I had this convo with someone not in L&D about training and job aids.

It wasn’t too deep. ‘Just had to interrupt our conversation briefly to explain what I meant about job aids not being training.

My dog-owner friends probably can relate to this…

Every time we drop Ella off for overnight stays at her doggie resort (yeah, you gotta see this place, it really kind of is one), we have to deal with the whole hassle about meal instructions.

The staff wants time with us to “teach” them how she takes her meals and to provide instructions.

Ella’s not a diva, but she won’t eat just kibbles.

This ordeal is all about,

“…well, you gotta put some kibbles in there, and then to give it some flavor (because the kibbles don’t always have a lot of flavor, it seems), put this little package of “toppers” on top of it. And that’s just one-side of the bowl…
“THEN, on the other half of the bowl, you gotta put the wet food because it has more flavor, but it doesn’t work well with her digestion if that’s all she ate…”

(*Ugh!* Gawd we must love her.)

A picture really is worth a thousand words

Anyway, early on, I started to write instructions. Using. Just. Words.

Quickly, I realized: screw that.

Now, I just leave behind the single visual you see above.

It’s a one-pager.

With just enough information to show what goes where,

how much,

and when.

Nothing fancy.

But every time we check in, the staff loves us for it.

“I wish everyone did it this way.”

My L&D friends probably can relate to this…

That was the example I used the other day to explain to someone in a different discipline entirely about why Performance Support ≠ “Training”.

That single slide my wife and I leave with the doggie resort staff isn’t training.

It’s performance support. It’s a job aid.

It doesn’t explain dog nutrition.

It doesn’t educate them on Ella’s digestive idiosyncrasies

or the flavor value of kibbles relative to wet food.

It doesn’t need to.

It simply answers the questions they’ll have in the moment:

“What goes in the bowl? And when?”