Welcome to the March issue of the Learning Dispatch newsletter. Today, we’ll discuss:
- The Training Crucible, Part 2 (our key trend for this month)
- Five articles on topics ranging from the role of AI in medical education to the 49 MB webpage. And one short video.
- An actionable tech tip on using TechSmith’s Snagit to cut out the middle of an image.
Why successful training leaders look beyond a focus on training content and balance it with operational urgency, budgets, procurement, and partnership.
A post by Donald Twining, COO of Microassist, Inc.
You’ve been asked to train stakeholders across all regions on a complex new program with a hard deadline. Travel budgets are gone. Your training development team is stretched thin. Procurement requirements dictate how and when you can engage support. And leadership expects measurable results. You need a training solution that reaches everyone consistently and actually changes behavior, not just something learners click through to check a box.
Factors that Drive Training Decisions
The Training Crucible, Part 1 pointed out that training decisions inside large organizations are rarely simple. You need to balance urgency with budget, compliance with usability, and expectations with operational reality. Even assuming that the training program is well designed to achieve its instructional and organizational objectives, every major training initiative must also balance four realities simultaneously:
- Operational urgency—what people must do differently, and how fast the development initiative needs to happen.
- Budget sustainability—balancing initial investment with long-term support and growth.
- Procurement constraints—accounting for contract vehicles, approvals, and compliance requirements.
- Partner capability—the degree to which your internal or external training development partner can adapt when priorities shift.
*Image created by Nano Banana 2
Successful leaders incorporate complexity, instead of trying to avoid it. A key aspect of planning can be working with a strong training partner, adding their expertise and capacity to your own.
What Changes with the Right Partner?
If working with a training partner is the right solution for an organization, consider that leaders don’t all take the same approach. Some succeed by maintaining tight control, directing training partners to simply execute instructions. They leverage deep organizational knowledge and prioritize intentional controls. That works when the training leader has the capacity to drive every decision and the partner has the skill to execute each of them well.
Others succeed by looking for partners who understand the full operating environment and can contribute to thinking, not just doing. They find this approach effective particularly when the scope is large, priorities shift, or internal bandwidth is stretched thin.
The difference isn’t which approach is better. It’s knowing which one your situation calls for.
Strong training partners start with procurement constraints, not design, because the best instructional solution means little if it can’t survive the approval process or be supported by the contract vehicle. They use validation checkpoints to confirm direction early, keeping the initiative on pace rather than discovering misalignment late. They build quality into design from the beginning, not as a final step, which protects long-term sustainability and avoids rework. Strong training partners also scale their involvement to fit the need, whether that means full or partial program development, rescuing projects, or providing ongoing program support, so their capability stays an asset when priorities shift.
Questions to Ask a Training Partner
Experienced leaders quickly assess whether a partner understands complex environments by asking a few revealing questions. They ask how scope changes are handled, whether there’s an instructional design process behind the scenes, what procurement vehicles are supported, how constraints were handled in past projects, when accessibility is addressed, what happens after delivery, and how much coordination the partner manages. Taken together, the answers reveal whether a partner can navigate the intricate factors needed to ensure that the program as a whole is successful.
(Microassist has these and additional questions available in The Training Manager’s Guide to Finding the Right Training Partner.)
Moving Forward
Training decisions inside large organizations are rarely simple. Successful leaders recognize that addressing complexity is a much more effective approach than attempting to eliminate it. They plan for it and, when appropriate, work with partners who can navigate it alongside them.
Let’s Talk About Your Training Challenges
Facing a complex training initiative? Curious how we approach projects at the intersection of need, budget, procurement, and partnership? We’d welcome the conversation.
For more than 35 years, Microassist has operated at the intersection of strategy, procurement, and learning development execution, helping organizations turn training plans into measurable results. Across government, corporate enterprise, and higher education, we’ve seen one constant: technical skill is expected. Real success comes from a partner who understands your environment and can adapt as it evolves.
Need help? Contact Nivarni at [email protected] today to start the discussion.
Insight from Everywhere
Note: Links may be behind soft paywalls.
Meghna Chakrabarti talks with Dr. Lloyd Minor about the role of AI in medical education. Points covered: how AI is used in training medical students, how medical students are taught to use AI while practicing medicine, and why the integration of the previous two points goes slowly. So many insights!
“So this hour we’re going to talk about what a curriculum looks like regarding AI and the practice of medicine, and why you as a patient of a doctor or medical professional somewhere should care about what med students are taught.”
WebAIM does a very nice job discussing training program considerations, using a tight focus on accessibility training. They cover using a role-based approach, logistics, incentives, and, essentially, accounting for time to both participate and practice.
“People need time to practice what they learned and to discover how it fits into their regular work. While organizations may account for the time to participate in training, the additional time afterwards often isn’t there.”
Speaking of accessibility, at the Conversation, Holly Louise Parrott takes a look at why disabled students encounter so many challenges at universities, even though universities are willing to provide support.
“Treating accessibility as local or optional rather than as essential infrastructure increases the likelihood of repeated failure. In this context, accessibility is not a specialist concern. It is a matter of system reliability and public accountability.”
Everyone’s favorite eLearning development tool maker, Articulate, is starting a new series, On Purpose, that showcases how organizations are using learning to pursue their mission. What’s impressive is the variety of the approaches that non-profits use and how each program is carefully aligned with the organization’s broader goals.
“From restoring sight to protecting forests, these organizations use learning to prepare their communities for frontline work, shifting policies, and global collaboration.”
It mayake seem a long walk to get from Shubham Base’s brilliant discussion of the 49 MB web page to training program design, but at the core of Base’s argument is what gets lost when the creators of content are constrained by motivations other than sharing information. How to ensure that training isn’t likewise beholden to factors other than learning?
“Good UX is highly desired and once you get it right, it feels almost natural, intuitive. The current state of news UI assumes that the reader is an adversary to be trapped and monetized.”
Video of the Month
For this month’s video, Kim Bahr looks at the dangers of telling instead of training, and provides a few tips on how to make training more effective.
Tips and Tricks
from Kim Bahr, Microassist Senior Instructional Designer.
Deleting the Middle of the Image
Let’s continue our exploration of TechSmith’s Snagit.
Have you ever wanted to delete a section in the middle of an image? For example, you are creating a step-by-step guide to complete a task in a new application. You snag your screen shot of the window and wish you could eliminate the extra unused or white space that makes your screenshot too big. TechSmith’s Snagit’s Cut Out feature can help you remove horizontal or vertical sections of your screenshot, making it cleaner and more focused on the specific task.
In this example, the task is to subscribe to Microassist’s “The Learning Dispatch.” I want to delete the green highlighted areas for a smaller screen shot.
- With the image highlighted, click the More dropdown in the toolbar.
- Select Cut Out.
- Select the style. In this example, I want to delete some of the white space between the articles and the subscribe box.
- Click and drag the area that you want to remove. This deletes the highlighted section and makes your image narrower.
Caution: Because the feature affects the entire image horizontally or vertically, pay attention to how your edit changes all areas, such as a title bar or a line of text.
Before You Go…
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Until next time,
Kevin
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