Virtual RCA Training

It’s my first global pandemic and I wish this had stayed the stuff of novels and movies, but it didn’t.  I taught what is likely my last on-site class for the foreseeable future in mid-March in Minneapolis, MN to a great group of Safety and Quality professionals in the construction business.  COVID-19 was on everyone’s mind, but news keeps changing by the hour.  The travel bans began rolling out at a furious pace.  Truthfully, I’ve traveled enough for three lifetimes over the past 20 years, so a block of time at home wasn’t necessarily unwelcome.  But without face to face training, you can’t teach people how to facilitate teams, right?  At least not under the old paradigm.

We weren’t totally caught off guard.  Companies like Amazon were early to roll out mission-critical travel restrictions and it didn’t take a lot of imagination to see that others were likely to follow suit.  When our root cause analysis classes started to postpone, our discussions turned to delivering training virtually.  So far, we’ve had strong support from most of our clients for this option.

Virtual training is nothing new to us.  We’ve been delivering online classes for years, and we have been delivering blended learning (combination of online and F2F) for 15 years.  But, in order for it to be effective, there are certain challenges that have to be addressed.  The first is attendance.  When a class is virtual, it feels less “real” to both students and their managers.  Since the training provider doesn’t control attendance, it is up to you to ensure that attendance is mandatory.  The second is engagement – if you can’t keep attendees focused on the training (because they are managing emails, responding to texts, surfing social media, etc.) they won’t get anything out of it.  The major online collaboration tools allow you to help maximize engagement, and by breaking the classes up into shorter sessions we can ensure people don’t lose focus.

Causelink software also helps promote engagement.  I’ve completed dozens of RCAs online using Causelink along with a collaboration tool (such as Go To Meeting, Webex, Zoom, Chime, etc.).  Attendees stay engaged and they participate just as effectively as they would in person.  By incorporating Causelink into our online training sessions, students become familiar with the structured problem-solving method while at the same time learn how to conduct a remote root cause analysis... something they are going to be asked to do a lot more of in the near future.

As bad as this crisis is, I foresee some good things emerging.  I expect we are going to be tipped into the realization that we can work remotely without limiting effectiveness.  While the transition is going to be abrupt and we still have a long way to go, I’m hopeful that effective virtual training will move from a ‘work around’ to becoming a normal delivery method.

Learn about Sologic Virtual RCA Training

Try Causelink for free for 14 days.  If you need more time once your 14 days are up, contact us for an extension.  We will provide up to 90 days of access free of charge to anyone who requests it from now until we get through this crisis.
 

Learn more about Sologic RCA