Instructional Design Basics: What Is ADDIE?

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Many people who wind up having training creation as part of their job roles have never had a full opportunity to learn about the basics of instructional design, how people learn, and how to develop training.

One of the things people in this situation sometimes don’t know if that there are processes, models, or methods that already exist that make the process of creating training more orderly, more effective, and more systematic.

One of those, and in fact the most commonly known one, is ADDIE. ADDIE is an acronym that stands for each of the steps of the model–analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluation (or you might see it listed out as analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation). ADDIE’s not the only model for the creation of training–there are others. And ADDIE’s not without its imperfections and critics.

But if you’re new to training, it’s definitely worth your time becoming aware of ADDIE. Even if it’s only your introduction to the idea that there are systematic, formulaic methods or models you can use to develop training. And even if you ultimately wind up using a different method.

But there’s also a chance that you’ll find ADDIE very helpful, that you’ll use it a lot in your job as a trainer or training developer, or that you’ll develop and use your own, somewhat-custom version of ADDIE over time.

So let’s cut the introduction at this point and explain the ADDIE instructional design and/or training development model for you below in some more detail.

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Project Management Basics: Project Management, Program(s), Portfolio(s), and Operations Management

In our continuing look at some of the basics of project management, we’re going to consider some related, similar-but-different terms used in project management: projects, programs, and portfolios. And we’re going to discuss operations management as well.

This material is based on materials from A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), which is published by the Project Management Institute, also known as the PMI. If you’re not familiar with the Project Management Institute (PMI), they’re the organization that certifies project managers. So–big shots in the field. And if you’re not familiar with the PMBOK, it’s the “body of knowledge” for project management and it includes the standard for project management, ANSI/PMI 99-001-2017. So, important stuff to know about if you’re a project manager and/or if you want to get a project management certification.

And if you’re looking to take some online courses on the topic of project management in order to prepare for the PMI’s Project Management Professional (PMP) exam in order to become a certified Project Management Professional, our Vector Solutions business partners over at RedVector specialize in that very thing–check ’em out!

Also, since you’re reading this article, we assume you’re interested in all-things-project-management, so please help yourself and download the Intro to Agile infographic at the bottom of this article.

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Some Key Industrial Training Topics

Industrial employers and manufacturers have their hands full in today’s business climate. And while there are a lot of challenges (and opportunities too, of course), there’s no doubt that developing a fully skilled workforce is a big challenge.

In this article, we’re going to provide a brief overview of some key times when industrial employers should deliver training to workers and some key topics to provide that training.

We invite you to share your own experiences in hiring skilled workers, providing your initial training to them during onboarding as well as throughout their career with your organization to develop those necessary skills, and of course using that training as a way to retain employees so  you won’t have to go through the expensive proposition of turning around, hiring, and onboarding new employees so frequently.

In addition to this article on industrial training topics and moments of training needs, you might also enjoy our article with Industrial Training Tips and our article on developing Training Programs for Industrial Employees.

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New Courses Released: National Electrical Code (NEC) 2020®

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You may remember our earlier article mentioning that the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) had updated the National Electrical Code, creating NEC 2020®.

Here’s what the NFPA says about NEC 2020® at their webpage:

NFPA 70®National Electrical Code® (NEC®), sets the foundation for electrical safety. The revised 2020 edition of this trusted code reflects the dynamic nature of the industry, incorporating more than 3,700 public inputs and 1,900 comments, resulting in hundreds of updates and four all-new articles related to emerging issues like emergency disconnects, ground-fault circuit interrupter protection, surge protection, power over Ethernet, and more.

To help electricians get or stay certified, Vector Solutions (through our business partners at RedVector) have released a series of new online NEC 2020® training courses to their existing continuing education training library for electricians.

We’ll give some more details about these exciting and important new course offerings below. Please let us know if you’ve got any questions.

Plus, we’re offering a free, live, informational webinar on these NEC 2020® Changes on Tuesday, September 15, 2020. Register now and you can attend live, listen, and even ask some questions or, if you miss it, we’ll be sure to get a recording in your email inbox shortly after.

And here’s a quick overview video from some of the NEC 2020® online training courses.

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What Is Reliability-Centered Maintenance?

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Reliability-centered maintenance is a process of planning maintenance inspections and procedures to ensure your equipment what you need them to do and to preserve its current function(s).

Reliability-centered maintenance, or RCM, begins with identifying the problems and potential problems with your equipment, beginning with how they can fail. RCM then leads you through an orderly process that leads you to identifying ways to prevent those failures.

We’ll explain more in this article.

Before you go further, feel free to download our Guide to Industrial Maintenance Training or check out our online industrial maintenance training courses and solutions.

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New Courses Released: Online Lean Manufacturing Training Courses Available

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We’re a little late in announcing this–apologies for that!–but earlier this year we released an entire series of online training courses on the basics of Lean Manufacturing.

These courses cover all the basics–we’ll include a full course-title list below along with course descriptions–and are part of our larger online training library for continuous improvement.

The courses are all made in our famous and award-winning multimedia video production style, which of course includes 2D- and 3D-animations. Check out a quick sample from our Lean Manufacturing highlight video, below.

Read on to learn more about the specific new courses in our Lean Manufacturing series.

