No, I’m not a jinx! I know that, it just made me think…

I was up a little early this morning and I decided to jump online and start my workday a little early. One of the things we have to do as trainers, not just at this new job, but anywhere you are a trainer or facilitator, is to do a teach back.

Now…you may be wondering what a teach back is, and I’m going to tell you! A teach back, like it may sound, is where I learn a product or software application and then I teach it back to someone, could be the person who taught it to me, could be someone else, but the idea is to teach back what I learned. The purpose is for the person observing is to see 1. If you know the product/materials to be presented to the end user. 2. To see how you present the material, not just reading from a script or a powerpoint. 3. How do you handle questions. Do you say “I think….” or do you say “Great question, I don’t know the answer, let’s put that on the parking lot”. 4. How do you handle the participants, your audience.

Anywhere I have been on a project I have done at least one teachback, if not more. I fully expect to do a teach back, I want you to see I know my stuff! I’ve been on projects where people thought they were too good to do a teach back, I’ve had trainers on my team who thought it was beneath them, well… yeah, about that… You’re never above doing a teach back.

For me, with a teachback, sometimes you learn something, maybe someone asks a question you don’t have the answer to and neither do they! So you might start talking through things and go down a rabbit hold and you both learn something! Go figure!

Anyway…my current contract, I’ve taught a few different systems and over the past few weeks, we were in Train-the-Trainer sessions, some people call it TTT, I’ve always called it T3. These T3 sessions were to learn additional systems to the ones we’ve taught and sitting in on sessions for things we have already taught, we gained some new insight.

When the T3s were done, we were instructed to set up teach backs for the new content we learned. Well…I spent part pf last week and this week working on some materials for teach backs. I finished one, I was in the middle of another when I logged on this morning and got the dreaded 404 error! Noooooo!

I reached out to the help desk, it was about 730a, they tried their hardest to help me get back into the system I needed, no luck. Somewehre around 8a, I posted to a Teams chat asking if anyone else was having the same issue. They were, so the technician I was working with put the ticket in as a multi-customer issue. Ok, no worries, I’ll work on another one.

Nope, that was not to be! What? Now I’m getting the 502 Bad Gateway error. I checked with the team and other folks were having the same issue, so I took one for the team and called the help desk, again. After 40 minutes, they could not resolve my issue, so another multi-customer issue ticket. Two down, do I dare try another? Am I a jinx?

No! Whew! Another application opened, I’m good now!

Next step…finish my trainer guide, schedule the teach back, and practice!

G’night!