Trainers have envisioned this scenario for years—bringing the right content, to the right person, at the right moment, and in the right size. The goal is to not only encourage corporate training uptake, but also to remove barriers to accessing a gamut of other training and knowledge resources so that professionals can build their skills and work more effectively.
Handheld devices such as the BlackBerry, a variety of smart phones, and the iPhone have all become feature-rich, faster, and more prevalent, making the possibility of training in the palm of your hands increasingly promising. By design, executives use handhelds to increase their productivity—to call clients or colleagues, to read email, and to research contact information. Expanded capabilities, however, have made these devices fertile environments for providing other types of content, including training and performance support.
Throughout the last year, Accenture has designed, prototyped, and tested corporate-required mobile training. And that journey to making mobile learning a reality has involved sponsor discussions, technology challenges, design obstacles, lessons learned, and pitfalls.
The business-need aspect centered on the recognition that key segments of the target audience for corporate training are traditionally difficult to reach. These groups understand the importance of required training and want to undertake it, but their schedules seldom allow the 30 or 60 minutes in front of a computer that is needed to complete the sessions.