MSHR 6625 Week 5 Training Design Brief Example

Practice in the Truck, Led by Crew Leads: A Training Design Brief Choosing Short Field Sessions Over a Classroom and an Online Module for Asset-Field Completion, With Every Trade-Off Named

Student Name

Walden University

MSHR 6625: Building Human Capital Through Training and Development

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Practice in the Truck, Led by Crew Leads: A Training Design Brief Choosing Short Field Sessions Over a Classroom and an Online Module for Asset-Field Completion, With Every Trade-Off Named

Where This Brief Sits

In the ADDIE model of instructional design, analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation, analysis for Mill Creek Water District's asset-field program is complete (Branch, 2009). The needs assessment, gap memo and objectives established what the program must teach and to whom. This brief records the main design decision, how the training will be delivered, so that development can build materials for it.

Three Options

Table 1

Delivery Options Compared

Composite utility. Estimates are illustrative.

The Choice

The brief chooses short in-truck practice sessions led by crew leads. Three reasons decide it. First, the objectives require technicians to locate asset IDs on real hydrants and valves and to distinguish pipe materials by look and feel, which photographs in a classroom or online module only approximate. Second, practice on the actual tablet, in the truck where the work is done, matches the conditions under which the skill will be used. Salas et al. (2012) note that training is more likely to transfer when practice conditions resemble the work environment. Third, sessions led by crew leads place the trainer in the technicians' daily working relationship, which supports the new habit after the session ends.

What the Choice Gives Up

The choice accepts four losses. Consistency suffers: twelve crew leads will deliver the sessions, and each will do so a little differently. The facilitator guide in the next stage of development is the main safeguard. Scheduling becomes harder: sessions must fit around field work, and an emergency main break can cancel a planned session. Crew leads lose time from their own work, about two hours a week each for six weeks. And the program cannot easily reach technicians who rarely work with crew leads, such as the meter technicians who occasionally take valve orders; they will need a short session arranged separately.

The online module is not discarded entirely. A short reference module with photographs of asset ID locations by manufacturer, available on the tablet, would support technicians after the sessions. It would be a job aid, not the main training.

Session Structure

Each technician will complete three sessions of about forty minutes over three weeks. The first covers objectives 1 and 2, the mandatory fields and asset ID locations, at a hydrant or valve the crew is already working on. The second covers objectives 3 and 4, pipe materials and worn IDs, using pipe samples carried in a training kit. The third covers objective 5 and the terminal objective, with the technician closing two real orders while the crew lead observes.

How the Choice Would Be Revisited

The choice should be revisited after the pilot. If crew-led delivery proves too inconsistent, with some crews meeting the learning standard and others not, the program could add a short classroom session for crew leads themselves, so that they practice delivering the sessions before running them. If scheduling around field work proves impossible for some crews, a fixed weekly session at the yard, using assets stored there, could replace the truck for those crews. Neither change would abandon the main principle, practice on real equipment, which the needs assessment showed is what the skill requires.

What Development Must Produce

Development must produce a facilitator guide that a crew lead can follow without the designer present, a training kit with pipe samples and a reference card, and a training mode on the tablet that lets technicians practice without creating real orders. Arthur et al. (2003) found that training methods were most effective when matched to the skill being taught; the in-truck design matches a skill that is learned by doing it on real equipment.

References

Arthur, W., Bennett, W., Edens, P. S., & Bell, S. T. (2003). Effectiveness of training in organizations: A meta-analysis of design and evaluation features. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(2), 234-245. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.2.234

Branch, R. M. (2009). Instructional design: The ADDIE approach. Springer.

Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S. I., Kraiger, K., & Smith-Jentsch, K. A. (2012). The science of training and development in organizations: What matters in practice. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 13(2), 74-101. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612436661