Training-type Skills?
Q: reading back over several posts about combining documentation and training, I saw that several organizations use business people as trainers, putting them through train-the-trainer types of courses. Do train-the-trainer courses only include the technical and/or business topics that the trainers will be teaching, or do they also include training-type skills? If so, what skill sets do you attempt to include in those courses for the non-professional-trainers?
A: Train the Trainer is intended to teach the skills necessary to be a trainer. Although some companies include subject matter, the train the trainer courses I have taught have concentrated more on training skills, such as how to handle different types of trainees (such as anxious-dependent - i.e., you make it look easy, but I will never be able to learn it so you need to hold my hand through all of this; the expert - i.e., I already know this and there's nothing you can teach me, so I'm going to sit here and contradict you every chance I get, etc.) and how to move a trainee from one category to another. It also includes stuff like using visuals, moving around alot, questioning techniques (asking a question then selecting someone to answer it; not asking leading questions, etc.), how to handle questions you don't know the answers too, evaluation, stating objectives, confirming yourself as an expert, etc.