Training engineering in 4 key stages

What is training engineering

Training engineering is a recent discipline, only emerging in the late 70s. It is constantly evolving, thanks to numerous research projects in the educational sciences.

Philippe Clauzard, a teacher-researcher with a doctorate in adult training and educational science, defines it as "a set of methodical and coherent approaches that are implemented in the design of training actions or systems in order to effectively achieve the desired objective".

In particular, we'll be drawing on the work of Thierry Ardouin, professor at the CIRNEF laboratory at the University of Rouen Normandy and head of the Master's degree in Education and Training.

Cover of Thierry's book
Ardouin, published in 2003

In his book Ingénierie de formation pour l'entreprise, Thierry Ardouin defines training engineering as a structured approach to providing informed support to employees, and above all to anticipating needs and changes within an organization.

It also defines the 4-phase structure announced in the book's subtitle: analyze, design, realize, evaluate. Let's take a look at these different stages together.

‍

Step 1: Analyze the training request

The aim of this first step is to identify and analyze existing needs: context, issues, target audience, theme... And to define whether it is necessary to implement a training course.‍

This analysis needs to focus on a number of factors, not least the objectives of both learners and management. In business, needs often arise from the difference between a professional profile desired by management (general or HR) and the actual skills assessed by the company, or by the employee himself. The aim is to eliminate this difference, or at least reduce it significantly.‍

To analyze needs, the training engineer must take a number of active steps: evaluate previous training courses (within the company and via individual experience), conduct interviews or collect information from annual reviews, draw up surveys, compare opinions... At the same time, the engineer assesses the employment, training and professional retraining market.

The analysis must result in a set of specifications. These specify the target population, the concrete training objectives, certain content elements, and the planned evaluation system. To these are added the constraints, whether temporal or budgetary. Once the diagnosis has been made, the need is clarified. The training project can then be put in place.

‍

Step 2: Choose your training program(s)

During this second phase, the training engineer designs the training project. He or she selects the most appropriate devices to effectively meet the needs and constraints previously defined in the specifications.

Continuing education ? Presential training ? Coaching ? E-learning ? Mobile learning ? Conversational experiences ?‍

This is when the training engineer needs to ask himself all these questions. He also relies on a number of elements:

• Catalogs of training courses offered by its providers or search for new providers
• Professional skills repositories
• Training plan
• Allocated or projected training budget
• Technology watch (new tools on the market)

The training project is now designed and formalized. Halfway through the project, the training engineer knows the type of training desired, the subject(s) covered, the skills required and targeted, the instructors and teaching tools, and the cost of the training.

‍

Step 3: Managing training

Third stage: the heart of the training.

Here, the training engineer does not provide the learning. He doesn't run the modules, but his role is to make sure that everything goes according to plan.‍

In this way, he/she steers the plan, coordinates the actions of the various stakeholders (trainers, service providers), ensures that learners have access to the resources they need to develop their skills, makes sure that the schedule is respected, and follows up with learners and service providers.

‍

Step 4: Evaluating training

Finally, as a last step, the engineer will have to evaluate the training and determine whether it was a success.‍

The evaluation will focus on :

• Learners → Have they acquired new knowledge? Have they been transformed into skills?
• Were the training organization, the tools used and the trainers → efficient and reliable? Did they succeed in transmitting skills?

It can be qualitative (learner satisfaction), quantitative (number of hours completed) or financial; in general, the analysis will be cross-functional. In all cases, it must enable us to compare the objectives set with the results actually obtained, and thus to define whether the training corresponds to demand and needs, whether the budget and schedule are respected, and whether there is a return on investment.

Since the training engineer's approach is one of iteration, the evaluation phase is part of a continuous improvement process. The aim is to better prepare future training courses and anticipate any difficulties that may arise.

‍

In conclusion, the training engineer's work is painstaking. Fortunately, he or she collaborates with a number of players in the various phases, notably the pedagogical engineers (who are better known, by the way), who play a central role in setting up assessment systems, monitoring actions and evaluating them.‍

The four stages of training engineering - analysis, design, implementation and evaluation - may seem obvious, or even simplistic, but it's important to understand how they work.

nt to forget or neglect any of them. To take the parallel with building a house, if you've got a great plot, a great plan and good workers, but you're using the wrong materials, the house won't last long.