To develop this sort of training, I believe ‘what it takes’, at minimum, is a deep understanding of the subject/task as obtained through consensus of multiple subject matter experts; an understanding of the barriers each learner’s environment will present when he or she takes action; and an understanding of how the learners themselves process and try to apply the new information. (I work in healthcare which is an extraordinarily complex environment.)

It has been my experience that this level of detail can only be obtained through working with key stakeholders including those who are experts at the tasks being taught in multiple realistic environments and the learners themselves.

Additionally, I would suggest that the ID must always be aware that those who would be tapped as ‘experts’ in complex fields such as medicine would likely have a stake in preserving their way of doing things, even if the technology or environment has changed and calls for new behavior.

This all costs a tremendous amount of time and money and the ROI can be very difficult to quantify given the complexity of an environment and confounding factors that can impact learner behavior besides the provided education itself.

I would be interested to see training for IDs that would provide effective guidance on the difficult issue of resolving conflicts of opinion between subject matter experts and stakeholders.

Thanks for the opportunity to comment.

Karen Holloway