I recently co-delivered a day of training that dealt with the topic of Training Within Industry, or TWI. TWI was a training methodology developed in the US during the Second World War, to address the labour and skills shortage felt within key industries, as the regular labour force were drafted to fight. It was primarily women that answered the call and continued to drive the wheels of American industry, and the excellent and important work that they did had as its foundation one major factor; the quality and structure of the training that they received.
There are three main factors underpinning the success of TWI. They are Job Instruction, Job Methods and Job Relations. Methods seek to break down a task into its constituent steps. In this way the trainer can analyse and define the key points, knacks and techniques, which can then be standardised and passed on. Relations can then take that analysis and apply it to the rigours of the PDCA cycle, hence seeking to continuously improve the operation by questioning the current best method.
But my attention was drawn to the Job Instruction process. Instruction refers to the way that the training is delivered, in an experiential and hands-on fashion. In itself, it is broken down into four main steps:
1) Prepare the worker.
2) Present the operation.
3) Let the learner try out the operation.
4) Create a follow-up plan with the learner.
When preparing the worker, the trainer is encouraged to put them at their ease and give them an overview of the operation that they are both preparing to share. But it is one of the other suggestions that really intrigued me and is essentially the topic of this post.
The trainer can ask what the trainee already knows about the operation.
I’d just like to leave that there for a second, to give an opportunity for reflection.
It may be that you have already decided that this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and on the face of it, it seems quite a plausible question to ask. After all, given that TWI is a one to one transaction, an understanding of the starting point of the trainee might seem quite advantageous. Should you find yourself training someone who already has a relatively high skill level, surely you should be able to have the opportunity of tailoring your delivery accordingly?
Perhaps. But then have we not lost the standardised message that TWI prizes? Can we then be sure that everyone delivering the process is operating from the same knowledge footing? Have we endangered the very reproducibility that is the driver of our quality targets and stable takt?
But there could be something even more fundamental at play here. There is improvement to be had on both sides of the transaction, on behalf of both the trainer and the trainee.
What if the trainer were to make this request instead?
“Forget everything you know about this operation.”
Again, I’d just like to leave that there to give a chance for reflection.
I guess the question becomes, in relation to TWI, and indeed any training, is there any impact on effectiveness when we, as trainees, bring our own knowledge with us from the off?
Admittedly, this is tremendously difficult not to do, but could it impact the transaction detrimentally? As the information is coming to me from the trainer, essentially, where is my attention? Rather than concentrating on the topic and having a true auditory and visual experience, I am probably reflecting with a series of questions in my own mind:
“How does this fit in with what I already know?”
“This isn’t too different to what I did in my last job.”
“I think I already know how to do this.”
“I am not sure if I would do it that way!”
This is the state of mind that we bring in to most transactions. We are simultaneously fitting all incoming information into our own unique world view to see if it makes sense and aligns neatly with what we already know to be true. To this extent, it is possible that we lose some subtlety from the learning experience with which we are presented and that the training perhaps is not quite as effective as it could be.