This past Sunday I had an amazing experience at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, CA.  The Museum of Tolerance (MOT) is a human rights laboratory and educational center dedicated to challenging visitors to understand the Holocaust in both historic and contemporary contexts and confront all forms of prejudice and discrimination in our world today. 

This museum was an Instructional Designers dream!  It was the most experiential and learner-centered museum I have ever been in!  One of my favorites exhibits was the Point Of View Diner.  A recreation of a 1950’s diner, red booths and all, that “serves” a menu of controversial topics on video jukeboxes. It uses the latest cutting edge technology to relay the overall message of personal responsibility. Following scenarios focusing on drunk driving and hate speech, this interactive exhibit allows visitors to input their opinions on what they have seen and question relevant characters. The results are then instantly tabulated. 

The MOT creates a safe environment for probing dialogue around difficult issues rarely discussed in the workplace and homes of participants. The Point of View Diner challenges participants to question their own assumptions, raise self-awareness, and present fresh perspectives to redefine personal responsibility and taking action. 

It is important for an Instructional Designer to create a safe environment for the learners.  This is so they can feel safe while sharing their views, expressing their opinions and ultimately not feel ashamed … after all this is a LEARNING environment.  I am also a big fan of self discovery which this museum, and in particular this exhibit does. 

I was SO INSPIRED by this visit that I am going to research how the ideas are generated for each of these exhibits.  I am interested to know who puts it together, what sort of piloting they do and what they do with the data they collect from each visitor.

The MOT is a MUST SEE if you are in Southern California.

To schedule a visit, call, 310-553-8403
for group tours, 310-772-7639.

In California’s Mojave Desert, the US Army has built a “Virtual Iraq,” a billion dollar urban warfare simulation, and populated it with hundreds of Iraqi role-players.  Full Battle Rattle (http://www.fullbattlerattlemovie.com) follows an army battalion through the simulation as they attempt to secure the mock Iraqi village from slipping into civil war.  This documentary unveils the facts and conditions of the training facility.

Full Battle Rattle is a MUST see movie for all Instructional Designers because of the military’s testing facilities.  As ID’s, we all know that tests are used to simulate jobs as closely as possible and to check the learning of each sub-task.  This movie shows how the US military is able to measure skill and not just knowledge in a revolutionary way.  The simulation conditions are almost identical to Iraq including the language being spoke by the role-players, the weather, the media / press presence and the wounds that are inflicted during warfare.  Soldiers who do not meet the standards can be re-instructed and coached until they are able to perform the task to standard (and before going to Iraq).

Now we all needs budgets like the US military!

All of us need a mentor.  Did you used to have one, but don’t anymore?  Who was your 1st mentor?  How did your mentor change your life?  Do you currently have a mentor?  Who is he/she?

A mentor can help assess strengths and weaknesses, as well as help you develop new skills for success and help keep your creativity loose. If you and your mentor share the same employer, your mentor can foster your sense of belonging within the organization, help you navigate the company culture and politics, as well as let you know who the organization’s key players are.  If you own your own business, do not think it is not important, an outside mentor can provide you with warm leads, ask you tough questions about your own business (prepare you for the ‘real world’) and give you confidence that you are moving your organization in the right direction.  All mentors provide a fresh perspective — a new way of looking at a problem or issue. Ideally, your mentor will motivate you to do your best work.

• What does an Instructional Design / Training & Development / Knowledge Management  mentorship look like? 
• How is one created? 
• What would both parties benefit from the relationship?

I look forward to your best practices and discussion points on this topic.

On Friday January 16th2009, I had the absolute pleasure of visiting the University of Toyota in Torrance, CA with ASTD (American Society of Training and Development). Karin Accomando, Program Facilitator at the Center for the Toyota Way ran a simulation for us on Lean Manufacturing.

Lean Manufacturing Simulation

Lean Manufacturing is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination.  Lean Manufacturing has been a competitive advantage for Toyota. 

Lean manufacturing was demonstrated to us through an application exercise of simulations.  The training environment (classroom) was set up to allow us learners to practice traditional manufacturing and lean manufacturing under very job-like conditions. 

The equipment included

This equipment made this simulation feel very ”real.”  

Training Environment

The first simulation demonstrated the productivity of “traditional” manufacturing known as “push production.” 

Round 1 Introduction; Push Manufacturing

The participants described this simulation as chaotic, unorganized, and unsuccessful.  Push production does not take into consideration all of the ‘movements’ required to manufacture.  There was a lot of productivity loss between the separated workstations, the managers needing to be at each station and no consideration for the customer demand. 

Round 1 Simulation Environment; Traditional Manufacturing

The productivity was calculated.  It cost us $32.91 to manufacture each car.  We also had 10 defective cars, 6 late deliveries to the dealership and 4 lost sales due to them not being on time. 

Round 1 Simulation; Traditional Manufacturing; RESULTS

Round 2 simulated Toyota’s Lean Manufacturing; AKA Pull Manufacturing.  The difference between these two approaches is not the goal but the prime approach to achieving it.

The environment was reorganized to improve the “flow” or smoothness of the work. The technique used to improve flow include “pull” production (by means of kanban.)  You can see the “kanban’s” in the pictures.  They were depicted on the table mats with boxes.  Kanbans are a concept related to lean and JIT (Just-In-Time) production.  Kanban is a signaling system to trigger action.  Kanbans became an effective tool to support the running of the production system as a whole. In addition, it proved to be an excellent way for promoting improvements.  In fact, Toyota can implement a manufacturing improvement in their entire organization (worldwide) in 6 months.  They are “OBSESSED WITH QUALITY.”

Simulation 2; Environment organized for Lean Manufacturing

Watch this video to see the simulation of Lean Manufacturing in progress

The outcome was AMAZING.  We reduced our cost to $10.15 per car, we had 0 defects, only 4 late cars and 2 lost sales!  Lean Manufacturing WORKS! 

Simulation 2 Results; Lean Manufacturing WORKS!

I would like to thank University of Toyota for having us.  This application activity was not only fascinating as a consumer but also as an Instructional Designer.  Simulations are an excellent application activity.  They are the 1st cousin to demonstrations but really allow us to learn in “real life” environments (well, as close as you can get).