Dear Professionals,

We need to often ask this question : Can Technical Trainers Be More Effective ?

Yes, it is possible to be more effective for a technical trainer if and only if one is ready to accept the truth that being a Subject Matter Expert (SME) does not make him a good trainer. In any training program, content is important but good content alone is not enough. One needs to know how to present the content in a manner that acceptable to different types of audience.

That brings in a very important dimension of varying perceptions and judgments of a wide range of participants and the fact is that all are different. ‘One size fits all’ approach does not work in training and the ultimate truth that a technical trainer has no choice but to realize.

So it is absolutely essential that a technical trainer gains an insight into learning styles and learning behavior of one’s participants. One needs to train oneself in participant behavior observation and analysis and be so much more flexible in order to adapt to needs of the participants. Everyone needs to train in order to be more effective in their respective assignments and technical trainers are no exception.

Incidentally organizations lose heavily in terms of money and time by letting highly paid technical trainers do a shoddy job just because they fail to see the importance of training the trainers first before they are put on the centre stage. So the watch word in training and HR circles is that one needs to train the trainers adequately for them to be more effective on the job.

Train them to help them train others better ! Any viewpoints from the members ?

Regards,

Aladin

Dear Aladin & members,

For being effective, a technical trainer must have a better than average understanding of the topics he or she is to teach. At the same time, a trainer must have very good communication skills and people skills to transfer that knowledge effectively to students. Some of the requisite talents include very good presentation and public speaking skills, effective classroom management, the ability to keep the course on track and on schedule, a consistent calmness to deal with unforeseen problems in the classroom, a wide variety of real world experiences that can be described in class, and the patience to deal with slower students as well as with those know-it-alls who want to constantly challenge the person conducting the class.

Regards,

Aarti