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OSHA’s Recommendations for Safety & Health Management Programs in Construction

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In recent years, OSHA created some recommended practices for safety and health management programs or systems. One of those, OSHA 3886, is titled Recommended Practices for Safety and Health Programs in Construction.

We wanted to make sure you know about this OSHA document on construction safety and health programs. And we also wanted to call out some of the highlights of the OSHA document for you here in this article.

So definitely download the OSHA document so you can read it completely and use it to improve the safety and health of your construction work areas (and stay more compliant, as well). But please do feel free to review our article for some helpful construction safety tips also.

And be sure to let us know if you need help with construction safety training, safety management software for your construction company, construction project management continuing education, or other stuff related to construction.

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Human Factors: Helping Employees Make Decisions that Don’t Lead to Incidents

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Welcome, video fans! This is the fourth and last in a four-recording series of discussions with Jennifer Serne, Assistant Professor at Central Washington University, on topics related to decision-making, heuristics, cognitive biases, incidents, and incident investigations.

To make the four-recording series easier to process mentally, we broke it up into two parts, with two discussions per part. Those parts are:

Part 1: Decision-Making, Heuristics, and & Cognitive Biases from the Safety Professionals Perspective During Incident Investigations (this part includes a discussion titled Incident Investigations & Cognitive Biases and a second discussion titled Guarding Against Bias in Incident Investigations).

Part 2: The same general topics–decision making, heuristics, cognitive biases–but from the perspective of employees on the job (this includes a discussion titled Why Human Decisions Sometimes Contribute to Incidents and the discussion immediately below).

We hope you enjoy this fourth and final discussion on these issues and invite you to check out the earlier ones if you missed those. We also invite you to join with us in waiting for future recorded discussions with Jennifer–we’ve got some planned.

Before you take off, please feel free to download the guide below. 

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Intro to “New Safety” Guide

What we’re calling “New Safety” here goes by a variety of names–HOP, HPI, Safety Differently, Safety-II, Resilience Engineering, and more. Download the guide to learn more about it from many of the world’s top experts.

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The Value of Continuing Education & Professional Certifications

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You might know Convergence Training as primarily a job-training company because we create a lot of training that’s often assigned at workplaces or otherwise made available to employees to complete to build skills, improve safety, be compliant with training requirements from agencies like MSHA or OSHA, and more.

But we’re also a part of the Vector Solutions family, and our sister company RedVector has strong offerings in what you might think of as continuing education, helping people prepare for professional certifications by certifying bodies or completing required training to maintain professional licenses.

In this article, we thought we’d tell you a little more about the continuing education offerings from our partners at RedVector (which are available to Convergence Training customers, just as our training is available to their customers).

Read on to learn more.

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Human Factors: Why Human Decisions Sometimes Lead to Incidents

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If you’ve been following us lately, you know we’re in the middle of a four-discussion series with Jennifer Serne, an Assistant Professor at Central Washington University’s Safety and Health Management Program, about issues related to decision-making, heuristics, cognitive bias, incidents, and safety at work.

If you’re missed the first two discussions, walk don’t run to check them out: Cognitive Biases and Incident Investigations and Guarding Against Cognitive Biases in Incident Investigations.

Are you back? OK, then go ahead and check out this recorded discussion. It’s the first of two discussion in which we “flip the coin” and look at heuristics, cognitive biases, and decision-making not by the safety professional but rather by the employees the safety professional works with.

In this discussion, we’ll start by talking about heuristics, biases, and decision-making. In the fourth and final conversation, we’ll discuss how safety professionals can help set employees up to make better (or safer, or more successful, or more optimal, or whatever word want you to use here) decisions at work.

As before, many thanks to Jennifer.

We hope you enjoyed this discussion of human factors at work, that you went  back and checked out the earlier discussions, and that you stay tuned for the fourth and final discussion in this series.

Before you go, feel free to download the guide below as well.

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Intro to “New Safety” Guide

What we’re calling “New Safety” here goes by a variety of names–HOP, HPI, Safety Differently, Safety-II, Resilience Engineering, and more. Download the guide to learn more about it from many of the world’s top experts.

Download Guide

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Guarding Against Bias in Incident Investigations

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In a recent recorded discussion with Jennifer Serne of Central Washington University’s Safety and Health Management program, Jennifer told us how we use heuristics in our life and during incident investigations and how we also fail prey to applying cognitive biases in our incident investigations.

In this continuation of the discussion, Jennifer continues discussing cognitive biases in incident investigations and gives us some tips for trying to be wary of their influence and to try to minimize their influence.

In future conversations, we’ll talk with Jennifer about how employees use heuristics and how they also suffer from cognitive biases when they’re making decisions on the job. Stay tuned for that!

Many thanks to Jennifer Serne for sharing her insights and experience on these issues with us.

Let us know if you have any questions, stay tuned for more from Jennifer, and have a great day.

Feel free to download the free guide below, too. 

New Safety Guide Button

Intro to “New Safety” Guide

What we’re calling “New Safety” here goes by a variety of names–HOP, HPI, Safety Differently, Safety-II, Resilience Engineering, and more. Download the guide to learn more about it from many of the world’s top experts.

Download Guide

New Safety Guide Button

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