How to fit ten hours of training (and lunch) into an eight hour day.

“The course we are doing today will be tested next week on the Gold Coast*.”

Amalgamate two courses, present the new course before the content has been settled, and leave out stuff which doesn’t fit. Prepare participants to accept this justification by directing them to nonsensical course prerequisites with broken resource links. On the day, enhance their sense of uncertainty (and your authority to do as you wish) by providing the training outcomes just before the first break, the training resources before lunch, and telling people where the toilets and fire exits are in the afternoon.

To begin, say you are looking forward to doing part twenty-one, then start at part three. Arrange people into uneven groups. Use an obviously simple method applied in a pointlessly complicated way; don’t explain why. Ask the groups to do two things: make a list, and an activity requiring only two people. Wait as long as you wish then announce the groups should almost be through the second task by now. Get the groups to amalgamate their lists. If one group says one of their items has been listed by another group, suggest they should have gone first. Ask the groups about the pairs activity. If they did it as a group, suggest they should have paired up. If they paired up, suggest they should have done it as a group.

Mention part twenty-one again, don’t mention part four, go to part five. Hand out six booklets to fifteen people. Dictate a question about a single fact contained in the booklet. Wait as long as you wish. Ask one person how they went with the question. Agree with the person and praise the booklet, suggesting everybody should purchase one, even when the person says they didn’t find the answer and the booklet was misprinted.

Part six is four pages long so read out the headings and say “we’ll have time to go through them in detail this afternoon” and mention part twenty-one. (N.B. Don’t go through them in detail this afternoon.) Tell the participants they have already demonstrated an understanding of part seven. Skip part eight. Begin part ten and say “we will refer back to part nine”. (N.B. Don’t refer back to part nine.)

Tell people to get back into their groups and explain the task to some people who are not in the same group. Tell those people they are now a group and rearrange the rest of the participants into new groups as well. When somebody asks a question, interrupt all the groups to give an answer. If nobody asks a question, interrupt all the groups to make a suggestion. When you are ready, interrupt all the groups to read the learning outcome from the facilitator’s guide and move on to part twelve, omitting part eleven.

Direct the participants to carefully read the instructions for the psychological exercise in part twelve. Specifically direct the participants to ignore one of the instructions. Talk about the academic qualifications of the author and your own certification to conduct the exercise. Wonder aloud about the consistent failure of this exercise in training courses you have conducted. Imply participants who did get something out of the exercise probably followed the instruction you told them to ignore, as if this was a bad thing. Break for lunch.

Immediately after lunch, mention part twenty-one, turn down the lights and watch a video of a talking head (part thirteen). Tell the participants you think they are “across” part fourteen. Go directly to part twenty-one. Make a complete shambles out of a kindergarten game. Finish an hour early.

Camilla on teamwork.
“Everybody has strengths and weaknesses. If you use your strengths the weaknesses will just not be there.”.

Camilla on criticism.
“Sometimes constructive isn’t constructive at all.”.

*The time management module is pending results from CERN.  ¶ 18:20