of people? Looking for inspiration on content then we've got some ideas for you.
4. How will you deliver the content? Ice-breakers? Exercises? Individuals, Pairs, Groups? Games? Quizzes? Roleplays? Discussion? Input?
5. What material will support your training session? Handouts? Course Notes? Powerpoint Presentations? Videos?
6. Make it Relevant. Training Material has to be relevant to the people in your training session. Take time to think of how to translate the material into the real world of the participants - it really pays dividends.
7. Prepare for your session. Preparation is key.....it can be a very lonely place at the front of a group of people if you are not fully prepared.