New Training Option for Marketing and PR
New Training Option for Marketing and PR
Power Hour Concept Trains Fast
How many times have you sat through days of training that could have easily been scaled back to one or two hours? Would you like to learn time management, the art of planning or how to encourage collaboration in just one powerful training hour?
Author and trainer Lisa Haneberg has developed an effective training model that can be applied to numerous topics and gets it all done in one hour.
Power Hour Training Model
In her new book titled, Developing Great Managers, 20 “Power Hour” Conversations that Build Skills FAST (American Society for Training and Development), Haneberg lays out a training model that could easily be applied to marketing and public relations training.
The basis of the model is to turn conversations into training. The trainees are given a pre-work assignment that will help generate a good conversation about a topic. Learning objectives are defined for each topic as well as a trainer’s agenda with the full hour broken down into activities or discussions and there are sample questions provided for the instructor to stir up the conversation.
The Art of Planning Training Power Hour
While the author provides 20 topics for the model such as Management in Modern Times, Mind Your Metrics, Defining Excellence, Mastering Your Time and Your Leadership Legacy, the example examined in this article is The Art of Planning.
In the pre-work assignment, Haneberg suggests the participants find a blog or article they can share when they meet with the other trainees. Learning objectives for the hour include discussing the importance of planning, identifying positive daily and weekly planning habits and creating a plan for the coming week.
The trainer’s agenda has the first 10 minutes for discussion of the pre-work. The next 15 minutes to present the topic, 10 minutes for discussion using the sample questions provided. Then there are 15 minutes allowed for an exercise (also provided by the author) and the final 10 minutes for further discussion and assignments.
The assignment in this power hour was to use the daily and weekly planning practices discussed in the training for the next two weeks.
Can a Topic be Trained Effectively in an Hour?
Is the power hour training model unrealistic and a waste of a good hour? It is already being used by webinar training.
There is so much potential for this model to be used in so many types of training. It would fit perfectly with podcast or vidcast on-demand training. Orientation training could easily use this model.
New employees could spend the first hour of their first day watching a one hour video or listening to podcast about the company, then work an hour or two with a co-worker. After lunch, they could watch or listen to another power hour training on how to do a certain process or on safety rules.
Throughout the first week, the new employee could watch the power hour training a couple of times a day and do actual work the rest of the time.
Schedule a Power Hour Training Brainstorm Session
After giving the power hour training model an in-depth review, get your human resource development team together and use a power hour training to brainstorm ways to use the model within your organization. If used properly, the model can be a powerful way to teach and to learn.