The first four chapters are relatively short and provide a sufficient basis for one discussion. We suggest the following questions:

1. What are the unique ways that our organization is experiencing the new importance of learning?

2. Are the leaders of our organization aware of the new importance of learning?

3. How do we define training in our organization? How much do we focus on learning and how well informed are we about theories of learning?

4. What kind of organization are we, and how does that affect the way we structure training and plan for informal learning?

5. Do we have philosophy of learning?

6. What kind of planning processes do we employ? Is our planning as inclusive as it should be?

7. Do we focus enough on learning outcomes?

8. Do we use training strategies based on established theories of learning, or do we get caught up in activities and media (tactics)?

Seven training strategies are set forth here. Reading each one takes some study time, so the reading group will probably want to select for discussion those they regard as having the highest priority. These may be either the strategies most used by the organization (given desired learning outcomes) or the least familiar. There may be strategies in this book that you don't use or know about, and this may be a good opportunity to learn about a new strategy. Whatever you select, take one strategy for each session. We believe that the following questions can be used for all seven strategies.

1. In our organization what is the type of training we do when this kind of learning is involved?

2. Imagine that we are to be interviewed by the authors. Using the examples in this chapter as a model, how would we describe the training we do that employs this strategy?

3. What do we already do well when we use this strategy? How could we improve, enlarge upon, or make more sophisticated what we currently do by focusing on the theory of learning described here?

4. What things can we do to help the facilitator be more effective when we use this strategy?

5. What can we do to help the learners understand what kind of learning this is and how to get the most out of it?

This section of the book provides ideas for selecting the strategies, maximizing learning, and assessing outcomes. These chapters are short and can be grouped together for one discussion session.

1. What process do we go through to select a strategy? Are we sometimes using the "wrong" strategy? Should we switch to another? How do we know when to do that?

2. How would we take one of our current training efforts and recast it using another strategy? Are we relying too much on old familiar strategies?

3. Do we use enough "frequency, intensity and duration" in the training we undertake?

4. What are some of the dominant characteristics of the people we train? What should we do to adapt our training to their needs as learners?

5. What methods of assessment are we using? Are they satisfactory or could we use other methods more closely related to each strategy?

6. What does it mean to get results? Who in our organization will want to know what things about the results we get? Are they asking the right questions and are we providing the best information possible?