We . . . Bryan, Keith, and Andrew . . . just returned from providing a training with a group of government employees. The training, which focuses on using an interactive game to help improve communication, understand the relationship of mistakes and learning, and be willing to take reasonable risks to add to their strengths and become better team members.

Bryan and Keith were co-facilitating the training while Andrew was along to expose him to the training—since he had not participated in our past trainings. I tasked Andrew with being our tech support and quality improvement observer. The first meaning using his knowledge of gaming to help the training flow smoothly and the second to think about the strengths of the training and what needs continued improvement.

He did both jobs well.

I will share, for the fun of it, what you get when you task a graphic designer to take notes. Take a look . . .

I flipped through my entire spiral-bound notebook. A notebook I loaned him to in which to make his own notes. Page after page, nearly 40, of my own sterile, austere, notes. Just notes. Not one illustration, squiggly line, or doodle. Boring.

The amazing thing to me, is that this kid--can I still call him a kid at 30?-who obviously shares a creative talent inherited from his mother . . . and not me, had some great insights. As a result, we will have a much stronger training product through implementing several of his ideas.

If you are developing your own products, don’t forget to include an observer who can help you refine your process—and it doesn’t hurt if their ways of processing are different than yours, in fact, it might open up your eyes to new opportunities for improvement!

Below, are pictures of a couple pages of our new Training Lesson Plan developed from one of Andrew’s suggestions. We will introduce this new tool during our free training on Sunday.