1. Dr. Jane Bozarth
Author, Better than Bullet Points & upcoming Social Media for Trainers
http://bozarthzone.blogspot.com
Twitter: @janebozarth, @SoMe4Trainers
Note: This originally ran on Training Magazine’s former “Training Day” blog on 2/12/2010
Training: What’s Your Objective?
Discussion of objectives in training could be a topic for a book all by itself, but
lately I‟ve run across 2 excellent examples of problems with
learning/performance objectives. They provide a good basis for looking at just a
couple of common problems.
Example 1: One summer afternoon my friend Jo left her son, 5-year-old Max, in
the care of his grandmother. While Max was napping Grandma found a dead
rattlesnake in the yard and thought to herself, “This is a good time to teach Max
about snakes.”
Her objective: “Max will understand about snakes.”
So when Max awoke from his nap Grandma took him outside and said:
“See, Max, this is a rattlesnake. Some snakes are very dangerous so you must
be careful if you are ever near one. They can be hard to see.” Using a hoe,
grandma moved the snake into high grass, then onto a bed of pine straw, to
show Max how the snake‟s colors tended to blend with the setting. Grandma
talked about being careful when running around outside barefoot, not bothering

2. or teasing snakes, and taking care when playing near places snakes might be
found, like fallen logs or warm rocks.
At the end of Grandma‟s lesson she said, “So, Max, do you understand about
snakes?”
And Max looked up at her and said,
“Oh, yes, Grandma. I love snakes.”
In the example with Grandma and Max, the problem was an objective too vague:
“He will understand “ can be interpreted in more than one way, which is exactly
what happened, and Max did not understand in the way Grandma meant him to.
This is a common problem in compliance and policy training, where it‟s more
usual than not to see objectives like, “Learner will know the policy”, “Learner will
understand the rules regarding unlawful harassment”. And regarding Grandma,
well, as we say here in the American South, bless her heart. She did intend to
help Max “understand”. She tried to make the snake training meaningful and
engaging. She did not read PowerPoint slides to Max. She included important
information (they are hard to see in the ground cover) and offered some helpful
tips (don‟t tease). But the training did not accomplish what she‟d intended.

3. I‟ve seen the opposite problem as well: Objectives so detailed and specific that
the real point of the thing is lost. Which brings us to Example 2: A contractor
charged with developing online tutorials on the new employee timekeeping
system listed the desired performance objectives (below).
At the end of the training, the employee will be able to:
• Log on and navigate to the employee section of the portal
• Record and review time
• View time statements
• Display leave quota overview
• Generate leave requests
• Access system help resources
• Assign charge object numbers
• Report premium pay hours
The objectives were certainly detailed and specific. The contractor had
thoroughly delineated desired performance. After weeks of tedious wordsmithing,
next-level management finally signed off on the objectives. Senior management
likewise approved of the plan. Everyone involved agreed that, yes, these are the
outcomes we‟re after.

4. Several million dollars later the training was launched, and several weeks after
that the new time sheet software “went live” to 30,000 workers. And the critical
problem with the tutorials quickly, and loudly, and in a most dramatic way,
became evident. The list of objectives had not included:
At the end of this training, the employee will be able to complete his or her
time sheet.
[This is not to oversimplify the other problems here, including the evidence that
no one ever thought to ask even one potential learner to try the material out, or
that much of the training content, like charge object hours, was relevant only to a
fraction of the target audience.]
So: Before developing the instruction don‟t just write objectives. Write the right
objectives. What is this person really supposed to do back on the job? What does
“understand” mean, and what evidence will show you that understanding has
occurred? Devotees of Bloom‟s taxonomy will argue that learner performance
like “listing” and “describing” can constitute what he called ”enabling” objectives.
That may valid, but they should not be the only objectives: Employees are rarely
asked to “list” or “describe” anything, so it‟s critical to move on to behaviors
closer to desired performance, not just knowledge. And: Enabling objectives are
easy to write, and to develop bullet points for, and to develop training around,
and to write a quiz to assess. If you feel the training really must address these,

5. fine, but be sure to push past them on to things that more closely resemble real
performance. In my train-the-trainer course I don‟t want my learners to describe
strategies for engaging learners, I want them to deliver a piece of instruction in
which they demonstrate the ability to apply those strategies. It‟s more work for
both learner and me, and much more time consuming, but it moves us far closer
to the actual desired performance. And it makes the training worth doing.
So: Think Goldilocks. Not too little, not too much. And remember in developing
objectives to keep an eye on the rock-bottom performance goal: Don‟t get eaten
by bears.
Other problems with training objectives? I asked Twitter training/elearning/ID
folks and here are some of their answers. Perhaps we‟ll expand on some of
these in a future column.
Gina Minks @gminks, EMC: “When objectives relate to what someone
wishes the performance was, even though that may be a fantasy.”
Jeffery Goldman @minutebio, Johns Hopkins Healthcare LLC: “Not
setting them at all, not measuring whether they are met in the final
assessment, and not providing content to meet objectives.”
Guy Wallace @guywwallace, EPPIC, Inc: “Objectives are not
systematically „derived‟ from solid analysis of ideal performance/gaps &
are best guesses.”

6. Kevin Bruny @row4it, Chesterfield County VA Government: “Once used
for design and communicated in training, we tend to forget about them and
never return to validate.”
Kara DeFrias @californiakara, Intuit: “People get so wrapped up in
objectives they forget to take time to make the actual learning meaningful
& engaging.”
--JB