We typically post once a day – and always on food. Today I`ve agreed to post something for a class I took in San Diego which does not relate to food – to compensate I`m going to attempt a loose tie-in to food and post twice – the days normal post can be seen here. I agreed to do this because I found part of my learning particularly useful and am willing to extend this favour to pay back to the group of people in the room and shared the experience with me.
To place a bit of context in the following, I should let you know that I, among other things, have a passion for training and creating learning experiences for, and with, others. One of the most difficult things to do in training is to work with a group of experts and gain direction and consensus from them on what learners need to understand about their topic. Imagine that you have a room full of 30 or 40 chefs and you are trying to decide what they should cook for dinner with a given set of ingredients.
Each person in the room is given an index (recipe) card and asked to write one thing that they feel is most important. Each person is then asked to emotionally detach from their point and asked to walk around the room trading cards without reading others. This continues until a signal (i.e. a whistle) sounds and you have to find a partner. Each person should have a single card and the pair shares their two questions. Following sharing, they are challenged to distribute 7 points between the two questions (i.e. if the two agree one question is irrelevant they would give one question 7 points and the other 0 – if the questions are questions are close you would rank them as 4-3 and so forth). You cannot use half points or negatives and the total score must equal 7. The score is written on the reverse side of the card.
The whistle blows, you trade cards again and move around the room trading more until the whistle goes. Pair up with a different person, rate 2 new questions and continue the process a total of 5 times.
When the exercise is complete, each person will have a card with a set of scores. They are asked to total the scores and each card is totaled. This works particularly well with a large group of experts – maybe something that can be used at the chefs congress? 
Our task was to decide what course developers needed to know to create training courses before starting (a very clear problem statement like this is a key to a successful exercise). We were able to create the following in about 10 minutes – the entire time people were smiling, moving and appeared to be enjoying.
26 What is the business need of the training?
24 How motivated or resistant will the audience be to this subject?
23 What must the learner be able to do or know as a result of the training intervention?
23 What will the learner be able to do based on the content delivered?
22 What should the learner be able to do after taking the training?
22 What is the topic?
21 What is the intent and expected outcome of the training?
21 Do we have to train this – are there better solutions (i.e. automation)?
19 What would you expect from this training?
19 what are the objectives?
19 what is the goal or outcome of the training i.e.what should the learner be able to know at the end of training?
18 what is the goal of training?
17 what work or task do you need them to accomplish?
16 What must, should, could be learned from the training?
15 what are the resources available for the training module?
14 what are the content and curriculum that learners need to know?
14 ask the participants what they want to learn?
12 what resources will i need – audio, graphics, animation, etc?
11 what is the budget for the training?
11 how long would the course be – .5 day, 1 day, etc?
11 is there a budget for the program?
