Day 2 - Communication

Today, I'm reviewing the following topic/skill statement from the Content Outline

• 1.1.C. Skill in conceiving, developing, and delivering  information in various formats and media. 

These are notes, typos very likely!

Notes and Resources

The ATD Handbook notes that "TD professionals must be able to communicate using the 6 Cs of communication to produce reports, presentations, executive briefings, business cases, and other documents." These are those I noted in the last post, but I need to add courteous. 

The instance of sharing information include proposals, project management plans, job descriptions, blogs, etc. Training materials will include facilitator guides, case studies, role plays, job aids, etc.

This section covers primarily written communication, such as effective use of information, communicating through writing (routine and non-routine). 

• Have a single purpose
• Receiver-centered
• Economical/concise/specific
• Accurate
• Organized
• Visually appealing

I thought infographics and social media would've been included here but the Body of Knowledge had this in Capability 2: Developing Professional Capabilities. Makes sense, given the fact that being able to produce infographics or knowing how to use them is more of a professional skill. But I think it is worth considering here.

Outlining, structured headings >> https://www.td.org/insights/better-science-for-better-learning-structured-outlines-improve-remembering

Types of Infographics

8 of the most popular types of infographics are (more for professional capability, but never hurts to begin considering the best way to present information in training, like what kind of infographic might be used to provide trainers (or decision-makers) with options for choosing among various programs? (Comparison.) Of course, a decision tree might also be helpful. Knowing which types of graphical decision-making tools available is always useful. 

1. Statistical infographics
2. Informational infographics
3. Timeline infographics
4. Process infographics
5. Geographic infographics
6. Comparison infographics
7. Hierarchical infographics
8. List infographics

More info >> https://venngage.com/blog/9-types-of-infographic-template/

Evaluation of Communication

This is one thing I learned during the APTD certification and also during the APTD exam question writing and item review process is that evaluation is often a common theme, especially with Kirkpatrick's four levels. So it never hurts to begin thinking about application/evaluation now in the exam review process even though these are professional and organizational capabilities.

These notes apply to any form of writing (drawn from this article Don't Overlook Job Aide Evaluation)

• Level 1, or reaction, is very valuable for the formative evaluation process = performer feedback with initial prototypes. Level 1 data, however, are not likely to be your best source of data for overall results: You aren't usually as interested in whether performers like the job aid.
• Level 2 measures the degree of learning or skills acquired. This is likely to be less relevant for a job aid designer. It will be difficult (but not impossible) to separate the impact of the job aid from the impact of other solutions, such as the initial skills training.
• Level 3 measures performance on the job and involves a determination of whether performers have changed how they do the work and what results they get. The purpose of the job aid is to improve performance. Therefore, a Level 3 evaluation is the most common type of evaluation you'll need to conduct for most job aid assessments.
• Level 4 focuses on business results. In this case, you're determining whether sales went up, customer retention improved, costs decreased, or rework was minimized. 
• To Kirkpatrick's four levels of evaluation add a Level 5 (Jack Phillips). This is usually called ROI. Level 5 assesses whether organizational goals were worth achieving. ROI is an especially valuable measure for job aids. You may often discover that a job aid doesn't get the best business result as another possible solution, yet because of the significantly lower cost, it may end up with a much higher ROI.

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