Building Bridges

Synergy Leads to Success

While our consultants at EnVision often work independently, we enjoy brainstorming together and sharing knowledge to achieve the best project outcome. For one recent engagement, we were asked by our client to create a series of templated tools for use in building out custom leadership training courses. Since this project required both big-picture thinking and [...]

Adopting Improv to Ace Instructional Design

Last month, Sheree Galpert, an Applied Improv practitioner and trainer, shared fundamentals of improvisation in EnVision’s blog. Sheree introduced three principles of improvisation: Be in the moment Use “Yes, and” Make your partner look good Sheree illustrated how instructional designers can leverage these techniques to be more effective in their work. After reading Sheree’s post, [...]

Fun Times: Engagement in the Virtual Classroom

Ginny Maglio and I just completed our third round of EnVisioning Virtually: Creating Engaging Courses in the Virtual Environment this month. During the five-session Zoom series we share tons of tips, guide the participants during demo activities as they try out new approaches, and get to try out some different techniques ourselves. This past year, [...]

Getting Invited to the Table: 3 Tips to Make it Happen

Have you ever been in a situation like one of these, experienced by two different colleagues of mine: An IT group decided to upgrade a systems application and proceeded with the project. Dozens of elearning courses had already been developed for the legacy system. The L&D team was not included in the conversation about the [...]

Babbling Away: How Proven Instructional Design Techniques Helped Me Learn German

It’s cool when you can see an application of the work you do when you are the consumer (or, as it were, the learner). Here’s my story. In preparing for my trip to Germany last year, I decided to learn a little German. I like to be able to use some basic phrases when visiting [...]

The Client/Vendor Relationship: Getting the Best Out of It!

4. What do you want out of the relationship? In our previous posts we shared client and vendor insights about scoping out a project, defining success, and choosing a vendor. Today, we examine what we each want out of the relationship – being aligned on this is an important factor in a fruitful project and [...]

The Client/Vendor Relationship: Selecting the Right Vendor for Your Project

3. How do you identify and select the best vendor for your project? In our last two posts we shared client and vendor insights about scoping out a project. In this month’s installment, we offer suggestions for selecting the best vendor for a project. Veronica Clements, Client perspective I begin my search for a vendor [...]

The Client/Vendor Relationship: Defining Success

2. Define success: How do you define what success will look like?  In our last post we discussed problem definition. As part of that we delve into defining success. Veronica Clements, Client perspective As the client, an important part of preparing a request for proposal or discussing my needs with a prospective vendor is to [...]

The Client/Vendor Relationship: Getting Off to a Great Start!

What happens when you are asked to take on more work than you can handle– either due to capacity or capability? Let’s say your manager just laid a huge project on you – to develop a new training curriculum for a group that has been having some challenges. Because you don’t have the resources you’ll [...]

Go From Zero to 60! Accelerate the Productivity of Your Novice Instructional Designer

Have you been in a situation where you’ve engaged a Subject Matter Expert (SME) from your organization to develop a training program? It can make a lot of sense to do that – she will have the content knowledge and experience to pass along to others, and she will be thrilled to share it—it’s her [...]

Polishing Your Gems – And Showing the Value of Your Training Efforts

Have you ever gone on a treasure hunt, or maybe seen one in the movies? The seeker searches for a treasure chest—usually attending to challenges along the way. Imagine large rolling rocks and a few poison darts, all difficult to control! Eventually the seeker locates the elusive treasure chest, but not all its contents are [...]

Heating Things Up: Pilots Provide Useful Feedback

Practicing a classroom course polishes and improves it. Typically, practice comes with a pilot, during which instructional designers and trainers iron out classroom kinks. Two pilots (an abbreviated pre-pilot and a full pilot) were employed in a class entitled Operationalizing Emergency Plans: Incident Command in Action, on which EnVision consulted for a public agency. The [...]

Ride the Wave of Change – and Navigate Successfully

Change is hard and causes unease, anxiety, and at times, frustration. Every parent who has dropped a child off at kindergarten (or college) knows this! While change can be overwhelming or even scary, it is often necessary. Professional change brings its own set of challenges. How can you best navigate change at work? EnVision needed [...]

Blended Learning: Look Before You Leap

Blended learning tools provide an instructional designer with many options, but more choices can also be confusing. How do you determine if the blended solution meets your learning objectives? How do you know which modalities to pick? And finally, how do you know that your mix will work within the culture of your organization? To […]

Educating Boston about Emergencies: the DelValle Institute Teams Up with EnVision

April 15, 2013. 2:49 p.m. Boylston Street in Boston. For the citizens and guests of Boston, the events that occurred on this date will forever be memorialized.  Since that day, we are only too aware of the need to prepare for and respond to emergencies, an understanding most of us didn’t have before. The professionals […]

Maximize Your Success with a Focus Group

Leading a focus group–and managing the participants–is never dull work. Recently, EnVision consultants moderated five focus groups, all part of a strategic training needs assessment for a client. The two EnVision moderators wanted to learn more about the company’s current capabilities and training needs in the areas of management, technical, and professional skills. For each […]