Editor’s note: In this multi-part series, Devin Purcell continues to tackle the skills shortage that the fluid power industry is facing and offer creative solutions to address this challenge. See part 1 and part 2 here.
Contributed by Devin Purcell • Technical Trainer
If you have been following this series over the last few months, you’ve learned about the importance of creating a formal learning process with your junior technician, and how to create proper learning objectives. While these are all important parts of the process, these are really the main aspects of the pre-planning process. While many may see this as wasted time, I assure you pre-planning is important to make sure you create a successful program to give your senior technicians the tools they need to succeed.
This month, I wanted to discuss a simple trick that will allow your team to excel when determining the best method to pass down information they have stored in their brains over the years. This is the main goal with any training program, to ensure information is passed to new junior technicians and not forgotten.
writing out instructions for a task helps to ensure they are a complete outline to properly finish a job. They also can be added to your service manual over the years.
I have been in many training situations over the years and have noticed one of the greatest failures is simply forgetting to discuss all the information when teaching a new technique or skill. I have observed others teaching someone how to do something and they often don’t mention simple steps because they assume the other person already knows.
This is important: never assume the people you are training understand or know how to do everything. Always assume they know nothing until you can identify exactly how advanced their learning skills are. After you have gauged where they are on their learning journey, you can finely tune what you deliver to make the process more efficient. But until this happens, it is very important not to assume.
I use a simple trick from schoolchildren which is a great exercise on creating a procedural outline for a new skill or technique that you are trying to teach. This process, when done with school children, involves having kids write down the steps involved in creating a grilled cheese and then having the teacher follow these steps literally. If you have ever seen these online you have seen the hilarity that ensues.
When children give grilled cheese instructions to a teacher, the results can be quite entertaining and quite possibly, disastrous.
This is a great tool to go through with your technicians-in-training. It simply starts with a piece of paper and a pen — yes a piece of paper and a pen. Do not reach for the computer. Paper is much more tactile and gives us an opportunity to get “messy” during the process.
Let’s use a simple vehicle oil filter change as an example that everyone will be familiar with, no matter what part of the industry you work in. Grab a pen and a piece of paper, take 15 minutes, and outline the process now.
*Please stop reading now. If you cheat and follow the next steps you will ruin the process.*
So, now that you are finished, let’s take a quick look at what you came up with.
When you look at the list of steps you created, could a complete beginner with no knowledge of doing the job complete the repair?
For example, you might write a simple step such as “install the oil filter.”
For an experienced technician this description works. However, if you are not familiar with filter installation, it needs to be covered in much greater detail.
Here is a revised version of the step:
Make sure the oil filter is the correct part number for the year and engine size of the vehicle. Inspect the oil filter and ensure that there is no debris in the threads of the filter. Double check that the O-ring is present and in good condition. Install the oil filter on the filter spud and turn in a clockwise direction to tighten. Once the filter O-ring is touching the filter base and is snug, turn ½ to ¾ of a turn. Clean any excess oil that was spilled during the process.
This is the type of detail that you are looking for. In the first example, we assume that the person installing the oil filter already knows how to install the filter based on how simple the instruction is. This is the type of assumption that we cannot make before we know where they are on their learning journey.
If we assume that the person knows how to do this, they may fill in the blanks on their own and decide to complete the job as they assume the job should be completed. As you can imagine, this has the potential to create catastrophic results.
These step-by-step outlines are not used to teach the junior technician; they are to be an exercise to show a senior technician the detail that they need to provide the technicians that they are training. This training exercise can be used for each job that you are teaching, or it can be used to bring awareness to the training technician.
The greatest by-product of this training process beyond the skills that it provides your technicians in mentoring is the amazing outlines that you can add to your process manual. This increases your technician’s knowledge as the years progress and more and more step-by-step processes are added to your manual.
Let me provide you with a simple challenge. Build on the oil change example that I have given and let’s see how technical and thorough your instructions can be. I know that some of you will make my “thorough” outline look like child’s play.
The challenge is on you. Send me your examples at devinj.purcell@gmail.com.
If you would like to use another repair or skill as an example, I would love to see what you come up with as well.
Filed Under: Engineering Basics
