Virtual Learning vs. Instructor-Led Learning
If COVID-19 taught us one thing, it’s that virtual learning or e-learning isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. While the availability of online learning resources has increased exponentially in recent years, relying solely on mass-produced, pre-recorded courses and materials can result in a surface-level understanding of new tools and processes that lacks in-depth, anecdotal considerations for a specific business or team.
Many organizations invest in technology with the expectation that it will magically fix all their problems. However, investing in training your people is equally as important. That’s how this global Fortune 40 retailer and a leading telecommunications company were able to successfully implement Agile-at-Scale. When these companies invested in training their teams to leverage the Atlassian platform for managing work, both organizations were able to advance their Agile transformation journeys and maximize their technology ROI.
Atlassian University provides hours of virtual content for users looking to expand their knowledge of the various tools in the Atlassian suite. While it’s great to be able to access materials for Jira training and Confluence training anytime and from anywhere, this virtual content isn’t updated in real-time. Because it isn’t live, there’s no way to answer real-time questions students may have.
Questions submitted will likely only get a direct, canned response that can’t provide additional context or take a specific scenario into account. These courses are great for basic knowledge or for brushing up on a tool over time, but assuming they can facilitate an entire team or organization learning a new tool is a disservice to the team members that will use the tool every day.
The Value of a Human Instructor
Live, instructor-led Atlassian training courses exist for the same reason Human Resources departments exist – they provide a personalized experience and a place to ask specific questions during the onboarding process. Sure, onboarding tasks can be done online, but who would be there to answer specific questions or concerns without a dedicated team ensuring each employee is set up for success?
Instructors share the same goals of not only making the training session successful but also ensuring each person accomplishes their objectives with the program. Did the students really learn what they set out to learn with their Atlassian training? Do they feel confident with the new tool or process, or do they still have unanswered questions?
Personal interaction and adjustments to a class, whether in-person or on a virtual platform like Zoom, play an essential role in giving students an experience tailored to their specific knowledge level. An instructor can provide anecdotes from their own experience, as well as tips and tricks they’ve picked up with their personal use of a tool. When students connect with an instructor on a personal level, they retain information better and have someone they can reach out to if more questions arise once they start using the tool.
Interpretation of body language or voice inflection is another aspect of instructor-led training that can only be accomplished with real-time human interaction. When a student asks a question, the instructor can read their body language or tone of voice to give a more insightful answer and can perceive if the answer given was what the person was truly looking for.
Maximize Your Training Investment with Tailored Course Materials
Finally, with instructor-led training, the teacher can understand the unique knowledge level of each class and adapt the training content. This allows them to provide “extra” learning materials, such as demos that go deeper into a specific topic for a more challenging or unfamiliar area. That was the case for a leading oil and gas company that needed hands-on workshops to train their teams on how to use Advanced Roadmaps for Jira to align teams and connect strategy to work execution. Tailored training material that is delivered by an instructor helps students get the most value out of the time they invest in the class.
Instructor-led training is not necessarily essential to learning a new ecosystem, Atlassian or otherwise. However, without an instructor, a course is relegated to only the information on the screen and cannot be customized to specific business cases or experience levels. Instructors can lend their own experiences and encourage students to get the most out of their training by providing additional context or more advanced information.
If you’re interested in getting your teams the Atlassian training they need to expand their knowledge and improve the user experience with the tools, contact Praecipio to learn about our on-site and virtual training options. Both are led by a live instructor (one of our seasoned Atlassian experts) and tailored to meet the specific needs of your organization or team. This Jira Align workshop is a great example of one of our virtual training options that is instructor-led and provides hands-on experience for attendees.
We can also develop custom training content for your teams to deliver like we did for a retail enterprise that needed to train their teams that were distributed across the globe.
