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When you think about training, what format helps you learn best?

Morgan

Atlassian Learning has come a long way in providing different forms of learning content. Our goal is to make whatever you’re learning stick in your brain, and a huge part of that is matching the right training format to the way you like to learn.

When learning about a new product, some people like watching video demonstrations, listening to lectures, or getting some hands-on experience doing labs. Some might even like being in a classroom setting where they can gain insight from other learners in real time! I know for myself, I love quietly reading through lessons, and then experimenting in the product alone on my own time.
I’d love to hear from you...

When it comes to product training, what format helps you learn best? Does that format depend on the product you’re learning about?

Answer this question below and share more about your go-to training format or any positive training experiences you’ve had in the past.

Looking forward to hearing how you learn best!

Comments

Ellen Walter

@Morgan I like reading much more than just listening—I know a lot of people are the opposite! Loom transcripts are so helpful for this, especially for meeting recordings I need to catch up on.

Pramodh M

Learn by doing is best!

Stephen.Lugton

While I agree hands on experience helps a lot, it doesn't necessarily improve understanding of what you're doing, and often you find one way of doing something and miss the quicker, easier way of doing it e.g. keyboard shortcuts

Liz Nixon

I love reading through materials, supplemented with watching videos and following along, and then experimenting on my own. It combines the "traditional" learning experience (outside a classroom) with the "learn by doing". The latter is great, but I think it not only takes longer to learn something, it also can lead you down less desirable methods plus not necessarily understanding why (or why ot) to do something a certain way.

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Morgan

Long ago...I created an expert system to help answer this very question, both for learning-content developers and for learners selecting which media / methods to use from the available sources. The tool was evolutionary / self-modifying to avoid staleness setting it, and while building it, I learned from my collaborators: this problem is mainly about context and outcomes, while considering individual learner needs, perhaps delivered iteratively and incrementally.

Different contexts and domain areas may require different learning approaches. As one of my fellow coaches once shared with our teams: you likely cannot learn how to swim by reading a book.

Different outcomes and goals may require different approaches to support those target needs. For example, for a software engineer to form a mental model of a solution, in order to support it over time, they cannot just watch a video, ask a chat bot, look at code, or ask someone else: they need think time to form the mental model before, after, and during any learning...thus, the learning content may support that time component.

Your question seems to also focus on individual learner needs, and so leverage both context and outcomes for each person and team.

Taking Jira Cloud as an example, often agile team members know nothing more about Jira than what they see on a board and in work items...anything else is noise impacting their flow. When they need a quick answer to something which has changed (again!) in the UX, they hope to find that as a quick post / doc / video to get back into flow. But their product owner / champion for the team may need in-depth learning content to explain and demonstrate some Jira features, and perhaps even get a "why do it that way" explanation to mitigate differences from their own flow.

Continuing this example, when I want to learn about an Atlassian product feature, I create training content for it; this helps me consider not only how I would use it, and also what others might want to know.

Kind regards,
Bill

Morgan

@Ellen Walter Same here. I have a hard time remembering when I listen to content. This is why I can't listen to audiobooks. I get so lost!

Morgan

@Stephen_Lugton Interesting point. While I'm someone who loves hands-on learning, it has also resulted in me learning bad habits in products before. It's always good to have best practices taught before hands-on practice.

Morgan

Agreed @Liz Nixon ! I like to have variety like you described. Reading through at my own pace is so important to me, but once we get into workflows or specific actions, I need a good video beside me!

Morgan

@Bill Sheboy Wow, "you likely cannot learn how to swim by reading a book" is SUCH a great example of context when learning. And I love that you're creating your own solutions!

Based on what you said about Jira Cloud, do you think that product owners and champions are more likely to invest longer periods of time in trainings?

Justine Lions_6rjtv4

Relateable real world interesting examples as the hands on learning part

Best training examples in the past have been for products/projects that I had heard about in the news and got to see parts of the build behind the scenes.

Bill Sheboy

Yes. In my opinion, one scenario is:

For an experienced product-role person trying out Jira Product Discovery (JPD), I hypothesize they would dive deep into learning materials to see how JPD could support their product management flow...and, where they will need to mitigate any gaps / differences before their less experienced peers, delivery teams, and "leaders" misuse the tool and thus alter the org's product flow. Some of the Loom videos and playbooks from the JPD team seem quite helpful for such needs.

Morgan

@Justine Lions Absolutely! Our goal this year is to try to create more resources that show how Atlassian products are being used in real, everyday projects. So stay tuned for those!

Liz Nixon

@Morgan absolutely! It's like reading a map before hitting the road, and then using the GPS when the rubber hits the road.

Esther Ortega

Hi everyone,

I’ve noticed that the learning paths have improved a lot: they’re clearly much more polished and provide straightforward, guided and very useful training.

I particularly like that they walk you through real lab exercises. It’s very helpful when they use examples based on everyday situations, because there’s no better school than real work.

I also really value the short videos embedded in the training itself: if you’re unsure where something is or how to do a specific step, they help you quickly refresh your memory without leaving the course.

In general, I prefer to read and go at my own pace, and to practise only those specific points where I feel it’s necessary. Even so, it’s very useful when the training suggests practical exercises: if you need them, you do them, and if not, you simply carry on with the content.

Many thanks to all of you for the work you’re doing and for sharing these resources with the community.

Morgan

@Esther Ortega Thank you so much for this awesome feedback! We're glad to hear they're useful throughout your learning journey.

I agree with the fact that it's helpful to have hands-on practice available, but not always mandatory. It helps when necessary but doesn't interrupt your learning pace. Excited to hear about what courses you'll be exploring next!

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