Facilitator Guides - An Introduction
Training employees is an ever-evolving field; from e-Learning to micro learning, blended learning to augmented and virtual reality, and whatever the next “best way to train” ends up being. Yet, no matter what is currently in fashion, the one training delivery method that will always be with us is instructor-led training, often referred to as ILT. In our post-COVID world, ILT might more often be in a virtual environment, but physical classrooms haven’t gone away. Nor have the days of an instructor or facilitator leading participants through a learning experience. And because ILT is not going away, neither are facilitator guides.
To make sure that your instructor-led-training will be consistently successful, the most important item is a well-developed facilitator guide.
Why Do We Need A Facilitator Guide?
A well-constructed facilitator guide serves two main purposes.
Study Guide for facilitators and producers to prepare to lead the course.
Delivery Guide for facilitators and producers to stay on topic and on time during the live delivery.
The facilitator guide is our ruling document.
Facilitator Guide as a Study Guide
We develop training programs to achieve specific goals that are determined by company needs, stakeholders’ interest and many other reasons. To achieve those goals, we must take care to deliver consistent training.
The training needs to be presented consistently, so that a participant who takes the class in June receives the same training as a learner who took the class in January.
To accomplish this, we must be able to count on our facilitators to teach our courses in the same way every time the class is offered, and no matter who is running it.
Our instructional designers, developers, and subject matter experts have invested significant time, energy, and resources to construct the training to achieve specific goals. To ensure success, each course needs to be laid out succinctly and completely in a facilitator guide, so that any facilitator can pick up the manual and get themselves prepared to deliver the training.
Facilitator Guide as a Training Delivery Job Aide
This is what most people consider the main purpose of a facilitator guide. We have designed and developed a training program to achieve specific, and hopefully measurable, objectives that are enhancing our participants knowledge, skills and/or attitude. The facilitator guide will lead us through that process to deliver the right information at the right moment in a well-paced manner.
To sum it up, consider the facilitator guide as a roadmap laying out when we want to say specific things, show certain slides or videos, run different activities all while driving the participants toward the goals of the training.
Facilitator Guide as the Ruling Document
Imagine each of your training programs as a book on a shelf in the library. Anyone should be able to take a program off the shelf and have everything they need to run the course from that book. Your facilitator guides should be built in a way that will allow this to occur. There are strategies and procedures that we will discuss and demonstrate in subsequent posts to help you with this process.
I don’t need a Facilitator Guide because I developed the course
This objection gets raised often, and I disagree with it each time. There are two reasons this objection falls flat.
Our brains are fallible.
We will forget even important items. When was the last time you went to the grocery store and forgot one of the main items you needed? For me, it was this week. We write lists to make sure we get everything we need. A facilitator guide does the same thing. It lays out what we need to accomplish, in what order and in what timeframe. For the new facilitator, it is a lifeline. For the seasoned, it is an in the moment reference aid.
2. Putting all your eggs in one basket can lead to a disaster.
In a corporate environment, if there is only one facilitator, what do you do if that person calls in sick? Or takes another position? How much institutional knowledge is lost because it was never properly documented and then the expert is no longer available?
Imagine the possibilities a well-constructed facilitator guide presents
Whether you are independent or in a corporate environment, imagine other facilitators delivering the courses you have designed and developed. Think of it like a franchise. You stand to gain money, recognition and freed up time to design and develop the next training program. Whether your gains are financial or greater esteem in the eyes of your boss and colleagues, you will get more eyes on your great work and reap more benefits by building facilitator guides that others can use to deliver your training programs. But going this route is only successful if the training being delivered is the same from one facilitator to the next. The key component to make this work is a well-constructed facilitator guide.
There is not enough time to build a Facilitator Guide
This is another common objection that comes up regarding the creation of facilitator guides. And lack of resources is a major concern for most of us in the L&D community. However, if there is only enough time or money to build one guidebook, the facilitator guide should be the recipient of those precious resources. We want to deliver consistent training no matter which course, or what location, or which facilitator. The facilitator guide is the cornerstone that ensures consistent delivery.
This is not a one or the other choice. We are going to delve into strategies and processes to help you craft your materials in a way that will allow you to pull a participant guide from your facilitator guide. You will learn to build efficiencies into your development process.
What’s Next?
Consider this a primer to get you excited to revolutionize the way you build facilitator guides. In subsequent posts we will cover:
Key Components of a Facilitator Guide
Strategies for Developing Facilitator Guides
Differences of Facilitator Guides for Virtual and Physical Classroom