Testing a training

Testing a training is vital in order to confirm the ideas, structure and content. Further, testing is vital in order to recieve feedback and see what works and what does not work. I tend to constantly adopt and adjust my trainings depending on the audience, but testing serves another purpose.

When you have designed your training, you have spent a lot of time playing around with things to say, things to do, and when to say it. Most importantly, you should have been spending a lot of time asking yourself -

• Why do I want to say this?
• What is the purpose of this exersice? 
• Can I say this differently?
• What options do I have to reach my goal (the objectives of the training)?
• What can I expect from the audience by doing this?
• How can I get the participants to do what I want them to do?

As you continue with your training, you develop - and try to follow - a red line. You add exersices to have the participants experience what you try to train them in, and you add times to reflect.

But at some point, you really need to take your ideas and theories from the drawing board and into life. And this is when you need to test your training. I still remember a few embarrasing moments where I had made a training and went straight to the client, recieving the unexpected. 

For this particular training, we (Thor-Erik and I) asked JCI Oslo to set up a training for us - i.e. - a session where we could run our training as we thought it should be, and then have the participants discuss and give their feedback on the content, the exersices and the red line. And the JCI Oslo Local President Farooq Baign accepted this challenge and gathered eight participants one tuesday evening. 

They spent a few hours on the training, and then they gave it back to us. We got some thoughtprovocing feedback, and ideas on how to improove the structure. We also where told how we could narrow down the definition and thus make it much clearer how to reach our objectives. 

Based on this test run, we went back to the drawing board. After endless nights; tears and pulling hair, we finally arrived at a training that is the standard of quality we know our participants requires. 

Thank you Farooq & JCI Oslo for this test run!