What is my approach to online learning?
Your birthday is great, right? Everyone wants to see you and wish you well. You speak to friends and family you haven’t spoken to for too long. There’s good food and tasty drinks. And presents! For you! Presents for you! Ever had a birthday present you didn’t like? I love the presents I […]
Six ways to structure your training course
There are lots of ways to structure your humanitarian training course. Here are six.
What is NOT my approach to online learning?
One of the pictures I admire most is Saint Francis in Meditation by Francisco de Zurburan. It’s not the same online, but you can see it here. The most amazing thing about it is how the background isn’t something passive that the figure is presented against. It’s the black strokes of the background that shape […]
Seven Ideas for Easy Online Learning
Throwing techniques at a performance problem doesn’t work. You have to work out what’s going wrong and why. And then you need to create or customize approaches to address it. But when you’ve not had much experience with online learning, you don’t have a big toolbox to pull from. I’m sure you’ve got […]
Which comes first? Skills or systems?
Plutarch, the Greek historian and philosopher, was a celebrity. People would gather at his villa near Delphi to discuss and debate. He was a priest at Delphi too, “translating” the sounds of the Oracle into cryptic prophesies. He thought that animals had at least some consciousness and should be treated well. He was a vegetarian […]
Are the people on your leadership course already great leaders?
Signs you’re not doing the right kind of skills analysis – figuring out what is a skills issue and what is a process or system issue. No, not all of the people on your leadership course are great leaders. If you took away the dozens of competing demands and strategic priorities coming from your […]
Why do aid agencies need to work out what is a skills problem and what is a process problem?
Have you ever sat in a training course and known that what they’re telling you about will not work? That there simply isn’t time to do this along with all the other things you’re being asked to do? That it seems like it might be nice, but the government ministry just won’t allow it? […]
What does a good facilitator do when things get tough?
When you’re facilitating a meeting or a workshop, you have to be adaptable. There is no single approach that works every time. It depends on the group and their character. Even the same group on a different day (or a different hour!) can behave very differently because of their energy levels, priorities or motivation. When […]
Five reasons why “Capacity Development” is a helpful way to think about improving performance
When you get outside the aid sector, people don’t really talk about “capacity building” or “capacity development” much. People talk about training, or sometimes learning. There are times when I get fed up with hearing “capacity building”. Perhaps I’ve been involved in too many projects where it didn’t work! And it can be self-aggrandizing. Is […]
Six Reasons why “Capacity Development” is NOT a helpful way to think about improving performance
There are good reasons to talk about “capacity development” or “capacity building”. Most of the time, that’s not the way I think about my work. Some of that is just a reaction because it seems like jargon to me. I don’t like jargon, though I’m as guilty of using it as everyone else is. […]
