Creating a Flexible Learning Environment

Transforming Training - A Guide to Creating a Flexible Learning Environment: The Rise of Learning Architects.  By David Mackey & Sian Livsey.

Article text David Mackey was formerly Director of Training at Unisys. His first book on training ‘Everything You Ever Needed to Know About Training’ was well-received by trainers and by managers who had to facilitate employee development] as a highly practical volume with widespread applications.

His second book is altogether a more ambitious project. Together with Sian Livsey, he develops the concept of a ‘learning architect’. In Transforming Training, Mackey & Livsey attempt to identify, through using current best practice examples, the core success factors for organisations that are endeavouring to become more competitive through a range of structured approaches to learning. They develop a strategic approach that acknowledges the challenges presented by the current environment of cultural change and they erect signposts that give routes to Learning Managers seeking ways to navigate today’s training and development maze.

Mackey & Livsey quote a colleague:
“We’ve become, as a company, pretty good at handling massive, continuous amounts of change. But it’s proving difficult for anything to stay still long enough for us to provide training on it, or even, sometimes, deciding exactly what ‘it’ is�.

Using this as starting point, the authors explore the learning challenges facing organisations and introduce the ‘learning architect’ as an individual cognisant with these challenges who ‘leads a learning function that brings an intensity of learning to their organisation, learning that plays an irreplaceable role in the development of the organisation’s performance, culture and values’ Heavy stuff indeed. If Mackey & Livesy can assist you even part way to achieving this learning nirvana, you should certainly consider what they say.

Let’s be clear, the term ‘Learning Architect’ is not a term coined by the authors. It is a relatively new term that has great currency in e-learning environments but is increasingly being used to describe much wider, more strategic corporate learning and development roles.

After discussing current challenges and introducing Mackey & Livesy’s version of the ‘learning architect’, Part One of the book contains sections such as ‘A journey to learning excellence’ and ‘Managing learning without a team’. These sections are saved from being merely aspirational by some very relevant case histories and practical suggestions.

Training professionals will be intrigued to discover, in Part Two, what type of learning architect they might be. They will certainly be curious to match themselves against the skills and qualities of a learning architect modelled by the authors. These sections suffer from a constant weakness in the book: one of poor layout and an attempt to cram too much into too little space. Part Two would certainly benefit from being published in workbook format.

In conclusion, this book should inspire you, or even provoke you, to re-evaluate the learning architecture in your organisation and reassess your role as its architect. Well worth a read.

Guy Flouch