Micro-Training: What Is It, and Is It Effective?

By Shanna R. Teel, Contributing Editor

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour. 
- William Blake

Is micro-training the next generation of training and development? Micro-training is training delivered by subject matter experts, in short segments. These segments can range from 3 to 20 minutes in duration and can be delivered in person, or online via webcasts, podcasts, or through e-learning platforms. The purported benefits of micro-training include:

• Cost savings

• Increased learning (vs. information overload of traditional training courses)

• Catering to the new generation of learner

• Keeping learning and development on the strategic agenda during hard economic times (because it's cheaper)

• Supporting informal learning

As I understand micro-training in a online environment, subject matter experts record several short videos offering a truncated, or micro, version of their training. Participants would log on to a designated Web site (internally hosted or online) at their leisure to take the required and elective training courses as needed. The overarching benefit here is that large organizations can pay as they go (or get a volume discount) which could result in the training modules being as affordable as $1.99 per person. Yes, a $1.99 per person! Sounds incredibly cost-effective.

My question to you: Will micro-training work? Would you buy it as an internal learning and development or HR professional? And, will learning actually take place?

Besides cost-savings, what is the value proposition for micro-training?

Please let me know, and thanks!

Shanna

Shanna R. Teel is the founder and CEO of Dr. Shanna Teel & Company, Inc., a leadership and human capital management consulting firm. She has worked more than 15 years as a talent and performance management consultant, executive coach, and facilitator of adult learning.

Comments

[Neil Moodley]

This is very much what I am intending to do to support offline training seminars. I feel there are two ways to do this - offer a video course synced with slides for a nominal fee to those unable to attend the offline course. Additionally the video course can be offered for free as a takeaway for those who do pay full price to attend the offline course.

You can see more of the beginnings of this idea at http://www.fourthirds.com/shape-your-idea-seminar/ for more info.

[Mike Markley]

I like the point you bring up here.

In a general sense, I think people are looking for shorter bits of information to help them learn (that's true for me)--particularly in the software tutorial arena. We're all too busy to take time away from 'real work' to learn a new software tool. We're usually in a hurry and we have a specific challenge that we're working through (on the job training or OTJ).

So with this OTJ idea in mind, training/tutorials need to resemble job aids or online help--deliverables that are easily filtered, viewed, and applied to our own situations. Longer tutorials make this more difficult.

I've seen a lot of third party Adobe tutorials for sale on the Web. They're often broken out into granular training modules and usually in the form of a video demostrations; e.g., 29 video tutorials totaling two hours of content for under $50 to $80. And then there's subscription-based training out there like Lynda.com - but I think they still stick with longer training modules. Perhaps there's a future for creating an iTunes-like business model for training content.

[Rajesh]

Yes defiantly it works, in today’s world E-Learning is the fast growing solution.

Here is a related post http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning/real-elearning-standards

For more training and learning resources http://www.commlabindia.com